Outriders

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 produces a stratified performance curve in Outriders, where the GPU’s raw throughput dominates at lower resolutions and the engine’s rendering load scales predictably as pixel count rises. The measured data shows a clear hierarchy across the four presets, with each step from Low to Ultra imposing a meaningful cost on frame rate. This combination, ranking 1612 out of 3710 tested combos, sits in the upper-middle tier of all systems evaluated for this title, indicating that while the RTX 4080 is a high-end part, the older six-core Comet Lake CPU tempers the overall result.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a substantial frame rate drop that is consistent with a GPU-bound workload, but the rate of decline varies by preset. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 157 at 1080p to 134 at 1440p, a reduction of 23 FPS, and then to 108 at 4K, another 26 FPS drop. This represents a total decrease of 49 FPS from 1080p to 4K, which is a 31.2% reduction. The High preset shows a similar pattern: 125 FPS at 1080p, 108 at 1440p, and 78 at 4K. Here, the drop from 1080p to 4K is 47 FPS, or 37.6%. Medium settings follow the trend, with averages of 139, 120, and 96 across the three resolutions, yielding a 43 FPS total loss (30.9%). The Ultra preset is the most punishing, starting at 111 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 95 at 1440p, and crashing to 56 at 4K—a 55 FPS decline, or 49.5% of the 1080p value.

The scaling behavior indicates that at 1080p, the CPU still has headroom, as the differences between Low and Ultra are compressed (157 to 111 FPS). However, as resolution increases to 4K, the gap between presets widens, particularly at the top end: the difference between Medium and Ultra at 4K is 40 FPS (96 vs. 56), while at 1080p it is only 28 FPS (139 vs. 111). This suggests that the RTX 4080’s compute units become the limiting factor at higher resolutions, especially under the heavier shader and post-processing loads of the Ultra preset. The data shows that 4K Ultra is the only configuration where the average FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating a hard ceiling for this combo when all visual features are enabled.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 brings substantial resources to Outriders, with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is more than sufficient for the game’s texture and geometry data, as evidenced by the fact that even at 4K, the Low preset achieves 108 FPS, which is nearly double the Ultra result at the same resolution. The GPU’s boost clock of 2505 MHz and base of 2205 MHz represent the Ada Lovelace architecture’s high-frequency design, and the 9728 shading units provide ample parallel throughput. In practical terms, the RTX 4080 is rarely the bottleneck at 1080p, where the average FPS across all presets (157, 139, 125, 111) shows a spread of only 46 FPS, suggesting the CPU is holding back the lower-end presets from reaching even higher numbers.

The GPU’s role becomes more pronounced as resolution climbs. At 4K, the FPS spread across presets is 52 FPS (108 Low vs. 56 Ultra), which is a wider range than at 1080p. This indicates that the GPU’s fill rate and shading capacity are being taxed more heavily, particularly with the Ultra preset’s likely use of higher-resolution shadows and ambient occlusion effects. The measured data shows that the RTX 4080 can handle 4K Medium at 96 FPS, which is a playable experience, but the step to Ultra drops performance by 41.7% (from 96 to 56), suggesting that specific Ultra features have a disproportionate cost. The GPU’s 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are present in the hardware, but Outriders’ implementation does not appear to leverage them heavily in these standard presets, as the scaling is more linear with resolution than with specific ray-traced effects.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain a smooth experience?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with High settings achieves an average of 108 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS target. For higher refresh rates, 1920x1080 with High settings delivers 125 FPS, while Medium at the same resolution hits 139 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: The loss varies by preset. At Low settings, the drop is 49 FPS (157 to 108). High settings lose 47 FPS (125 to 78). Medium loses 43 FPS (139 to 96). Ultra loses the most, 55 FPS (111 to 56), representing a 49.5% reduction.

Q: Can this system handle 4K Ultra in Outriders?

A: No, the measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 56, which is below the 60 FPS standard. The system is more capable at 4K Medium, which averages 96 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The data implies the CPU is more of a constraint at 1080p. The FPS range across presets is only 46 FPS (157 Low to 111 Ultra), which is narrower than at higher resolutions, suggesting the GPU is waiting on the CPU to issue draw calls.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like for this combo?

A: The only preset with min/max data is Medium. At 1080p Medium, the range is 118 to 160 FPS, with an average of 139. At 1440p Medium, it’s 102 to 137, averaging 120. At 4K Medium, it’s 82 to 111, averaging 96. This shows a consistent spread of roughly 30-40 FPS between the 1% lows and highs.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080’s average benchmark score is 54247, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209). It is 1.1% below the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54828) and 2.6% below the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55698).

Settings Recommendations

For this hardware combination, the measured data points to 2560x1440 High as the optimal balance of visual fidelity and frame rate, yielding 108 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and provides a 30 FPS improvement over Ultra at the same resolution, which drops to 95 FPS. If the user prioritizes frame rate over absolute visual quality, 1920x1080 Medium offers 139 FPS, which is the best combination of speed and still-reasonable settings (the jump to Low only gains 18 FPS, reaching 157). The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as it imposes a severe penalty: at 4K it drops to 56 FPS, and even at 1080p it costs 14 FPS compared to High (111 vs. 125). The data suggests that High is the "sweet spot" for this combo, as it delivers playable frame rates at all three resolutions (125, 108, 78) without the dramatic cost of Ultra. Medium is a viable fallback for those wanting a margin for frame time spikes, particularly at 4K where it holds 96 FPS versus 78 on High.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global ranking of tested hardware combinations for Outriders, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 occupies position 1612 out of 3710 distinct configurations. This places it in the 56.5th percentile of all combos, meaning it outperforms roughly 56.5% of the tested systems. The ranking reflects the imbalance between the high-end GPU and the mid-range CPU. The RTX 4080 alone sits in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54247, putting it just 0.1% ahead of the RTX 4080 SUPER. However, the i5-10400F is in the 68th percentile of all CPUs, with a much lower average score of 14185. The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks—the Intel Xeon 6756E (14163, 0.2% slower) and the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115, 0.5% slower)—show that this processor is competitive within its own class, but it lacks the thread count and higher IPC of newer parts. The combo’s rank in Outriders is thus a direct consequence of the CPU’s inability to fully feed the GPU in lower-resolution scenarios, while at higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the limiter, preventing the combo from climbing higher in the rankings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured frames per second data for this combo is as follows. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 157 FPS, Medium averages 139 FPS with a minimum of 118 and maximum of 160, High averages 125 FPS, and Ultra averages 111 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 134 FPS on Low, 120 FPS on Medium (min 102, max 137), 108 FPS on High, and 95 FPS on Ultra. At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly: Low averages 108 FPS, Medium averages 96 FPS (min 82, max 111), High averages 78 FPS, and Ultra averages 56 FPS. The data shows a consistent pattern where Medium is the only setting with recorded minimum and maximum values, providing insight into frame pacing. Across all resolutions, the delta between Medium’s minimum and maximum is between 29 and 39 FPS, indicating that the engine maintains a relatively stable frame rate without massive spikes. The step from Medium to High costs roughly 10-14% performance at each resolution (139 to 125 at 1080p, 120 to 108 at 1440p, 96 to 78 at 4K), while the step from High to Ultra is more variable, costing 11% at 1080p (125 to 111), 12% at 1440p (108 to 95), and a massive 28% at 4K (78 to 56). This non-linear scaling at 4K Ultra suggests a specific rendering feature that exhausts the GPU’s memory bandwidth or shader capacity.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F provides six physical cores and twelve threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. This Comet Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process, has a 12 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus delivering 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth. In Outriders, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates are capped despite the GPU’s headroom. The maximum average FPS recorded is 157 at Low settings, which is a high number but still shows that the CPU cannot push beyond that threshold. The synthetic benchmarks for this CPU show a single-thread score of 688 in 3dmark and 1451 in Cinebench R23, which are moderate figures for a 10th-generation part. The multi-threaded scores (4748 in 3dmark max threads, 10283 in Cinebench R23) indicate that the six cores are adequate for the game’s AI and physics loads, but they are not exceptional.

The data shows that at 1440p, the FPS values (134 Low, 120 Medium, 108 High, 95 Ultra) are all lower than the corresponding 1080p values, but the CPU is still able to maintain a minimum average of 95 FPS on Ultra. This suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the GPU’s workload becomes more demanding. However, the combination’s overall rank of 1612 out of 3710 indicates that the CPU holds back the system in scenarios where the RTX 4080 could otherwise deliver higher frame rates. The CPU’s nearest rivals in the synthetic database—the Intel Xeon 6756E (0.2% faster) and the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.5% slower)—show that it is not an outlier in performance, but these are server-class parts with different power envelopes. In gaming, the i5-10400F’s 12 threads are sufficient for Outriders, but the lack of higher core counts or newer IPC limits its ability to feed the RTX 4080 at 1080p Low, where the FPS plateau of 157 suggests a hard CPU-imposed ceiling.