Outriders

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for Outriders with this Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti combination reveal a clear hierarchy across the four available presets. At 1080p, the Ultra preset delivers 150.6 FPS, which is entirely playable on high-refresh displays, while High reaches 170.3 FPS, Medium hits 190.8 FPS, and Low tops out at 215.6 FPS. The gap between Ultra and Low at 1080p is 65 FPS, a substantial range that gives the user significant headroom to prioritize visual fidelity or raw speed.

Moving to 1440p, the same pattern persists but with tighter margins. Ultra produces 101 FPS, High jumps to 138.9 FPS, Medium reaches 160.6 FPS, and Low achieves 183.4 FPS. At this resolution, the High preset stands out as the optimal balance, delivering 138.9 FPS while retaining enough visual detail for a looter shooter where particle effects and environmental clutter matter. The step from High to Medium adds 21.7 FPS, but the visual trade-off in texture quality and shadow fidelity is noticeable in a game built around dense combat arenas.

At 4K, the differences become more pronounced and the recommendation shifts. Ultra drops to 52.5 FPS, which is just below the threshold for smooth gameplay in a fast-paced shooter. High returns 73.8 FPS, Medium provides 93.4 FPS, and Low reaches 132.5 FPS. The data strongly suggests that 4K users should avoid Ultra entirely, as the 21.3 FPS penalty from High to Ultra is not justified by the marginal visual gains on most panels. Instead, High at 4K offers a playable 73.8 FPS, while Medium at 93.4 FPS is the better choice for those who prioritize frame consistency over maximum detail.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the target resolution. For 1080p and 1440p, High is the recommended preset because it sits in the sweet spot of visual quality and performance, with 170.3 FPS and 138.9 FPS respectively. For 4K, Medium is the practical recommendation at 93.4 FPS, as it keeps the frame rate well above the 60 FPS threshold while High at 73.8 FPS remains a viable alternative for those with slower-moving content. Ultra is only advisable at 1080p, where 150.6 FPS still leaves ample performance overhead.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain why the frame rates scale so predictably across settings. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2310 MHz and a boost clock of 2610 MHz, which allows it to sustain high throughput during extended play sessions. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, a figure that proves sufficient for Outriders at all tested resolutions, as evidenced by the fact that even Ultra settings at 4K produce 52.5 FPS rather than collapsing due to memory pressure.

The GPU's 7680 shading units and 240 texture mapping units provide the raw compute necessary to handle the game's lighting and particle effects. With 80 ROPs and a pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s, the card can drive high-resolution rendering without bottlenecking at the rasterization stage. The 40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the key metric for Outriders, which relies heavily on traditional shader work rather than ray tracing or tensor core acceleration. The 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are present but largely idle in this title, as Outriders does not mandate ray-traced effects.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its position in the hierarchy. It posts a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5024 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 205028, with a Passmark G3D score of 31624. These figures place it at the 85th percentile among all GPUs, confirming that it is a high-end part by any measure. The nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile at -0.6% delta, the Intel Arc A730M at -1.5% delta, and the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT at -1.6% delta, showing that the RTX 4070 Ti sits in a competitive band where small percentage differences separate adjacent tiers.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies in this system. At High settings, the RTX 4070 Ti produces 170.3 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 138.9 FPS at 1440p and then to 73.8 FPS at 4K. That represents a 31.4 FPS decline from 1080p to 1440p and a further 65.1 FPS decline from 1440p to 4K. The steep drop at 4K indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K while the CPU workload remains relatively constant.

The scaling pattern across all presets reinforces this conclusion. At Ultra settings, the drop from 1080p (150.6 FPS) to 1440p (101 FPS) is 49.6 FPS, and then to 4K (52.5 FPS) is another 48.5 FPS. The nearly linear decline with each resolution step suggests that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are being fully utilized at 4K, leaving no headroom for additional visual effects. Conversely, at Low settings, the 1080p result of 215.6 FPS falls to 183.4 FPS at 1440p and then to 132.5 FPS at 4K, with the smaller absolute drops indicating that the CPU begins to play a more significant role at lower graphical loads.

The data implies that the Intel Core i5-12400 is not the limiting factor until frame rates exceed roughly 200 FPS. At 1080p Low, the 215.6 FPS result is likely approaching the CPU's maximum throughput for this game, as the processor's 6 cores and 12 threads with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz can only generate so many draw calls per second. However, for the vast majority of gaming scenarios, particularly at 1440p and 4K, the RTX 4070 Ti is clearly the component that determines performance. Users targeting 4K should expect to make preset compromises, while those at 1080p can enjoy maximum settings without concern.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 266th out of 1693 tested combos in Outriders, placing it in the top 15.7% of all configurations in the database. That ranking reflects the strength of the GPU paired with a capable mid-range processor, and the measured frame rates confirm that this combo delivers a high-refresh experience at 1080p and 1440p while remaining playable at 4K.

The rank is particularly notable because the CPU sits at the 77th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 19850. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-9700 at a 0.1% delta, the Intel Core i7-8700 at a -0.2% delta, and the Intel Core i5-11600K at a 0.4% delta. These deltas are all within a fraction of a percent, meaning the i5-12400 is effectively performance-equivalent to several previous-generation mid-range and high-end parts. The GPU, meanwhile, ranks at the 85th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 44900, and its nearest rivals are all within 1.6% delta, indicating tight competition at this performance tier.

The combination of a 77th-percentile CPU with an 85th-percentile GPU produces a system that is well-balanced for Outriders, where the GPU does the heavy lifting but the CPU must keep up with the game's physics and AI calculations. The 266th rank out of 1693 combos suggests that there are 265 configurations that perform better, but these are likely to feature higher-tier CPUs such as the Core i7 or i9 series or GPUs in the RTX 4080 class or above. For the price point and component selection, this combo occupies a strong position in the overall distribution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 brings 6 cores and 12 threads to the table, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This configuration is sufficient for Outriders, which is not a heavily threaded title but still benefits from the extra threads for background tasks and streaming. The processor's 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per core L2 cache provide adequate data locality for the game's asset streaming, and the dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 ensures that the CPU can feed the GPU without creating a memory bandwidth bottleneck.

In terms of synthetic benchmarks, the i5-12400 posts a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15935 and a single-core score of 2249, with a Passmark multithread score of 18747 and a Passmark single-thread score of 3456. These results place it at the 77th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19850. The nearest rival comparisons show a 0.1% advantage over the Core i7-9700 and a 0.4% advantage over the Core i5-11600K, while the Core i7-8700 holds a 0.2% edge. This indicates that the i5-12400 is essentially interchangeable with these previous-generation parts for gaming workloads.

The CPU's 3DMark results provide further insight into its gaming potential. It scores 910 in single-thread, 1692 in 2-thread, 3012 in 4-thread, 4745 in 8-thread, and 5890 in max-thread tests. The scaling from 4-thread to 8-thread shows a 57.5% improvement, while the jump from 8-thread to max-thread is only 24.1%, indicating diminishing returns beyond 8 threads. Outriders likely utilizes between 4 and 8 threads effectively, which is well within this processor's sweet spot. The data shows that the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU in this game until frame rates approach 200 FPS, and even then, the impact is modest rather than severe.