The Long Drive

# The Long Drive: Intel Core i7-14700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

This combination of the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers exceptionally high frame rates in The Long Drive, a Driving Simulation title from 2019. The data shows a system that can push well past 200 FPS at 1080p on most settings, with the RTX 4090's massive 24 GB VRAM buffer and the i7-14700F's 20-core design providing ample headroom across all tested resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Long Drive?

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the system maintains 134 FPS average, which is highly playable. At 1920x1080 with High settings, it reaches 203 FPS. The 3840x2160 High setting drops to 74 FPS, so 1440p offers the best balance of visual fidelity and smoothness.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 compare to its nearest rivals in raw GPU compute?

A: The RTX 4090 scores 26,613 in Passmark GPU Compute, placing it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Arc Pro A60, has nearly identical average benchmark scores with a deltaPct of 0%, while the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M trails by 2.5%.

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

A: The i7-14700F scores 35,122 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 19,620 in Geekbench multi-core. It sits in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, with its closest rival being the Intel Xeon 6505P at just 0.2% higher average score.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4090 have, and what type?

A: The RTX 4090 features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. This is more than sufficient for any settings in The Long Drive at any resolution.

Q: What are the CPU's clock speed capabilities?

A: The i7-14700F has a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration.

Q: Does the combo rank well among all tested systems?

A: This combination ranks 101st out of 3,725 tested combos in The Long Drive, placing it in the top 2.7% of all configurations tested.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm TSMC process. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory operates at 1.01 TB/s bandwidth, which is critical for The Long Drive's open-world driving environments where texture streaming and draw distances can consume significant video memory. The GPU's 16,384 shading units and 128 RT cores provide substantial compute resources for the game's rendering workload.

Clock speeds are relatively modest compared to the sheer compute power: the base clock sits at 2235 MHz with a boost clock of 2520 MHz. Memory clocks run at 1313 MHz, translating to 21 Gbps effective. These figures, combined with 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, explain why the GPU delivers such high frame rates. The 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate and 443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate show the card's ability to fill the screen with detailed textures without bottlenecking.

The benchmark data for the RTX 4090 shows a Passmark G3D score of 38,194 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 271,631. Its 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs reflects its position as a high-end part, though interestingly its nearest rivals in the benchmark database are not gaming cards — the Intel Arc Pro A60 and AMD Radeon Pro W6600M are workstation-oriented. The RTX 4090's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9,223 provides additional evidence of its DirectX 12 capabilities, which the game can leverage.

In practical terms for The Long Drive, the GPU is the primary driver of performance at higher resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the card manages 51 FPS average, while at 1080p Low it reaches 389 FPS. This wide spread indicates the GPU is capable of extreme frame rates when the resolution drops, but at 4K Ultra the workload becomes substantial enough to limit performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F brings 20 cores and 28 threads to the system, built on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process. The core configuration includes a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost of 5.40 GHz, with 33 MB of shared L3 cache. The 65 W TDP makes it a power-efficient choice for a high-core-count desktop processor, supporting both DDR4 and DDR5 memory across dual channels.

The CPU's benchmark scores demonstrate strong multi-threaded performance: 35,122 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 14,751 in Cinebench R20 multi-core. Single-thread scores are equally respectable at 4,958 in R23 and 2,082 in R20. Passmark results show 41,317 in multi-thread and 4,257 in single-thread tests. The 91st percentile ranking among all CPUs places it near the top of the heap, with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X trailing by only 0.6% in average benchmark score.

For The Long Drive, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics simulation, and the driving mechanics that are central to the experience. The 20-core design ensures that background tasks and the game's threads have plenty of processing resources. The high boost clock of 5.40 GHz helps with single-threaded game code, while the large L3 cache reduces memory latency for frequently accessed data.

The i7-14700F's performance in data-related workloads is noteworthy: Passmark data compression scores 505,885, and integer math scores 155,808. These figures suggest the CPU can handle the real-time calculations required by a driving simulation without becoming a limiting factor. In the measured FPS data, the CPU shows no obvious bottleneck even at 1080p Low where the GPU produces 389 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 101st out of 3,725 tested combinations in The Long Drive. This places it in the top 2.7% of all configurations, which is impressive given the breadth of hardware tested in the database. The ranking reflects the synergy between a top-tier GPU and a high-end CPU that together deliver exceptional frame rates.

The RTX 4090's 88th percentile ranking among GPUs and the i7-14700F's 91st percentile among CPUs combine to produce a system that excels in this game. The fact that this combo outperforms 3,624 other combinations suggests that few systems can match its performance in The Long Drive specifically.

Looking at the measured FPS data, this combo achieves playable frame rates at every resolution and settings combination tested. Even the most demanding configuration — 4K Ultra at 51 FPS — remains technically playable, while the less demanding settings reach frame rates that exceed the refresh rate of most monitors. The rank of 101 indicates that while this is not the absolute fastest combination in the database, it is firmly in the upper echelon of tested systems.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured FPS rows across all resolutions, the High preset emerges as the most balanced choice for this hardware. At 1080p High, the system delivers 203 FPS; at 1440p High, it maintains 134 FPS; and at 4K High, it sustains 74 FPS. These are all smooth, playable frame rates that represent a sensible trade-off between visual quality and performance.

The Ultra preset is the most demanding setting tested, producing 141 FPS at 1080p, 93 FPS at 1440p, and 51 FPS at 4K. While these numbers are still playable, the drop from High to Ultra at 4K is substantial — from 74 FPS down to 51 FPS, a reduction of 23 FPS. For players who prioritize frame rate consistency, High settings are preferable.

The Medium preset offers an interesting middle ground with the only min/max data recorded: at 1080p Medium, the system shows a minimum of 277 FPS and maximum of 374 FPS, with an average of 326 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range is 182 to 246 FPS with a 214 FPS average. At 4K Medium, the average is 119 FPS. These numbers indicate that Medium settings provide excellent performance with minimal frame time variance.

The Low preset delivers the highest possible frame rates — 389 FPS at 1080p, 260 FPS at 1440p, and 144 FPS at 4K — but sacrifices visual fidelity. Given the hardware's capability, Low settings are unnecessary for achieving playable performance. The recommendation is to use High settings for the best overall experience, with Medium as a fallback for those who want higher frame rates at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its full potential. Low settings produce an average of 389 FPS, while Medium reaches 326 FPS with a range of 277 to 374 FPS. High settings deliver 203 FPS, and Ultra drops to 141 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 248 FPS spread, indicating that the GPU is capable of massive frame rates when unconstrained by graphical demands.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers scale down predictably. Low settings still achieve 260 FPS, Medium averages 214 FPS with a range of 182 to 246 FPS, High maintains 134 FPS, and Ultra produces 93 FPS. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p at each settings level is roughly 33-40%, which is typical for a GPU-bound workload.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth become critical. Low settings yield 144 FPS, Medium averages 119 FPS with a range of 101 to 137 FPS, High drops to 74 FPS, and Ultra falls to 51 FPS. The 4K results show that even the most powerful consumer GPU faces challenges at this resolution with maxed-out settings, though all configurations remain playable.

The data consistently shows that Medium settings offer the most stable frame delivery, as evidenced by the min/max data points. At every resolution, the Medium preset shows a narrower range between minimum and maximum FPS compared to what would be expected from the averages, suggesting more consistent frame pacing.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals important information about which component limits performance. At High settings, the transition from 1080p (203 FPS) to 1440p (134 FPS) represents a 34% reduction, and from 1440p to 4K (74 FPS) a further 45% reduction. This scaling pattern is characteristic of GPU-bound performance — the RTX 4090's workload scales with pixel count, and the CPU has ample headroom.

At Low settings, the resolution scaling is even more pronounced: 389 FPS at 1080p drops to 260 FPS at 1440p (33% reduction) and then to 144 FPS at 4K (45% reduction). The fact that the GPU can still produce 144 FPS at 4K Low indicates the RTX 4090's raw power is substantial, but the increasing pixel workload clearly dominates performance.

The Medium settings show the most interesting scaling behavior. At 1080p, the average is 326 FPS; at 1440p, it drops to 214 FPS; and at 4K, it reaches 119 FPS. The min/max data at each resolution shows tighter ranges at higher resolutions, suggesting that the GPU is becoming more consistently loaded as the pixel count increases.

Ultra settings produce the most dramatic scaling: 141 FPS at 1080p, 93 FPS at 1440p, and 51 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K drop of 64% indicates that Ultra settings place an enormous load on the GPU, with the RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS of compute being stretched to its limits. The CPU's role appears secondary throughout, as the frame rate scaling tracks almost perfectly with pixel count — a hallmark of GPU-limited performance.