Outriders

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-14700K brings 20 cores and 28 threads to Outriders, built on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process node. Its base clock runs at 3.40 GHz, boosting up to 5.60 GHz, which provides substantial single-thread headroom for a looter shooter that relies heavily on rapid physics calculations, enemy AI, and projectile tracking. The processor's 33 MB of shared L3 cache, alongside 2 MB of L2 per core, helps keep frequently accessed game data close to the execution units, reducing memory latency in dense combat scenarios.

Benchmark results place this CPU in the 96th percentile among all tested processors, indicating exceptional headroom for Outriders' engine. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44534 and single-core score of 6287 demonstrate that neither heavily threaded workloads nor single-threaded tasks present bottlenecks. The PassMark multi-thread score of 52392 and single-thread score of 4472 reinforce this balance. Compared to its nearest rivals, the i7-14700K sits within 1.4% of the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270, which scores 71056 in average benchmark score, and trails the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X by just 0.5%, with the latter scoring 70420.

What this means for Outriders is that the CPU's role is largely background support. The measured frame rates at 1080p with Low settings reach 195.9 FPS, a figure that suggests the engine's simulation layer—enemy spawns, loot generation, and skill cooldowns—is handled without straining the processor. Even at Ultra settings, where graphical load increases, the CPU's contribution remains consistent; the frame rate drop from Low to Ultra at 1080p (195.9 to 75.6 FPS) is attributable almost entirely to GPU workload rather than CPU limitations. The processor's 125 W TDP and active production status indicate a part designed for sustained performance, though the data does not include power draw during gaming sessions.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured data provides four preset options—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—across three resolutions. At 1080p, the Medium preset delivers 142.6 FPS, which is 36.7 FPS higher than High (107.1 FPS) and nearly double the Ultra result (75.6 FPS). The jump from Low to Medium costs 53.3 FPS (195.9 to 142.6), but the visual fidelity gain from Low is typically substantial in Outriders' particle-heavy effects and dynamic lighting. Medium at 1080p offers the best balance, as it maintains a frame rate well above the 60 FPS threshold while providing enough graphical detail for a looter shooter where reading enemy telegraphed attacks matters.

At 1440p, Medium again emerges as the optimal choice, delivering 93.4 FPS. High sits at 68.3 FPS, which is playable but leaves less headroom for sudden combat spikes. Ultra at 1440p drops to 49.4 FPS, which falls below smooth gameplay standards for this genre. Low at 1440p reaches 123 FPS, but the visual compromise is significant for a game that uses environmental storytelling and enemy readability as core mechanics.

For 4K, the situation changes. Medium produces 46.3 FPS, while High yields 36.4 FPS and Ultra only 25.3 FPS. Low at 4K achieves 63.5 FPS, making it the only preset that clears the 60 FPS bar. However, given the GPU's capabilities, Medium at 1440p appears to be the sweet spot for this combo, offering 93.4 FPS with a reasonable visual load. The data shows a consistent pattern: each preset tier at a given resolution costs roughly 30-40% of the previous tier's frame rate, suggesting that the rendering pipeline scales predictably with settings.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling behavior reveals clear GPU-bound characteristics. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 195.9 FPS at 1080p to 123 FPS at 1440p (a 37.2% decrease), then to 63.5 FPS at 4K (a 48.4% decrease from 1440p). This steep decline as pixel count increases indicates that the Intel Arc B580's rendering throughput is the primary constraint. The GPU's 13.67 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 456.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are being saturated as resolution rises.

At Medium settings, the pattern holds: 142.6 FPS at 1080p falls to 93.4 FPS at 1440p (34.5% drop) and then to 46.3 FPS at 4K (50.4% drop). The High preset shows 107.1 FPS at 1080p, 68.3 FPS at 1440p (36.2% drop), and 36.4 FPS at 4K (46.7% drop). Ultra follows similarly: 75.6 to 49.4 (34.7% drop) and then to 25.3 (48.8% drop). The consistent 34-37% reduction from 1080p to 1440p across all presets suggests a uniform pixel-count penalty, while the larger 47-50% reduction from 1440p to 4K reflects the 2.25x pixel increase that overwhelms the GPU's fill rate.

The GPU's pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s are the theoretical limits that explain these scaling patterns. At 4K Ultra, the 25.3 FPS result indicates the rendering pipeline is fully saturated. The CPU's role in this scaling is negligible; if the i7-14700K were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively flat across resolutions at each preset. Instead, the pronounced drops confirm that the Arc B580's 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and 192-bit bus are the determining factors.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700K with the Intel Arc B580 ranks 1314th out of 1693 tested combinations in Outriders, placing it in the bottom 22.3% of all combos. This rank is surprising given the CPU's strength, but it reflects the GPU's mid-tier positioning. The Arc B580 sits in the 66th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23021. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 760M (score 22999, delta 0.1%), NVIDIA P106-100 (score 22950, delta 0.3%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (score 23181, delta -0.7%). The RTX 4060's 1.3% higher score than the Arc B580 suggests the Intel card is competitive with mainstream options, but not a top-tier performer.

The combo rank indicates that Outriders is more GPU-sensitive than CPU-sensitive. The i7-14700K's 96th percentile CPU standing does not boost the overall combo rank because the GPU holds the system back at higher resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 195.9 FPS, which would likely rank higher than the median combo, but the 4K Ultra result of 25.3 FPS drags the aggregate performance down. The rank of 1314 out of 1693 suggests that many other combinations with similar or weaker CPUs but stronger GPUs outperform this setup in Outriders' demanding scenes.

The data also shows that the CPU's nearest rivals—the i7-14700KF, EPYC 9115, Ryzen 9 9950X, and Xeon Platinum 8270—all have nearly identical average scores within 1.4% of each other. This clustering indicates that CPU choice among high-end parts has minimal impact on Outriders' frame rates. The GPU's nearest rivals, however, show a wider spread, with the RTX 4060 Mobile being 1.3% faster and the Radeon 760M being 0.1% slower. This variance in GPU performance directly translates to the combo's overall rank.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Arc B580 utilizes the Xe2-HPG architecture on a 5 nm TSMC process, featuring 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for Outriders' texture streaming at 1080p and 1440p but becomes strained at 4K. The GPU's base and boost clocks are both 2670 MHz, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). These clock speeds, combined with 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, produce 13.67 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput.

In Outriders, the GPU's 20 ray tracing cores and DirectX 12 Ultimate support are relevant for the game's lighting effects, though the measured data uses standard rasterization presets. The 4K results—36.4 FPS at High, 25.3 FPS at Ultra—indicate that the GPU's fill rate is insufficient for 4K gaming with this title's visual complexity. The pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s are the theoretical ceilings that cap performance at higher resolutions.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 15748 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3068 reflect its mid-range positioning. Its percentile ranking of 66 places it above the median but far from enthusiast-class hardware. The 190 W TDP and single 8-pin power connector suggest a power-efficient design, though the suggested 450 W PSU indicates the system requires adequate headroom.

The measured frame rates show that the Arc B580 excels at 1080p, where it delivers 142.6 FPS at Medium and 107.1 FPS at High. The 12 GB VRAM capacity is adequate for Outriders' textures at these settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this allocation based on the stable frame rates. However, the 4K results show the GPU's memory bandwidth becomes a limiting factor, with the 456.0 GB/s bandwidth being insufficient to feed the 2560 shading units at 4K resolutions. This explains why the 4K Low preset (63.5 FPS) is the only 4K option that approaches playable frame rates, as it reduces the texture and shader workload to match the GPU's bandwidth capabilities.