Rust

Measured FPS Breakdown

The recorded data for Rust with the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER spans three resolutions and four quality presets. All figures represent average frame rates, as no minimum or maximum values were captured in the database.

At 1920x1080, the combination delivers a wide spread of performance across presets. Low settings produce an average of 150.2 FPS, the highest recorded value for this configuration. Medium increases visual load and drops the average to 105.1 FPS, a 30% reduction from the Low preset. High settles at 89.1 FPS, showing another 15% decrease from Medium. Ultra, the most demanding preset tested, maintains 64.5 FPS, which is still comfortably above the 60 FPS playability threshold.

Moving to 2560x1440, frame rates scale down predictably. Low yields 102.9 FPS, still a very fluid experience. Medium recorded 70.0 FPS, which is exactly at a borderline for high refresh rate displays but well above the playable threshold. High drops to 58.0 FPS, falling just shy of the 60 FPS mark, and Ultra is further behind at 46.6 FPS. The step from Low to Medium at this resolution costs roughly 32 FPS, while the step from Medium to High costs 11 FPS, and from High to Ultra the penalty is 12 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the load becomes much heavier. Low preset manages 61.6 FPS, just above the playable threshold. Medium falls to 40.6 FPS, High to 36.9 FPS, and Ultra to 26.6 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium at 4K is 21 FPS, which represents a significant drop from a minimally playable state to a clearly compromised one. The gap between High and Ultra is 10 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset is the most punishing combination tested.

Across all resolutions, the data shows no recorded minimum or maximum frame rate, so the averages alone define the playable envelope. The pattern is consistent: Ultra is only viable at 1080p, while 4K demands the Low preset.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling between resolutions and presets indicates how the workload shifts between the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER. At 1080p, the CPU has more headroom to feed the GPU, which is evident from the large performance difference between Low and Ultra. The 150.2 FPS at Low suggests the GPU is not fully saturated; the rendering pipeline becomes the bottleneck as the resolution increases.

At 1440p, the frame rates drop by a consistent margin, which points to the GPU becoming the primary constraint. The Ryzen 5 5500, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, provides enough processing power to keep the frame pipeline full at Medium and even High, but the GPU is the limiting factor when the texture and shading loads rise.

At 4K, the GPU is clearly the dominant component. The drop from Low to Medium is huge, going from 61.6 FPS down to 40.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 26.6 FPS. This resolution requires the RTX 2070 SUPER to work at its maximum memory bandwidth, which is rated at 448.0 GB/s from its 8 GB GDDR6 memory. The CPU sees minimal relative load at 4K because the GPU can no longer keep up with the rendering demands, so the processor's 16 MB L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are not the limiting factors.

For the 1080p settings, the CPU shows more influence. The jump from 150.2 FPS at Low to 64.5 FPS at Ultra is a 57% drop, which is larger than the resolution scaling would suggest. This indicates that at lower resolutions, the game engine is more bound by the CPU's single-thread performance and the GPU has spare capacity. The Ryzen 5 5500's bench scores, such as a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2319, confirm it has sufficient per-core strength for this scenario.

At 1440p, the balance shifts. The CPU is still capable of feeding the GPU at Medium, but the High preset shows the GPU limiting factor. At 4K, the GPU is the absolute bottleneck, and the CPU's role reduces to just keeping the frame pacing stable.

Best Settings per Resolution

The playable threshold is defined as an average of at least 60 FPS. Based on the recorded data, the most demanding preset that each resolution can maintain above that line is as follows:

At 3840x2160, only the Low preset stays above 60 FPS, with an average of 61.6 FPS. This is the only playable option at 4K; Medium, High, and Ultra all fall far below the threshold. The data shows that for a 4K display, the user must sacrifice most visual quality to achieve a fluid frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the best playable setting is Medium, which averages 70.0 FPS. Low is also playable at 102.9 FPS, but Medium offers a better visual experience while still maintaining 10 FPS of headroom above the threshold. High and Ultra do not meet the 60 FPS requirement, so they are not recommended for a primary display.

At 1920x1080, Ultra is the best playable setting, achieving 64.5 FPS. This is just above the 60 FPS threshold, so it is the most demanding preset that remains playable. High and Medium also meet the threshold with 89.1 and 105.1 FPS respectively, and Low hits 150.2 FPS, but Ultra provides the highest graphical quality within the playable window.

The verdict by resolution confirms that the best settings are exactly these values, with no other combinations offering a higher FPS and a higher preset simultaneously.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU and GPU each have a set of close rivals in the database, based on average benchmark scores.

For the AMD Ryzen 5 5500, its average benchmark score is 19593. The nearest rival is the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430, which scores 19617, a delta of -0.1% (the Ryzen 5 5500 is marginally ahead). The Intel Core i5-12500 scores 19668, which is -0.4% slower than the Ryzen 5 5500, meaning the AMD part is slightly faster. The Intel Core i7-10700F scores 19499, a +0.5% delta, so it is a tad behind the Ryzen 5 5500. The Intel Core i5-11600KF scores 19723, a -0.7% delta, again showing the Ryzen 5 5500 is slightly ahead. In practice, all four rivals would deliver near-identical CPU-bound performance in Rust at 1080p, with differences within the margin of error.

For the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, its average benchmark score is 20282. The nearest rival is the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M, which scores 20480, a delta of -1% (the RTX 2070 SUPER is slower). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile scores 20534, a delta of -1.2%, so the desktop RTX 2070 SUPER trails that mobile part by a small margin. The Intel Arc B570 scores 20556, a -1.3% delta, and the Intel Arc A750 scores 20582, a -1.5% delta. In all cases, the RTX 2070 SUPER is within 1.5% of these alternatives, meaning they would produce very similar frame rates at the same settings and resolution in Rust.

No other hardware specs are relevant here; the deltas are all under 2%, so the playability verdict at each resolution would remain the same with any of these rivals installed.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The average FPS is 64.5, which is just above the 60 FPS playable threshold.

Q: Can this combo run Rust at 4K with High settings?

A: No, the average FPS at 3840x2160 High is 36.9, which is far below the 60 FPS threshold. Only the Low preset at 4K reaches 61.6 FPS.

Q: Which resolution is the best for a 144Hz monitor?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average FPS is 150.2, which is above 144 FPS. Medium gives 105.1 FPS, and High gives 89.1 FPS. At 1440p, even Low only reaches 102.9 FPS, so 1080p is the only resolution that can get close to a 144 Hz refresh rate.

Q: Why is the FPS drop so large going from Medium to Ultra at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Medium averages 40.6 FPS and Ultra averages 26.6 FPS. The difference of 14 FPS (about 35% slower) shows that the Ultra preset places a significantly higher load on the GPU, which is already the bottleneck at this resolution.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more at 1440p?

A: The GPU is the primary limit at 1440p. Evidence is the consistent FPS drops across settings: Low to Medium to High to Ultra. The CPU has enough headroom to keep up, but the RTX 2070 SUPER does not have the bandwidth to sustain 60 FPS at High or Ultra at 2560x1440.

Q: Is the RTX 2070 SUPER faster than an RTX 3070 Mobile?

A: No, the RTX 3070 Mobile has a higher average score (20534) than the RTX 2070 SUPER (20282), a delta of -1.2%, meaning the RTX 2070 SUPER is about 1.2% slower in this database.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER combination is ranked 2151st overall out of 3723 tested combos for Rust. This puts the pair just above the midpoint of the database, at roughly the 42nd percentile of all configurations. The ranking reflects the balance of a mid-range CPU from 2022 with a high-end GPU from 2019.

The rank suggests that while this combo delivers playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p (Medium), it does not have the headroom for demanding 4K settings or high refresh rate gaming at 1440p. The GPU is the limiting factor, as the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB memory and 448 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient but not for the Ultra preset at high resolutions. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is a capable match for this GPU at 1080p, but the combo sits slightly below the median performance level of all tested systems.

In practice, the recorded data shows a consistently stable frame times at 1080p and 1440p, but the rank indicates that many other combos offer higher headroom, particularly those with more recent GPU architectures.