Outriders

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti delivers a consistent gaming experience in Outriders, but the benchmark data reveals a system that is heavily constrained by its processor at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the combination achieves an average of 130.5 FPS on Low settings, which drops to 103.8 FPS on High and 92 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 1440p, the frame rates scale to 109.3 FPS on Low and 86 FPS on High, while 4K High produces 73.4 FPS. The performance trajectory shows the expected inverse relationship between resolution and frame rate, yet the magnitude of the drops between settings tiers indicates where the bottleneck lies.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that shifts from CPU-bound to GPU-bound as pixel count increases. At 1080p Low, the RTX 5070 Ti is clearly not the limiting factor, as the i5-9400’s six threads cap output at 130.5 FPS. When resolution rises to 1440p Low, the average only falls to 109.3 FPS, a decline of 16.2% that suggests the GPU is beginning to take on more load. By 4K Low, the average drops to 85.8 FPS, a further 21.5% reduction from 1440p, which is a steeper curve indicating the graphics card is now the primary constraint.

The settings-based scaling at each resolution tells a more nuanced story. At 1080p, the spread between Low and Ultra is 38.5 FPS (130.5 down to 92), which is substantial but not as wide as the gap seen at higher resolutions. At 1440p, the Low-to-Ultra spread narrows to 31.8 FPS (109.3 down to 77.5), while at 4K, the spread expands to 34.5 FPS (85.8 down to 51.3). The Ultra preset at 4K is particularly punishing, delivering only 51.3 FPS, which is 40.2% lower than the 4K Low result. This pattern indicates that while the CPU limits raw throughput at lower resolutions, the GPU’s rendering capabilities become the deciding factor when both resolution and visual fidelity are maximized.

The data shows that this combo is best suited for 1440p High or 4K Medium gameplay. The 4K Medium result of 81.6 FPS is only 5.4% below the 4K High figure, suggesting diminishing returns from the Medium to High transition at that resolution. Conversely, the jump from High to Ultra at 4K costs 22.1 FPS (73.4 down to 51.3), which represents a 30.1% performance penalty for what is likely a marginal visual improvement in a fast-paced looter shooter.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor from the Coffee Lake generation, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its benchmark scores place it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2305. This mid-pack positioning is reflected in its nearest rivals: it sits just 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i3-10305 and the Intel Core i3-1125G4, and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Xeon E-2134. The i5-9400 trails the Intel Core i7-8809G by 0.6%, a margin that underscores its status as a solidly average processor in 2025 terms.

In Outriders, the CPU’s six threads are sufficient to maintain playable frame rates, but the data suggests they are the ceiling for high-refresh-rate gaming. The 1080p Low result of 130.5 FPS is the highest average recorded across all tested configurations, and the fact that this drops to 103.8 FPS at 1080p High indicates that the processor cannot fully feed the RTX 5070 Ti when graphical load decreases. The single-core performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 (1125 points), is adequate for the game’s logic and physics, but the lack of hyper-threading means the CPU has no spare resources to handle background tasks or aggressive draw-call scenarios.

The L3 cache of 9 MB (shared) is a notable limitation for a game like Outriders, which features dense enemy encounters and destructible environments. The dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth is another potential constraint, as the GPU’s 896.0 GB/s bandwidth vastly outpaces what the CPU can deliver to system memory. The benchmark results show that the CPU’s performance ceiling is reached at around 130 FPS, and any attempt to push beyond that requires a processor with higher single-thread throughput or additional cores, as evidenced by the i7-8809G’s slight lead in average benchmark score.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on a 5 nm process, featuring 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus. Its memory bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s is a dominant factor in this pairing, allowing the GPU to maintain strong performance even at 4K resolution. The GPU’s benchmark scores place it at the 87th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 52086. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, has a nearly identical average score of 52085, a delta of 0%, indicating that the RTX 5070 Ti performs on par with that previous-generation flagship.

In Outriders, the GPU’s role becomes increasingly important as resolution scales. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 51.3 is the lowest recorded, which is a direct consequence of the GPU’s pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s being pushed to their limits. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for Outriders at any setting, as the game was released in 2021 and does not require the memory headroom that modern titles demand. The boost clock of 2452 MHz, combined with the 8960 shading units, ensures that the GPU is never the bottleneck at 1080p, but the data shows that it becomes the limiting component at 4K Ultra.

The RTX 5070 Ti’s performance relative to its rivals is telling. It matches the RTX 4080 exactly in average benchmark score, yet it is 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon RX 7700S and 2.5% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A1000. This positioning suggests that the GPU is well above average, but the 4K Ultra result of 51.3 FPS is a reminder that even high-end hardware has limits when paired with a mid-range CPU. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU can deliver 85.8 FPS at 4K Low, which is a 67.2% improvement over the 4K Ultra result, indicating that the card has substantial headroom when visual settings are reduced.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware?

A: The data shows that 1440p High (86 FPS) or 4K Medium (81.6 FPS) offer the best balance of visual quality and performance. The 4K Ultra preset falls to 51.3 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider acceptable.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in Outriders?

A: At 1080p, the CPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the frame rates plateau around 130.5 FPS on Low settings. At 4K Ultra, the GPU becomes the constraint, with the average dropping to 51.3 FPS. The shift occurs between 1440p and 4K, where the GPU’s rendering load begins to dominate.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i3-10305 and the Intel Core i3-1125G4, and 0.4% higher than the Intel Xeon E-2134. It trails the Intel Core i7-8809G by 0.6%, a negligible difference in real-world gaming.

Q: Does the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM matter for Outriders?

A: The 16 GB GDDR7 memory is far more than Outriders requires, given its 2021 release date. The game’s memory footprint is unlikely to exceed even half of that capacity at any settings, so VRAM is not a limiting factor in this title.

Q: What is the expected performance at 4K with different quality presets?

A: The measured averages are 85.8 FPS on Low, 81.6 FPS on Medium, 73.4 FPS on High, and 51.3 FPS on Ultra. The gap between High and Ultra (22.1 FPS) is the largest single-step drop, suggesting that Ultra settings impose a significant rendering burden.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: This pairing ranks 1094th out of 1693 tested combos in Outriders, placing it in the lower third of all configurations. This ranking reflects the CPU’s mid-pack performance relative to the GPU’s high-end capabilities.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1094 out of 1693 tested combinations places this system in the 35th percentile of all configurations tested in Outriders. This is a surprisingly low ranking given the GPU’s stellar benchmark scores, but it makes sense when considering the CPU’s limitations. The i5-9400’s average benchmark score of 2305 is almost exactly at the median (50th percentile) of all CPUs, while the RTX 5070 Ti sits at the 87th percentile of all GPUs. The disparity between these two components is the primary reason for the modest overall ranking.

In practical terms, this combo’s ranking means that a significant majority of tested systems outperform it in Outriders. The 4K Ultra result of 51.3 FPS is particularly indicative of this, as many combinations with more balanced CPU-GPU pairings would likely achieve higher frame rates at that settings tier. However, the data also shows that this combo is far from unusable. The 1440p High result of 86 FPS is competitive, and the 1080p High result of 103.8 FPS is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay.

The ranking also underscores the importance of CPU choice in a game like Outriders, which appears to be more sensitive to processor performance than GPU raw power. The fact that the RTX 5070 Ti matches the RTX 4080 in average benchmark score, yet this combo still ranks in the lower third, suggests that the i5-9400 is holding back a much more capable GPU. For users with this specific pairing, the data indicates that lowering resolution to 1440p or reducing settings to Medium at 4K are the most effective ways to improve playability, as the GPU has ample headroom to compensate for the CPU’s limitations.