Outriders

The Intel Core i5-14400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 pairing delivers a solid 1080p experience in Outriders, but its 8 GB frame buffer and mid-range compute power create hard limits at higher resolutions. The benchmark data shows a clear hierarchy: Low settings are the only reliable path to high-refresh gameplay, while Medium offers a balanced sweet spot for 60 FPS targets.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows point to Medium as the best overall preset for this combo. At 1080p, Medium delivers 136.2 FPS average, which is 31.9 FPS higher than High (104.3) and 61.1 FPS higher than Ultra (75.1). The jump from Medium to Low (189.8 FPS) is massive, but the visual cost of dropping from Medium to Low is typically larger than the perceptual gain from 136 FPS to 190 FPS on most displays.

At 1440p, Medium again proves optimal: 84.5 FPS average keeps the game comfortably above 60 FPS, while High drops to 65.6 FPS and Ultra falls to 46.8 FPS. For a looter shooter where enemies swarm the screen, maintaining a stable frame rate matters more than minor shadow quality differences.

Avoid Ultra entirely at any resolution. Even at 1080p, Ultra only produces 75.1 FPS average, and at 1440p it plunges to 46.8 FPS. At 4K, Ultra is unplayable at 26.7 FPS. The 8 GB VRAM on the RX 6600 appears to be the bottleneck here, as the gap between Medium and Ultra (92.7 FPS at 1080p) is far larger than the gap between Low and Medium (53.6 FPS).

For 4K, only the Low preset (60 FPS) achieves a playable frame rate. High (36.3) and Medium (43.5) are both below 60 FPS, making them poor choices for a fast-paced shooter.

CPU Role

The Core i5-14400F brings 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost of 4.70 GHz. This is a Raptor Lake-R part on the Intel Socket 1700 platform, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 places it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs. Single-core performance is equally strong, with a Geekbench single-core score of 2333 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093.

The data shows this CPU is not the limiting factor in Outriders. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 189.8 FPS average, which is a frame rate that demands strong per-core throughput. The i5-14400F's single-thread performance keeps up with the RX 6600's output at this setting. The CPU's nearest rivals—the Intel Core i7-12800H (deltaPct 0), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (deltaPct 0.2), and AMD Ryzen 7 250 (deltaPct -0.2)—all sit within 0.2% of its average benchmark score, confirming that it delivers mainstream-tier compute without any standout weakness.

The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 per core help with the game's asset streaming during combat. However, the fact that frame rates scale dramatically with resolution (from 189.8 FPS at 1080p Low to 60 FPS at 4K Low) indicates that the GPU workload, not CPU throughput, determines the ceiling. The CPU's 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support are adequate for this pairing, but the data suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield larger FPS gains than upgrading the CPU for this specific title.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Outriders at 4K?*

A: Only at Low settings, where it averages 60 FPS. Medium drops to 43.5 FPS, High to 36.3 FPS, and Ultra to 26.7 FPS, all of which are below the 60 FPS target for smooth play.

Q: What is the best setting for competitive play at 1080p?

A: Low settings produce 189.8 FPS average, which is the highest measured frame rate in the entire dataset. This gives maximum headroom for fast reflexes, though Medium at 136.2 FPS is still well above typical 144 Hz display refresh rates.

Q: How does the RX 6600 compare to its closest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 6600 has an average benchmark score of 25235, placing it in the 69th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 890M, scores 25246 (deltaPct 0), while the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP scores 25287 (deltaPct -0.2) and the AMD Radeon RX 6700M scores 25180 (deltaPct 0.2). These are all effectively tied.

Q: Is the i5-14400F overkill for this GPU?

A: The CPU's 88th percentile ranking (average benchmark score 32508) exceeds the GPU's 69th percentile, but the measured FPS data shows this is not a problem. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 189.8 FPS, indicating the CPU can feed the GPU adequately. In this game, the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher settings and resolutions, not the CPU.

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

A: High averages 65.6 FPS, while Ultra drops to 46.8 FPS. The 18.8 FPS loss from Ultra settings does not justify the visual improvements, making High the better choice for 1440p gaming.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i5-14400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 ranks 1345th out of 1693 tested combos in Outriders. This places it in the bottom 20% of all combinations in the database, which is expected given the RX 6600's mid-range positioning. The rank reflects the GPU's 69th percentile performance more than the CPU's 88th percentile, as the measured frame rates show GPU-bound behavior.

The combo's ranking does not tell the full story. At 1080p, it delivers 104.3 FPS on High settings, which is a strong result for a mainstream GPU. The rank is dragged down by the 4K results, where even Low settings only reach 60 FPS. For 1080p and 1440p gaming, this combo performs well above its overall ranking suggests.

The gap between this combo and higher-ranked ones likely comes from the RX 6600's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus, which limit performance at higher resolutions and settings. The CPU, by contrast, punches above its weight in synthetic benchmarks, but cannot compensate for the GPU's memory bandwidth constraints.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling across resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 104.3 FPS at 1080p to 65.6 FPS at 1440p (a 37.1% reduction), then to 36.3 FPS at 4K (a 44.7% reduction from 1440p). This steep decline indicates that the RX 6600's compute and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced: 189.8 FPS at 1080p falls to 121.6 FPS at 1440p (35.9% drop) and then to 60 FPS at 4K (50.7% drop). The 4K Low result is nearly one-third of the 1080p Low result, which suggests that even minimal graphics load overwhelms the GPU at 4K resolution.

The Medium settings show a similar pattern: 136.2 FPS at 1080p, 84.5 FPS at 1440p (38.0% drop), and 43.5 FPS at 4K (48.5% drop). This consistency across presets confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck at all settings above 1080p. The CPU's performance remains constant regardless of resolution, so the frame rate scaling directly reflects the GPU's workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1080p:

• Low: 189.8 FPS average
• Medium: 136.2 FPS average
• High: 104.3 FPS average
• Ultra: 75.1 FPS average

1440p:

• Low: 121.6 FPS average
• Medium: 84.5 FPS average
• High: 65.6 FPS average
• Ultra: 46.8 FPS average

4K (3840x2160):

• Low: 60 FPS average
• Medium: 43.5 FPS average
• High: 36.3 FPS average
• Ultra: 26.7 FPS average

The data shows a consistent pattern: each resolution step down (from 1080p to 1440p to 4K) costs roughly 35-50% of the frame rate at any given setting. At 1080p, all settings except Ultra exceed 100 FPS, making this resolution the sweet spot for this combo. At 1440p, only Low and Medium exceed 60 FPS. At 4K, only Low achieves 60 FPS.

The largest single-settings gap is between 1080p Low (189.8 FPS) and 1440p Low (121.6 FPS), a 68.2 FPS difference. The smallest gap is between 1440p Ultra (46.8 FPS) and 4K High (36.3 FPS), only 10.5 FPS, which shows how severely the GPU struggles at the highest settings regardless of resolution.