Road 96

Road 96 is a narrative-driven adventure where performance consistency matters more than raw frame-rate extremes. The measured data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination shows a clear stratification across its four settings presets, with the most balanced experience found in the Medium preset. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers a 76 FPS average with a recorded minimum of 65 FPS, ensuring the game remains fluid during scene transitions. The High preset at the same resolution drops to a 61 FPS average, which is playable but leaves less headroom for dips in busier sequences. The Ultra preset at 4K falls to a 48 FPS average, which is below the threshold for consistently smooth motion on standard 60Hz displays. The data indicates that the Medium preset is the optimal choice for a locked, tear-free experience, especially at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results suggest that the Medium preset is the sweet spot for this hardware combination, as it provides the highest average frame rate while maintaining a stable minimum frame rate. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset achieves a 226 FPS average with a minimum of 192 FPS, offering a significant performance buffer over the High preset's 182 FPS average. The difference between Medium and High is more pronounced at 2560x1440, where the former hits 144 FPS (with a 122 FPS minimum) and the latter drops to 116 FPS. At 4K, this gap widens further: Medium sustains 76 FPS, while High falls to 61 FPS. The Low preset, while delivering the highest frame rates (308 FPS at 1080p, 196 FPS at 1440p, 104 FPS at 4K), sacrifices visual fidelity that is significant for an adventure game with stylized environments.

Ultra is the most demanding preset, and the data shows it comes with a heavy cost. It yields 143 FPS at 1080p, 91 FPS at 1440p, and only 48 FPS at 4K. The drop from High to Ultra is roughly 21% at 1080p, 22% at 1440p, and 21% at 4K, indicating a consistent performance penalty for the extra visual effects. Given that the Medium preset provides a 25% higher average frame rate than High at 1440p and a 24% higher average at 4K, the visual uplift from Medium to High may not justify the performance loss. For users with high refresh rate monitors, Medium at 1440p or 1080p is the recommended path to fully utilize the display's capabilities, while those targeting 4K should stick to Medium to maintain a stable 60+ FPS experience.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming with this CPU and GPU combo?

A: The Medium preset is the best choice for 4K, as it is the only one that maintains an average frame rate above 60 FPS (76 FPS) with a recorded minimum of 65 FPS. The High preset at 4K averages 61 FPS, while Ultra drops to 48 FPS, both of which are more susceptible to stutter.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K on the Ultra preset?

A: The measured data shows the Ultra preset drops from a 143 FPS average at 1920x1080 to a 48 FPS average at 3840x2160. This represents a 66% reduction in average frame rate, indicating a heavy reliance on the GPU at higher resolutions.

Q: Does the Low preset provide a playable experience at 4K?

A: Yes, the Low preset at 4K achieves a 104 FPS average, which is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay. However, this comes at the cost of reduced visual quality, which may detract from the game's atmospheric presentation.

Q: Is the CPU a limiting factor at 1080p with Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo reaches a 308 FPS average. The extremely high frame rate suggests the CPU is keeping up with the GPU's output, but the data does not explicitly indicate a CPU bottleneck; it shows the GPU is capable of delivering very high frame rates at this resolution.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like on the Medium preset?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p, it ranges from 192 to 260 FPS; at 1440p, from 122 to 165 FPS; and at 4K, from 65 to 88 FPS. The narrow range at 4K indicates good frame pacing.

Q: How does the High preset compare to Medium in terms of raw performance?

A: The High preset is consistently slower than Medium across all resolutions. At 1080p, High averages 182 FPS versus Medium's 226 FPS; at 1440p, 116 FPS versus 144 FPS; and at 4K, 61 FPS versus 76 FPS. This shows a ~20-24% performance penalty for choosing High over Medium.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. In the context of Road 96, an adventure game that does not typically stress multi-core workloads heavily, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and manage game logic. The benchmark data for this combo shows that at 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system can produce a 308 FPS average, which suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions where the GPU has less work to do. The processor's single-thread performance, indicated by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655, is strong enough to handle the game's primary thread efficiently.

As resolution increases, the frame rate drops significantly (308 to 196 to 104 FPS from 1080p to 1440p to 4K on Low settings), which is a classic sign that the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth) provide adequate data throughput for the game's assets. The combo's rank of 479 out of 2903 tested combinations places it in the top 16.5% of systems, indicating that the CPU is not holding back the GPU in most scenarios. The data suggests that while the CPU is capable, the performance scaling across resolutions is dominated by the GPU's rendering capabilities rather than CPU limitations.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination ranks 479th out of 2903 tested combos in Road 96, placing it in the 84th percentile of all systems tested. This rank reflects the overall capability of the pairing, which is strong but not at the very top tier. The CPU alone sits at the 85th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938, while the GPU sits at the 83rd percentile against all GPUs, with an average score of 43223. In the context of the game's performance, this rank suggests that the combo delivers a highly playable experience at most settings, but it is not among the elite configurations that can max out the game at 4K with Ultra settings.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (with a deltaPct of 0), the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (deltaPct -0.2), and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (deltaPct -0.4), all of which have very similar average scores. This indicates that the Ultra 5 225 is on par with these mainstream processors in general compute tasks, and any differences in game performance would be marginal. The GPU's nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB (deltaPct -0.1) and the GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (deltaPct -0.1), which shows the RTX 4070 SUPER is competitive with these parts. The rank of 479 out of 2903 means the combo outperforms the majority of tested systems, but there are 478 configurations that deliver higher frame rates, likely with more powerful GPUs or newer CPUs.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. On the Medium preset, the average frame rate drops from 226 FPS at 1080p to 144 FPS at 1440p, and then to 76 FPS at 4K. This represents a 36% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 47% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The High preset shows a similar trend: 182 FPS at 1080p, 116 FPS at 1440p, and 61 FPS at 4K, with reductions of 36% and 47% respectively. The Low preset follows the same pattern with 308, 196, and 104 FPS, showing a 36% and 47% drop between successive resolution steps.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings presets is a strong indicator that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a smaller performance delta between 1440p and 4K, as the CPU workload would remain constant while the GPU workload increases. Instead, the uniform ~36% and ~47% reductions suggest that the RTX 4070 SUPER's rendering throughput is scaling with pixel count, and the CPU is able to keep up with the increased demand. At 1080p, the very high frame rates (up to 308 FPS on Low) indicate that the GPU is not fully saturated, and the CPU's performance is sufficient to avoid any significant bottleneck. The data clearly shows that resolution scaling is the dominant factor in this game's performance, with the GPU being the component that dictates the final frame rate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide spread of performance depending on the settings preset. The Low preset achieves a 308 FPS average, which is the highest measured value across all resolutions. The Medium preset averages 226 FPS, with a minimum of 192 FPS and a maximum of 260 FPS, providing a very smooth experience. The High preset drops to a 182 FPS average, while the Ultra preset averages 143 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 165 FPS, which is a 54% reduction, indicating that the Ultra preset's visual enhancements come at a significant cost.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally. The Low preset averages 196 FPS, the Medium preset averages 144 FPS (with a 122-165 FPS range), the High preset averages 116 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 91 FPS. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p is 28 FPS, which is a 19% reduction, while the gap between High and Ultra is 25 FPS, a 22% reduction. At 3840x2160, the performance envelope tightens considerably. The Low preset still manages a 104 FPS average, but the Medium preset drops to a 76 FPS average with a 65-88 FPS range. The High preset averages 61 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to a 48 FPS average. The data shows that at 4K, the Medium preset is the only one that consistently stays above the 60 FPS threshold, while Ultra cannot maintain playable frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process, and features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has a base clock of 1980 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz, with 7168 shading units and 80 ROPs. In Road 96, the GPU's role is critical, as the game's performance scaling across resolutions clearly shows a GPU-bound scenario. The GPU's 12 GB VRAM is ample for this game, as the measured frame rates do not indicate any memory-related stuttering or texture loading issues, even at 4K with Ultra settings.

The GPU's benchmark scores show it is a strong performer, with a Passmark G3D score of 29995 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4627. Its 83rd percentile ranking against all GPUs places it in the upper tier, and its nearest rivals (Quadro M6000 24 GB, RTX 5050 Mobile, RTX 4090 Mobile) are all within a 1% performance delta. The RTX 4070 SUPER's FP32 compute of 35.48 TFLOPS and texture rate of 554.4 GTexel/s are more than sufficient for Road 96's visual demands, which are moderate for an adventure title. The data indicates that the GPU is the primary driver of frame rates, especially at 1440p and 4K, where the CPU has less impact on overall performance. The 220 W TDP and dual-slot design are typical for this performance class, and the GPU's capabilities align well with the measured results, delivering high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, while requiring a reduction in settings to maintain smooth gameplay at 4K.