Outriders

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Outriders across the three tested resolutions reveal a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling at higher settings, with the CPU becoming more relevant only at lower settings and resolutions. At 1080p High, the combo delivers an average of 169 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops to 127 FPS, which is a 24.9% reduction. Stepping up to 4K High, the average falls further to 68.2 FPS, a 46.3% decline from the 1440p result and a 59.6% drop from the 1080p figure. This steep scaling curve is characteristic of a system where the graphics card is the primary bottleneck at higher resolution and quality presets.

The Ultra preset amplifies this effect. At 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 144.9 FPS, while 1440p Ultra yields 88.1 FPS (a 39.2% decrease), and 4K Ultra falls to 49.6 FPS (a 43.7% decrease from 1440p). These substantial frame rate penalties with each resolution increase indicate that the rendering workload is scaling heavily with pixel count, which is expected for a demanding looter shooter with modern visual effects.

Conversely, the Low preset shows a different behavior. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 216.2 FPS, and at 1440p Low it reaches 182.8 FPS. Even at 4K Low, the combo holds 119.7 FPS. The much smaller gap between 1080p and 1440p Low (a 15.4% reduction) compared to the High preset suggests that at Low settings, the CPU begins to exert more influence on the upper frame rate ceiling. The 4K Low result of 119.7 FPS, while lower than 1440p Low, is still far above the 4K High figure, showing that the GPU has ample headroom once visual complexity is reduced.

The Medium preset occupies the middle ground, with 192.2 FPS at 1080p, 161.8 FPS at 1440p, and 90.2 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium result is 53.1% lower than the 1440p Medium figure, which is a larger proportional drop than seen between 1080p and 1440p Medium (a 15.8% reduction). This indicates that the transition to 4K imposes a disproportionate load on the GPU across all settings, reinforcing that the RTX 5070's rendering throughput is the limiting factor at that resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 provides the processing foundation for this combination, featuring 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This Alder Lake-S architecture processor has an 18 MB shared L3 cache, which is critical for feeding the GPU in a game like Outriders that relies on consistent physics and AI updates. The CPU's 3DMark scores illustrate its threading capabilities: 2-thread performance is 1692, 4-thread is 3012, 8-thread is 4745, and max-thread performance reaches 5890. The single-thread score of 910 is notably strong, which helps with the primary game thread that many looter shooters depend on.

The benchmark data suggests that at lower resolutions and settings, the CPU becomes more relevant. The 1080p Low result of 216.2 FPS likely approaches the practical ceiling for this processor in Outriders, as frame generation becomes limited by the game's main thread processing speed. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15935 and single-core score of 2249 indicate that the i5-12400 has sufficient computational power to support high frame rates without becoming a severe bottleneck, but it is not a top-tier part when compared to the absolute fastest CPUs available.

The CPU's percentile ranking against all processors is 77, meaning it outperforms 77% of the database's tracked CPUs. Its average benchmark score is 19850, which places it in close competition with the Intel Core i7-9700 (19831, a 0.1% difference) and the Intel Core i7-8700 (19894, a -0.2% difference). This positioning shows that the i5-12400 punches above its core count in synthetic workloads, though its real-world gaming performance in Outriders is also constrained by the GPU at higher settings. The PassMark multithread score of 18747 and single-thread score of 3456 corroborate that this is a balanced processor for gaming, with no obvious weakness in either single- or multi-threaded tasks that Outriders would exploit.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The combo achieves an average of 49.6 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, which is the most demanding configuration tested.

Q: How much faster is the system at 1080p Low compared to 4K Ultra?

A: At 1080p Low, the average frame rate is 216.2 FPS, which is 4.4 times higher than the 49.6 FPS observed at 4K Ultra.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance at 1440p High?

A: At 1440p High, the average is 127 FPS. Given that 1080p High produces 169 FPS and 4K High produces 68.2 FPS, the GPU is the primary limiter at 1440p High, as the CPU's influence is only apparent at the lowest settings.

Q: What is the difference between 1080p Medium and 1080p Ultra?

A: The system runs at 192.2 FPS on Medium and 144.9 FPS on Ultra at 1080p, a difference of 47.3 FPS or approximately 24.6% lower performance for the Ultra preset.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5070's average benchmark score is 41687, which is 0.6% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (41441) and 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (41610), but 0.5% lower than the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (41897).

Q: What is the Core i5-12400's performance percentile?

A: The CPU ranks in the 77th percentile against all CPUs tracked in the database, with an average benchmark score of 19850.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 holds a rank of 342 out of 1693 tested combos for Outriders. This places it in the top 20.2% of all configurations tested for this game, which is a solid result given the CPU's mid-range positioning. The percentile ranking of the GPU (83rd) is higher than that of the CPU (77th), suggesting that the graphics card is the stronger component in this pairing and is likely the primary driver of the combo's overall standing.

The rank of 342 means that 342 other combinations of CPUs and GPUs achieved higher average frame rates in Outriders. Given that the CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-9700 and Intel Core i7-8700, which have nearly identical average benchmark scores, the i5-12400 is not leaving significant performance on the table relative to similar processors. The data indicates that upgrading the CPU alone would yield marginal gains in this game, as the RTX 5070 is already capable of producing high frame rates at most settings, and the bottleneck at higher resolutions is firmly on the GPU side.

At 1080p Low, the 216.2 FPS result is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on gaming monitors, so this combination is more than adequate for competitive play. However, for 4K gaming, the 49.6 FPS Ultra result and 68.2 FPS High result may require adjusting settings to reach 60 FPS, which is achievable with the Medium preset at 90.2 FPS. The overall rank of 342 out of 1693 suggests that while this is not a top-tier configuration, it is comfortably above the median and offers a balanced experience across the resolution spectrum.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB205 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It features 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has a base clock of 2325 MHz and a boost clock of 2512 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). Its 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 80 render output units indicate a design optimized for high-throughput rasterization, which is directly relevant to Outriders' demanding visual effects.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark results are strong, with a PassMark G3D score of 29137 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5077. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 185269 and Vulkan score of 179413 further demonstrate its compute capabilities. The GPU ranks in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs tracked, with an average benchmark score of 41687. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, scores 41441 (a 0.6% delta), showing that the RTX 5070 outperforms a previous generation flagship in aggregate benchmarks while consuming less power on paper.

In Outriders specifically, the GPU's role is evident in the resolution scaling data. At 4K Ultra, the 49.6 FPS result shows the GPU is heavily taxed, while at 1080p Low the 216.2 FPS result indicates it can feed a high-refresh display with ease. The 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the tested settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this allocation at 4K Ultra based on the measured frame rates. The GPU's 30.87 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 201.0 GPixel/s pixel rate provide the computational headroom needed for the game's particle effects and lighting, which are common in the looter shooter genre. The RTX 5070's combination of high bandwidth and modern architecture makes it the dominant component in this pairing, with the CPU serving as an adequate but not exceptional companion.