The Long Drive

The Long Drive is a Driving Simulation that stresses hardware in a very specific way, and the data for the Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the Intel Arc B570 reveals a clear performance hierarchy across resolutions and settings. This analysis walks through the measured frames per second (FPS) to determine the optimal configuration and the role each component plays.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows a wide spread in average FPS depending on the selected preset, and the optimal choice shifts based on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 75 FPS, while Low produces 146 FPS and Medium achieves 120 FPS. The Ultra preset drops sharply to 52 FPS, indicating a significant performance penalty for the highest quality settings. For a smooth experience at 1080p, the High preset offers a balanced 75 FPS, but Medium at 120 FPS is the better recommendation if the display supports a higher refresh rate, as the jump from High to Medium is only 45 FPS, whereas going from Medium to Ultra costs 68 FPS for a marginal visual gain.

At 2560x1440, the pattern changes. The High preset averages 49 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced driving. Low jumps to 96 FPS, and Medium sits at 79 FPS. The Ultra preset at this resolution falls to 34 FPS, which is a substantial drop from 1440p High. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot at 1440p, providing 79 FPS that is close to the 96 FPS of Low but with better visual fidelity. The 30 FPS difference between Medium and Ultra (79 vs 34) makes Ultra impractical at this resolution.

For 3840x2160, the situation is more constrained. The High preset only manages 27 FPS, and Ultra drops to 19 FPS, both of which are below playable thresholds. Medium achieves 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS, which is borderline. The Low preset is the only viable option at 4K, delivering 53 FPS. Even so, the 53 FPS average is not ideal, and users with a 4K display should consider lowering the resolution or accepting the Low preset. The measured rows indicate that Medium at 1440p is the best overall experience, balancing frame rate and quality, while Low at 4K is the fallback for resolution purists.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is the primary driver of the frame rate differences across settings, given its specifications. The GPU features 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. The base and boost clocks are both 2500 MHz, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). The Arc B570 has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output pipelines, which directly influence pixel and texture throughput.

The data shows that the GPU is heavily taxed by higher settings. At 1080p, the difference between Low (146 FPS) and High (75 FPS) is 71 FPS, a 48% reduction. This is consistent with the GPU's compute capabilities, as the higher presets increase the shading and texture workload. The Ultra preset at 1080p (52 FPS) suggests that the 80 ROPs are a limiting factor when pixel shading requirements escalate. In the context of the benchmark, the Arc B570's 11.52 TFLOPS FP32 performance is sufficient for low and medium settings, but the Ultra preset exposes a bottleneck in the rendering pipeline.

The GPU's VRAM capacity of 10 GB is likely sufficient for The Long Drive at the tested resolutions, as the game does not appear to exceed this limit based on the performance deltas. If VRAM were insufficient, the frame rates would show erratic dips, but the data shows consistent scaling from Low to Ultra. The GPU's nearest rival, the Intel Arc A750, has an average score of 20582, which is 0.1% higher than the B570's 20556, indicating the B570 is competitive within its generation. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2649 and Passmark G3D score of 14195 further quantify the GPU's raw performance, which aligns with the measured FPS in this game.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals the limiting component. At the Medium preset, the average FPS goes from 120 at 1080p to 79 at 1440p and then to 44 at 4K. This represents a 33% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 44% drop from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is not linear, indicating that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU has more headroom to feed frames, but as pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become saturated.

For the High preset, the drop is from 75 FPS at 1080p to 49 FPS at 1440p (a 35% reduction) and then to 27 FPS at 4K (a 45% reduction from 1440p). The Low preset shows a similar trend: 146 FPS at 1080p drops to 96 FPS at 1440p (34% drop) and then to 53 FPS at 4K (45% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across presets strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU (Intel Core i5-11400F) would show different scaling patterns if it were the bottleneck.

The 4K data is particularly telling. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 19, which is a 63% drop from 4K High (27 FPS). This indicates that the Ultra preset at 4K is not just doubling the workload but likely pushing the GPU beyond its effective memory bandwidth or compute limits. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 37, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, confirming that 4K is not a practical target for this combo regardless of settings. The resolution scaling analysis concludes that 1080p is the native comfort zone, 1440p is acceptable with adjusted settings, and 4K is only playable at Low.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1920x1080 with this combo?

A: The Medium preset at 120 FPS provides the highest frame rate above 60 FPS without the visual penalty of Low. The High preset at 75 FPS is also viable, but Medium offers a 60% improvement over High for a nominal quality reduction.

Q: Can this system run The Long Drive at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset achieves 53 FPS, which is the only playable option. The Medium preset drops to 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS, which may cause stuttering. High and Ultra are not recommended, as they fall below 30 FPS.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Arc B570 has an average benchmark score of 20556, which is 0.1% lower than the Intel Arc A750 (20582) and 0.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534). This indicates near-identical performance among these GPUs.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1440p?

A: The data shows a 35% drop in FPS from 1080p to 1440p at High settings, which is consistent with GPU-bound scaling. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are likely sufficient for this game, as the frame rate drops are proportional to pixel count increases.

Q: What is the frame time consistency at Medium settings?

A: At 1920x1080 Medium, the FPS ranges from 102 to 138, giving an average of 120. At 2560x1440 Medium, the range is 67 to 91, averaging 79. At 3840x2160 Medium, the range is 37 to 50, averaging 44. The variance increases with resolution.

Q: Does the Ultra preset ever provide a good experience?

A: The Ultra preset only reaches 52 FPS at 1080p, which is below the Medium preset's 120 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 34 FPS, and at 4K it is 19 FPS. The Ultra preset is not recommended for any resolution due to the steep performance cost.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-11400F and Intel Arc B570 combination ranks 2342 out of 2934 tested combos in The Long Drive. This places it in the 20th percentile of all combos, meaning 80% of tested systems perform better. The rank is a reflection of the GPU's mid-range standing (65th percentile vs all GPUs) and the CPU's solid but not exceptional position (71st percentile vs all CPUs). The combo's performance is consistent with the GPU's benchmark scores, where the Arc B570's Passmark G3D score of 14195 suggests it is a capable 1080p card but struggles at higher resolutions.

The rank of 2342 indicates that while this combo can play the game, it is not optimized for high-refresh-rate or high-resolution gaming. The CPU's average benchmark score of 17177 is only 0.3% higher than the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17120) and 0.4% lower than the Intel Core i5-12450H (17239). This places the CPU in a tightly contested performance bracket. The GPU's performance, however, is more spread out, with the nearest rival being the Arc A750 (0.1% higher) and the Radeon R9 M390X (0.5% lower). The combo's rank is thus primarily dragged down by the GPU's limitations at 4K, as the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at 1080p and 1440p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Rocket Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. It has 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 512 KB of L2 cache per core. The CPU's memory bandwidth is 51.2 GB/s with dual-channel DDR4 support. These specifications are relevant to The Long Drive, which is a driving simulation that may have physics and AI calculations that load multiple threads.

The benchmark results for the CPU show a strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14340 and a Passmark multithread score of 16908. The single-thread performance is also respectable, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2024 and a Passmark single-thread score of 2981. In the context of The Long Drive, the CPU's 12 threads are likely sufficient to handle the game's simulation logic, especially at 1080p where the GPU is the bottleneck.

The data suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p Low, the FPS reaches 146, which is a high frame rate that would require a capable CPU to sustain. The CPU's 3DMark 16-thread score of 5619 and max-thread score of 5652 indicate that it can handle parallel workloads effectively. However, at 4K, the FPS drops to 53 even at Low settings, which is clearly a GPU limitation. The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (0.6% higher average score) and the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G (0.6% lower), show that the i5-11400F is competitive but not top-tier, which is consistent with its 71st percentile ranking.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings presets, providing a comprehensive view of performance.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 146 FPS, which is the highest recorded for this combo. The Medium preset averages 120 FPS with a minimum of 102 FPS and a maximum of 138 FPS, showing good frame time consistency. The High preset drops to 75 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 52 FPS. The 94 FPS difference between Low and Ultra highlights the significant cost of the highest quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 96 FPS, which is a 34% drop from 1080p Low. The Medium preset averages 79 FPS with a range of 67 to 91 FPS. The High preset averages 49 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 34 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p offers the best balance, with a 61% improvement over Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 53 FPS, which is the only preset above 50 FPS. The Medium preset averages 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS and a maximum of 50 FPS. The High preset averages 27 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 19 FPS. The 4K data shows a clear degradation, with the Ultra preset being virtually unplayable. The minimum FPS data at 4K Medium (37 FPS) suggests that frame drops are noticeable, making 4K a marginal experience even at Low settings.

The breakdown shows a consistent pattern: the GPU scales predictably with resolution and settings, but the Ultra preset imposes a disproportionate penalty, likely due to advanced rendering features. The Medium preset across all resolutions provides the most stable frame times, as evidenced by the min/max data available. This data reinforces the recommendation that Medium at 1440p is the optimal configuration for this hardware combination.