Outriders

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER delivers a solid 1080p experience in Outriders, but the data shows a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At 1080p High settings, the combo produces 111.8 FPS average, which drops to 73.8 FPS at 1440p and further to 34.9 FPS at 4K. This indicates a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, while the 14-core, 20-thread CPU remains capable of feeding the frame pipeline at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU/GPU combo in Outriders?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 as the sweet spot, with 111.8 FPS on High settings and 206.5 FPS on Low. At 2560x1440, High drops to 73.8 FPS, and 3840x2160 High falls to 34.9 FPS, making 1080p the only resolution where the combo consistently exceeds 60 FPS across all presets.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER compare to its nearest rivals in raw GPU performance?

A: The GPU’s average benchmark score is 19774, placing it 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN and 0.5% ahead of the RTX 2070. It trails the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 by 0.8% and the Tesla K40m by 1.3%, showing a tightly packed mid-range cluster.

Q: What is the combo’s overall ranking among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 1163 out of 1693 tested combinations in Outriders, placing it in the lower third of the field. This reflects the GPU’s mid-range status (63rd percentile among all GPUs) rather than a CPU limitation.

Q: How much FPS does the Ultra preset cost compared to High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra delivers 83.4 FPS versus 111.8 FPS on High, a 28.4 FPS reduction. The gap widens at 1440p (49.9 vs 73.8 FPS) and becomes severe at 4K (27.8 vs 34.9 FPS), where Ultra drops below playable thresholds.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this configuration?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck. From 1080p to 4K, average FPS drops from 111.8 to 34.9 on High settings, a 68.8% reduction. The CPU’s strong multi-threaded scores (32889 in Cinebench R23) indicate it has ample headroom, while the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth struggle at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the CPU, and how does it affect the analysis?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600KF has a launch MSRP of $294. This places it as a mid-range desktop processor, and its 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs shows it punches above its price class, though the GPU pairing limits overall gaming performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is the defining component in this Outriders configuration. Its 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for 1080p but becomes a constraint at higher resolutions. The GPU’s 1470 MHz base and 1650 MHz boost clocks, combined with 2176 shading units, deliver 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 compute—enough for smooth 1080p play but inadequate for 4K Ultra.

The VRAM capacity is the critical factor in this game. Outriders’ texture-heavy environments and looter-shooter loot system demand significant memory. At 1080p High, the 8 GB pool handles the load, yielding 111.8 FPS. However, moving to 1440p High reduces performance to 73.8 FPS, and 4K High crashes to 34.9 FPS. The data indicates that resolution scaling heavily taxes both the memory bandwidth and the 64 ROPs, with the GPU’s 63rd percentile ranking among all GPUs reflecting its mid-range positioning.

The GPU’s Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process at TSMC, includes 34 RT cores and 272 tensor cores. While Outriders does not heavily utilize ray tracing, these features contribute to the card’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support. The 175 W TDP and dual-slot design are modest, but the 229 mm length suggests adequate cooling for sustained gaming sessions. The data shows that the GPU’s performance ceiling is reached at 1440p Medium (96.8 FPS), beyond which the frame rate drops below 50 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across four presets and three resolutions provides clear guidance for optimizing the Outriders experience. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers the best balance: 111.8 FPS average, which is 28.4 FPS faster than Ultra (83.4 FPS) but only 38.7 FPS slower than Low (206.5 FPS). The Medium preset offers 150.4 FPS, but High provides a better visual quality-to-performance ratio for most players.

At 2560x1440, High settings produce 73.8 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for competitive play. Medium at 96.8 FPS is the recommended choice here, as it maintains smooth frame rates while sacrificing some visual fidelity. Low at 130.4 FPS is viable for esports-style play, but Ultra at 49.9 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold and should be avoided.

For 3840x2160, the data shows a challenging environment. High settings yield only 34.9 FPS, making the game barely playable. Medium improves to 47 FPS, while Low reaches 67.5 FPS—the only 4K preset above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset at 27.8 FPS is effectively unplayable. The best 4K experience is Low, which sacrifices visual quality but maintains playable frame rates. Overall, the data suggests that 1080p High or 1440p Medium provides the best experience, balancing visual fidelity with performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1163 out of 1693 tested configurations in Outriders, placing it in the 31st percentile of all tested combos. This positioning is driven primarily by the GPU’s 63rd percentile ranking among all GPUs, which limits the overall system performance. The CPU, in contrast, ranks in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, showing that the processor outclasses the graphics card in this pairing.

Comparing the CPU to its nearest rivals, the Intel Core i5-14600KF scores 0.4% higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X in average benchmark scores. It trails the AMD EPYC 4345P by 0.5% and the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H by 1.4%. These marginal differences indicate that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this configuration.

The GPU’s nearest rivals show a similarly tight cluster. The RTX 2060 SUPER is 0.3% ahead of the GTX TITAN and 0.5% ahead of the RTX 2070, while sitting 0.8% behind the Quadro K5200 and 1.3% behind the Tesla K40m. This grouping suggests that the GPU’s performance is typical for its class, and the combo’s low ranking stems from the GPU’s age (released July 2019) rather than any defect. The 1163rd rank out of 1693 combos means that most modern configurations outperform this pairing, but the data shows it remains viable for 1080p gaming.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear GPU bottleneck. On High settings, the combo delivers 111.8 FPS at 1080p, drops to 73.8 FPS at 1440p (a 34% reduction), and falls to 34.9 FPS at 4K (a 68.8% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU that lacks the memory bandwidth and pixel throughput for high-resolution rendering.

The RTX 2060 SUPER’s 448.0 GB/s bandwidth and 105.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are sufficient for 1080p but struggle as pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K. The 8 GB VRAM also becomes a limiting factor, as Outriders’ high-resolution textures exceed the available memory, causing the GPU to rely on slower system memory. This explains why the FPS drop from 1440p to 4K is more severe (a 52.7% reduction) than from 1080p to 1440p (a 34% reduction).

The CPU, with its 32889 Cinebench R23 multi-core score, is not the limiting factor in this scaling. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 206.5 FPS, indicating the CPU can drive frame rates well above 200 FPS when the GPU is not stressed. The fact that FPS drops uniformly across all presets as resolution increases confirms that the GPU is the primary constraint. The data suggests that players targeting 1440p or 4K should consider a more powerful GPU, while 1080p users can fully utilize this pairing’s capabilities.