The Long Drive

The Long Drive presents a unique optimization challenge for the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination. The measured data shows a system that is exceptionally capable at high refresh rates in 1080p and 1440p, but which encounters a significant performance ceiling when pushed to 4K Ultra settings. The benchmark results indicate a configuration where the GPU's raw power is the primary driver of performance scaling, with the CPU providing ample headroom across most of the tested spectrum.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, though with some notable deviations at the highest settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 319.5 FPS at 1080p to 231.3 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of approximately 27.6%. The further drop to 133.2 FPS at 4K represents a 58.3% decrease from the 1080p baseline. This steep decline indicates that even at Low settings, the rendering resolution significantly impacts the workload on the RTX 4080 SUPER.

The Medium settings tier shows a similar but slightly less aggressive scaling curve. The transition from 292.6 FPS at 1080p to 195.6 FPS at 1440p is a 33.2% performance loss, while moving to 4K Medium brings the average down to 104.7 FPS, a 64.2% reduction from the 1080p figure. This pattern suggests that the game's visual complexity at Medium settings creates a more balanced load between the CPU and GPU, but the GPU still remains the limiting factor.

High settings demonstrate the most linear scaling behavior. The 185.1 FPS average at 1080p drops to 121.2 FPS at 1440p (a 34.5% decrease) and then to 66.6 FPS at 4K (a 64.0% decrease from 1080p). This consistent scaling indicates that High settings are well-optimized for the hardware, with neither component becoming a bottleneck at any resolution.

The Ultra settings tier presents the most interesting data. At 1080p, the average frame rate is 128.4 FPS, which drops to 81.6 FPS at 1440p (a 36.4% decrease) and then to 46 FPS at 4K (a 64.2% decrease from 1080p). The 4K Ultra result of 46 FPS is notably lower than what would be expected from the scaling pattern, suggesting that the game's Ultra preset introduces effects that are particularly demanding on the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth. The data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory is sufficient across all resolutions, but the compute load at 4K Ultra pushes the GPU to its limits.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide clear guidance for optimal settings based on target frame rates. For users with 1920x1080 displays, the Medium preset delivers an average of 292.6 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any high-refresh-rate monitor. The High preset at 185.1 FPS remains excellent, and even Ultra at 128.4 FPS provides a smooth experience. The data indicates that at 1080p, the i5-12400F's six cores and 12 threads are fully capable of feeding the RTX 4080 SUPER, as evidenced by the relatively small performance gap between Medium and Ultra settings.

At 2560x1440, the High preset offers the best balance, with an average of 121.2 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and provides headroom for demanding scenes. The Medium preset at 195.6 FPS is ideal for competitive play or for users with 144Hz or higher refresh rate monitors. The Ultra preset at 81.6 FPS remains playable but may exhibit occasional dips in the game's open-world driving environments. The data suggests that 1440p High is the sweet spot for this combination, offering a 48.5% performance increase over Ultra while maintaining high visual fidelity.

For 3840x2160 displays, the Medium preset at 104.7 FPS provides the best overall experience. This setting offers a 57.2% performance improvement over High and a 127.6% improvement over Ultra. The High preset at 66.6 FPS is still viable for users prioritizing visual quality over frame rate, but the Ultra preset at 46 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay. The data clearly shows that 4K Ultra is not a practical setting for this hardware combination in The Long Drive.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER plays the dominant role in determining this game's performance. The GPU's 10240 shading units and 320 texture mapping units provide substantial compute throughput, as reflected in its Passmark G3D score of 34245 and its 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs. The 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for all tested resolutions and settings.

The GPU's clock speeds are a critical factor in the observed frame rates. The base clock of 2295 MHz and boost clock of 2550 MHz allow the card to maintain high utilization across all settings. The data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER's performance scales predictably with resolution, indicating that the memory subsystem and compute units are well-balanced. The GPU's average benchmark score of 53610 places it slightly ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (53489, a 0.2% delta) and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (53414, a 0.4% delta), confirming its position as a top-tier graphics solution.

The measured FPS data suggests that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary limiting factor at 4K Ultra settings, where the 46 FPS average indicates the GPU is operating near its maximum capacity. However, at 1080p and 1440p, the GPU has sufficient headroom to achieve frame rates well above 100 FPS at most settings, demonstrating that the card's 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is more than adequate for this driving simulation title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a wide performance range across settings. Low settings produce an average of 319.5 FPS, which represents the maximum frame rate achievable with this combination. Medium settings reduce this to 292.6 FPS, a 8.4% decrease. High settings further reduce performance to 185.1 FPS, a 36.7% decrease from Low, while Ultra settings drop to 128.4 FPS, a 59.8% decrease from the Low preset baseline.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance hierarchy remains consistent but with reduced absolute values. Low settings average 231.3 FPS, Medium settings 195.6 FPS (a 15.4% decrease from Low), High settings 121.2 FPS (a 47.6% decrease), and Ultra settings 81.6 FPS (a 64.7% decrease). The relative differences between settings at 1440p are larger than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU's workload increases disproportionately with higher quality presets as resolution scales.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates compress significantly. Low settings produce 133.2 FPS, Medium settings 104.7 FPS (a 21.4% decrease), High settings 66.6 FPS (a 50.0% decrease), and Ultra settings 46 FPS (a 65.5% decrease from Low). The 4K Ultra result of 46 FPS is the only measured configuration that falls below the 60 FPS threshold, highlighting the extreme demands of this preset on the GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 121st out of 1734 tested combinations in The Long Drive. This places the combo in the top 7.0% of all configurations, indicating that it is a high-performance pairing for this title. The ranking reflects the RTX 4080 SUPER's strong benchmark scores, including its Passmark G3D score of 34245 and its 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs.

The CPU's contribution to this ranking is supported by its average benchmark score of 19221, which places it in the 77th percentile among all CPUs. The i5-12400F's nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, scores 19210, a negligible 0.1% difference. This indicates that the i5-12400F provides comparable CPU performance to a previous-generation high-end processor, ensuring that the GPU is not unduly bottlenecked in this game.

The combo's rank of 121 out of 1734 suggests that there are 120 configurations that perform better in The Long Drive, likely featuring higher-end GPUs such as the RTX 4090 or newer 40-series variants. However, the 4080 SUPER's position relative to the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (0.2% delta) and the RTX 5070 Ti (2.9% delta) shows that this GPU is competitive with other top-tier options.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F's role in this game's performance is primarily to provide sufficient single-thread and multi-thread throughput to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4080 SUPER. The CPU's six cores and 12 threads, based on the Alder Lake architecture, deliver strong performance in both lightly-threaded and heavily-threaded workloads. Its Passmark single-thread score of 3481 and multithread score of 19433 demonstrate balanced capabilities.

The CPU's boost clock of 4.40 GHz and base clock of 2.50 GHz provide adequate processing power for the game's simulation and physics calculations. The 18 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain data locality for frequently accessed game assets. The data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 319.5 FPS, which suggests that the CPU can keep up with the GPU's frame generation at high frame rates.

However, the CPU's performance does impose some limitations at the highest frame rates. The 3DMark single-thread score of 909 and 2-thread score of 1699 indicate that the CPU's per-core performance is respectable but not exceptional. The data shows that the CPU's percentile ranking of 77 among all CPUs is lower than the GPU's 88th percentile, suggesting that the CPU is the weaker link in this combination.

The benchmark results indicate that the CPU has negligible impact on performance at resolutions of 1440p and above, where the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. The measured FPS differences between settings at these resolutions are consistent with GPU-bound scaling. At 1080p, the CPU's limitations are more apparent, as the performance gap between Low and Medium settings (319.5 FPS vs 292.6 FPS) is smaller than would be expected if the GPU were the only limiting factor. This suggests that the i5-12400F's processing capabilities begin to constrain frame rates above 300 FPS, though this is unlikely to affect real-world gameplay given typical monitor refresh rates.