Outriders

The Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti combination delivers a versatile performance profile in Outriders, characterized by a significant swing between CPU-bound scenarios at lower resolutions and GPU-bound scenarios at 4K. The measured data reveals a system that excels at high-refresh-rate 1080p and 1440p gaming, while still maintaining playable frame rates at 4K with adjusted settings. This analysis breaks down the scaling behavior, component roles, and exact performance metrics for this specific pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but predictable for this hardware pairing. At High settings, average FPS falls from 161 at 1920x1080 to 102.3 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 36.5%. Moving to 3840x2160, the average drops further to 49.8 FPS, representing a 69.1% decrease from the 1080p baseline. This scaling pattern indicates that the RTX 3070 Ti is the primary limiting factor as resolution increases, a common trait in looter shooters with heavy particle effects and environmental detail.

The Low settings curve tells a different story. At 1920x1080, the system produces 212.7 FPS, but this only drops to 183.1 at 2560x1440 — a modest 13.9% decline. This relatively small gap suggests that at lower graphical loads, the CPU begins to assert its influence. The Intel Core i5-12400, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, appears to be the bottleneck in this scenario, as the GPU has ample headroom to render frames faster than the processor can feed it. At 4K Low, the average settles at 96.8 FPS, which is still a 54.5% reduction from 1080p Low, showing that even with minimal settings, the GPU workload at 4K remains substantial.

Ultra settings amplify the GPU dependency. The 4K Ultra result of 40.2 FPS is exactly 65.4% lower than the 1080p Ultra result of 116.2 FPS. This steep drop-off, nearly identical to the High settings percentage decline, confirms that the RTX 3070 Ti's raw compute capacity is the ceiling at 4K. The data suggests that for competitive play or high-refresh-rate monitors, 1080p or 1440p with Medium to High settings is the sweet spot, while 4K requires settings compromises to maintain fluid gameplay.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture with 6144 shading units and 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. Its memory bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s provides substantial data throughput, which is critical for Outriders' texture streaming and effects-heavy combat sequences. The GPU's boost clock of 1770 MHz and base clock of 1575 MHz deliver a combined FP32 performance of 21.75 TFLOPS, positioning it as a high-end part for 1440p gaming.

In the measured results, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the 40.2 FPS average is a clear indication that the card is saturated by the game's demands. The texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s are substantial, yet Outriders' complex shaders and volumetric effects at 4K overwhelm these capabilities. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient at 1080p and 1440p, as evidenced by the strong performance, but at 4K Ultra, memory capacity may contribute to the frame rate ceiling.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its standing. With an average benchmark score of 30849, it sits at the 74th percentile of all GPUs. Notably, its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6700, scores 31112, a delta of -0.8%, meaning the RTX 3070 Ti is slightly behind. Similarly, the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 scores 31142, a -0.9% delta. These closely matched scores indicate that the RTX 3070 Ti is competitively positioned, though not at the top of its class. In Outriders specifically, the GPU demonstrates its strength at 1440p, where it maintains over 100 FPS at High settings, but requires careful settings management at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Alder Lake-S architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. Its base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz provide strong single-thread performance, a critical factor for game logic and physics calculations in Outriders. The 18 MB shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which benefits frame pacing in this fast-paced looter shooter.

The CPU's benchmark data shows a balanced profile. In Cinebench R23, it scores 15935 in multi-core and 2249 in single-core tests. The 3DMark results reveal scalability: 910 in single-thread, 1692 in 2-threads, 3012 in 4-threads, and 5873 in 16-threads, with max-threads reaching 5890. This scaling suggests that the processor efficiently utilizes its 12 threads, though the marginal gain from 8-threads (4745) to 16-threads (5873) indicates diminishing returns beyond 8 threads for this workload.

In Outriders, the CPU's influence is most visible at 1080p Low, where the 212.7 FPS average likely approaches the processor's frame delivery limit. The PassMark single-thread score of 3456 and multithread score of 18747 confirm strong per-core performance. The CPU's percentile ranking of 77 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19850, places it just 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-9700 (19831) and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i5-11600K (19771). However, it trails the Intel Core i7-8700 by -0.2% (19894). These narrow margins indicate that the i5-12400 is well-matched with mid-range and older high-end processors, making it a solid partner for the RTX 3070 Ti in this game.

How This Combo Ranks

Among all tested CPU-GPU combinations in Outriders, this pairing ranks 617th out of 1693 combos, placing it in the top 36.4% of configurations. This rank reflects a system that is capable but not elite, with the performance ceiling set by the GPU at higher resolutions and the CPU at lower resolutions. The rank suggests that many combinations with more powerful CPUs or GPUs will outperform it, but it also indicates that this setup is well above the median for gaming performance.

The ranking is consistent with the component-level data. The CPU's 77th percentile and GPU's 74th percentile both point to above-average parts, but neither is a flagship component. The combination leverages the i5-12400's strong single-thread performance to avoid CPU bottlenecks in most scenarios, while the RTX 3070 Ti provides enough compute power for solid 1440p gameplay. The 617th rank out of 1693 is a reasonable outcome for a mid-high-end pairing, where the primary limitation is the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 4K performance, rather than any fundamental CPU inadequacy.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 212.7 FPS, Medium yields 188.6 FPS, and High achieves 161 FPS. Ultra settings drop to 116.2 FPS, which is still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The spread from Low to Ultra is 96.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution, and the CPU becomes the limiting factor at lower settings.

At 2560x1440, the results remain strong. Low settings average 183.1 FPS, Medium drops to 132.8 FPS, and High maintains 102.3 FPS. Ultra settings fall to 70.7 FPS, which is playable but begins to show the GPU's strain. The drop from Low to Ultra is 112.4 FPS, a larger absolute difference than at 1080p, reflecting the increased GPU workload at higher pixel counts.

At 3840x2160, the GPU dominates the performance envelope. Low settings average 96.8 FPS, Medium drops to 73 FPS, and High falls to 49.8 FPS. Ultra settings produce 40.2 FPS, which is below ideal smoothness for a fast-paced game. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K is 56.6 FPS, showing that even at the highest resolution, settings adjustments can yield meaningful frame rate improvements, but the overall ceiling is limited by the RTX 3070 Ti's compute capabilities.

The data shows that this combination is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can maintain high refresh rates at most settings. At 4K, users must select Medium or Low settings to achieve acceptable performance, with High and Ultra reserved for less demanding scenes or where 40-50 FPS is acceptable.