The Long Drive

The Long Drive pairs the Intel Core i5-11400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, creating a system that must balance a high-refresh-rate driving simulator's demands against the visual load of modern settings. This combination ranks 476th out of 1734 tested combos for this specific game, placing it comfortably in the upper quartile of tested hardware pairings. The benchmark data for this title reveals a clear performance hierarchy that shifts depending on resolution and graphical preset, with the measured frames per second (FPS) showing how the system’s components trade off against each other. The following analysis breaks down those results, focusing on where the bottleneck lies and how the hardware scales across the three most common resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial across all settings, but the shape of that decline tells a clear story about which component is doing the heavy lifting. At Low settings, the system delivers 270.7 FPS at 1920x1080, which falls to 185.9 FPS at 2560x1440 and then to 101 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 62.7% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, but the absolute numbers remain high enough to suggest the CPU is still keeping pace at the lower resolutions. Moving to High settings, the drop is steeper in relative terms: 143.1 FPS at 1080p, 95.3 FPS at 1440p, and 51.9 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1440p to 4K here is a 45.5% reduction, which is less severe than the 33.4% drop seen from 1080p to 1440p, indicating that the GPU is becoming the primary limiter as pixel count rises.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling, with 102.9 FPS at 1080p, 65.1 FPS at 1440p, and 35.1 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 4K Ultra is a 65.9% loss, which is the largest percentage drop of any settings tier. This pattern points to a system where the RTX 4070 is the bottleneck at higher resolutions and settings, while the i5-11400F has enough headroom to push very high frame rates at 1080p with lower graphical loads. The data suggests that at 1080p Low, the CPU is likely the limiting factor, given the 270.7 FPS ceiling, whereas at 4K Ultra, the GPU is clearly saturated, as evidenced by the sub-40 FPS result. The scaling is not linear, which indicates that the game’s engine becomes increasingly GPU-bound as resolution and settings increase, with the CPU’s six cores and twelve threads providing sufficient throughput for most scenarios.

How This Combo Ranks

With a combo rank of 476 out of 1734 tested combinations, this pairing sits in the 72.5th percentile of all tested systems for The Long Drive. That ranking reflects a strong overall performance, but it is not at the very top of the charts, which makes sense given the mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The i5-11400F holds a 75th percentile position among all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 17181, while the RTX 4070 sits at the 81st percentile among GPUs with an average score of 37283. The combination’s in-game rank is lower than either component’s individual percentile, which suggests that the game’s specific demands do not fully utilize the GPU’s potential at every setting, or that the CPU occasionally holds back the system.

Comparing the CPU to its nearest rivals, the i5-11400F’s average score of 17181 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, which scores 17189, a delta of 0%. The Intel Core i7-1260P and Intel Core Ultra 7 164U both score slightly higher at 17212 and 17215, respectively, representing a 0.2% advantage over the i5-11400F. The Intel Core i5-1240U scores 17141, which is 0.2% lower. These differences are negligible, meaning the CPU’s performance is well within the expected range for its class. For the GPU, the RTX 4070’s average score of 37283 is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56’s 37507, and 1.9% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A’s 38008. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile scores 38135, which is 2.2% higher, while the AMD Radeon RX 5300M is 2.5% lower at 36371. These small deltas indicate that the RTX 4070 is a consistent performer, but the in-game ranking shows that The Long Drive’s optimization favors certain hardware characteristics over raw compute scores.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 brings 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is a key factor in the 4K results, where the GPU must handle larger textures and higher-resolution buffers. The card’s base clock is 1920 MHz, boosting up to 2475 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). These clocks, combined with the 5888 shading units and 184 texture mapping units, allow the card to maintain high fill rates, with a pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 29.15 TFLOPS is substantial, but the game’s results suggest that raw compute is not the sole determinant of frame rates.

The benchmark data for the GPU shows a Passmark G3D score of 26927 and a Passmark GPU Compute score of 14720, with a DirectX 12 score of 103 and a DirectX 11 score of 244. The Geekbench OpenCL score is 168006, and the Vulkan score is 157352. These numbers indicate a well-rounded GPU, but the in-game performance at 4K Ultra (35.1 FPS) versus 1080p Low (270.7 FPS) highlights how the card’s memory bandwidth and shading power are stressed differently. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game at all tested settings, as the data does not show any signs of memory-related stuttering, but the card’s 200 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it is operating within its designed thermal envelope. The GPU’s role in this combo is clear: it is the primary driver of frame rates at 1440p and 4K, while at 1080p with lower settings, its headroom is largely unused.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce 270.7 FPS, which is a figure that exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors, indicating that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to saturate even high-refresh displays. Medium settings drop to 231.8 FPS, a 14.4% reduction from Low, while High settings yield 143.1 FPS. Ultra settings cut the frame rate nearly in half compared to High, coming in at 102.9 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 38.3%, which is the largest single-step drop at this resolution, suggesting that the High preset introduces significant graphical effects that tax the GPU.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers scale down predictably. Low settings average 185.9 FPS, Medium delivers 150.2 FPS, and High drops to 95.3 FPS. Ultra settings produce 65.1 FPS, which is a 31.6% reduction from High. The difference between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings is 84.8 FPS, while at Ultra settings it is 37.8 FPS. This shows that the GPU’s workload increases more than proportionally with resolution, but the CPU still manages to keep frame rates playable. At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain high frame rates at the heavier presets. Low settings average 101 FPS, Medium drops to 83.3 FPS, and High falls to 51.9 FPS. Ultra settings bottom out at 35.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at High settings is a 45.5% drop, while at Ultra it is 46.1%, indicating that the GPU is the clear bottleneck at this resolution.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Long Drive?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 at High settings provides 95.3 FPS, which is a good balance of visual quality and performance. At 1920x1080, High settings deliver 143.1 FPS, but the jump to 1440p only reduces frame rates by 33.4% while significantly increasing image clarity.

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

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K Low settings, the system produces 101 FPS, which is playable, and Medium settings yield 83.3 FPS. However, High settings drop to 51.9 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 35.1 FPS, which may not be ideal for fast-paced driving sequences.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 compare to its nearest rivals in this game?

A: The RTX 4070’s average benchmark score of 37283 is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56’s 37507, and 2.2% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile’s 38135. It outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 5300M by 2.5%.

Q: Is the i5-11400F a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the CPU may be limiting at 1080p Low, where the system hits 270.7 FPS. This is a very high frame rate, but it is possible that a stronger CPU could push even higher. At higher settings and resolutions, the GPU becomes the limiting factor.

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

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce 95.3 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 65.1 FPS, a reduction of 30.2 FPS or 31.7%. This indicates that Ultra settings impose a significant performance penalty for marginal visual gains.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4070 have, and is it enough?

A: The RTX 4070 has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory. The benchmark data shows no indication of VRAM limitations at any tested resolution or setting, so this capacity is sufficient for The Long Drive.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a six-core, twelve-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 14 nm process. Its base clock is 2.60 GHz, boosting to 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU has 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, and the CPU provides 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-11400F scores 5652 in 3DMark with max threads, 14372 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, and 2029 in Cinebench R23 single-core. Its Passmark multi-thread score is 16908, with a single-thread score of 2981.

The CPU’s performance in The Long Drive is best understood through the frame rate scaling at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 270.7 FPS, which is a high enough frame rate that the CPU’s six cores are likely the limiting factor, as the GPU has significant headroom. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1691 and single-thread score of 868 suggest that the processor’s single-core performance is adequate for the game’s physics and AI calculations. The CPU’s percentile rank of 75th among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17181, places it just behind the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and Intel Core i7-1260P, but the differences are within 0.2%. This means the i5-11400F provides consistent, predictable performance that does not dramatically bottleneck the RTX 4070 in most scenarios, but the data indicates that at very high frame rates, such as 270.7 FPS at 1080p Low, the CPU’s limits become apparent. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz is crucial for maintaining single-threaded performance, and the 12 MB of L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, but the 14 nm process and 65 W TDP mean it cannot match the efficiency of newer architectures. For this game, the CPU is a solid foundation that allows the GPU to stretch its legs at higher resolutions, but it is not the star of the show.