The Long Drive

The Long Drive, a driving simulation with an open-ended landscape, presents a demanding workload that scales sharply with resolution and visual fidelity. This analysis examines the measured performance of the Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, based on the provided benchmark data. The results reveal a configuration that is heavily constrained by its graphics card at higher resolutions, yet capable of delivering high frame rates at more modest settings.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, confirming that the RTX 2060 is the primary limiting factor in this combo. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 79.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 51.9 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of approximately 35%. Moving to 3840x2160, the average drops further to 28.4 FPS, which is a 64% decrease from the 1080p result. This steep decline indicates that the GPU’s pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are being saturated as the render resolution increases.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings presets. At Low settings, the average frame rate goes from 153.7 FPS at 1080p to 104 FPS at 1440p and then to 55.4 FPS at 4K. Even at the lowest fidelity, the 4K resolution cuts performance by more than half compared to 1080p. This behavior points to a hard ceiling imposed by the graphics hardware, as the CPU, a 20-core Raptor Lake part with a 5.60 GHz boost clock, has ample headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions. The data suggests that the i7-14700KF is not the bottleneck until the GPU is fully engaged, which only happens at higher resolutions and settings.

The gap between Medium and High settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference is 48.1 FPS (127.8 vs 79.7), but at 4K, the gap shrinks to 20.6 FPS (49 vs 28.4). This convergence indicates that the GPU is becoming the sole constraint, and the incremental cost of High over Medium is relatively smaller when the pixel workload is already immense. Conversely, the jump from High to Ultra is brutal at every resolution, with a 27.7 FPS drop at 1080p and a 10.9 FPS drop at 4K, showing that Ultra settings introduce a rendering cost that the RTX 2060 cannot absorb.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for The Long Drive, this specific pairing of the i7-14700KF and RTX 2060 holds the rank of 1433 out of 1734 combos. This places it in the lower percentile of tested systems, which is a direct consequence of the GPU’s mid-range standing. The RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 16074 and sits in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, but its performance is clearly not optimized for the high demands of this title at higher settings.

The CPU is exceptionally strong, with a 96th percentile ranking against all CPUs and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44557. This creates a significant imbalance in the system. The graphics card is the weak link, and the overall combo rank reflects this. The data indicates that the CPU is capable of far more than this GPU can deliver, meaning the system’s performance is almost entirely dictated by the graphics card’s limits. The rank is not a measure of CPU capability, but rather a measure of what this specific pairing can achieve in this game, and the results are modest.

The nearest rivals to this GPU, such as the AMD Radeon RX 7600S with a deltaPct of 0.5, have nearly identical average scores, suggesting that swapping the RTX 2060 for any of these alternatives would yield similar in-game performance. The CPU’s position relative to its rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-14700K with a deltaPct of 0, shows it is essentially at parity with the top-tier desktop processors, but that strength is wasted in this configuration for this game’s higher presets.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is built on the Turing architecture and features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock is rated at 1750 MHz, which translates to 14 Gbps effective. These specifications are central to understanding the performance numbers. The 6 GB frame buffer is likely a limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the average frame rate collapses to 17.5 FPS, a figure that is barely playable.

The GPU’s boost clock of 1680 MHz and a base clock of 1365 MHz are typical for this class of card, and its FP32 performance of 6.451 TFLOPS is modest by modern standards. The data shows that the card struggles when the render load increases. The transition from 1440p Medium (85 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (38.7 FPS) demonstrates that the additional shading and texture work required by Ultra settings overwhelms the card’s 1920 shading units and 120 texture mapping units. The card is also rated with a TDP of 160 W and a suggested PSU of 450 W, indicating it is a power-efficient part, but efficiency does not translate to raw throughput.

The benchmark results for the GPU, such as a Passmark G3D score of 14111, place it firmly in the mid-range segment. Its 58th percentile ranking against all GPUs means that most modern graphics cards will outperform it. In The Long Drive, this translates to a hard cap on the achievable frame rates at high resolutions. The card’s 48 ROPs are insufficient to handle the pixel fill rate demands of 4K, which is why the average FPS at 4K High is just 28.4. This is a clear case where the GPU’s memory bandwidth and pixel processing capabilities are the decisive factors in the measured results.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal experience for this combo is found at 1920x1080 with the Medium preset. This setting yields an average frame rate of 127.8 FPS, which is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay and provides a significant visual upgrade over the Low preset, which runs at 153.7 FPS. The High preset at 1080p, achieving 79.7 FPS, is also playable but represents a 38% performance hit for a marginal increase in visual quality.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is the recommended choice, delivering an average of 85 FPS. The High preset at 51.9 FPS is acceptable for a driving simulation, but the Medium setting provides a much healthier frame rate margin. At 3840x2160, the data shows that only the Low preset (55.4 FPS) is viable for consistent playability. The Medium preset at 49 FPS is borderline, while the High and Ultra presets, at 28.4 and 17.5 FPS respectively, are not suitable for a smooth experience. For 4K, users must accept Low settings to get a frame rate that is close to 60 FPS.

The Ultra preset should be avoided entirely with this GPU. The performance cost is disproportionate to any visual benefit, with the average frame rate falling below 60 FPS even at 1080p (57.1 FPS). The data suggests that the Ultra preset is designed for hardware that is significantly more powerful than the RTX 2060. For this combo, the best strategy is to prioritize frame rate stability by selecting Medium settings at 1080p or 1440p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are: 153.7 FPS on Low, 127.8 FPS on Medium, 79.7 FPS on High, and 57.1 FPS on Ultra. The step from Low to Medium is a 25.9 FPS drop, while the step from Medium to High is a 48.1 FPS drop, indicating that High settings introduce a significant load increase. The Ultra preset further reduces performance by 22.6 FPS from High.

At 2560x1440, the results are: 104 FPS on Low, 85 FPS on Medium, 51.9 FPS on High, and 38.7 FPS on Ultra. The scaling is similar, with a 19 FPS difference between Low and Medium, and a 33.1 FPS drop from Medium to High. The Ultra preset at 38.7 FPS is a 25.4% reduction from High, showing that the highest settings are not worth the cost at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance is: 55.4 FPS on Low, 49 FPS on Medium, 28.4 FPS on High, and 17.5 FPS on Ultra. The difference between Low and Medium is only 6.4 FPS, which is much smaller than at lower resolutions. This suggests that the GPU is so heavily pixel-bound at 4K that the complexity of the settings has a diminished relative impact. The High preset’s 28.4 FPS is a 42% drop from Medium, and the Ultra preset’s 17.5 FPS is near-unplayable. The data clearly shows that 4K is not a practical resolution for this GPU in this game, regardless of the settings chosen.