The Long Drive

The Long Drive pairs a six-core Intel Core i5-12400 with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, a combination that places 527th out of 1,734 tested combos in this driving simulation. The data shows a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher settings, but the CPU still plays a decisive role in determining maximum frame rates at lower settings. This analysis breaks down the measured performance across resolutions and settings, explaining exactly where each component's workload begins and ends.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 137.9 FPS, which is more than double the 4K High result of 47.7 FPS, indicating that resolution scaling has a massive impact on this combo.

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

A: The i5-12400's average benchmark score of 19,850 is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-9700's 19,831, and 0.4% higher than the Intel Core i5-11600K's 19,771. It trails the Core i7-8700 by 0.2% (19,894).

Q: What is the best performance result for this combo?

A: The highest measured average is 266.1 FPS at 1080p with Low settings. This is the only result above 260 FPS in the entire dataset.

Q: Is the RTX 3080's VRAM capacity a concern for The Long Drive?

A: The GPU has 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus with 760.3 GB/s bandwidth. The data does not indicate any VRAM-related stutters or failures, but the Ultra setting at 4K drops to 36.6 FPS, suggesting the GPU's compute limits are reached before memory capacity becomes a bottleneck.

Q: How does the GPU rank relative to other graphics cards?

A: The RTX 3080's average benchmark score of 35,787 places it in the 80th percentile of all GPUs. It is 1% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (35,435) and 0.9% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (36,101, meaning the 7900 GRE is actually 0.9% ahead).

Q: What is the difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 175 FPS while Ultra produces 61.3 FPS. The gap of 113.7 FPS shows that Ultra settings impose a severe load on the GPU, nearly tripling the rendering workload.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 is the dominant component in this pairing. Its GA102 chip, built on Samsung's 8 nm process, contains 28,300 million transistors and delivers 29.77 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1440 MHz and a boost clock of 1710 MHz, with memory running at 19 Gbps effective across a 320-bit bus. The 10 GB GDDR6X frame buffer provides 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for a driving simulation that likely streams terrain data.

In The Long Drive, the GPU's role becomes clearer when examining the 4K results. At 3840x2160, the average frame rate falls from 96 FPS on Low to 83.3 FPS on Medium, then to 47.7 FPS on High, and finally 36.6 FPS on Ultra. This progressive decline shows that each settings tier adds a significant pixel-shading and texture-filtering burden. The RTX 3080's 272 texture mapping units and 96 raster output pipelines handle the raw fill rate, but Ultra settings at 4K push the GPU to its limits, resulting in sub-40 FPS performance.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 80th among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35,787, confirms that this is a high-end part. However, its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (35,860, 0.2% ahead) and the AMD Radeon 880M (35,646, 0.4% behind), which shows that the RTX 3080 sits in a competitive performance band where small clock differences matter. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,407 further validates its DirectX 12 capabilities, which is relevant for a game released in 2019 that likely uses modern rendering paths.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 266.1 at 1080p to 175 at 1440p, then to 96 at 4K. This represents a 64% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The Medium settings show a similar pattern: 219.8 FPS at 1080p, 142.3 at 1440p, and 83.3 at 4K. High settings drop from 137.9 to 90.9 to 47.7, and Ultra from 93.5 to 61.3 to 36.6.

The scaling ratios tell a clear story about the limiting component. At 1080p Low, the CPU is likely the primary bottleneck, as the GPU can render frame rates above 260 FPS. As resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the pixel count multiplies, and the GPU's fill rate and shading units become the limiting factor. The fact that 4K Ultra yields 36.6 FPS — just 39% of the 1080p Ultra result of 93.5 FPS — indicates that the RTX 3080's compute capacity is stretched thin at high pixel densities.

Notably, the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens with resolution. At 1080p, Ultra is 172.6 FPS slower than Low (266.1 vs 93.5). At 4K, the gap narrows to 59.4 FPS (96 vs 36.6). This suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU can feed the GPU enough frames to expose the full cost of Ultra settings, while at 4K, the GPU's raw throughput limits both settings to a narrower range.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings average 266.1 FPS, Medium 219.8 FPS, High 137.9 FPS, and Ultra 93.5 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, even Ultra settings remain playable, though the drop from Medium to High is substantial — a loss of 81.9 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 46.3 FPS, while High to Ultra costs 44.4 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 175 FPS on Low, 142.3 FPS on Medium, 90.9 FPS on High, and 61.3 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p results show a more balanced scaling: the difference between Low and Medium is 32.7 FPS, between Medium and High is 51.4 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 29.6 FPS. This suggests that Medium settings at 1440p offer a good balance, surpassing 140 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 96 FPS on Low, 83.3 FPS on Medium, 47.7 FPS on High, and 36.6 FPS on Ultra. The 4K results reveal that Low settings are the only tier that remains above 60 FPS. Medium settings barely exceed 80 FPS, while High and Ultra fall below 50 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 36.6 FPS is the lowest in the dataset, making it the only configuration that would likely feel sluggish in a driving game requiring smooth motion.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 527th out of 1,734 tested combinations, placing it in the 70th percentile of all system pairings. This rank reflects the balance between the i5-12400's mid-range CPU performance and the RTX 3080's high-end GPU capabilities. The CPU's percentile of 77th among all processors (average score 19,850) and the GPU's percentile of 80th (average score 35,787) indicate that neither component is a weak link, but the combo does not break into the top tier of results.

The ranking suggests that while this system is capable of high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, it falls short of the absolute top combos that likely pair flagship CPUs with the RTX 3080 or better GPUs. The 527th rank out of 1,734 means there are 526 faster combos, but also 1,207 slower ones. In practical terms, the data shows that this combo outperforms the majority of tested systems, particularly in CPU-bound scenarios at 1080p Low where it achieves 266.1 FPS.

The nearest rival CPUs provide context for the CPU's contribution. The i5-12400's average score of 19,850 is nearly identical to the Core i7-9700 (19,831, 0.1% faster), Core i7-8700 (19,894, 0.2% faster), and Core i5-11600K (19,771, 0.4% slower). This clustering means that swapping among these CPUs would yield minimal frame rate differences in The Long Drive, confirming that the GPU is the primary determinant of the combo's ranking.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. It runs at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boosts to 4.40 GHz, with 18 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU's single-thread performance is strong, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,249, but its multi-thread score of 15,935 shows that it is not a high-core-count workstation part.

In The Long Drive, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p with Low settings. The measured 266.1 FPS suggests that the CPU can feed the GPU with frames well beyond 240 Hz, indicating that the i5-12400's 12 threads are sufficient for the game's physics and AI calculations at that resolution. However, the drop to 175 FPS at 1440p Low and 96 FPS at 4K Low shows that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as pixel count increases, not the CPU.

The CPU's 3DMark scores — 910 single-thread and 5,890 max-thread — place it in a competitive position against its rivals. The PassMark multi-thread score of 18,747 and single-thread score of 3,456 further confirm its balanced performance. The 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support mean that this CPU is not a power-hungry outlier, but its performance ceiling is clear when compared to higher-core parts.

For The Long Drive specifically, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are adequate for the game's demands, as the frame rates at 1080p demonstrate. The CPU's percentile rank of 77th among all CPUs, with a 0.1% delta from the Core i7-9700, shows that it delivers near-identical performance to older 8-core parts in synthetic tests. In practice, the measured FPS data indicates that the CPU rarely limits the combo below 90 FPS, except perhaps at 1080p Ultra where the 93.5 FPS result may reflect CPU overhead from game logic rather than GPU limits.