The Long Drive

The Long Drive, a driving simulation released on 2019-09-02, presents an interesting case study for the Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. The benchmark data reveals a system that scales predictably with resolution, but the relationship between the CPU's six threads and the GPU's massive rendering power is the defining characteristic of this combo. The measured FPS across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions indicates where the bottleneck shifts and how the game engine utilizes this hardware.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, indicating that the RTX 5070 is the primary limiting component at higher resolutions. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 153.9 at 1920x1080 to 102.8 at 2560x1440, a 33.2% reduction. Moving to 3840x2160, the average drops further to 55.5, which is a 63.9% decrease from the 1080p figure. This pattern shows that the GPU's rendering load is scaling directly with pixel count, as expected.

The scaling is even more pronounced at Ultra settings. The average FPS at 1080p Ultra is 107.7, which drops to 70.2 at 1440p and then plummets to 38 at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is less than half of the 1080p Ultra score, demonstrating that the RTX 5070's 12 GB of GDDR7 memory and 672.0 GB/s bandwidth are being taxed heavily by the combination of high resolution and maximum graphical fidelity. The data suggests that 4K Ultra is not a playable target for this game with this combo, as the 38 FPS average would likely result in a suboptimal experience.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern changes dramatically. The 1080p Low average is 223.2 FPS, which falls to 193.3 at 1440p and 107.9 at 4K. The 4K Low score is still well above 60 FPS, showing that the RTX 5070 has ample headroom when the graphical load is reduced. However, the relatively smaller drop from 1080p to 1440p (13.4%) compared to the drop from 1440p to 4K (44.2%) suggests that the CPU begins to play a more significant role at lower settings, where the GPU can finish its work faster and must wait for the processor to deliver new frames. The 1080p Low result of 223.2 FPS appears to be near the engine's or CPU's practical limit, as the 1440p Low result of 193.3 is still extremely high.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1440p High settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings is 102.8.

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

A: The 4K Ultra average is 38 FPS, while the 4K Low average is 107.9 FPS. This represents a 64.8% performance gain when switching from Ultra to Low at 3840x2160.

Q: Is the RTX 5070's 12 GB of VRAM sufficient for this game at 4K?

A: The data indicates the GPU memory is not a bottleneck at 4K, as the FPS scales consistently with resolution. The 4K High average of 55.5 FPS and 4K Medium average of 89.8 FPS show that the rendering pipeline, not memory capacity, is the limiting factor at those settings.

Q: What is the best resolution and setting for a high refresh rate monitor?

A: Based on the data, 1080p Medium (203.9 FPS) or 1080p Low (223.2 FPS) are the only combinations that exceed 200 FPS. 1440p Low at 193.3 FPS is also viable for a 165Hz display.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 482 out of 1734 tested combos for this game, placing it in the top 27.8% of all systems.

Q: Does the CPU limit performance at any resolution?

A: The evidence suggests the CPU may limit at 1080p Low, where the 223.2 FPS result appears to be near a ceiling. The smaller FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings (13.4%) compared to the drop from 1440p to 4K (44.2%) indicates the i5-9400's six threads might be the constraining factor in that specific scenario.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is the dominant component in this combo, and its specifications explain the high FPS figures. The GPU has a base clock of 2325 MHz and a boost clock of 2512 MHz, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node. The 6144 shading units and 192 texture mapping units provide substantial raw compute power, reflected in the FP32 performance of 30.87 TFLOPS. This compute capacity is what drives the high average FPS at 1440p and 1080p, where the GPU is not fully saturated by the pixel workload.

The 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is the third-highest memory bandwidth figure among the data points, and it is crucial for the 4K results. At 4K High, the 55.5 FPS average shows that the memory subsystem is keeping pace with the rendering demands, but the 38 FPS at 4K Ultra suggests that the combination of high resolution and Ultra settings is pushing the GPU's limits. The 48 ray tracing cores and 192 tensor cores are present, but their impact on this specific game is not directly measured in the FPS data; the raw rasterization performance is the primary driver here.

The GPU's benchmark scores confirm its position. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5077 and the Passmark G3D score of 29137 place it well above average. Its percentile rank of 83 versus all GPUs means it outperforms 83% of all tested graphics cards. The nearest rival data shows a tight cluster: the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 has an average score of 41610, which is 0.2% higher, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 scores 41441, which is 0.6% lower. This indicates the RTX 5070 is positioned in a performance band where small percentage differences separate it from previous-generation high-end cards.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Intel Core i5-9400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 achieves a rank of 482 out of 1734 tested combinations in The Long Drive. This places the system in the upper quartile of all configurations, specifically in the 72.2nd percentile. This rank is a composite measure, reflecting that the RTX 5070's strong GPU performance is partially offset by the older i5-9400 CPU.

The rank of 482 is notable because it is not higher, given the GPU's individual percentile of 83. The discrepancy between the GPU's high percentile and the combo's lower rank suggests that the CPU is holding the system back in some scenarios. The CPU's percentile versus all CPUs is 50, meaning it is exactly average. When an average CPU is paired with a top-tier GPU, the composite rank will always be pulled down from the GPU's potential.

The measured FPS data supports this interpretation. At 1080p Low, the 223.2 FPS result is likely near what the CPU can feed to the GPU, as the GPU could theoretically render more frames if the CPU could deliver them. The top 27.8% ranking is respectable, but it is not in the top 10%, which would require a more balanced pairing. The data shows that for this game, the combo is capable of high frame rates at most settings, but it is not optimized for maximum performance at the lowest resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It is built on the Coffee Lake architecture using a 14 nm process node. The CPU has a 9 MB shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. This is a modest specification by modern standards, and its percentile rank of 50 versus all CPUs confirms it is an average performer.

In this game, the CPU's role is to feed the RTX 5070 with draw calls and game logic. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and single-core score of 1125 indicate its processing capabilities. The nearest rival data shows the i5-9400 is extremely close to the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.2% higher) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (0.2% higher), but slightly behind the Intel Core i7-8809G (0.6% lower). This tight grouping means the CPU is not a differentiator; its performance is squarely in the middle of the pack.

The benchmark results show that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at most settings, but it becomes relevant at 1080p Low. The 223.2 FPS result at that setting is likely capped by the CPU's ability to process game state and issue rendering commands. The fact that the 1440p Low result is 193.3 FPS, a drop of only 13.4%, while the 4K Low result is 107.9 FPS, a drop of 44.2%, points to a GPU-bound scenario at 4K and a more CPU-bound scenario at 1080p. The CPU's six threads without hyper-threading are adequate for this game, but they do not provide the headroom that a higher-core-count processor might offer. The data indicates that the i5-9400 is a capable but not exceptional partner for the RTX 5070, and its average standing is the reason the combo does not rank higher.