Outriders

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 331 out of 3,710 tested combos in Outriders, placing it in the top 8.9% of all configurations. This is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a flagship GPU, but the ranking reveals an interesting imbalance: the processor is the limiting factor in many scenarios, dragging what would otherwise be an elite-tier graphics performance down the leaderboard. The combo sits above 3,379 other tested pairings, which means roughly 91% of all configurations tested produce lower average frame rates in this game. However, the delta between this combo and the very top performers is substantial, driven almost entirely by the CPU's inability to feed the RTX 5090 at lower resolutions where the graphics card is not the bottleneck.

When examining the CPU's synthetic benchmark percentile, the Core i5-13400F ranks in the 77th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25,292. Its nearest rivals in raw compute include the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS at 25,284 (0% delta), the Intel Core 5 120 at 25,362 (-0.3% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D at 25,365 (-0.3% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H at 25,201 (0.4% delta). These are all mobile or lower-tier desktop chips, which highlights that the 13400F, while competitive in its class, is not a top-tier desktop processor. The GPU, meanwhile, sits in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 79,842, with nearest rivals including the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB at 79,605 (0.3% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at 78,940 (1.1% delta). The gap between the CPU's 77th percentile and the GPU's 92nd percentile is the key story: the RTX 5090 is a top-8% card, while the processor is merely above-average.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, featuring a massive 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its base clock runs at 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and the memory clock operates at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed. The card comes equipped with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. This is an enormous memory pool and bandwidth figure that far exceeds what Outriders requires, meaning the game's texture streaming and asset loading will never be constrained by VRAM capacity or bandwidth at any resolution tested. The GPU has 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output units, along with 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores. Its pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate is 1,636.8 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 104.8 TFLOPS.

In Outriders, the GPU's role becomes dominant at 4K resolution, where the measured frame rates show a clear scaling pattern that indicates the RTX 5090 is the primary driver of performance. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 64 FPS average, while dropping to High settings raises that to 88 FPS, Medium to 117 FPS, and Low to 155 FPS. The spread from Ultra to Low at 4K is 91 FPS, which is a 142% improvement—a clear sign that the GPU is heavily loaded and sensitive to settings changes. The GPU's 32 GB of VRAM is never a constraint, as Outriders at 4K Ultra likely uses far less than that, but the sheer compute power of the RTX 5090 is what allows even the Low preset to hit 155 FPS at 4K, a figure that most GPUs cannot reach at that resolution in this game.

The GPU's benchmark scores corroborate its high-end positioning: a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355, a Geekbench OpenCL score of 334,370, and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,728. The Passmark G3D score of 39,650 and GPU compute score of 26,756 further confirm that this is a compute monster. However, the data shows that at lower resolutions, the GPU's potential is left untapped. At 1080p, the frame rates across settings range from 159 FPS on Ultra to 224 FPS on Low, but the CPU becomes the bottleneck well before the GPU reaches its limits. The RTX 5090 is capable of far higher frame rates in Outriders, as evidenced by the 4K Low result of 155 FPS, but the 13400F cannot push the GPU hard enough at 1080p to exceed that ceiling meaningfully.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a Raptor Lake-S architecture processor built on Intel's 10 nm process, featuring 10 cores and 16 threads. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, and it carries a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes from the CPU. This is a capable mid-range desktop processor, but it is not designed to be a flagship part, and its benchmark results reflect that positioning. In Cinebench R23, it scores 22,604 in multi-core and 3,191 in single-core; in Geekbench, it scores 11,068 multi-core and 1,996 single-core; and in Passmark, it achieves 25,032 for multithread and 3,634 for single-thread. Its 3DMark scores range from 960 in single-thread to 7,314 for 16 threads.

In Outriders, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p and 1440p resolutions, where the frame rates do not scale as dramatically with settings changes as they do at 4K. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 159 on Ultra to 179 on High, 199 on Medium, and 224 on Low. The jump from Ultra to Low at 1080p is 65 FPS, or a 41% improvement, which is smaller than the 142% improvement seen at 4K. This reduced sensitivity to settings indicates that the CPU is becoming the limiting factor—when the GPU is less stressed, the processor cannot generate frames fast enough to keep up with the RTX 5090's capabilities. The same pattern appears at 2560x1440, where the spread from Ultra (122 FPS) to Low (192 FPS) is 70 FPS, a 57% improvement, still smaller than the 4K scaling but larger than at 1080p. The 13400F's 10 cores and 16 threads are sufficient for Outriders' multi-threaded engine, but its single-thread performance, as indicated by the 3DMark single-thread score of 960 and Cinebench R23 single-core of 3,191, is not enough to fully saturate the RTX 5090 at lower resolutions.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 77 means it outperforms about 77% of all processors, but it is notably weaker than the GPU's 92nd percentile. This mismatch is the defining characteristic of this combo. The nearest rival comparisons show the 13400F is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS and the Intel Core 5 120, both of which are not desktop flagship parts. The processor's 20 MB of L3 cache is adequate for gaming, but it lacks the larger cache pools found on higher-end desktop CPUs, which can impact frame pacing in CPU-bound scenarios. In Outriders, this manifests as a hard ceiling around 224 FPS at 1080p Low, a figure that a more powerful CPU could potentially exceed with the same GPU.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates across settings are as follows: Low produces 224 FPS, Medium produces 199 FPS (with a minimum of 169 and maximum of 229), High produces 179 FPS, and Ultra produces 159 FPS. The medium preset's minimum of 169 FPS is notable because it is only 10 FPS below the High preset's average, suggesting that the Medium preset delivers smoother frame pacing than the raw average might indicate. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 65 FPS, which is the smallest absolute spread across all three resolutions, confirming that the CPU is constraining performance even at the lowest settings.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are: Low at 192 FPS, Medium at 171 FPS (minimum 145, maximum 197), High at 154 FPS, and Ultra at 122 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra here is 70 FPS, slightly larger than at 1080p but still modest. The Medium preset's minimum of 145 FPS indicates that even in demanding scenes, the combo maintains a frame rate well above 60 FPS, which is the typical target for smooth gameplay. The High preset at 1440p delivers 154 FPS average, which is a 26% improvement over the 4K High result, showing that resolution scaling is still significant at this tier.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop substantially: Low at 155 FPS, Medium at 117 FPS (minimum 100, maximum 135), High at 88 FPS, and Ultra at 64 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 91 FPS, the largest of any resolution, which confirms that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck here. The Ultra preset's 64 FPS average is just above the 60 FPS threshold, making it playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate displays. The Medium preset's minimum of 100 FPS is particularly strong, as it ensures no drops below triple-digit frame rates in most scenarios. The High preset at 88 FPS is a balanced choice for 4K, offering a 37.5% improvement over Ultra while maintaining a smooth experience.

# Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component at each resolution. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 224 at 1080p to 192 at 1440p (a 14.3% decrease) and then to 155 at 4K (a 19.3% decrease from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 69 FPS, or 30.8%. At Medium settings, the drop is from 199 at 1080p to 171 at 1440p (14.1% decrease) and then to 117 at 4K (31.6% decrease from 1440p), totaling 82 FPS or 41.2% from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the drop is from 179 at 1080p to 154 at 1440p (14.0% decrease) and then to 88 at 4K (42.9% decrease from 1440p), totaling 91 FPS or 50.8% from 1080p to 4K. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 159 at 1080p to 122 at 1440p (23.3% decrease) and then to 64 at 4K (47.5% decrease from 1440p), totaling 95 FPS or 59.7% from 1080p to 4K.

This scaling pattern tells a clear story. At Low settings, the 1080p to 1440p drop is only 14.3%, which is relatively mild, indicating that the CPU is still the primary limiter at these settings—the GPU has enough headroom to absorb the resolution increase without a major frame rate penalty. However, the 1440p to 4K drop at Low settings is 19.3%, which is larger, suggesting the GPU is starting to become more relevant. At High and Ultra settings, the 1440p to 4K drops are 42.9% and 47.5%, respectively, which are much steeper, confirming that the GPU is fully engaged at these settings and the resolution increase directly impacts its workload. The fact that the 1080p to 1440p drop at High settings is only 14.0%—nearly identical to the Low setting drop—indicates that the CPU is still limiting at 1440p High, but at 4K High, the GPU takes over as the bottleneck.

The limiting component analysis is straightforward: at 1080p and 1440p, across all settings, the Core i5-13400F is the bottleneck, preventing the RTX 5090 from reaching its full potential. At 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, especially at High and Ultra settings where the frame rates drop below 100 FPS. The transition point appears to be around 1440p to 4K, where the GPU's workload increases enough to shift the balance. This suggests that for this combo, 4K is the resolution where the RTX 5090's power is most fully utilized, while at lower resolutions, the CPU holds the system back.

# Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for the best settings at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the High preset at 179 FPS is the recommended choice for most users, as it offers a 12.6% improvement over Ultra (159 FPS) while sacrificing only minor visual quality. The Medium preset at 199 FPS is also viable for competitive play, but the jump from Medium to High is only 20 FPS (10.1% decrease), making High the better balance of visual fidelity and frame rate. The Low preset at 224 FPS is only necessary for extreme competitive scenarios where every frame counts, but the 45 FPS gain over High (25.1% improvement) comes at a significant visual cost. For 1080p, High is the sweet spot.

At 2560x1440, the High preset at 154 FPS is the best option, as it delivers frame rates well above 144 Hz refresh rates while maintaining good visual quality. The Ultra preset at 122 FPS is also viable for those with 120 Hz displays, but the 32 FPS difference (20.8% decrease) between High and Ultra makes High the more sensible choice. The Medium preset at 171 FPS offers a 11% improvement over High, but the visual downgrade from Medium to High is noticeable in Outriders' detailed environments. The Low preset at 192 FPS is again only for competitive play, but the 38 FPS gain over Medium (19.8% improvement) is not worth the substantial visual degradation.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset at 117 FPS is the clear recommendation, as it delivers the best balance of frame rate and visual quality. The High preset at 88 FPS is 24.8% slower than Medium, and while it offers better visuals, the drop below 100 FPS average is noticeable on high-refresh-rate 4K displays. The Ultra preset at 64 FPS is only suitable for those who prioritize maximum visual fidelity over smoothness, as it sits just above the 60 FPS threshold. The Low preset at 155 FPS is unnecessary for most 4K users, as the Medium preset already provides excellent performance. For 4K, Medium is the optimal choice, with High as a fallback for those who prefer visuals over frame rate.

Overall, the data suggests that this combo is best utilized at 1440p High or 4K Medium, where the RTX 5090's power is meaningfully engaged and the CPU bottleneck is less pronounced. At 1080p, the system is held back by the processor, so users with high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors would benefit more from a stronger CPU. The 4K Medium result of 117 FPS with a minimum of 100 FPS is the standout performance metric in this dataset, proving that the combo can deliver a smooth, high-quality experience at 4K without compromising on settings.