Outriders

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 pairing delivers a commanding performance in Outriders, placing this combination at rank 436 out of 3710 tested configurations. The data reveals a system that scales predictably across resolutions, with the GPU becoming the primary bottleneck only at the highest settings and pixel counts.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate trajectory from 1080p to 4K shows a clear and consistent pattern of GPU-bound scaling, with the most dramatic drop occurring when pushing the Ultra preset to its limits. At High settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 yields a 24 FPS reduction (from 171 to 147 FPS), while moving from 1440p to 3840x2160 costs another 59 FPS, landing at 88 FPS. This represents a 48.5% performance loss from 1080p High to 4K High, a substantial but expected falloff for a demanding looter shooter at maximum fidelity.

The Medium preset tells a similar story with slightly different magnitudes. At 1080p Medium, the system produces 190 FPS, which drops to 163 FPS at 1440p (a 14.2% decrease) and further to 117 FPS at 4K (a 28.2% decrease from the 1440p figure). The 4K Medium result of 117 FPS with a minimum of 100 FPS and maximum of 135 FPS shows a playable range, though the variance of 35 FPS suggests occasional dips that could be noticeable in fast combat scenarios.

Low settings exhibit the most interesting scaling behavior, as the 1080p result of 214 FPS decreases to 183 FPS at 1440p and then to 148 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low figure is still remarkably high, indicating that even at this resolution, the RTX 5090 has considerable headroom when graphical complexity is reduced. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 30.8%, which is actually smaller than the percentage drop seen at High settings (48.5%), suggesting that the CPU begins to play a more significant role at lower graphical loads.

Ultra settings produce the most precipitous scaling curve. The 152 FPS at 1080p drops to 122 FPS at 1440p and then plummets to 64 FPS at 4K. This final step represents a 47.5% reduction from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra, the largest single-resolution penalty in the entire dataset. The 4K Ultra result of 64 FPS is the only sub-60-average measurement in the entire set, and it reveals that this configuration, despite its top-tier components, cannot maintain high refresh rates at maximum settings in 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 brings formidable specifications to this title, including 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is more than sufficient for Outriders at any resolution, as the game's texture streaming and asset loading demands are unlikely to stress a 32 GB frame buffer even at 4K Ultra. The GPU's 21760 shading units and 680 texture mapping units provide ample compute for the game's particle effects and environmental destruction.

Clock speeds reach 2407 MHz boost with a base of 2017 MHz, and the data indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the 64 FPS average suggests the Blackwell 2.0 architecture is being pushed to its limits. The 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are impressive on paper, but Outriders' engine appears to require substantial pixel shading work at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, explaining the significant frame rate penalty.

The RTX 5090's 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are present but not specifically taxed in this non-ray-traced title, meaning the GPU's raw rasterization throughput is what determines performance here. The 176 ROPs deliver a pixel rate that proves adequate for 1440p Ultra (122 FPS) but falls short of maintaining 60+ FPS at 4K Ultra. Interestingly, the 4K Medium result of 117 FPS shows that reducing settings from Ultra to Medium recovers nearly double the frame rate, indicating that specific Ultra-level effects are disproportionately expensive at high resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves rank 436 out of 3710 tested combos in Outriders, placing it in the top 11.8% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the strength of both components, though the position is not at the absolute top, suggesting that other CPU-GPU pairings can extract slightly more performance in this title.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 87 against all processors and the GPU's percentile of 92 against all graphics cards indicate that both components are high-end but not the absolute pinnacle of their respective markets. The gap between these percentiles and the combo's overall rank suggests that Outriders benefits from balanced systems, and this pairing achieves that balance effectively. The 436th position out of 3710 represents a strong showing, with only a small fraction of exotic or newer configurations outperforming it.

Within the measured data, the combo demonstrates its capability by exceeding 144 FPS at 1440p High (147 FPS) and approaching 200 FPS at 1080p Medium (190 FPS), numbers that would satisfy most competitive players. The 4K High result of 88 FPS is also respectable, though players targeting 120+ FPS at 4K would need to adjust settings downward.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers 214 FPS on Low, 190 FPS on Medium (with minimum 162 and maximum 219), 171 FPS on High, and 152 FPS on Ultra. This creates a spread of 62 FPS between the lowest and highest settings, demonstrating that even at 1080p, graphical options have a measurable impact. The Medium preset's minimum of 162 FPS ensures no dips below the typical 144 Hz refresh rate, while Ultra's 152 FPS average still exceeds that threshold.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results show 183 FPS on Low, 163 FPS on Medium (minimum 139, maximum 188), 147 FPS on High, and 122 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at 1440p maintains a minimum above 139 FPS, which is just below the 144 Hz mark, indicating that frame time variance could occasionally cause perceptible stutter on high refresh rate displays. The Ultra preset's 122 FPS average is smooth, but the lack of minimum data makes it difficult to assess worst-case performance.

At 3840x2160, the dataset reveals 148 FPS on Low, 117 FPS on Medium (minimum 100, maximum 135), 88 FPS on High, and 64 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low result of 148 FPS is notably high and indicates that even at this resolution, the RTX 5090 can push well beyond 60 FPS when settings are reduced. The 4K Ultra figure of 64 FPS is the only result that falls below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and it sits dangerously close to that line, with any demanding scene potentially causing drops below 60.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X contributes 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz boosting to 4.80 GHz. This 5000-series processor features 64 MB of L3 cache and operates on the AM4 socket with PCIe Gen 4 support. In Outriders, a game that typically scales well with multiple threads, this CPU provides ample processing power to feed the RTX 5090.

Benchmark data shows the 5900X achieving a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16262 and a single-core score of 1527, along with a Geekbench multicore score of 14118 and single-core score of 2083. These synthetic results indicate strong multi-threaded performance that suits Outriders' engine, which handles numerous AI entities and physics calculations simultaneously. The 8,300 million transistors on a 7 nm process with a 105 W TDP demonstrate efficient power delivery for sustained gaming workloads.

The CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions and settings, where the frame rate ceiling is higher. The 1080p Low result of 214 FPS suggests that the CPU can drive frame rates well above 200 FPS in less demanding scenarios, but the 4K Ultra result of 64 FPS is clearly GPU-limited. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 9075 and max-thread score of 10075 indicate that the CPU's multi-threading capabilities are well-suited for the game's parallel workload distribution.

The nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H with an average score 0.3% higher and the Intel Core i7-14650HX at 0.5% lower, placing the 5900X in a tightly contested performance band. This proximity to rival CPUs suggests that Outriders performance is not heavily dependent on which of these processors is paired with the RTX 5090, further confirming the GPU as the primary performance driver in most scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium settings as the optimal balance for this combination across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the 190 FPS average with a 162 FPS minimum provides a comfortable margin above 144 Hz displays, while at 1440p Medium, the 163 FPS average and 139 FPS minimum keep gameplay smooth on most high refresh rate monitors. Even at 4K Medium, the 117 FPS average with a 100 FPS minimum delivers an experience that exceeds 60 FPS consistently, making this the only preset that maintains playable performance at all three tested resolutions.

High settings offer a moderate improvement in visual quality but at a measurable performance cost. The 1080p High result of 171 FPS is still excellent, and 1440p High at 147 FPS remains above 144 Hz. However, 4K High drops to 88 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced combat where frame consistency matters. Players who prioritize visual fidelity over maximum frame rates may find High acceptable at 1080p or 1440p, but the 4K High result suggests caution.

Ultra settings are only recommended for 1080p and 1440p use, where the 152 FPS and 122 FPS averages respectively provide good experiences. The 4K Ultra result of 64 FPS is the clear outlier, and the data suggests avoiding this configuration unless the player is willing to accept frame rates near the 60 FPS threshold. Low settings, while delivering the highest frame rates (214 FPS at 1080p, 183 FPS at 1440p, 148 FPS at 4K), sacrifice too much visual quality to be recommended for general play, though they could serve competitive players seeking maximum responsiveness.

The optimal approach is to select Medium at any resolution, or High at 1080p or 1440p if visual quality is preferred. For 4K displays, Medium is the definitive choice, as it maintains a 117 FPS average with a 100 FPS minimum, ensuring consistent performance above the 60 FPS threshold while still providing a visually rich experience.