Outriders

The data for Outriders on the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 shows a system defined by its extremes. At 1080p, the combination is capable of excellent frame rates, but the relationship between resolution, settings, and performance reveals a clear hierarchy in where the bottleneck lies.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a classic progression where the GPU becomes the dominant limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1080p High settings, the combo produces 127.1 FPS, which drops to 106.6 FPS at 1440p, and further down to 56.4 FPS at 4K. This represents a 55.6% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K, a substantial drop that points directly at the rendering pipeline struggling with the increased pixel count.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings presets. With Low settings, the system moves from 157.5 FPS at 1080p, to 136.4 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 103.4 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset follows a similar arc: 137.6 FPS at 1080p, 117.5 FPS at 1440p, and 76.1 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the steepest relative decline, falling from 108.3 FPS at 1080p to 78.3 FPS at 1440p, and then collapsing to 41.7 FPS at 4K.

What is telling here is the difference between the 1080p to 1440p transition versus the 1440p to 4K transition. The drop from 1080p to 1440p on High is roughly 16.1%, but the drop from 1440p to 4K is nearly 47.1%. This accelerating decline indicates that the 1440p to 4K step is where the GPU’s raw throughput becomes the hard ceiling. At 1080p, there is headroom that allows the CPU and memory subsystem to keep the GPU well-fed, but that headroom evaporates at higher resolutions. The data suggests that 1440p is the practical upper bound for this combo if the goal is maintaining high frame rates, while 4K is only viable if the user is willing to accept a significant performance hit.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA102 chip manufactured on Samsung’s 8 nm process. Its 10 GB of GDDR6X memory runs across a 320-bit bus, delivering 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The boost clock sits at 1710 MHz, and the card houses 8704 shading units, 272 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. These specifications explain why the card excels at 1440p but struggles at 4K with demanding presets.

The VRAM capacity appears sufficient for this game at the tested resolutions, as the performance drops align more with compute limits than memory constraints. The 10 GB buffer is likely adequate for Outriders at 4K, but the card’s FP32 throughput of 29.77 TFLOPS is what ultimately governs the frame rates. The 4K Ultra result of 41.7 FPS illustrates this, as the card is simply running out of pixel-pushing capability. The memory bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s is generous, but it cannot compensate for the sheer number of pixels requiring shading at 3840x2160.

The card’s performance percentile versus all GPUs is 80, placing it in the upper tier of tested hardware. Its average benchmark score of 35787 is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon Pro Duo’s 35860, a delta of -0.2%, indicating the RTX 3080 is performing exactly as expected for its class. The boost clock behavior appears stable throughout the tests, as the frame rates do not show signs of thermal throttling or clock instability; the drops are purely resolution-driven.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy for optimal settings. At 4K, the Low preset delivers 103.4 FPS, which is more than double the Ultra preset’s 41.7 FPS. This suggests that for 4K play, Low is the only sensible choice if smooth gameplay is the priority. The Medium preset at 4K yields 76.1 FPS, which is playable but still a significant compromise compared to the Low result. The High preset at 4K sits at 56.4 FPS, a middle ground that may feel inconsistent during intense combat sequences.

At 1440p, the situation improves markedly. The Low preset reaches 136.4 FPS, while Medium hits 117.5 FPS, and High manages 106.6 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p produces 78.3 FPS, which is a noticeable step down but still within a playable range. For users with 1440p monitors, the High preset appears to be the sweet spot, offering 106.6 FPS while presumably retaining most of the visual fidelity that the Ultra preset provides. The gap between High and Ultra at 1440p is 28.3 FPS, suggesting the Ultra preset adds a heavy graphical load for a marginal visual improvement.

At 1080p, the system is clearly CPU-bound in the lower presets. The Low preset hits 157.5 FPS, but the Medium preset drops to 137.6 FPS, and High falls to 127.1 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields 108.3 FPS, which is still a solid result. For competitive play at 1080p, the Low preset offers the highest frame rates, but the Medium or High presets provide a better balance for most users. The data indicates that the Ultra preset at 1080p is not worth the performance cost when the High preset is only 18.8 FPS behind.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo holds a rank of 906 out of 1693 tested combinations in Outriders, placing it in the 46.5th percentile of all combos. This is a surprisingly low ranking for hardware of this caliber, and it suggests that the pairing of the i5-10400F with the RTX 3080 is not maximizing the GPU’s potential. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 14168 puts it in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU sits in the 80th percentile of all GPUs. The mismatch in percentile rankings hints at a potential bottleneck.

The CPU’s nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7552, has an average score of 14115, a delta of only 0.4%, meaning the i5-10400F is essentially tied with that server chip in synthetic benchmarks. The Intel Core i5-8500 sits 1.1% higher, and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C is 0.8% ahead. These are all close results, but the CPU’s position in the 73rd percentile does not align with the GPU’s 80th percentile standing. This rank disparity is reflected in the overall combo rank, which suggests that while the GPU is capable of high frame rates, the CPU may be holding it back in certain scenarios, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU has more influence over the final output.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports dual-channel DDR4 memory, and its benchmark results show a single-thread score of 688 in 3DMark and a multi-thread score of 4748 in the 16-thread test. In Cinebench R23, it scores 10297 multi-core and 1453 single-core.

The CPU’s role in Outriders becomes clear when examining the 1080p results. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 49.2 FPS, which is a substantial gap that indicates the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to produce high frame rates, but the GPU’s performance at lower settings is not the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system hits 157.5 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s maximum frame delivery rate. The fact that the 4K Low result is 103.4 FPS shows that the GPU is still able to push well over 100 FPS when the graphical load is light, but the CPU is not the bottleneck at that resolution.

The CPU’s 12 threads and 4.30 GHz boost clock are sufficient for the game’s demands, but the data suggests that the combo is not achieving its full potential. The rank of 906 out of 1693 indicates that many other combinations outperform this setup in Outriders, likely because the i5-10400F’s older architecture cannot keep pace with the RTX 3080 in all scenarios. The CPU’s 2.90 GHz base clock is low by modern standards, and while the boost clock helps, the 14 nm process and Comet Lake design limit its ability to extract every last frame from the GPU. The result is a system that performs well at 1440p, but leaves performance on the table at 1080p where the CPU should be able to push higher frame rates.