Outriders

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 presents a starkly imbalanced pairing in Outriders, where the legacy Polaris GPU consistently bottlenecks the modern 16-core processor. The measured data shows a system that can deliver smooth 1080p gameplay at medium settings, but which collapses under the weight of higher resolutions and Ultra presets. This analysis breaks down the optimal settings, the respective roles of the CPU and GPU, and how resolution scaling exposes the hardware limits.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the Medium preset at 1920x1080 is the optimal configuration for this hardware combination, delivering an average of 79 FPS. This represents the best balance between visual fidelity and performance, as it is the only preset at 1080p that stays comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining playable frame rates. The Low preset at 1080p achieves 109.9 FPS, which is excellent for competitive play, but it requires sacrificing significant visual quality. High at 1080p drops to 61.2 FPS, which is technically playable but leaves almost no headroom for demanding combat scenarios with numerous enemies and particle effects common to looter shooters.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more constrained. The Medium preset delivers 50.5 FPS, which is below the ideal 60 FPS target but remains playable for a slower-paced game. The Low preset at 1440p achieves 69.7 FPS and represents the only way to get a smooth experience at this resolution. The High preset at 1440p falls to 39.7 FPS, making it a poor choice for anything beyond casual exploration. Ultra settings are not recommended at any resolution, as the data shows catastrophic performance: 28.8 FPS at 1440p and 11.5 FPS at 4K. The performance cliff between Medium and High at 1440p (50.5 to 39.7 FPS) indicates that the RX 580's memory bandwidth and compute resources are saturated by the higher-fidelity textures and shading.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a Raptor Lake-S processor with 16 cores and 24 threads, boosting up to 5.40 GHz. Its benchmark scores position it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 and a single-core score of 5505. This is an exceptionally capable processor for gaming, and its PassMark multithread score of 45887 places it virtually tied with the Core i7-13700KF (deltaPct -0.1) and slightly ahead of the Core i9-12900F (deltaPct 0.4). The data suggests the CPU is never the limiting factor in Outriders.

The game's engine appears to scale well with the processor's single-thread performance, as evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1136 and the PassMark single-thread score of 4333. However, even the game's most demanding scenarios do not fully utilize the CPU's potential. The measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings are far too low to be caused by CPU limitations, particularly at 4K where the GPU is clearly overwhelmed. The CPU's 30 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support provide ample bandwidth for game logic and physics calculations, but the RX 580 simply cannot feed frames fast enough to stress the i7-13700K. In essence, the CPU idles while the GPU works at full capacity, a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is a Polaris 20 chip built on a 14 nm process, featuring 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock runs at 1340 MHz, and its FP32 performance is rated at 6.175 TFLOPS. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 8813 places it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, with its closest rival being the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (deltaPct 0) and the GTX 950 (deltaPct 0.1). This places the RX 580 firmly in the mid-range tier of graphics hardware, and the benchmark results reflect this positioning.

The GPU's 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s becomes a bottleneck at higher resolutions and detail settings. The measured frame rates show a clear pattern: the GPU's performance degrades dramatically as resolution increases. At 1080p Medium, the card delivers 79 FPS, but this drops to 50.5 FPS at 1440p Medium and 27.1 FPS at 4K Medium. The Ultra preset is particularly punishing, with the card managing only 44.5 FPS at 1080p and 11.5 FPS at 4K. This indicates that the Polaris architecture's raw compute power is insufficient for the game's high-end visual effects, including volumetric lighting and complex shader work. The 6.175 TFLOPS FP32 performance is simply not enough to maintain smooth frame rates when the game's renderer demands more than the GPU can provide.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Outriders at 60 FPS?*

A: Yes, but only at 1080p with the Medium preset (79 FPS) or Low preset (109.9 FPS). The High preset at 1080p barely reaches 61.2 FPS, while all settings at 1440p and 4K fail to hit 60 FPS.

Q: Is the Ultra preset playable at any resolution?

A: No. The measured data shows Ultra delivers only 44.5 FPS at 1080p, 28.8 FPS at 1440p, and 11.5 FPS at 4K. These frame rates are too low for a smooth gameplay experience in a looter shooter that requires quick reactions.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its closest competitors?

A: The RX 580's average benchmark score of 13559 is virtually identical to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (13564, deltaPct 0) and the GTX 950 (13549, deltaPct 0.1). It sits 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 455 and 1.1% behind the NVIDIA P106-090.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the main bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU is overwhelmingly the bottleneck. The i7-13700K ranks in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, while the RX 580 ranks in the 53rd percentile. The frame rates scale inversely with resolution and settings, which is characteristic of GPU limitation.

Q: What is the best resolution for this hardware?

A: 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the system can achieve playable frame rates across multiple presets. At 1440p, only the Low preset (69.7 FPS) approaches 60 FPS, while higher presets fall below 50 FPS.

*Q: Does the CPU's high core count help in Outriders?*

A: The data suggests it provides no measurable benefit. The i7-13700K's 16 cores and 24 threads are far beyond what the game requires, as the frame rates are entirely dictated by the GPU's performance at all tested resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a dramatic performance drop as resolution scales from 1080p to 4K. At the Medium preset, the average FPS falls from 79 at 1080p to 50.5 at 1440p and 27.1 at 4K. This represents a 36% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a further 46% drop from 1440p to 4K. The Low preset shows a similar trend, falling from 109.9 FPS at 1080p to 69.7 FPS at 1440p and 37.2 FPS at 4K. The High preset drops from 61.2 FPS at 1080p to 39.7 FPS at 1440p and 22.6 FPS at 4K. These steep declines indicate that the RX 580's pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints.

The pattern of performance degradation is consistent with a GPU-bound workload. As resolution increases, the number of pixels that need to be shaded and rendered grows quadratically, and the RX 580's 42.88 GPixel/s pixel rate is quickly overwhelmed. The 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth also becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the GPU needs to access larger textures and frame buffers. The i7-13700K's performance is unaffected by resolution, meaning the CPU could theoretically handle much higher frame rates if paired with a more powerful GPU. The 4K Ultra result of 11.5 FPS is particularly telling, as it shows the GPU is completely saturated and unable to maintain interactive frame rates even with the powerful CPU providing data. This scaling behavior confirms that any upgrade path should focus exclusively on the graphics card, as the CPU has ample headroom for future GPU upgrades.