Outriders

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a commanding performance profile in Outriders, though the data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound, with frame rates scaling dramatically with settings changes. At 4K, the GPU takes over as the primary limiter, and the performance gap between settings narrows significantly. This combination ranks in the top 12% of all tested configurations in this title, placing it among the elite setups for a fast-paced looter shooter.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how the balance of power shifts between the CPU and GPU across resolutions. At 1920x1080, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is 61.4 FPS (211 vs 149.6), indicating that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU far more frames than it can render at lower settings. This is a classic sign of a CPU-bound scenario at 1080p, where the Ryzen 7 5800X's 8-core, 16-thread Zen 3 architecture is the limiting factor, not the RTX 4090's immense shading power.

Moving to 2560x1440, the spread between settings compresses to 62 FPS (181.2 Low vs 119.2 Ultra). The trend continues, but the absolute numbers drop, signaling that the GPU is starting to become more relevant. The 1440p High result of 144.4 FPS matches the 4K Low result exactly, which is a strong indicator that the GPU's workload is beginning to dominate.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes completely. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 84.9 FPS (144.4 vs 59.5), but the more telling detail is the percentage drop. From 1080p to 4K, Low settings see a 31.5% reduction in frame rate (211 to 144.4), while Ultra settings see a 60.2% reduction (149.6 to 59.5). This shows that the RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are being taxed heavily at 4K Ultra, while the CPU remains the bottleneck at lower resolutions. The data suggests that for maximum frame rates at 1080p, the CPU is the wall; for maximum visual fidelity at 4K, the GPU is the constraint.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for this CPU/GPU combo at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 144.4 FPS, which is identical to the 4K Low result. The Medium preset yields 160.8 FPS, while Ultra drops to 119.2 FPS. Given the data, High appears to offer the most balanced performance for high refresh rate monitors, as it stays above the 144 Hz threshold while providing better visual quality than Low.

Q: How does the RTX 4090's VRAM capacity affect Outriders at 4K?

A: The GPU's 24 GB VRAM buffer is far beyond what this game requires, even at 3840x2160. The data shows no sign of memory-related stuttering or performance cliffs at 4K Ultra, suggesting that the 24 GB capacity is not a limiting factor. The bottleneck at 4K is raw compute throughput, not memory capacity.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 5800X holding back the RTX 4090 at 1080p?

A: Yes, the evidence strongly points to CPU limitation. At 1920x1080 Low, the system hits 211 FPS, but at 4K Low, it achieves 144.4 FPS. The fact that 1440p High (144.4 FPS) and 4K Low (144.4 FPS) produce identical results suggests that the CPU is capping the frame rate around that region in certain scenarios, while the GPU has headroom at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the percentile ranking of this GPU compared to all others?

A: The RTX 4090 sits in the 91st percentile of all GPUs based on average benchmark scores. Its nearest competitor, the NVIDIA Tesla T4, has a score 0.4% lower, indicating that the 4090 is near the top of the performance hierarchy, though not the absolute fastest in synthetic tests.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 5800X has an average benchmark score of 27,606. Its closest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800, scores 27,535, which is 0.3% lower. The Intel Core i5-12600KF scores 27,827, which is 0.8% higher. This places the 5800X in a tight pack where single-digit percentage differences separate competitors.

Q: Does the game's 2021 release date impact the relevance of these results?

A: The game launched on 2021-03-31, which predates the RTX 4090's release on 2022-09-19. The data represents how this modern hardware handles an older title. The high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p suggest the game is well-optimized for current hardware, but the 4K Ultra result of 59.5 FPS shows that even a flagship GPU can be challenged by maxed-out settings at that resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing for Outriders, especially at higher resolutions. Its Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process from TSMC, packs 16,384 shading units and 176 ROPs. The GPU's boost clock of 2520 MHz and base clock of 2235 MHz provide the raw computational power needed for the game's particle effects and lighting. The 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the key metric for rasterization-heavy titles like this looter shooter.

The 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivers 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. In Outriders, this bandwidth is sufficient to feed the GPU at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 59.5. The memory clock of 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective) is not a limiting factor, as the data shows no anomalous dips that would indicate memory bandwidth saturation. The GPU's 512 TMUs handle texture filtering efficiently, allowing the Medium preset at 1440p to reach 160.8 FPS.

The RTX 4090's 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are present but largely unused in this game, which does not heavily rely on ray tracing or DLSS. The performance difference between 4K Low (144.4 FPS) and 4K Ultra (59.5 FPS) is 84.9 FPS, a 142.7% increase in workload. This demonstrates that the GPU's shading units and ROPs are the primary drivers of performance at high settings, not its specialized AI or ray tracing hardware. The GPU's 91st percentile ranking versus all GPUs confirms its position as a top-tier part, though the nearestRivals data shows it is only 0.4% ahead of the Tesla T4 and 0.5% ahead of the Tesla P40 in synthetic benchmarks, which do not reflect gaming performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 211 FPS, which is the peak for any resolution and settings combination in this dataset. Medium settings drop to 186.4 FPS, High to 170.7 FPS, and Ultra to 149.6 FPS. The 61.4 FPS difference between Low and Ultra highlights the CPU's role as the limiter, as the GPU is capable of far more work than the CPU can request at these settings.

At 2560x1440, performance remains high but begins to show GPU influence. Low settings yield 181.2 FPS, Medium 160.8 FPS, High 144.4 FPS, and Ultra 119.2 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 62 FPS, similar to 1080p, but the absolute numbers are lower. Notably, the High preset at 1440p (144.4 FPS) matches the Low preset at 4K (144.4 FPS), suggesting a performance plateau where neither component is fully saturated.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. Low settings produce 144.4 FPS, Medium 111.8 FPS, High 87.2 FPS, and Ultra 59.5 FPS. The 84.9 FPS difference between Low and Ultra is the largest of any resolution, indicating that the GPU's compute resources are being fully utilized at the highest settings. The Ultra result of 59.5 FPS is the only measured average below 60 FPS, making it the only configuration in this dataset that dips below a standard 60 Hz refresh rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 192nd out of 1,693 tested combos in Outriders. This places it in the top 11.3% of all configurations, a strong showing for a CPU that is not the newest generation. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking against all CPUs and the GPU's 91st percentile ranking combine to create a system that outperforms the vast majority of rival setups.

The CPU's nearest rivals highlight its position. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800 scores 0.3% lower, the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE scores 0.4% higher, the Intel Core i7-13700H scores 0.4% higher, and the Intel Core i5-12600KF scores 0.8% higher. These are all sub-1% differences, meaning the 5800X is essentially tied with its immediate competitors in synthetic benchmarks. However, in Outriders, the combination's ranking shows that the GPU is doing the heavy lifting to secure a top-200 position.

The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic tests are professional or older parts: the Tesla T4 (0.4% lower), Tesla P40 (0.5% higher), Radeon Pro Vega 56 (0.9% lower), and Quadro P6000 (1.3% lower). These are not gaming-focused cards, but the data shows that the RTX 4090's synthetic scores are within a tight band of these workstation GPUs. In actual game performance, the 4090's advantage is far more pronounced, as evidenced by the measured FPS figures. The combo's rank of 192 out of 1,693 indicates that there are 191 tested configurations that outperform it, but these are likely to feature newer, more expensive CPUs. The 5800X's Zen 3 architecture, while older, still delivers enough single-threaded performance to avoid bottlenecking the 4090 at most settings, making this a highly effective pairing for Outriders.