The Long Drive

The Long Drive pairs the Intel Core i5-11400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, a combination that places 101st out of 1734 tested setups in this driving simulation. The data shows a system capable of very high frame rates, though the CPU’s mid-range standing becomes a limiting factor at lower resolutions. The following analysis breaks down the measured results, component roles, and practical settings for this specific configuration.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's overall rank in The Long Drive?

A: This specific configuration ranks 101st out of 1734 tested combos, placing it in the top 6% of all systems benchmarked for this game.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i5-11400F scores an average of 17181 across all benchmarks. Its closest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, scores 17189 (a 0% difference), while the Intel Core i7-1260P and Intel Core Ultra 7 164U each score 17212 and 17215 respectively, both trailing by -0.2%.

Q: What are the best and worst frame rates measured?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 269.7 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The lowest is 50.3 at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This represents a range of 219.4 FPS between the most and least demanding configurations.

Q: Does the RTX 4090’s 24 GB VRAM matter for this game?

A: With a 384-bit memory bus and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth, the 24 GB GDDR6X frame buffer is far beyond what The Long Drive requires at any tested resolution. No VRAM capacity constraints appear in the data, as even the lowest FPS scenario (50.3 at 4K Ultra) is not limited by memory size.

Q: What is the CPU’s single-thread performance relative to its multi-thread score?

A: The i5-11400F achieves a single-thread Geekbench score of 1979 versus a multicore score of 7579. In Cinebench R23, it scores 2029 single-core and 14372 multi-core, indicating strong scaling across its 6 cores and 12 threads.

Q: Which settings provide the best experience at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings deliver 215.9 FPS average, which is 84.3 FPS higher than High settings (131.6) while still maintaining smooth gameplay. Low settings reach 238.8 FPS, but Medium offers a better visual-to-performance balance per the measured data.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory operates across a 384-bit bus, delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s 16384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units provide the raw compute power needed for high-resolution rendering. Clock speeds start at 2235 MHz base and boost to 2520 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective).

In The Long Drive, the GPU’s role becomes clear when examining the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1920x1080, the RTX 4090 produces 269.7 FPS on Low settings, but this only drops to 142.9 FPS on Ultra — a 47% reduction. At 3840x2160, the spread is wider: 147 FPS on Low versus 50.3 FPS on Ultra, a 65.8% drop. This shows that the GPU is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions; instead, the CPU limits performance. The RTX 4090’s 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate are sufficient to push frame rates far beyond what the i5-11400F can feed at 1080p.

The GPU’s 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores are present but unused in this game’s measured scenarios, as no ray tracing data exists in the results. The data indicates that the RTX 4090’s performance headroom at 1080p and 1440p is constrained by the CPU, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the primary determinant of frame rate — particularly at Ultra settings where the 50.3 FPS result reflects the GPU’s raw workload.

How This Combo Ranks

With a rank of 101 out of 1734 tested combos, this i5-11400F + RTX 4090 configuration sits in the 94th percentile of all systems benchmarked for The Long Drive. This placement is notable because the CPU alone ranks in the 75th percentile of all processors (avg score 17181), while the GPU ranks in the 91st percentile of all graphics cards (avg score 66473). The combo rank of 101 suggests that the RTX 4090 boosts the overall system performance significantly, but the CPU prevents it from reaching the top 50.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks — the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (17189, 0% delta), Intel Core i7-1260P (17212, -0.2%), and Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (17215, -0.2%) — all score within 0.2% of the i5-11400F. This indicates that the CPU is firmly in a mid-range performance tier. However, the RTX 4090’s nearest rivals — the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66733, -0.4%), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (67097, -0.9%), and NVIDIA Quadro P6000 (67320, -1.3%) — are all professional workstation cards, not gaming GPUs. This contrast highlights that the RTX 4090 is an outlier in gaming performance, yet the combo rank of 101 shows that the CPU holds the system back from top-tier placement.

The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1920x1080 Low, the system hits 269.7 FPS, which is excellent, but the Ultra setting drops to 142.9 FPS — a 47% penalty. This pattern repeats at 2560x1440 (238.8 Low vs 96.3 Ultra) and 3840x2160 (147 Low vs 50.3 Ultra). The consistent drop from Low to Ultra across all resolutions indicates that the CPU cannot sustain the frame rates the GPU could theoretically deliver at lower settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for optimal settings at each resolution. At 3840x2160, High settings deliver 72.7 FPS, which is playable for driving simulation. Medium settings increase this to 121.1 FPS, a 66.6% improvement over High, while Ultra drops to 50.3 FPS — below the 60 FPS threshold many consider minimum for smooth gameplay. Therefore, Medium at 4K offers the best balance, providing over 120 FPS without the visual degradation of Low (147 FPS but with reduced detail).

At 2560x1440, Medium settings produce 215.9 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any display. High settings at 131.6 FPS are also viable, but the 84.3 FPS gap between Medium and High suggests that Medium is the sweet spot — it maintains high visual quality while staying well above 144 Hz refresh rates. Ultra at 96.3 FPS is playable but offers diminishing returns given the significant frame rate cost.

For 1920x1080, the data shows that even Ultra settings achieve 142.9 FPS, which is above the 144 Hz threshold for most gaming monitors. High settings at 205.1 FPS provide additional headroom, while Medium at 254.7 FPS and Low at 269.7 FPS are overkill for standard 60 Hz or 144 Hz displays. The recommendation is to use High at 1080p for the best visual quality without sacrificing frame rate, as the CPU will limit performance regardless of settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The data reveals a consistent performance hierarchy across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 269.7 FPS on Low, 254.7 FPS on Medium, 205.1 FPS on High, and 142.9 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra is 126.8 FPS, representing a 47% reduction. At 2560x1440, the results are 238.8 FPS (Low), 215.9 FPS (Medium), 131.6 FPS (High), and 96.3 FPS (Ultra). The difference between Low and Ultra here is 142.5 FPS, or 59.7%.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops more sharply: 147 FPS on Low, 121.1 FPS on Medium, 72.7 FPS on High, and 50.3 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Ultra gap is 96.7 FPS, or 65.8%. This trend shows that as resolution increases, the relative cost of Ultra settings grows — from 47% at 1080p to 65.8% at 4K. Conversely, the Low setting becomes relatively more attractive at higher resolutions, with 4K Low (147 FPS) nearly matching 1440p Low (238.8 FPS) in absolute terms.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a moderate drop: at Low, 269.7 to 238.8 (11.5% decrease); at Medium, 254.7 to 215.9 (15.2%); at High, 205.1 to 131.6 (35.8%); at Ultra, 142.9 to 96.3 (32.6%). From 1440p to 4K, the drops are steeper: Low goes from 238.8 to 147 (38.4%), Medium from 215.9 to 121.1 (43.9%), High from 131.6 to 72.7 (44.8%), and Ultra from 96.3 to 50.3 (47.8%). This indicates that the GPU becomes progressively more stressed at higher resolutions, particularly on High and Ultra settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 14 nm process. It operates at a base clock of 2.60 GHz and boosts 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 DDR4 with dual-channel access and 51.2 GB/s bandwidth.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-11400F shows strong multi-threaded performance for its class: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 14372, while single-core scores 2029. Geekbench results are 7579 multicore and 1979 single-core. The 3DMark tests show scaling from 868 (single-thread) to 5652 (max threads), indicating that the CPU benefits from additional threads. PassMark scores include 16908 for multithread and 2981 for single-thread.

In The Long Drive, the CPU’s impact is most visible at lower resolutions. At 1920x1080 Low, the system achieves 269.7 FPS, but the fact that this drops to 205.1 FPS at High settings — while the GPU has significant headroom — suggests CPU limitations. The i5-11400F’s 6 cores and 12 threads are adequate for this driving simulation, but the data indicates that a faster CPU would allow higher frame rates at 1080p and 1440p. At 4K, the CPU becomes less critical, as the GPU workload dominates; the 50.3 FPS at Ultra reflects GPU-bound performance rather than CPU constraints.

The CPU’s 75th percentile ranking versus all CPUs (avg score 17181) and its close parity with rivals like the Ryzen 7 5700U (0% delta) confirm that it is a solid mid-range processor. However, when paired with the RTX 4090 — a GPU in the 91st percentile — the CPU becomes the limiting factor in CPU-bound scenarios. The 101st combo rank out of 1734 systems reflects this imbalance, as the system performs well but cannot reach the top tier that would require a more powerful processor.