Road 96

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti occupies the 1233rd position out of 1684 tested combinations in Road 96. This places the combo in the lower-middle tier of the database, a ranking that initially seems surprising given the individual components' strong synthetic scores. The data indicates that Road 96's performance ceiling is dictated more by the graphics card than the processor, and this pairing sits in a segment where many other GPUs offer similar or better results.

Benchmark results show the CPU is a top-tier performer, with an average benchmark score of 47282, placing it in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13700KF (scoring 47334, a negligible 0.1% difference) and the AMD EPYC 4364P (scoring 47131, a 0.3% delta). The GPU, however, is more modest, with an average benchmark score of 25120, putting it in the 69th percentile among all GPUs. Its closest competitors are the AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25180, a 0.2% gap) and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 (25235, a 0.5% gap). The rank of 1233 out of 1684 reflects the GPU's mid-pack status; the CPU's immense power is largely untapped in this adventure title, making the combo's overall standing a story of the graphics card holding the reins.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture with the GA104 chip, fabricated on Samsung's 8 nm process. It carries 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz, or 14 Gbps effective. These specs are adequate for Road 96's stylized visuals, but the card's position in the 69th percentile of all GPUs suggests it is a solid mid-range part rather than a high-end one.

In this game, the GPU's 4864 shading units and 152 texture mapping units are the primary drivers of frame rate. The card's boost clock of 1665 MHz, up from a base of 1410 MHz, helps maintain performance, but the data shows the RTX 3060 Ti's limits are quickly reached at higher settings. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the game's demands, but the card's raw compute power—16.20 TFLOPS of FP32 performance—becomes a bottleneck at 4K resolution. The measured FPS at Ultra settings at 3840x2160 drops to 23.6, a clear sign that the GPU is struggling with the pixel count. Conversely, at 1080p Low, the card produces 168.9 FPS, showing that its capabilities are better suited to lower resolutions or less demanding settings. The GPU's role is thus the limiting factor in this combo; the CPU is waiting, but the graphics card cannot push much beyond mid-range frame rates at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a Raptor Lake-S part on the Intel Socket 1700 platform, featuring 16 cores and 24 threads. It operates with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The processor includes 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB of L2 cache per core, alongside a 10 nm process node. Its synthetic benchmarks are exceptional: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 39000 and a single-core score of 5505, placing it in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs. In Road 96, however, this computational headroom is largely irrelevant.

The game is not processor-heavy, as evidenced by the fact that the combo's rank is far below what the CPU's individual percentile would suggest. The i7-13700K's nearest rivals, such as the Core i7-13700KF (0.1% faster) and the Core i9-12900F (0.4% slower), all perform similarly in synthetic tests, but none of this matters when the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's 16 cores and 24 threads are more than enough to feed the RTX 3060 Ti at any resolution; the data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo hits 168.9 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's ceiling for this game, but at higher settings, the frame rate is dictated entirely by the GPU. The processor's role here is to provide a stable platform without bottlenecking, which it does comfortably, but it does not boost the combo's ranking in a title that leans so heavily on the graphics card.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Road 96 reveals a clear hierarchy across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best performance: Low settings produce an average of 168.9 FPS, Medium yields 122.4 FPS, High reaches 99.5 FPS, and Ultra drops to 80.4 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is substantial—a drop of 88.5 FPS—indicating that the GPU's workload scales significantly with graphical fidelity.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers fall. Low settings average 108.2 FPS, Medium 77.8 FPS, High 67 FPS, and Ultra 48.7 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings reduces the frame rate by 60.7 FPS, a 36% decrease, showing the pixel count's impact. At 3840x2160, the card's limitations become stark. Low averages 57.2 FPS, Medium 44.2 FPS, High 35.3 FPS, and Ultra 23.6 FPS. The Ultra result at 4K is barely playable, while even Low at 4K cannot maintain 60 FPS on average. These numbers paint a picture of a GPU that is comfortable at 1080p and playable at 1440p, but struggles at 4K regardless of settings.

Resolution Scaling

Resolution scaling in Road 96 shows a predictable pattern: frame rate drops as resolution increases, but the rate of decline is steeper at higher settings. From 1080p to 4K at Low settings, the average FPS falls from 168.9 to 57.2, a reduction of 111.7 FPS or roughly 66%. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 80.4 at 1080p to 23.6 at 4K, a decline of 56.8 FPS, or about 71%. This suggests that the GPU is the limiting component across all configurations—the CPU's performance is constant, but the GPU's workload grows with resolution and detail.

The data indicates that the RTX 3060 Ti's memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s and 8 GB VRAM are sufficient at lower resolutions, but at 4K, the card's 16.20 TFLOPS of compute power is insufficient. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at High settings, for instance, drops from 67 FPS to 35.3 FPS, a 47% reduction. This is a larger relative drop than from 1080p to 1440p at the same settings (99.5 to 67, a 33% decrease), confirming that the GPU is hitting a wall as pixel count rises. The CPU, with its 93rd percentile ranking, is not the bottleneck; the data shows that Road 96 is a GPU-bound title for this combo, and the RTX 3060 Ti's mid-range positioning dictates that 1080p is the sweet spot, 1440p is acceptable, and 4K requires significant settings compromises.