Road 96

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 delivers a performance profile in Road 96 that is heavily dictated by the graphics card, with the CPU showing little sign of bottlenecking even at the most demanding settings. The 20-core, 28-thread Raptor Lake Refresh processor, which boosts to 5.60 GHz, provides ample headroom, while the RTX 3080’s Ampere architecture and 10 GB of GDDR6X memory become the primary arbiters of frame rate. The data shows a clear and consistent scaling pattern across resolutions and presets, positioning this combo as a high-performance option that ranks in the 67th percentile of tested configurations for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a predictable shift in the bottleneck from the CPU to the GPU. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 263.5 FPS, a figure that suggests the processor is feeding frames efficiently. However, as resolution increases, the frame rate drops precipitously, indicating the GPU is taking on the primary workload. Moving from 1080p Low to 1440p Low results in a reduction to 171.9 FPS, a 34.8% decrease, and further scaling to 4K Low yields 91.4 FPS, which is a 65.3% drop from the 1080p baseline. This pattern is consistent across all settings presets, underscoring the RTX 3080’s role as the limiting component at higher resolutions.

The scaling from High to Ultra settings at each resolution is equally telling. At 1080p, the High preset delivers 157.6 FPS, which falls to 121.3 FPS at Ultra, a 23.0% penalty for the highest fidelity. At 1440p, the same settings comparison shows a drop from 99.6 FPS to 75.6 FPS, a 24.1% reduction. At 4K, the High preset’s 54.7 FPS is nearly halved to 40.2 FPS at Ultra, a 26.5% decrease. These percentages indicate that the GPU’s compute resources, specifically its 8704 shading units and 68 RT cores, are being saturated as pixel count and graphical complexity rise. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44534 and single-core score of 6287 suggest it is not the constraint here; the data points to a purely GPU-limited scenario at 4K Ultra, where the frame rate dips below 60 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

In the aggregate database of tested combinations for Road 96, this specific pairing of the Core i7-14700K and RTX 3080 secures the 543rd position out of 1684 total combos. This placement, which puts it in the upper third of all configurations, is a strong result, though not at the absolute apex of performance. The ranking reflects a balance between the CPU’s computational strength and the GPU’s rendering capability, with the latter being the more influential factor in this adventure title. The RTX 3080’s average benchmark score of 35787 places it in the 80th percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU’s average score of 70074 puts it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. This disparity in percentile rankings reinforces the notion that the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing for gaming workloads.

When compared to its nearest rivals, the CPU’s performance is closely matched. The Intel Core i7-14700KF shows a delta of 0% against the 14700K, indicating virtually identical performance, while the AMD EPYC 9115 is 0.3% behind, and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is 0.5% ahead. The Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 trails by 1.4%. These small deltas suggest that swapping the CPU for a direct competitor would yield negligible changes in Road 96’s frame rates, further confirming the GPU is the primary driver of the combo’s rank. For the GPU, the AMD Radeon Pro Duo is 0.2% behind, the AMD Radeon 880M is 0.4% ahead, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE is 0.9% behind, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile is 1% ahead. The tight clustering of these rival scores indicates that the RTX 3080 remains competitive, but the combo’s 543rd rank suggests that configurations with more powerful GPUs, such as the RTX 5070 Ti Mobile, achieve higher frame rates in this game.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this combo in Road 96?

A: The peak average frame rate is 263.5 FPS, recorded at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This represents the least demanding configuration in the dataset.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo delivers an average of 40.2 FPS. This is the lowest recorded frame rate in the dataset, indicating that the GPU is heavily taxed at this resolution and preset.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this pairing?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting component. The CPU’s percentile rank of 96 is significantly higher than the GPU’s percentile rank of 80, and the frame rate drops consistently with resolution increases, which is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios.

Q: What is the performance difference between High and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset yields an average of 99.6 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 75.6 FPS. This represents a 24.1% reduction in performance when switching to the highest quality preset.

Q: How does the Core i7-14700K compare to its nearest rival, the Core i7-14700KF?

A: The two CPUs show a delta of 0% in average benchmark scores, indicating they perform identically. The Core i7-14700KF has an average score of 70104, while the Core i7-14700K scores 70074.

Q: Does the combo achieve playable frame rates at 4K High settings?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with High settings, the combo averages 54.7 FPS. This is above the 40.2 FPS at Ultra, but still below the 60 FPS threshold often considered optimal for smooth gameplay.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 263.5 FPS on Low, 195 FPS on Medium, 157.6 FPS on High, and 121.3 FPS on Ultra. These figures demonstrate a steep curve, with the Low preset nearly doubling the Ultra preset’s output. The scaling from Medium to High is a 19.2% reduction, while High to Ultra is a 23.0% reduction, showing that each tier of graphical fidelity carries a significant cost.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 171.9 FPS on Low, 122.7 FPS on Medium, 99.6 FPS on High, and 75.6 FPS on Ultra. The relative drop from Low to Medium is 28.6%, Medium to High is 18.8%, and High to Ultra is 24.1%. This pattern is consistent with the 1080p results, though the absolute values are lower, reflecting the increased pixel workload. The 1440p High preset’s 99.6 FPS is particularly notable, as it remains above 90 FPS, indicating a good balance for high-refresh-rate monitors.

At 3840x2160, the performance falls to 91.4 FPS on Low, 63.5 FPS on Medium, 54.7 FPS on High, and 40.2 FPS on Ultra. The transition from 1440p Low to 4K Low results in a 46.8% reduction, while the 4K High to Ultra drop is 26.5%. These numbers illustrate the substantial burden of 4K rendering on the RTX 3080. The Low preset at 4K is the only configuration in this resolution that exceeds 90 FPS, and it does so by a narrow margin. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only one in the entire dataset that falls below 45 FPS, highlighting the GPU’s limitations at the highest fidelity settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 plays a decisive role in determining Road 96’s performance, as evidenced by the frame rate data. The GPU’s 10 GB of GDDR6X memory, operating across a 320-bit bus with 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth, provides a substantial foundation for texture streaming and asset loading at high resolutions. The memory clock is listed at 1188 MHz, with an effective rate of 19 Gbps, which contributes to the high bandwidth figure. The core clocks, with a base of 1440 MHz and a boost of 1710 MHz, are relatively modest for a high-end card, but the 8704 shading units and 272 texture mapping units compensate with parallel processing capability.

The GPU’s FP32 performance of 29.77 TFLOPS is a key metric for understanding its rendering power, and the data shows this translates into strong performance at 1080p and 1440p, but struggles at 4K Ultra. The 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die, fabricated on Samsung’s 8 nm process, represent a dense design that is now end-of-life, with the RTX 3080 having been succeeded by the GeForce 40 series. The card’s predecessor is the GeForce 20 series, and its production status is listed as "End-of-life," which may affect availability but not its current performance characteristics. The 68 RT cores and 272 tensor cores are present, though their impact on this particular adventure game appears limited based on the measured FPS, which is more influenced by raw rasterization throughput. The GPU’s benchmark scores, including a Passmark G3D score of 25086 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4407, place it in the 80th percentile of all GPUs, and the frame rates in Road 96 are consistent with that standing.