Outriders

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers a robust 1080p experience in Outriders, but the data reveals a sharp trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset yields 142.5 FPS, while dropping to High increases performance to 174.2 FPS, a meaningful gain for competitive play. The Medium preset sits between these at 191.3 FPS, and Low pushes the ceiling to 213.2 FPS. For 1440p, the High preset at 128 FPS offers the best balance of smoothness and quality, as Ultra falls to 91.3 FPS. At 4K, the story changes dramatically: High produces 64.9 FPS, which is playable, but Ultra drops to 48.9 FPS, below the 60 FPS threshold. The data suggests that High settings provide the most consistent experience across all resolutions, avoiding the steep performance penalty of Ultra while maintaining visual richness. Low settings are viable for maximizing frame rates, especially at 4K where 119.3 FPS is achievable, but the visual compromise is substantial. Medium at 4K (87.8 FPS) is a middle ground, yet High remains the recommended preset for its overall balance.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this configuration, and its specifications directly explain the performance tiers observed. The GPU features 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, delivering 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This capacity is crucial for Outriders’ large textures, especially at 4K where memory pressure is highest. The card’s boost clock is 2394 MHz, with a game clock of 2025 MHz, and its 5376 shading units handle the game’s particle effects and enemy density efficiently. The GPU’s 84 ray tracing cores are present, but Outriders does not heavily utilize ray tracing, so the rasterization performance—driven by the 192 ROPS and 336 TMUs—is what matters most. The pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s support the high frame rates seen at 1080p and 1440p. At 4K, the GPU’s 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is still substantial, but the demand from 3840x2160 resolution causes the frame rate to drop significantly, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor in this scenario. The 300 W TDP and 2x 8-pin power connectors suggest this is a high-power part, and the data confirms it is capable of driving high refresh rates at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS reveals a clear pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases. At High settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p sees a drop from 174.2 FPS to 128 FPS, a 26.5% decrease. Moving from 1440p to 4K drops further to 64.9 FPS, a 49.3% reduction. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is increasingly taxed at higher resolutions, with the 4K result being less than half of the 1080p performance. For Low settings, the scaling is similar: 213.2 FPS at 1080p, 185.4 FPS at 1440p (a 13% drop), and 119.3 FPS at 4K (a 35.7% drop from 1440p). The smaller relative drop at Low settings suggests that the CPU can keep up when the GPU is less stressed, but at High and Ultra, the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 142.5 FPS at 1080p, 91.3 FPS at 1440p (a 35.9% drop), and 48.9 FPS at 4K (a 46.4% drop). This indicates that Ultra settings push the GPU to its limits, and the 4K Ultra result of 48.9 FPS is below the playable threshold for many users. The data implies that for 4K gaming, users must lower settings to High or Medium to maintain smooth performance, while 1080p and 1440p are more forgiving.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 142.5 FPS, which is smooth for most displays. High settings increase this to 174.2 FPS, a 22% improvement, while Medium reaches 191.3 FPS and Low hits 213.2 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 70.7 FPS, showing the wide range of performance available. At 2560x1440, Ultra drops to 91.3 FPS, still playable but not ideal for high-refresh monitors. High settings provide 128 FPS, which is a 40% improvement over Ultra, and Medium reaches 162.4 FPS. Low settings are the outlier at 185.4 FPS, offering near-1080p performance. At 3840x2160, the data shows a stark contrast: Ultra produces 48.9 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target, while High reaches 64.9 FPS. Medium at 87.8 FPS is the best option for 4K if visual quality is a priority, and Low at 119.3 FPS is excellent for competitive play. The overall pattern is that Ultra settings are only viable at 1080p, while High is the sweet spot for 1440p and 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 48.9 FPS is concerning, but the High preset’s 64.9 FPS shows that the combo is capable of 4K gaming with adjustments.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1080p gaming with this combo?

A: The High preset at 174.2 FPS is recommended, as it offers a significant boost over Ultra (142.5 FPS) without the visual compromise of Medium (191.3 FPS) or Low (213.2 FPS). The data shows High is the most balanced for smooth gameplay.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, but with caveats. The High preset at 64.9 FPS is playable, and Low reaches 119.3 FPS. However, Ultra drops to 48.9 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold, so users must avoid Ultra at 4K.

Q: How does the CPU affect performance at lower resolutions?

A: At 1080p, the CPU is less of a bottleneck, as seen in the 213.2 FPS Low result. The i5-12400F’s 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, are sufficient to feed the GPU at these frame rates.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and High at 1440p?

A: Medium delivers 162.4 FPS, while High provides 128 FPS, a difference of 34.4 FPS. This suggests that High settings are more demanding, but the 128 FPS result is still smooth for most displays.

Q: Is the 20 GB VRAM necessary for Outriders?

A: The 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on the RX 7900 XT is more than enough for Outriders, even at 4K. The data shows no memory-related performance anomalies, indicating that the VRAM capacity is not a limiting factor.

Q: How does the combo rank among other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 344 out of 1693 tested combinations, placing it in the top 20% of systems. This ranking reflects the strong GPU performance, but the CPU’s mid-range nature prevents a higher placement.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. It has 18 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. In Outriders, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, but it still matters at lower resolutions. The benchmark results show that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 213.2 FPS, which is the highest score in the dataset. This suggests that the CPU can keep up with the GPU’s output when the graphical load is light. However, at 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 48.9 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the bottleneck, not the CPU. The CPU’s single-thread performance, as seen in the 3dmark single-thread score of 909 and the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2332, is adequate for Outriders’ game logic. The multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16518, ensures that background tasks do not interfere with gameplay. The CPU’s percentile rank of 77 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19221, places it near rivals like the Intel Core i7-8700K (deltaPct 0.1%) and the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (deltaPct -0.7%). This indicates that the i5-12400F is a solid mid-range processor that does not hold back the RX 7900 XT in most scenarios, but it is not the primary driver of performance in this game.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 344 out of 1693 tested combos in Outriders, placing it in the 79.7th percentile (344 / 1693 = 0.203, so it outperforms 79.7% of tested systems). This rank is impressive given the CPU’s mid-range status, and it is largely due to the GPU’s strength. The RX 7900 XT has an average benchmark score of 38358 and a percentile rank of 82 against all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (deltaPct 0%) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (deltaPct 0.6%). The GPU’s performance is the primary driver of the combo’s high rank. In contrast, the CPU’s average benchmark score of 19221 is close to its rivals, but its percentile rank of 77 is lower than the GPU’s 82. This suggests that the combo’s rank is higher than what the CPU alone would predict, highlighting the GPU’s dominance in Outriders. The data shows that at 1440p High, the combo achieves 128 FPS, which is a strong result for a demanding looter shooter. At 4K High, the 64.9 FPS result is above the 60 FPS target, making this combo viable for high-resolution gaming. The rank of 344 indicates that this system is well above average, but it is not in the top tier, as the CPU limits performance in CPU-bound scenarios. Overall, the combo is a balanced pairing for Outriders, with the GPU providing the bulk of the performance headroom.