Outriders

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 produces a wide performance envelope in Outriders, with results that shift from GPU-bound at 4K to increasingly CPU-limited at 1080p. The measured frame rates show a clear hierarchy where the RTX 5090’s immense rendering power is only fully utilized at higher resolutions and quality settings, while lower resolutions expose the limits of the 12th-gen processor. This combo ranks 40th out of 1693 tested configurations, placing it in the top 2.4% of all systems, a position driven more by the GPU’s dominance than the CPU’s mid-pack standing among its peers.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling curve, but with an unusual flattening at the top end. At High settings, the system delivers 199 FPS at 1920x1080, drops 16.2% to 166.9 FPS at 2560x1440, and then falls 46.7% to 88.9 FPS at 3840x2160. This pattern—a modest 1440p penalty followed by a massive 4K hit—indicates that the RTX 5090 remains the primary limiter at 4K, while the 1080p result is already constrained by the CPU.

The Low settings data confirms this interpretation. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 246.8 FPS, which is only 24% higher than the 199 FPS at High settings. This relatively small gain suggests the CPU is nearing its practical ceiling for this game’s engine, as the GPU should easily handle Low settings at 1080p. Moving to 1440p Low yields 212.7 FPS, a 13.8% reduction, while 4K Low still manages 165.2 FPS—a figure that would be considered excellent for most systems but represents a 33.1% drop from the 1080p result.

Ultra settings produce the most dramatic scaling. The system hits 176.4 FPS at 1080p Ultra, 121.3 FPS at 1440p Ultra (a 31.2% drop), and only 66.9 FPS at 4K Ultra (a 44.8% drop from 1440p). The 4K Ultra result is particularly telling: it is 53.9% lower than 4K Low, indicating that the RTX 5090’s 32 GB of VRAM and 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are being saturated by the combination of resolution and quality. The data shows that Outriders at 4K Ultra is a heavy workload even for this flagship GPU.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090’s specifications explain much of the observed behavior. With 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, the GPU has ample resources for Outriders at any resolution. The 176 ROPs and 680 TMUs provide substantial pixel and texture throughput, which is reflected in the strong 4K performance. The boost clock of 2407 MHz, up from a 2017 MHz base, allows the GPU to sustain high utilization during extended play sessions.

The memory subsystem is particularly relevant for the Ultra settings results. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate collapses to 66.9 FPS, which is 59.7% lower than the 165.2 FPS at 4K Low. This massive penalty suggests that the game’s Ultra preset introduces effects or texture detail that heavily taxes the GPU’s compute resources rather than its memory capacity, given that 32 GB is far beyond Outriders’ likely requirements. The 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the limiting factor here, as the shading units (21,760) are pushed to their maximum.

The GPU’s 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84,306, places it just 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D and 0.2% ahead of the RTX 5050 Mobile in raw compute tests. However, in actual Outriders gameplay, the desktop RTX 5090’s higher thermal headroom and full 575 W TDP allow it to maintain boost clocks better than mobile variants. The data shows that the GPU is never the bottleneck at 1080p, where even Ultra settings produce 176.4 FPS, but becomes increasingly dominant at 1440p and 4K.

FAQ

Q: Why does the frame rate at 1080p Low (246.8 FPS) not scale proportionally with the GPU’s raw power?

A: The CPU becomes the limiting factor at lower resolutions. The Intel Core i7-12700K, with its 12 cores and 20 threads, delivers strong single-thread performance (4,128 in Cinebench R23 single-core), but Outriders’ engine cannot fully utilize the RTX 5090’s throughput at 1080p. The 24% gain from High to Low settings at 1080p, compared to the 46.6% gain at 4K, demonstrates this CPU bottleneck.

Q: Is the RTX 5090’s 32 GB VRAM necessary for Outriders?

A: Based on the measured data, the VRAM capacity is not a limiting factor at any tested setting. The performance drop from 4K Low (165.2 FPS) to 4K Ultra (66.9 FPS) is driven by compute load, not memory capacity. The 1.79 TB/s bandwidth and 512-bit bus ensure that memory bandwidth is never constraining, even at 4K Ultra.

Q: How does this combo compare to the nearest GPU rival, the RTX 5090 D?

A: The RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 84,306, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 5090 D’s 84,241. In practical terms, this difference is negligible, and in Outriders, the performance is identical within measurement tolerance. The combo ranking of 40th out of 1693 is more reflective of the CPU pairing than any GPU advantage.

Q: What is the best resolution to use for competitive play with this combo?

A: For the highest frame rates, 1080p Low provides 246.8 FPS, while 1440p Low offers 212.7 FPS. The data shows diminishing returns below 1440p: the jump from 1440p to 1080p only adds 34.1 FPS at Low settings, suggesting that 1440p is the sweet spot for balancing visual clarity and refresh rate headroom.

Q: Does the CPU’s 89th percentile ranking affect 4K performance?

A: No. At 4K, the RTX 5090 is the bottleneck across all settings. The CPU’s 12 cores and 20 threads provide sufficient processing power to feed the GPU, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates at 4K Low (165.2 FPS) and 4K Medium (120.5 FPS). The CPU only becomes a factor at 1080p, where its limits cap performance below 250 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset scale from 1440p to 4K?

A: The drop is severe: 121.3 FPS at 1440p Ultra falls to 66.9 FPS at 4K Ultra, a 44.8% reduction. This is the largest percentage drop across all settings, indicating that Ultra at 4K pushes the GPU’s 104.8 TFLOPS compute to its limits. Players seeking 4K Ultra should expect frame rates below 70 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 40 out of 1693 tested configurations places it in the 97.6th percentile of all systems. This is a strong result, but the ranking is somewhat deceptive when analyzing the components individually. The RTX 5090 sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, while the Core i7-12700K is in the 89th percentile of all CPUs—both are excellent, but neither is the absolute top performer.

The nearest CPU rivals show how close the i7-12700K is to its peers. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 scores 35,802, which is 0.3% higher than the i7-12700K’s 35,684 average. The Intel Core i5-14500HX is 0.7% higher at 35,940, while the Core i7-13700T and Core i7-13800H score 35,468 and 35,416 respectively, putting them 0.6% and 0.8% lower. These sub-1% differences mean that swapping the CPU for any of these rivals would produce virtually identical Outriders performance.

The GPU’s rivals are similarly clustered. The RTX 5090 D is 0.1% behind, the RTX 5050 Mobile is 0.2% behind, and the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 is 1.3% behind. The NVIDIA CMP 40HX is 1.6% ahead in raw compute, but this mining-focused card lacks the display outputs and driver optimizations for gaming. In Outriders specifically, the combo’s rank is driven by the GPU’s ability to maintain high frame rates across all settings, with the CPU providing just enough headroom to avoid major bottlenecks at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080:

• Low: 246.8 FPS average
• Medium: 217.3 FPS average
• High: 199 FPS average
• Ultra: 176.4 FPS average

At 1080p, the spread from Low to Ultra is 70.4 FPS, a 28.5% reduction. The step from Low to Medium costs 29.5 FPS, while Medium to High costs 18.3 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 22.6 FPS. The relatively even steps suggest the CPU is the primary limiter at this resolution, as the GPU would show larger gaps between Low and Ultra if it were the bottleneck.

2560x1440:

• Low: 212.7 FPS average
• Medium: 188.6 FPS average
• High: 166.9 FPS average
• Ultra: 121.3 FPS average

The 1440p results show a wider spread of 91.4 FPS (43% reduction from Low to Ultra). The gap between High and Ultra widens to 45.6 FPS, indicating the GPU is starting to become more involved. The 1440p Low result of 212.7 FPS is still CPU-limited, but the Ultra result of 121.3 FPS shows the GPU taking over as the limiting factor.

3840x2160:

• Low: 165.2 FPS average
• Medium: 120.5 FPS average
• High: 88.9 FPS average
• Ultra: 66.9 FPS average

At 4K, the GPU is unequivocally the bottleneck. The Low to Ultra spread is 98.3 FPS, a 59.5% reduction. The step from Low to Medium costs 44.7 FPS, Medium to High costs 31.6 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 22 FPS. The diminishing absolute differences at higher settings are typical of a GPU approaching its compute limit, where each additional quality tier requires exponentially more processing power. The 4K Ultra result of 66.9 FPS is the only averaged frame rate below 70 FPS across the entire test matrix, confirming that this setting is the most demanding combination for the RTX 5090.