The Long Drive

# The Long Drive with Intel Core i5-14600KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

The pairing of Intel's Core i5-14600KF with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 produces a fascinating dataset in The Long Drive, a driving simulation where frame rates swing wildly depending on resolution and preset. At 1080p Low, this combination delivers 388 FPS average, yet at 4K Ultra it collapses to 51 FPS — a 7.6x spread that reveals a system shifting from CPU-bound to GPU-bound as pixel count rises. The measured results show a combo that ranks 104th out of 3,725 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2.8% of all configs, though the data suggests the RTX 4090's immense throughput is frequently held in check by the game's engine and the i5-14600KF's characteristics.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and non-linear, telling a clear story about where bottlenecks live. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 388 FPS at 1920x1080 to 260 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 144 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 33% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 45% further drop to 4K. The scaling pattern suggests that at 1080p Low, the CPU is the primary limiter — the RTX 4090 is capable of far more than 388 FPS in a driving sim, but the i5-14600KF's single-thread performance caps output. By 4K Low, the GPU begins to take over as the limiting factor, though 144 FPS still indicates headroom remains.

The Medium preset shows a similar but steeper degradation curve. From 326 FPS at 1080p, the average drops to 214 FPS at 1440p (a 34% decline), then to 119 FPS at 4K (a 44% further drop). Interestingly, the Medium preset at 4K includes measured minimum and maximum values of 101 and 137 FPS respectively, showing a 36 FPS variance that hints at scene complexity spikes. The High preset follows the same pattern: 203 FPS at 1080p, 134 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K — each step reducing by roughly one-third. Ultra is where the scaling becomes most punishing: 141 FPS at 1080p, 93 FPS at 1440p, and just 51 FPS at 4K.

What the data implies is that The Long Drive's engine does not scale gracefully with resolution increases. The percentage drops are remarkably consistent across presets — roughly 33-35% from 1080p to 1440p, then 44-45% from 1440p to 4K — regardless of the quality setting. This uniformity suggests the game's rendering pipeline has a fixed resolution-dependent cost that dominates over the variable costs of texture quality and shading complexity. The RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are clearly not the constraint; rather, the game appears to be hitting a geometry or draw-call ceiling that scales with pixel count.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090 brings formidable specifications to this test: 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, running at a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. Its 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate should theoretically obliterate any driving simulation's rendering demands. The 24 GB memory capacity is more than sufficient for The Long Drive, and the 384-bit bus width provides ample bandwidth.

Yet the measured data reveals that this GPU is often underutilized. At 1080p Low, the 388 FPS average — while impressive — is likely not the RTX 4090's ceiling. The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9,223 and Passmark G3D score of 38,194 place it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, yet the game's frame rates at lower resolutions are more indicative of CPU limitation than GPU saturation. The fact that Ultra at 1080p (141 FPS) is nearly 3x slower than Low at 1080p (388 FPS) shows that the GPU is doing substantially more work per frame at higher presets, but the resolution scaling being so consistent across presets points to the game's engine, not the GPU, as the structural bottleneck.

The RTX 4090's 450 W TDP and triple-slot cooler indicate a card designed for sustained high-frequency operation, and the boost clock of 2520 MHz suggests it can maintain high clocks under load. However, in The Long Drive, the data shows that even at 4K Ultra (51 FPS), the GPU is not being pushed to its thermal or power limits in a way that would suggest hard GPU-bound behavior. The 4K Ultra result of 51 FPS is surprisingly low for this hardware — it implies the game's ultra preset includes effects or draw distances that are extraordinarily demanding, or that the engine has inefficiencies that no amount of GPU compute can fully overcome.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination ranks 104th out of 3,725 tested combos in The Long Drive, placing it in the top 2.8% of all configurations. This is a strong result, but perhaps not as dominant as one might expect from a flagship GPU paired with a high-end 14-core CPU. The rank suggests that other combinations — likely with faster CPUs or different GPU-CPU pairings — achieve higher frame rates in this title.

The CPU's benchmark percentile of 90 vs. all CPUs and the GPU's percentile of 88 vs. all GPUs are both high, yet the combo rank of 104 out of 3,725 (which would be roughly the 97th percentile) indicates that the two components work well together but are not maximizing their combined potential. The i5-14600KF's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (0.3% higher average score) and the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (0.8% higher), while the RTX 4090's nearest rivals include the Intel Arc Pro A60 (0% delta) and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (0.3% higher) — though these synthetic comparisons are far less relevant than the in-game measured data.

The gap between this combo's 104th rank and the top positions implies that The Long Drive favors certain hardware characteristics that this pairing partially satisfies. The 14-core, 20-thread i5-14600KF with its 5.30 GHz boost clock is undoubtedly fast, but the game may respond better to higher single-thread performance or different cache configurations. The data suggests that while this combo is excellent, there is room for improvement — perhaps with a higher-ranked CPU or a different GPU generation.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a clear hierarchy across presets. Low settings produce an average of 388 FPS, Medium delivers 326 FPS (with a min of 277 and max of 374), High achieves 203 FPS, and Ultra drops to 141 FPS. The gap from Low to Medium is 62 FPS (16%), from Medium to High is 123 FPS (38%), and from High to Ultra is 62 FPS (31%). This pattern indicates that Medium and Ultra each add significant rendering complexity, while High is a middle ground that still offers strong performance.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 260 FPS on Low, 214 FPS on Medium (min 182, max 246), 134 FPS on High, and 93 FPS on Ultra. The percentage gaps between presets are similar to 1080p: Low to Medium is 46 FPS (18%), Medium to High is 80 FPS (37%), and High to Ultra is 41 FPS (31%). The consistency of these gaps across resolutions reinforces that the game's preset scaling is resolution-independent in relative terms.

At 3840x2160, the results are 144 FPS on Low, 119 FPS on Medium (min 101, max 137), 74 FPS on High, and 51 FPS on Ultra. Here the gaps change slightly: Low to Medium is 25 FPS (17%), Medium to High is 45 FPS (38%), and High to Ultra is 23 FPS (31%). The 4K results show that even the RTX 4090 cannot maintain 60 FPS at Ultra, which is a notable finding for a game from 2019. The minimum FPS of 101 at 4K Medium indicates that even in demanding scenes, the combo stays above 100 FPS at that setting, but Ultra's 51 FPS average suggests frequent dips below 60.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 32,544 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4,594 in single-core, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 17,085 and single-core of 2,445. Its Passmark multithread score is 38,697 and single-thread is 4,273.

In The Long Drive, the CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the scaling from 1080p to 4K at the same preset. At Low settings, the 1080p result of 388 FPS is almost certainly CPU-bound — the RTX 4090 could render far more frames if the CPU could feed it. The fact that 1440p Low still achieves 260 FPS (a 33% drop) suggests the CPU is still heavily involved, while 4K Low's 144 FPS (a further 45% drop) indicates the GPU is now the limiting factor. The crossover point between CPU-bound and GPU-bound appears to occur between 1440p and 4K at Low settings.

The CPU's 14 cores and 20 threads are more than adequate for a driving simulation, which is typically not heavily multithreaded. The game likely relies more on single-thread performance, where the i5-14600KF's 5.30 GHz boost clock and 4,594 R23 single-core score are strong but not class-leading. The 24 MB of L3 cache provides decent memory locality for game data, but the fact that the combo ranks 104th rather than top-10 suggests that CPUs with higher single-thread scores or larger caches may extract more performance from the RTX 4090 in this title.

Settings Recommendations

For 1080p gaming, the data strongly favors Medium settings as the optimal balance. The 326 FPS average on Medium is more than sufficient for any display, and the min FPS of 277 ensures no noticeable dips. High settings at 203 FPS are also excellent, but the 123 FPS drop from Medium to High suggests the visual gain may not justify the performance cost. Ultra at 141 FPS is playable, but given the diminishing returns, Medium or High are the practical choices.

At 1440p, Medium again stands out with 214 FPS average and a min of 182 FPS. High at 134 FPS is solid for 1440p gaming, while Ultra at 93 FPS remains above 60 but with less headroom. For competitive play, Low at 260 FPS would be ideal, but for visual quality, Medium offers the best combination of smoothness and fidelity. The 1440p Medium result of 214 FPS with a tight 182-246 FPS range indicates consistent performance across varied scenes.

At 4K, the recommendation shifts. Medium at 119 FPS (min 101) is the clear sweet spot — it maintains triple-digit averages with acceptable minimums. High at 74 FPS is playable but closer to the edge, while Ultra at 51 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold and should be avoided for smooth gameplay. Low at 144 FPS is surprisingly high for 4K but sacrifices too much visual quality. The data indicates that 4K Medium is the most sensible choice for this combo, delivering nearly 2.3x the frame rate of Ultra while likely looking close to it in practice.

FAQ

Q: Why does the FPS drop so much from 1080p to 4K on the same settings?

A: The measured data shows consistent 33-35% drops from 1080p to 1440p and 44-45% drops from 1440p to 4K across all presets. This uniform scaling indicates the game's rendering pipeline has a fixed resolution-dependent cost that dominates, regardless of quality settings, making the GPU progressively more of a bottleneck as resolution increases.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 being fully utilized at 1080p Low?

A: No. The 388 FPS average at 1080p Low is likely CPU-limited, given the i5-14600KF's single-thread performance. The RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth far exceed what a driving sim needs at 1080p, so the CPU is the limiting factor at this resolution and preset.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming?

A: Medium at 4K delivers 119 FPS average with a minimum of 101 FPS, making it the clear choice. High at 74 FPS is playable, but Ultra at 51 FPS falls below 60 FPS and should be avoided for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: This combination ranks 104th out of 3,725 tested combos in The Long Drive, placing it in the top 2.8% of all configurations. The GPU is in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, and the CPU is in the 90th percentile, but the combo rank indicates the pairing doesn't fully maximize the game's performance potential.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1440p High?

A: At 1440p High, the 134 FPS average suggests a balanced load, but the scaling pattern implies the CPU is still significantly involved. Since 4K High drops to 74 FPS, the transition from 1440p to 4K shifts the bottleneck more toward the GPU, but at 1440p High, neither component is fully saturated.

Q: Why is the Ultra preset so much slower than High at the same resolution?

A: The data shows Ultra adds roughly 31% more cost over High at every resolution — 62 FPS at 1080p, 41 FPS at 1440p, and 23 FPS at 4K. This consistent percentage gap suggests Ultra enables additional rendering features (likely higher draw distances or shadow quality) that scale proportionally with resolution, rather than a single fixed cost.