The Long Drive

FAQ

Q: How does this CPU compare to its closest rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The Intel Core i5-13400F averages 25,236 points across all benchmark tests. This places it 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13620H and 0.5% ahead of both the AMD EPYC 9474F and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340. It trails the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D by 0.5%, a negligible margin given the sub-1% deltas across the board.

Q: What is the GPU's standing relative to other graphics cards in the database?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 sits in the 80th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 35,787. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro Duo, scores 35,860, putting the RTX 3080 just 0.2% behind. It also edges out the AMD Radeon 880M by 0.4% and trails the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE by 0.9%.

Q: What frame rate can this combo achieve at 1080p with High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the measured average FPS is 136.5. This represents a smooth experience for driving simulation, comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. The gap between Low and High settings at this resolution is substantial, with Low delivering 267.7 FPS and High delivering less than half of that.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra performance compare to 1080p Ultra?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average FPS drops to 35.6, while at 1920x1080 Ultra it reaches 98.2. This represents a 63.7% reduction in frame rate when moving from 1080p to 4K at the highest preset. The 4K Ultra result falls below the 60 FPS playability threshold, indicating a demanding combination.

Q: What is the CPU's single-threaded performance profile?

A: The Core i5-13400F scores 960 in 3DMark single-thread, 302 in Cinebench R15 single-core, 1,261 in Cinebench R20 single-core, and 3,004 in Cinebench R23 single-core. Its PassMark single-thread score is 3,634. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1,880 suggests solid dual-core scaling for lightly threaded workloads.

Q: What memory capabilities does this platform support?

A: The Intel Core i5-13400F supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory through a dual-channel memory bus. The platform uses Intel Socket 1700 with PCIe Gen 5 providing 16 CPU lanes. ECC memory is not supported on this processor.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows a clear tiering across the four available presets. At 1920x1080, Low settings produce 267.7 FPS, Medium produces 219.6 FPS, High produces 136.5 FPS, and Ultra produces 98.2 FPS. For most users, the High preset delivers the best balance at 1080p: it maintains well above 120 FPS while providing significantly better visual quality than Medium, which only gains 83.1 FPS over High. The jump from High to Ultra costs 38.3 FPS for what is typically a marginal visual improvement in driving simulations.

At 2560x1440, the analysis shifts. High settings deliver 89.8 FPS, which remains smooth for the genre. Medium produces 145.4 FPS, but the visual trade-off may not justify the 55.6 FPS gain. Ultra drops to 64.3 FPS, which is still playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes typical of an open-world driving game. The data suggests that 1440p High is the recommended preset for this resolution, as it stays above 60 FPS while preserving the settings that matter most for the experience.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. High settings yield 48.6 FPS, Medium yields 81.1 FPS, and Low yields 98 FPS. Ultra falls to 35.6 FPS, which is below the smoothness threshold for driving simulation. For 4K, the Medium preset provides the best experience per the measured rows: it delivers 81.1 FPS, which is 32.5 FPS higher than High and only 16.9 FPS lower than Low. Given that Low sacrifices considerable visual fidelity, Medium offers the most playable combination of frame rate and quality at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a pattern consistent with a GPU-bound workload, but with notable variation depending on the preset. At Low settings, the drop from 267.7 FPS at 1080p to 98 FPS at 4K represents a 63.4% reduction. At Medium settings, the drop from 219.6 to 81.1 FPS represents a 63.1% reduction. At High settings, the drop from 136.5 to 48.6 FPS represents a 64.4% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop from 98.2 to 35.6 FPS represents a 63.7% reduction.

The consistency of these reductions — all falling within 63.1% to 64.4% — indicates that the scaling behavior is highly predictable across presets. This uniformity suggests that the limiting component is the GPU across all settings, since the relative performance penalty of increasing resolution is nearly identical regardless of the quality preset. If the CPU were the bottleneck at lower resolutions, we would expect to see a smaller percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p compared to 1440p to 4K, as the GPU becomes more saturated.

Examining the 1440p to 4K transition specifically: at Low settings, FPS drops from 179.6 to 98, a 45.4% reduction. At High settings, FPS drops from 89.8 to 48.6, a 45.9% reduction. The consistency persists here as well. Interestingly, the 1080p to 1440p transition at Low settings drops from 267.7 to 179.6 FPS, a 32.9% reduction, while the 1440p to 4K transition drops 45.4%. This increasing penalty at higher resolutions is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario where pixel throughput becomes the dominant cost. The CPU, with its 3DMark max-thread score of 7,307 and PassMark multithread score of 25,032, appears sufficient to feed the GPU even at the lowest resolution and preset.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results span a wide range. Low settings produce 267.7 FPS average. Medium settings produce 219.6 FPS, which is 48.1 FPS lower than Low. High settings produce 136.5 FPS, representing a substantial 83.1 FPS drop from Medium. Ultra settings produce 98.2 FPS, which is 38.3 FPS lower than High. The full spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 169.5 FPS, demonstrating that the preset selection has an outsized impact on performance at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds with lower absolute values. Low settings deliver 179.6 FPS. Medium settings deliver 145.4 FPS, a 34.2 FPS reduction. High settings deliver 89.8 FPS, a 55.6 FPS reduction from Medium. Ultra settings deliver 64.3 FPS, a 25.5 FPS reduction from High. The total spread at 1440p is 115.3 FPS. Notably, the performance gap between High and Ultra narrows at 1440p compared to 1080p, where the same gap was 38.3 FPS; at 1440p it is 25.5 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results compress further. Low settings deliver 98 FPS. Medium settings deliver 81.1 FPS, a 16.9 FPS reduction. High settings deliver 48.6 FPS, a 32.5 FPS reduction from Medium. Ultra settings deliver 35.6 FPS, a 13 FPS reduction from High. The total spread at 4K is 62.4 FPS. The proportional impact of moving from Medium to High grows at higher resolutions: at 1080p the reduction is 37.8%, at 1440p it is 38.2%, and at 4K it is 40.1%. This reinforces that High settings become increasingly expensive relative to Medium as pixel count rises.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 brings substantial hardware to bear on The Long Drive. Its GA102 chip, built on Samsung's 8 nm process, contains 28,300 million transistors across a 628 mm² die. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1440 MHz and a boost clock of 1710 MHz, with memory clocked at 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective). The 10 GB of GDDR6X memory runs across a 320-bit bus, providing 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is directly relevant to the game's performance at higher resolutions, where the pixel throughput demands increase.

The GPU's compute resources include 8,704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units. It also features 68 RT cores and 272 tensor cores, which support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. The pixel rate of 164.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s help explain the scaling behavior observed in the measured FPS data. At 4K Ultra, the 35.6 FPS result suggests that the combination of pixel fill and shading workload exceeds what the GPU can sustain at that quality level.

The relationship between the GPU's capabilities and the game's results is evident in the resolution scaling. The near-uniform percentage drops across all presets when moving from 1080p to 4K indicate that the GPU is the limiting factor throughout. The RTX 3080's FP32 throughput of 29.77 TFLOPS, with matching FP16 performance at a 1:1 ratio, provides the compute headroom visible in the 1080p Low result of 267.7 FPS. However, the 4K Ultra result of 35.6 FPS shows the ceiling when all quality features are enabled.

The GPU's 80th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35,787, places it in a competitive position. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,407 and PassMark G3D score of 25,086 reflect strong synthetic performance that aligns with the measured in-game results. The power delivery requirements — a 320 W TDP and a suggested 700 W PSU — are consistent with the performance class, though the dual-slot design and 285 mm length are worth noting for system integration. The end-of-life production status and 699 USD launch MSRP provide context for its market position, but the data shows the RTX 3080 remains capable for this driving simulation at 1080p and 1440p High settings.