Outriders

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers a dominant 1080p and 1440p experience in Outriders, with performance that remains highly playable even at 4K. The data indicates that the Ultra preset is the ideal target for most users, as it provides a substantial visual uplift while maintaining frame rates well above the 60 FPS threshold at 1440p and 170 FPS at 1080p. While the High preset offers a significant performance boost over Ultra, the Medium preset's lower minimum frame rates make it less attractive than the more consistent High settings. This combination ranks 177th out of 3710 tested configurations in this game, placing it in the top 5% of all systems.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly suggests that the Ultra preset is the best choice for this hardware combination in Outriders. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 170 FPS, which is more than sufficient for high-refresh-rate monitors. Moving to 2560x1440, the Ultra preset still maintains an impressive 108 FPS average, ensuring a fluid experience on 1440p displays. Even at 4K, the Ultra preset manages a 56 FPS average, which is playable but dips below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for a smooth experience. For users with 4K displays, dropping to the High preset is a more prudent choice, as it jumps to a 78 FPS average.

The High preset is the clear recommendation for 4K gaming. It provides a 22 FPS improvement over Ultra at 3840x2160, bringing the average from 56 to 78 FPS. This is a significant gain that makes the game much more responsive without requiring a substantial visual compromise. The data shows that High settings at 1440p yields 149 FPS, and at 1080p it reaches 211 FPS, both of which are excellent results. The High preset appears to be the sweet spot for balancing visual fidelity with performance across all resolutions.

The Low preset is not recommended for this hardware, as it sacrifices too much visual quality for performance that is often unnecessary. At 1080p, Low settings produce 263 FPS, which is only 52 FPS higher than Medium and 93 FPS higher than Ultra. At 1440p, the Low preset's 226 FPS is still extraordinarily high, but the visual downgrade is not worth the marginal gain over the Medium preset's 198 FPS. The Medium preset, while offering 234 FPS at 1080p and 198 FPS at 1440p, shows a notable weakness in its minimum frame rates, with lows of 199 FPS and 169 FPS respectively, which are lower than one might expect given the high averages.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the primary driver of performance in Outriders, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling with resolution and settings. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides a memory bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s, which is more than adequate for the game's textures and assets at all tested resolutions. The Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process by TSMC, includes 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units. The boost clock of 2505 MHz, combined with a base clock of 2205 MHz, allows the GPU to sustain high throughput in demanding scenes.

The RTX 4080's compute capabilities are substantial, with an FP32 performance of 48.74 TFLOPS. This raw power translates directly to the high frame rates observed in the benchmark results. The GPU's 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores are present, though the benchmark data does not specifically measure their impact in Outriders. The card's pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s ensure that it can handle the game's rendering demands without becoming a bottleneck.

The performance of the RTX 4080 is well above its nearest rivals in the benchmark database. The data shows it is 0.1% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, 1.1% faster than the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X, 2.6% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, and 2.7% faster than the AMD Radeon 8060S. This places the GPU in the 86th percentile of all GPUs tested, confirming its high-end positioning. The GPU's average benchmark score of 54247 is a strong indicator of its ability to handle modern game titles.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly indicates that the RTX 4080 is the limiting component at higher resolutions, while the CPU becomes more relevant at lower resolutions. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops from 170 FPS at 1080p to 108 FPS at 1440p, and then to 56 FPS at 4K. This represents a 36.5% decrease from 1080p to 1440p, and a 48.1% decrease from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering load increases quadratically with resolution.

For the High preset, the frame rates scale from 211 FPS at 1080p to 149 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 78 FPS at 4K. This is a 29.4% drop from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 47.7% drop from 1440p to 4K. The relative consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the performance scaling is primarily governed by the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth, rather than any specific setting. The 4K results, in particular, show that even the powerful RTX 4080 begins to struggle with the Ultra preset, as the 56 FPS average is below the 60 FPS target.

At 1080p and 1440p, the frame rates are so high that the Intel Core i5-14600K may start to play a more significant role. With 14 cores and 20 threads, the CPU is more than capable, but the data suggests that at 1080p Low settings, the 263 FPS average might approach the CPU's practical limit in this game. The performance gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 93 FPS, while at 4K the gap is 87 FPS, indicating that the GPU is still the dominant factor across all settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 4080 and Core i5-14600K combination delivers exceptional performance across all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 263 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded in the data. The Medium preset produces 234 FPS, with a minimum of 199 FPS and a maximum of 269 FPS. The High preset reaches 211 FPS, while the Ultra preset delivers 170 FPS. These results show that even the most demanding settings are easily handled at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains very strong. The Low preset yields 226 FPS, while the Medium preset produces 198 FPS, with a minimum of 169 FPS and a maximum of 228 FPS. The High preset achieves 149 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 108 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that users can comfortably use the Ultra preset for a high-refresh-rate experience, as the 108 FPS average is well above the 60 FPS standard.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes more varied. The Low preset still manages 143 FPS, which is impressive for 4K. The Medium preset produces 104 FPS, with a minimum of 88 FPS and a maximum of 119 FPS. The High preset delivers 78 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to 56 FPS. The 4K results highlight the need to choose settings carefully, as the Ultra preset falls below 60 FPS, while the High preset provides a comfortable margin.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming with this hardware?

A: The High preset is recommended for 4K, as it delivers a 78 FPS average compared to the Ultra preset's 56 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making the High preset the better choice for a consistently smooth experience.

Q: Can this system handle 1440p at maximum settings?

A: Yes, the Ultra preset at 2560x1440 achieves an average of 108 FPS. This is well above the 60 FPS standard and provides a fluid gaming experience on high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The RTX 4080 is 0.1% faster than the RTX 4080 SUPER, 1.1% faster than the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X, 2.6% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, and 2.7% faster than the AMD Radeon 8060S in average benchmark scores.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset produces 263 FPS, while the Ultra preset produces 170 FPS. This is a difference of 93 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset still offers excellent performance.

Q: Is the Medium preset a good choice for this game?

A: The Medium preset offers high averages, but its minimum frame rates are notably lower. At 1080p, the minimum is 199 FPS, and at 1440p, it drops to 169 FPS. While these lows are still high, the High preset provides more consistent performance.

Q: What is the overall ranking of this hardware combination in Outriders?

A: This combination ranks 177th out of 3710 tested configurations, placing it in the top 5% of all systems tested for this game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K plays a supporting role in Outriders, providing ample processing power to keep the RTX 4080 well-fed. The CPU features 14 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This is built on the Raptor Lake architecture using a 10 nm process, with a 24 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU's single-threaded performance is exceptionally strong, scoring 2064 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 2491 in Geekbench single-core. These scores indicate that the CPU can handle the game's primary game logic and physics calculations without bottlenecking the GPU.

The CPU's multi-threaded performance is also robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 16673. While Outriders may not be heavily multi-threaded, the 14 cores and 20 threads provide headroom for background tasks and ensure that the CPU does not become a limiting factor. The CPU's performance places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48618. It is closely matched with its nearest rivals, being 0.2% slower than the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, 0.3% faster than the AMD EPYC 4345P, 0.7% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX, and 0.8% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245.

The CPU's impact on frame rates is most evident at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 263 FPS, which is likely approaching the CPU's limit in this game. At 1440p and 4K, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck, as evidenced by the consistent scaling of frame rates with resolution. The CPU's high single-thread performance ensures that even at 4K, where the GPU is heavily loaded, the CPU can keep up with the game's demands. The 125W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory make it a flexible choice for a variety of system configurations.