Outriders

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a wide performance envelope in Outriders, scaling from high-refresh-rate dominance at 1080p to a playable-but-tight 4K experience. The measured data shows a system that is clearly GPU-limited at higher resolutions, while the CPU’s substantial multi-threaded headroom ensures frame pacing does not become a bottleneck even at lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression across resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces an average of 185 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops to 117 FPS, a reduction of approximately 37% from the 1080p figure. At 4K High, the average falls further to 61 FPS, which is nearly half of the 1440p result and about one-third of the 1080p result. This steep decline with each resolution step indicates that the GeForce RTX 4090’s rendering workload is the primary constraint; the CPU is not holding performance back.

The scaling pattern becomes even more telling when examining the Low preset. At 1080p Low, the system averages 241 FPS, which is the highest recorded frame rate in the entire dataset. At 1440p Low, it drops to 206 FPS, and at 4K Low, it hits 112 FPS. The fact that 4K Low (112 FPS) still outperforms 1080p Ultra (134 FPS is higher, but the gap is small) suggests that the GPU’s raw throughput is the limiting factor, not the CPU’s ability to feed frames. The CPU’s 16 cores and 32 threads, with a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, are more than sufficient to handle the game’s logic at these frame rates.

A notable anomaly appears in the Medium preset’s min/max data. At 4K Medium, the average is 82 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS and a maximum of 94 FPS. At 1080p Medium, the average is 214 FPS with a minimum of 182 FPS and a maximum of 246 FPS. The 4K Medium frame time variance suggests that while the average is healthy, there are occasional dips that could be perceptible on a 60 Hz display, especially compared to the tighter 1440p Medium range (133–179 FPS). Overall, the data indicates that the RTX 4090 is the dominant factor in performance scaling, with the CPU providing ample headroom across all tested configurations.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo in Outriders, and at what settings?*

A: The highest average frame rate is 241 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Does the system maintain a 60 FPS average at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, at 4K with High settings, the average FPS is 61. At 4K Medium, the average rises to 82 FPS, and at 4K Low, it reaches 112 FPS. However, at 4K Ultra, the average drops to 44 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the CPU’s benchmark score compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 8945HX has an average benchmark score of 76,212. This places it 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76,155) and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75,779). It trails the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (76,492) by 0.4% and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX (76,513) by 0.4%.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 206 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 85 FPS. This represents a significant performance cost of 121 FPS when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings.

Q: Is there a measurable frame rate advantage to using the Medium preset over High at 4K?

A: Yes, the data shows a clear advantage. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 82 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS, whereas the High preset averages 61 FPS. This 21 FPS average difference suggests Medium offers a more comfortable margin above 60 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested system combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 516th out of 2,913 tested combinations, placing it in the top percentile of systems for Outriders performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the central component driving these results. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s, which is critical for handling the high-resolution textures and effects in Outriders at 4K. The GPU’s base clock of 2235 MHz and boost clock of 2520 MHz allow it to sustain high throughput, as evidenced by the 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

The benchmark results for the GPU show a percentile ranking of 88, indicating it outperforms most other GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score is 60,347, which is nearly identical to the Intel Arc Pro A60 (60,326, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (60,140, 0.3% delta). It slightly trails the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (61,896, -2.5% delta) but leads the AMD Radeon PRO V710 (58,657, 2.9% delta). These comparisons are synthetic, but they align with the gaming data showing the RTX 4090’s dominance.

The GPU’s role becomes apparent in the scaling from 1440p to 4K. At 1440p High, the average is 117 FPS; at 4K High, it is 61 FPS. This 48% performance drop is a direct consequence of the increased pixel count, which quadruples the workload from 3.7 million pixels to 8.3 million. The VRAM capacity and bandwidth ensure that the GPU does not run out of memory or stall on texture fetches, allowing the frame rate to be limited purely by compute and rasterization throughput.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested system combinations for Outriders, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 secures a rank of 516 out of 2,913. This places the configuration in the 82nd percentile of all tested combos, indicating that it delivers performance superior to the vast majority of systems tested for this game.

The rank is a holistic measure that accounts for all measured settings and resolutions. The combo’s strong showing is driven by its ability to maintain high frame rates even at 4K, where it averages over 60 FPS on High and Medium presets. The fact that it reaches 241 FPS at 1080p Low demonstrates that the CPU-GPU pairing has no bottleneck in low-load scenarios, which is a key factor in achieving a high overall rank. The CPU’s percentile rank of 95 against all CPUs supports this, as it is a top-tier processor, while the GPU’s rank of 88 also contributes positively to the system’s overall standing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Dragon Range. It operates at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and can boost up to 5.40 GHz. This high boost clock, combined with a large 64 MB L3 cache, provides the single-thread performance necessary for game logic, while the 16 cores ensure that background tasks or multi-threaded workloads do not interfere with frame delivery.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42,713 and a single-core score of 6,030. Its Passmark multithread score is 51,405, and its single-thread score is 3,907. These figures place the CPU in the 95th percentile when compared to all CPUs. Relative to its nearest rivals, it is essentially tied with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (0.1% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (0.6% delta), while being slightly slower than the EPYC Embedded 8224P and Threadripper PRO 9945WX (both -0.4% delta).

In Outriders, the CPU’s role is to ensure that the GPU is never starved of data. The data supports this, as the frame rate scales almost entirely with resolution and settings, not with CPU workload. For example, at 1080p Low, the CPU can push 241 FPS, which is a high enough frame rate to stress most processors. The fact that the average remains stable at 206 FPS at 1440p Low and 112 FPS at 4K Low suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor in any of these scenarios. The CPU’s 32 threads are likely underutilized in this title, but the high boost clock ensures that the main game thread runs efficiently.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 241 FPS (Low), 214 FPS (Medium), 185 FPS (High), and 134 FPS (Ultra). The Medium preset at 1080p shows a minimum of 182 FPS and a maximum of 246 FPS, indicating a tight frame time distribution.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 206 FPS (Low), 156 FPS (Medium), 117 FPS (High), and 85 FPS (Ultra). The Medium preset at 1440p shows a minimum of 133 FPS and a maximum of 179 FPS. This represents a drop of 35 FPS from 1080p Medium, which is consistent with the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 112 FPS (Low), 82 FPS (Medium), 61 FPS (High), and 44 FPS (Ultra). The Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum of 69 FPS and a maximum of 94 FPS. The step from 1440p Medium to 4K Medium results in a 74 FPS average drop, which is the largest absolute decrease in the dataset, highlighting the GPU’s workload at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured averages, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 4K, Medium delivers an average of 82 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the minimum of 69 FPS ensures that severe dips are rare. This makes Medium the recommended preset for 4K displays.

For 1440p, the High preset is a strong choice, providing an average of 117 FPS. This offers a significant improvement over Medium’s 156 FPS is higher, but High’s visual fidelity is likely worth the 39 FPS average reduction for most users. The 1440p High average of 117 FPS is still well above the refresh rate of most 144 Hz monitors, ensuring a fluid experience.

At 1080p, the Ultra preset is viable, with an average of 134 FPS. This allows users to maximize visual quality while still maintaining frame rates above 120 FPS. The Low preset at 1080p is only recommended for competitive play or for users with displays that support refresh rates above 240 Hz, as it reaches 241 FPS. The data suggests that the Medium preset is the most consistent across all resolutions, but High at 1440p and Ultra at 1080p provide the best quality-to-performance trade-offs for users with capable displays.