Outriders

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 in Outriders presents a study in bottleneck dynamics. This is a high-refresh-rate looter shooter where the GPU’s immense power is frequently restrained by the CPU’s six-core architecture, yet the combination still delivers exceptionally smooth gameplay across all tested resolutions. The data reveals a system that is overwhelmingly capable, but the scaling patterns show exactly where the limits lie.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep, but the curve is not linear. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 207.5 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 175.7 FPS, a reduction of roughly 31.8 FPS. At 4K Low, the average falls to 140.3 FPS. This pattern indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU is the primary limiter; the RTX 4090 is not being fully utilized, so the frame rate is held back by the Ryzen 5 5600X’s processing speed rather than the GPU’s rendering capacity.

The situation shifts dramatically at Ultra settings. At 1080p Ultra, the combo hits 148.1 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 122.1 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it plummets to 62.4 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is less than half of the 1080p Low result. This shows that when the graphical load is maximized, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint. The RTX 4090’s raw power is being pushed to its limits, and the frame rate scales more directly with resolution.

High and Medium settings occupy the middle ground. At 1080p High, the average is 168 FPS, and at 1440p High it is 143 FPS. The 4K High result is 88.2 FPS. The gap between 1080p High and 1440p High is 25 FPS, while the gap between 1440p High and 4K High is 54.8 FPS. This widening delta confirms that the GPU workload grows exponentially with pixel count, and the RTX 4090’s massive 24 GB memory buffer is not the issue; rather, the sheer pixel throughput required at 4K is what brings the frame rate down.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination ranks 214th out of 1693 tested combos in Outriders. This places it in the top 12.6% of all systems tested, which is a strong showing. However, it is not a top-tier ranking. The data suggests that many other CPU-GPU pairings are capable of outperforming this specific match-up in this particular game. This is a direct consequence of the CPU being a mid-range part paired with a flagship GPU.

The RTX 4090 itself scores in the 91st percentile among all GPUs, while the Ryzen 5 5600X scores in the 78th percentile among all CPUs. The GPU is a top-tier component, but the CPU is merely above average. This imbalance is reflected in the combo ranking, which is lower than the GPU’s percentile would suggest. The pairing is held back by the processor’s inability to feed the GPU fast enough at lower resolutions, and even at higher resolutions, the overall system performance is capped by the CPU’s multi-threaded capabilities.

Compared to its nearest CPU rivals, the Ryzen 5 5600X is essentially at parity. It is 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT and 0.3% behind the Intel Core i7-10700. It is 0.5% behind the Intel Core i5-12490F and 0.7% ahead of the Intel Xeon 6325P. These are negligible differences, meaning the choice of any of these processors would yield nearly identical performance in Outriders. The bottleneck is not specific to this CPU model but rather its class of six-core, twelve-thread processors.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K gaming, the data clearly points to High settings as the optimal choice. At 88.2 FPS, it provides a smooth, playable experience that is well above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra settings at 4K are not recommended, as the 62.4 FPS average is too close to the edge of smoothness for a fast-paced looter shooter. The jump from High to Ultra costs 25.8 FPS, a substantial loss for a visual improvement that is often subtle in this genre.

At 1440p, Medium settings at 156.3 FPS or High settings at 143 FPS are both excellent options. The difference between them is just 13.3 FPS. Given the high frame rates, either preset will feel exceptionally fluid. Ultra settings at 122.1 FPS are also perfectly playable, but the marginal visual gains over High are not worth the 20.9 FPS drop.

At 1080p, the recommendation is straightforward. High settings at 168 FPS provide an excellent balance of visual fidelity and performance. Medium settings at 182.3 FPS are also viable for competitive play. Low settings at 207.5 FPS are only useful for maximizing refresh rate on a 240 Hz monitor, as the visual quality sacrifice is significant. Ultra at 148.1 FPS is acceptable, but the system is clearly CPU-bound at this resolution, so increasing settings from High to Ultra yields a surprisingly small performance penalty of just 19.9 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings produces high frame rates. Low settings yield 207.5 FPS, Medium results in 182.3 FPS, High gives 168 FPS, and Ultra produces 148.1 FPS. The difference between the lowest and highest settings is 59.4 FPS, which shows that the GPU still has some headroom even at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 175.7 FPS for Low, 156.3 FPS for Medium, 143 FPS for High, and 122.1 FPS for Ultra. The spread here is 53.6 FPS. This resolution is the sweet spot for this combo, as it offers high frame rates across all presets while allowing the GPU to do more work.

At 3840x2160, the results are 140.3 FPS for Low, 113.3 FPS for Medium, 88.2 FPS for High, and 62.4 FPS for Ultra. The performance gap between presets widens to 77.9 FPS. This is where the RTX 4090’s raw compute is fully engaged, and the CPU is no longer the primary constraint. The 4K results are the most demanding, and the frame rates reflect the increased pixel workload.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing. With 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, it has a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. This memory configuration ensures that Outriders, which is not a VRAM-heavy title, will never be limited by memory capacity. The GPU’s 16384 shading units and 512 texture mapping units provide the raw throughput needed for high-resolution rendering.

The boost clock of 2520 MHz is the key figure for this game. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is the limiting factor, dropping to 62.4 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is being fully saturated at this preset. The RTX 4090’s 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is being pushed to its limits by the combination of 4K resolution and Ultra settings.

The GPU’s nearest rivals in benchmark scores are all professional or workstation cards, such as the NVIDIA Tesla T4 and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56, with which it is within 1.3% of performance. This highlights that the RTX 4090 is a top-tier consumer part that outclasses most other graphics cards. In Outriders, its role is to provide the massive pixel-pushing power that allows for high frame rates at 1440p and playable frame rates at 4K, but it is often waiting on the CPU at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is the limiting factor in this combination. With 6 cores and 12 threads, it is a capable gaming processor, but it is not in the same class as the RTX 4090. Its base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz are respectable, but the multi-threaded performance is where it falls short. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 18578 is decent, but it is not exceptional.

The evidence of the CPU bottleneck is in the 1080p results. At 1080p Low, the system produces 207.5 FPS, which is a very high number. However, the difference between 1080p Low and 1440p Low is only 31.8 FPS, and the difference between 1440p Low and 4K Low is 35.4 FPS. This scaling pattern is typical of a CPU-bound scenario at lower resolutions, where the GPU is not the limiting factor.

The Ryzen 5 5600X’s 32 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support are sufficient for this game. However, the processor’s 7 nm architecture and 65 W TDP indicate it is a mid-range part. The benchmark data shows that it is nearly identical in performance to the Intel Core i7-10700 and AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT, which are also mid-range processors. In Outriders, this CPU is the reason why the combo ranks 214th instead of higher, as it cannot fully unlock the RTX 4090’s potential, particularly at 1080p and 1440p.