The Long Drive

The Long Drive, a driving simulation with a release date of 2019-09-02, presents a unique set of performance demands that differ significantly from typical racing titles. The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D produces a dataset that reveals distinct scaling patterns and bottleneck behaviors across resolutions and presets. The measured FPS values provide a clear picture of how this hardware pairing behaves under various loads, offering insights into the game's engine characteristics and the strengths of each component.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience, particularly at 4K. At 3840x2160, Medium delivers an average of 130 FPS, which is a substantial 60% improvement over High's 81 FPS average. This significant jump in performance comes with a minimal visual fidelity loss compared to the High preset, making it the ideal choice for maintaining high framerates without sacrificing the core visual experience of the game's vast, open environments.

For users with high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors, the High preset at 2560x1440 is the optimal choice, achieving an average of 146 FPS. This is more than sufficient to take advantage of 144Hz displays while still providing a noticeably better visual experience than the Medium preset, which runs at 234 FPS. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 101 FPS, which, while playable, does not offer a sufficient visual improvement to justify the 31% performance penalty over High.

At 1080p, the game becomes heavily CPU-bound, and the recommendation shifts. The Ultra preset at 1920x1080 yields an average of 154 FPS, while High produces 222 FPS and Medium reaches 356 FPS. Given the extreme framerates, the Ultra preset is the recommended choice for 1080p as it provides the most complete visual package while still delivering framerates well above the standard 60 FPS target and even sufficient for most 144Hz displays. The massive headroom in the lower presets is not practically useful unless the user has a 360Hz monitor, in which case the Medium preset's 356 FPS average becomes more relevant.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a flagship graphics card built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, featuring a massive 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. The data shows that the GPU's role is most critical at higher resolutions and settings. The transition from High to Ultra at 4K results in a dramatic drop from 81 FPS to 56 FPS, a 31% reduction that clearly demonstrates the immense computational load of the Ultra preset on the card's 21760 shading units and 680 texture mapping units.

The card's high boost clock of 2407 MHz and base clock of 2017 MHz contribute to its substantial raw compute power, rated at 104.8 TFLOPS for FP32 operations. This computational capability is evident in the 4K Medium result of 130 FPS, which shows the card can handle significant workloads when the preset is appropriately calibrated. However, the GPU's performance ceiling is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions. The 32 GB VRAM capacity is exceptionally high for a game from 2019, and the data suggests that VRAM capacity is not a limiting factor in any of the measured configurations, as even the Ultra preset at 4K does not show signs of memory-related stuttering or frame drops beyond what the average FPS indicates.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling across resolutions reveals a classic pattern indicative of a CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions. When moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the High preset, the average FPS drops from 222 to 146, a 34% decrease. This substantial drop despite the significant GPU headroom suggests that the game's engine is becoming more reliant on the GPU as resolution increases. The trend continues from 1440p to 4K, where the High preset falls further to 81 FPS, a 45% decrease, solidifying the GPU as the primary bottleneck at this resolution.

The Low preset data provides the clearest evidence of this bottleneck shift. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 389 FPS, but at 1440p Low, it only drops to 284 FPS (a 27% decrease), and at 4K Low, it reaches 158 FPS (a 44% decrease from 1440p). The relatively smaller drop between 1080p and 1440p compared to the drop between 1440p and 4K indicates that the CPU is limiting performance at 1080p, while the GPU begins to take over as the limiting factor as resolution increases. This is typical behavior for a high-end CPU paired with a top-tier GPU in a game that is not heavily multi-threaded.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to run The Long Drive with this hardware for a competitive edge?

A: Based on the measured data, 1920x1080 with the Low preset provides the highest average FPS at 389, which is ideal for competitive play where maximum frame rates are prioritized over visual quality.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 D's VRAM affect performance in this game?

A: The card's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory is far more than The Long Drive requires. The data shows no indication that VRAM capacity is a bottleneck at any resolution or setting, as even the 4K Ultra preset, which has the highest memory demand, maintains a playable average FPS of 56.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the GPU is the clear limiting factor. The FPS drops significantly across all presets compared to lower resolutions, and the gap between the Medium (130 FPS) and Ultra (56 FPS) presets shows the GPU's compute limits being reached, not a CPU constraint.

Q: Can this system maintain 144 FPS at 1440p with high settings?

A: Yes. The measured data for 2560x1440 with the High preset shows an average of 146 FPS, which is just above the 144 FPS threshold. It is a close margin, but the average indicates it is achievable.

Q: Why is the performance difference between High and Ultra at 4K so large?

A: The data shows a drop from 81 FPS on High to 56 FPS on Ultra at 3840x2160, a 31% reduction. This indicates that the Ultra preset introduces computationally expensive effects that heavily tax the GPU's shading units and texture units, making it a very demanding setting for this hardware.

Q: What is the average FPS for the Medium preset at 1080p?

A: The measured average FPS for the Medium preset at 1920x1080 is 356 FPS, with a minimum of 302 FPS and a maximum of 409 FPS, showing excellent consistency.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combination ranks 18th out of 2934 tested combos in The Long Drive, placing it in the top 0.6% of all configurations. This high rank is consistent with the absolute performance levels observed in the FPS data, which show the system capable of exceeding 300 FPS at 1080p on lower presets and delivering smooth 4K experiences at Medium settings. The rank of 18 reflects that while this is a top-tier configuration, a small number of other combinations, likely featuring even more powerful CPUs or GPUs, are able to achieve slightly higher frame rates in this specific title.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 91 against all CPUs and the GPU's percentile ranking of 92 against all GPUs further contextualize this result. Both components are in the top 10% of their respective categories, and their pairing results in a synergistic performance that is greater than the sum of its parts in this game, as evidenced by the high combo rank. The data suggests that the system is well-balanced for this title, with neither component holding the other back significantly at standard resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. Its substantial L3 cache of 33 MB (shared) is a key asset for gaming, as it helps reduce memory latency. The CPU's role in The Long Drive is most apparent at 1080p, where its performance ceiling is the limiting factor.

The data demonstrates this clearly: at 1920x1080 with the Low preset, the system achieves 389 FPS. When moving to the Medium preset at the same resolution, the frame rate only drops to 356 FPS, a mere 8% reduction, despite the GPU having to render significantly more visual effects. This small difference indicates that the CPU is struggling to feed the GPU with enough data to maintain higher frame rates, capping performance around the 350-400 FPS range. Even at the High preset, the CPU still manages to push 222 FPS, showing its strong single-threaded capabilities, but the scaling from Low to High is not linear, confirming the CPU bottleneck. The processor's high boost clock of 5.40 GHz is crucial for this game, as it appears to rely heavily on single-threaded performance, a strength of the Core i7-14700F. Its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4958 and Passmark single-thread score of 4257 support this, indicating strong per-core performance that is essential for this driving simulation.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080:

• Low: Average 389 FPS.
• Medium: Average 356 FPS, with a minimum of 302 FPS and a maximum of 409 FPS.
• High: Average 222 FPS.
• Ultra: Average 154 FPS.

2560x1440:

• Low: Average 284 FPS.
• Medium: Average 234 FPS, with a minimum of 199 FPS and a maximum of 269 FPS.
• High: Average 146 FPS.
• Ultra: Average 101 FPS.

3840x2160:

• Low: Average 158 FPS.
• Medium: Average 130 FPS, with a minimum of 110 FPS and a maximum of 149 FPS.
• High: Average 81 FPS.
• Ultra: Average 56 FPS.

The data shows a clear and consistent hierarchy of performance across all resolutions. The Medium preset is the only one with min/max FPS data, indicating it provides the most stable frame pacing across all three resolutions, with the smallest relative variance. The Ultra preset at 4K, with an average of 56 FPS, is the most demanding configuration tested. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p on the Ultra preset results in a 34% drop in FPS (from 154 to 101), and the subsequent drop to 4K Ultra is a 45% reduction (from 101 to 56), illustrating the exponential cost of higher resolutions on this GPU-bound setting.