Outriders

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER produces a clear hierarchy in Outriders, where the choice of graphics preset is the primary lever for performance. At 1080p, the data shows a smooth experience across all settings, with the Low preset delivering an average of 129.1 FPS and the Ultra preset still maintaining a very playable 84.1 FPS. The Medium and High presets sit comfortably between these extremes at 116.2 and 104 FPS respectively, indicating that the combination has enough headroom to handle the game's demands without severe compromise. At 1440p, the story becomes more nuanced; the Low preset achieves 110.8 FPS, but the jump to High drops the average to 73.6 FPS, and Ultra falls to 50.8 FPS. This suggests that for a high-refresh-rate monitor at 1440p, dropping to Medium (93.9 FPS) or Low is advisable, while High remains viable for standard 60 Hz displays. At 4K, the limits of the hardware are exposed; only the Low preset (70 FPS) provides a consistently smooth framerate, with Medium (46.9 FPS) and High (35.1 FPS) struggling and Ultra (24.8 FPS) becoming effectively unplayable. The best overall experience for most users would be the High preset at 1080p, which balances visual fidelity with a 104 FPS average, or the Medium preset at 1440p for those seeking higher resolution without sacrificing too much smoothness.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a Coffee Lake Refresh processor with 6 cores and 6 threads, a base clock of 2.90 GHz, and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its benchmark results place it in the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2305. This places it in direct competition with chips like the Intel Core i3-10305 (score 2300, deltaPct 0.2) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (score 2299, deltaPct 0.2), showing that its raw compute power is essentially on par with those parts. In the context of Outriders, a looter shooter that relies on consistent frame pacing for its fast-paced action, the CPU's 6-thread configuration is sufficient to feed the RTX 2060 SUPER at 1080p, as evidenced by the high frame rates across all settings. The data suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at this resolution, since the frame rate scales significantly with settings changes, indicating that the GPU is doing the heavy lifting. However, the relatively modest single-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1125, could become a limiting factor in scenarios with many on-screen enemies or complex physics calculations, though the measured FPS data does not show a catastrophic drop at any setting. The 9 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 42.7 GB/s provide adequate bandwidth for the game's data streaming needs, but the lack of hyper-threading means the processor relies on its physical cores alone to handle background tasks alongside the game.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is a Turing-architecture card with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. Its core clock runs at 1470 MHz base and 1650 MHz boost, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (or 14 Gbps effective). This GPU holds the 63rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19774. Its nearest rivals in synthetic tests include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN (score 19706, deltaPct 0.3) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (score 19680, deltaPct 0.5), indicating that the 2060 SUPER is remarkably close to the RTX 2070 in overall compute capability. In Outriders, the GPU's role is decisive. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p, the GPU can push well over 100 FPS on any preset, with the Ultra preset still achieving 84.1 FPS, proving that its 2176 shading units and 64 ROPs are more than capable of handling the game's visual effects at this resolution. The 8 GB VRAM appears sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the significant frame rate drops at 4K suggest that the memory capacity and bandwidth are being stressed. The card's 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate ensure it can handle the game's modern rendering techniques, but the data implies that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the frame rate plummets from 70 FPS at 4K Low to just 24.8 FPS at 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is ranked 1408 out of 1693 tested combos in Outriders. This position, in the lower half of the database, is somewhat surprising given the strong individual benchmark scores of the components. The GPU's synthetic scores are competitive with the RTX 2070, and the CPU is a solid mid-range part, yet the combo's ranking suggests that other pairings of similar or even lower-tier components may produce better results in this specific game. This could be due to the CPU's lack of multi-threading, which might cause frame hitches in Outriders' more demanding scenes, or it could be that the game's engine favors different hardware configurations. The rank of 1408 out of 1693 means that roughly 83% of tested combos outperform this specific pairing, which is a significant finding. It implies that while the parts are individually capable, their synergy in Outriders is not optimal, and users with this hardware may need to rely on the settings recommendations to achieve a playable experience, rather than expecting top-tier performance from the combination itself. The data does not provide a direct comparison to other specific combos, but the rank alone serves as a warning that this is not a high-performing match for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic pattern of GPU-bound performance. At the Low preset, the average frame rate drops from 129.1 FPS at 1080p to 110.8 FPS at 1440p, a decrease of 14.2%, and then to 70 FPS at 4K, a further 36.8% drop. This gradual decline indicates that even at low settings, the RTX 2060 SUPER begins to struggle as the pixel count increases. The High preset tells a similar story: 104 FPS at 1080p, 73.6 FPS at 1440p (a 29.2% drop), and 35.1 FPS at 4K (a 52.3% drop from 1440p). The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling, falling from 84.1 FPS at 1080p to 50.8 FPS at 1440p and then to 24.8 FPS at 4K. These numbers clearly indicate that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the frame rate drops are far more severe than what would be expected if the CPU were the bottleneck. At 1080p, the CPU appears to be keeping up adequately, as the differences between presets are relatively modest (129.1 FPS at Low versus 84.1 FPS at Ultra), but as resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows exponentially, and the frame rate collapses. The data implies that for this combo, 1080p is the sweet spot, 1440p is only viable with lower settings, and 4K is only playable at the Low preset.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for a smooth 60 FPS experience at 1440p?

A: The data shows that at 2560x1440, the Medium preset delivers an average of 93.9 FPS, while High drops to 73.6 FPS and Ultra falls to 50.8 FPS. Therefore, the High preset is the best option for maintaining a frame rate above 60 FPS, with a comfortable margin.

Q: Can this hardware handle 4K gaming in Outriders?

A: At 3840x2160, only the Low preset achieves a playable average of 70 FPS. The Medium preset yields 46.9 FPS, High drops to 35.1 FPS, and Ultra is below 30 FPS at 24.8 FPS. This indicates that 4K is only viable at the lowest settings, and even then, the experience will not be consistently smooth.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER compare to the RTX 2070 in synthetic benchmarks?

A: According to the nearestRivals data, the RTX 2060 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 19774, while the RTX 2070 scores 19680. This places the 2060 SUPER 0.5% ahead of the 2070, indicating that they are essentially equivalent in raw compute performance.

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

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 129.1 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 84.1 FPS. This is a difference of 45 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset costs a significant amount of performance for its visual enhancements.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data shows that at 1080p, the frame rate varies significantly with graphics settings (from 129.1 FPS at Low to 84.1 FPS at Ultra). This suggests that the GPU is the primary performance limiter, as changing settings has a direct impact on frame rate, while the CPU's 6-core/6-thread configuration appears sufficient to keep up.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among all tested configurations?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER combination is ranked 1408 out of 1693 tested combos in Outriders, placing it in the lower percentile of all tested hardware pairings for this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table details the exact average frame rates measured for the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER in Outriders:

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS |

|---|---|---|

| 3840x2160 | High | 35.1 |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 70 |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 46.9 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 24.8 |

| 2560x1440 | High | 73.6 |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 110.8 |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 93.9 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 50.8 |

| 1920x1080 | High | 104 |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 129.1 |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 116.2 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 84.1 |

These figures reveal a consistent pattern: the Low preset is the only one that maintains a playable frame rate across all resolutions, while the Ultra preset only exceeds 60 FPS at 1080p. The 1440p and 4K results show that this hardware is best suited for 1080p gaming, with 1440p being a stretch at higher settings and 4K being reserved for the most performance-conscious configurations.