The Long Drive

# The Long Drive with AMD Ryzen 7 3700X + Intel Arc B570

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the Intel Arc B570 produces a fascinating performance profile in The Long Drive, a driving simulation that clearly stresses the GPU far more than the CPU. This combo ranks 2342nd out of 2934 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 20% of all systems tested in this game. The data reveals a system that can deliver smooth, high-refresh gameplay at 1080p with lower settings, but struggles significantly as resolution and quality demands increase. The measured FPS across twelve distinct resolution and settings combinations tells a story of a GPU-bound experience where the eight-core, sixteen-thread Ryzen 7 3700X rarely becomes the limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals a classic GPU-limited scenario. At Medium settings, the system delivers 120 FPS at 1920x1080, drops to 79 FPS at 2560x1440, and falls to 44 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 34% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and another 44% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is not linear; the gap widens as resolution increases, which indicates the Intel Arc B570's rendering capabilities are being saturated at higher pixel counts.

The Low settings preset tells an even more revealing story. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 146 FPS, which drops to 96 FPS at 1440p and 53 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-4K drop at Low settings is 64%, while at Medium settings it is 63%. This consistency across settings presets strongly suggests the resolution scaling bottleneck is purely the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth, not any CPU limitation. The Arc B570 has a 160-bit memory bus and 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which appears insufficient for 4K demands in this title.

Ultra settings amplify the resolution problem. At 1080p Ultra, the system manages 52 FPS, but this collapses to 34 FPS at 1440p and a nearly unplayable 19 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is only 37% of the 1080p Ultra figure. The data implies that the Arc B570's 10 GB of GDDR6 memory and 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are simply not enough to handle The Long Drive's highest quality settings at high resolutions. The game appears to demand substantial GPU resources per pixel, and the B570 runs out of headroom quickly.

Interestingly, the High settings preset shows a similar pattern but with a slightly different slope. From 75 FPS at 1080p to 49 FPS at 1440p and 27 FPS at 4K, the drops are 35% and 45% respectively. This consistency across all four settings presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—reinforces that resolution scaling in The Long Drive is governed almost entirely by GPU performance. The CPU's role, while present, does not appear to create any resolution-dependent bottlenecks.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for smooth gameplay with this combo?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the system consistently exceeds 60 FPS across multiple settings. At 1080p, Low delivers 146 FPS, Medium delivers 120 FPS, and High delivers 75 FPS. Even Ultra manages 52 FPS at 1080p, which is the only settings preset at any resolution above 30 FPS for Ultra.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in The Long Drive?

A: Only at Low settings, where it achieves 53 FPS. Medium settings at 4K drop to 44 FPS, High falls to 27 FPS, and Ultra is nearly unplayable at 19 FPS. The 4K results indicate the Intel Arc B570 is not well-suited for this game at high resolutions with elevated quality settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 3700X compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 3700X has an average benchmark score of 34260, placing it 0.1% ahead of both the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (34222) and the AMD EPYC 4244P (34220). It also sits 0.5% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H (34083), but trails the Intel Core i5-13450HX (34333) by 0.2%. These are extremely tight margins, indicating the 3700X is well-matched against its immediate competitors.

Q: Is the Intel Arc B570 a strong performer compared to its rivals?

A: The Arc B570's average benchmark score is 20556, which puts it 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534) and 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480). However, it trails the Intel Arc A750 (20582) by 0.1% and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (20662) by 0.5%. The data shows it sits in a very competitive cluster of GPUs with near-identical average scores.

Q: What is the difference between the 1080p Medium and 1080p High results?

A: At 1080p Medium, the system achieves 120 FPS average with a minimum of 102 FPS and maximum of 138 FPS. At 1080p High, the average drops to 75 FPS. That is a 37.5% reduction in average FPS when moving from Medium to High, which is a substantial performance cost for the quality increase.

Q: Does the system ever deliver 144 FPS or higher?

A: Only at 1080p Low settings, where the average FPS is 146. No other resolution or settings combination in the measured data reaches or exceeds 144 FPS. The 1080p Low result is the only one that approaches high-refresh-rate territory.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, codenamed Matisse, built on TSMC's 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with 32 MB of L3 cache. The CPU's benchmark scores are respectable: a PassMark multithread score of 22458, a Geekbench multicore score of 8899, and a Cinebench R15 multicore score of 2092. Its single-thread performance, as indicated by a PassMark single thread score of 2656 and a Geekbench singlecore score of 1593, is adequate for gaming but not exceptional.

In The Long Drive, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU. The measured FPS data shows that performance scales almost entirely with resolution and settings changes, which are GPU-centric variables. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see similar FPS numbers across different resolutions at the same settings, because the CPU workload would remain constant while the GPU workload increases. Instead, the FPS drops significantly at every resolution step, indicating the GPU is saturated.

The 3700X's 16 threads and 32 MB of L3 cache should be more than sufficient for a driving simulation game, which typically does not require extreme CPU throughput. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all tested CPUs (with an average benchmark score of 34260) puts it in a solid position. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-13450HX, beats it by only 0.2% in average benchmark score, which is within noise margins. The Ryzen 7 3700X's 65 W TDP and AM4 socket compatibility make it a versatile processor, but in this specific game, the data suggests the CPU is not the primary constraint.

The benchmark results for the 3700X show strong multi-threaded performance: a PassMark integer math score of 66399, floating point math of 39005, and data compression of 296379. These synthetic numbers indicate the CPU can handle complex calculations, but The Long Drive's FPS results do not appear to be influenced by these capabilities. The CPU's boost clock of 4.40 GHz provides adequate single-core performance for game logic, but the game's rendering demands clearly outpace the GPU's ability to keep up.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and Intel Arc B570 ranks 2342nd out of 2934 tested combinations in The Long Drive. This places the combo in the bottom 20% of all systems tested, which is a surprisingly low position given the individual components' benchmark scores. The CPU ranks in the 84th percentile among all CPUs, and the GPU sits in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, yet their combined performance in this specific game falls well below what those percentiles might suggest.

This ranking discrepancy implies that The Long Drive has specific hardware requirements that this combo does not perfectly meet. The game appears to favor GPUs with different characteristics than what the Arc B570 offers. The Arc B570's nearest rival, the Intel Arc A750, has a nearly identical average benchmark score (20582 vs 20556, a 0.1% difference), but the game's performance would likely be similar given how close these GPUs are in synthetic benchmarks.

The combo's rank of 2342 out of 2934 means that 592 tested combinations performed worse, while 2341 performed better. This is a significant underperformance relative to what the component-level benchmarks might predict. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking and the GPU's 65th percentile ranking suggest an expected combined performance in the 70th-75th percentile range, but the actual game result is around the 20th percentile. This indicates a potential driver optimization issue or a fundamental architectural mismatch between the Xe2-HPG graphics architecture and The Long Drive's rendering engine.

The data also shows that the combo's performance is consistent across settings presets, which suggests the bottleneck is systemic rather than tied to a specific quality setting. Whether at Low or Ultra, the resolution scaling pattern remains similar, pointing to a hardware limitation that cannot be overcome by adjusting in-game options.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture, codenamed Battlemage, using TSMC's 5 nm process. It features 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output pipelines, along with 18 ray tracing cores. The GPU has a base and boost clock of 2500 MHz, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). Its 10 GB of GDDR6 memory sits on a 160-bit bus, providing 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark scores show a mixed profile. Its PassMark G3D score is 14195, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 2649. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 96844 is notably higher than the OpenCL score of 83514, suggesting the GPU performs better in Vulkan workloads. In The Long Drive, the GPU is clearly the dominant factor in determining FPS, as evidenced by the steep resolution scaling.

The Arc B570's 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 360.0 GTexel/s texture rate should be sufficient for 1080p gaming, and the data confirms this. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 146 FPS, and at 1080p Medium it maintains 120 FPS with a minimum of 102 FPS. These are solid results for a mid-range GPU. However, the 4K results are poor, with only the Low preset exceeding 30 FPS. The 10 GB VRAM capacity and 160-bit memory bus appear to be limiting factors at higher resolutions, where memory bandwidth demands increase substantially.

The GPU's performance in this game is broadly consistent with its benchmark position. Its 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average score of 20556, places it in the upper-mid range. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, has a nearly identical average score (20534, 0.1% lower), which suggests the Arc B570 is competitive with mobile-class GPUs from the previous generation. In The Long Drive, the GPU's limitations become apparent at 1440p and especially 4K, where the FPS drops become severe.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system shows its best performance across all settings. Low settings deliver 146 FPS average, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium settings produce 120 FPS average with a minimum of 102 FPS and maximum of 138 FPS, representing a tight frame time distribution. High settings drop to 75 FPS average, while Ultra settings fall to 52 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a 64% reduction in average FPS, from 146 down to 52.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly. Low settings yield 96 FPS, which is a 34% reduction from the 1080p Low result. Medium settings produce 79 FPS average with a minimum of 67 FPS and maximum of 91 FPS. High settings drop to 49 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 34 FPS. The 1440p results show that the system can still provide playable frame rates at Low and Medium settings, but High and Ultra become marginal.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles across all settings. Low settings deliver 53 FPS, which is the only 4K preset above 45 FPS. Medium settings drop to 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS and maximum of 50 FPS. High settings fall to 27 FPS, and Ultra settings are nearly unplayable at 19 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest measured performance in the entire dataset, representing a 87% reduction from the 1080p Low peak.

The Medium settings preset is the only one with complete min/max data across all three resolutions. At 1080p, the range is 102-138 FPS (a 36 FPS spread). At 1440p, the range narrows to 67-91 FPS (a 24 FPS spread). At 4K, the range further narrows to 37-50 FPS (a 13 FPS spread). This narrowing range at higher resolutions suggests that frame time consistency improves as the GPU becomes more fully utilized, with less variability in rendering times.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal settings preset depends heavily on the target resolution and desired frame rate. For 1080p gaming, Medium settings at 120 FPS average (with a 102 FPS minimum) offer the best balance of smoothness and visual quality. The 102 FPS minimum ensures that the system rarely dips below the 100 FPS threshold, providing a consistently smooth experience. High settings at 75 FPS are also viable for players who prefer better visuals and can tolerate a 37.5% reduction in average FPS.

For 1440p, Low settings at 96 FPS provide the smoothest experience, though Medium at 79 FPS (with a 67 FPS minimum) is a strong alternative for better visuals without sacrificing playability. The 67 FPS minimum at 1440p Medium is still above the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider acceptable. High settings at 49 FPS and Ultra at 34 FPS are not recommended for 1440p if frame rate consistency is a priority.

For 4K gaming, the data shows significant compromises are required. Low settings at 53 FPS is the only preset that stays above 50 FPS, making it the sole viable option for 4K. Medium settings at 44 FPS (with a 37 FPS minimum) could be acceptable for players who prioritize visual quality over frame rate, but the minimum of 37 FPS suggests noticeable stuttering may occur. High and Ultra settings at 4K are not recommended, as the 27 FPS and 19 FPS averages fall well below playable thresholds.

The best overall experience per the measured rows is 1080p Medium, which delivers 120 FPS average with a minimum of 102 FPS. This combination of high average frame rate and a high minimum frame rate provides the most consistent and responsive gameplay. For players seeking higher visual fidelity, 1080p High at 75 FPS is a reasonable compromise, offering a 37.5% visual improvement over Medium at a 37.5% performance cost. The data clearly indicates that 1080p is the sweet spot for this hardware combination, with diminishing returns and increasingly severe performance penalties as resolution increases.