Rust

The Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 combination delivers a workable Rust experience at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K remains firmly out of reach. Measured data shows the pairing hitting a 71 FPS average at 1080p High, while 1440p Low reaches 87 FPS; at 3840x2160, no settings preset achieves the 60 FPS playable threshold. This places the combo at rank 2900 out of 3723 tested combinations in Rust, a mid-to-lower tier result that reflects the GPU’s 63rd percentile standing among all GPUs and the CPU’s 77th percentile among all CPUs.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear progression from Low to Ultra. Low settings produce an average of 126 FPS, making it the fastest preset at this resolution by a wide margin. Medium averages 85 FPS, with a minimum of 72 FPS and a maximum of 97 FPS. High drops to 71 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 54 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is substantial — 72 FPS — which indicates that Rust’s visual settings have a heavy performance cost on this hardware. Notably, the minimum FPS figures are only recorded for Medium at this resolution, so frame-time consistency for other presets is not quantified in the data.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages scale down as expected. Low settings produce 87 FPS, which remains comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. Medium averages 58 FPS, with a minimum of 49 FPS and a maximum of 67 FPS, meaning the preset is borderline playable but will dip below the threshold in demanding scenes. High settings average 49 FPS, and Ultra falls to 37 FPS. The resolution jump from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 31% of the Low-setting average (from 126 to 87 FPS), while the Medium preset loses about 32% (from 85 to 58 FPS). This consistent reduction suggests a GPU-bound scenario where pixel count directly drives performance.

At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable. Low settings average 51 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold. Medium averages 34 FPS, with a minimum of 29 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. High settings average 29 FPS, and Ultra drops to 22 FPS. The 4K resolution imposes a severe penalty: even the lowest settings cannot sustain a playable frame rate. The data shows no min or max values for Low, High, or Ultra at 4K, so only the Medium preset provides a full frame-time picture. The average FPS figures alone, however, make it clear that this combination is not intended for 4K gaming in Rust.

The measured FPS data also reveals that the CPU’s strong multi-threaded scores — a Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 22604 and a Passmark multithread score of 25032 — do not translate into high frame rates at higher resolutions. The GPU’s Passmark G3D score of 15096 and its 8 GB GDDR6 memory with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth appear to be the limiting factors when resolution increases. The RX 6600’s 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs are modest for 4K workloads, which aligns with the observed 29 FPS average at 4K High versus 71 FPS at 1080p High.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is High, with an average of 71 FPS. Medium also clears the threshold at 85 FPS, and Low is far ahead at 126 FPS, but High offers the best visual quality while maintaining a 60+ FPS average. Ultra falls short at 54 FPS, so it is not recommended for smooth gameplay. The 71 FPS average at High leaves a small margin above the 60 FPS target, meaning that heavy in-game scenes could potentially cause dips below that level, though no min FPS data is available for this preset to confirm.

At 2560x1440, the only playable preset is Low, with an average of 87 FPS. Medium averages 58 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold, and the recorded minimum of 49 FPS confirms that frame rates will drop further in demanding moments. High and Ultra are far behind at 49 FPS and 37 FPS, respectively. Therefore, Low is the best settings choice at 1440p, offering a significant cushion above the playable threshold. The 87 FPS average at 1440p Low also exceeds the 71 FPS at 1080p High, which suggests that players prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity should consider the resolution trade-off.

At 3840x2160, there are no playable settings. The verdict data lists an empty set of playable settings, and the best settings field is null. Low comes closest at 51 FPS, but that is still below the 60 FPS threshold. Medium, High, and Ultra all fall further behind, with averages of 34 FPS, 29 FPS, and 22 FPS, respectively. This means that 4K gaming is not viable with this hardware combination in Rust, regardless of the preset chosen. The data does not provide a recommended setting for 4K because none meet the playability criterion.

The playable settings lists from the verdict data confirm these conclusions: at 1080p, High, Low, and Medium are all playable, with High being the best; at 1440p, only Low is playable; at 4K, the list is empty. This pattern shows that the RX 6600’s 8 GB memory and 128-bit bus width are adequate for 1080p and entry-level 1440p, but not for 4K.

CPU and GPU Roles

The measured FPS scaling across resolutions indicates that the GPU is the dominant performance factor in Rust for this combination. At 1080p Low, the average is 126 FPS; at 1440p Low, it drops to 87 FPS; at 4K Low, it drops further to 51 FPS. This near-linear relationship with pixel count — 1080p to 1440p is a 1.78x increase in pixels, and the FPS drops by 31% — points to a GPU-bound scenario. The RX 6600’s 8.928 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 279.0 GTexel/s texture rate are the relevant specs, and they appear insufficient to maintain high frame rates as resolution grows.

The CPU’s role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions where frame rates are higher. At 1080p Low, 126 FPS requires the i5-13400F to feed frames quickly. The CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, provide ample single-thread performance — evidenced by a Passmark single-thread score of 3634 and a 3DMark single-thread score of 960. Rust is known for its CPU-heavy simulation, but the data here shows that the i5-13400F keeps up with the GPU at 1080p, as the 126 FPS average is not bottlenecked by the processor. The CPU’s 3DMark 16-thread score of 7314 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22604 suggest it can handle the game’s entity and physics calculations without becoming the limiting factor.

At 1440p, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. The 49 FPS average at High and 37 FPS at Ultra show that the RX 6600 cannot keep pace with the increased pixel load, regardless of the CPU’s capabilities. The CPU’s performance remains constant across resolutions, so the observed FPS drops are attributable to the GPU. At 4K, the gap widens further, with the GPU producing only 51 FPS at Low, while the CPU sits idle waiting for frames. This is a textbook GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions.

The preset scaling also supports this analysis. At 1080p, going from Low to High reduces FPS from 126 to 71, a 44% drop. At 1440p, the same preset change drops FPS from 87 to 49, a 44% drop as well. At 4K, Low to High drops from 51 to 29, a 43% reduction. The consistency of this percentage across resolutions suggests that the GPU’s rendering workload scales proportionally with both resolution and settings, with no sudden CPU-related cliff. If the CPU were a bottleneck, the percentage drop would likely be smaller at lower resolutions where the GPU has less work to do.

The CPU’s percentileVsAllCpus of 77 and the GPU’s percentileVsAllGpus of 63 provide a rough comparison of their relative strengths. The CPU is above the GPU in percentile rank, which aligns with the observation that the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing. The i5-13400F’s nearest rivals — the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS, Intel Core 5 120, AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D, and AMD Ryzen 7 6800H — all have average benchmark scores within 0.4% of the i5-13400F, confirming that the CPU is a strong performer in its class. The RX 6600’s nearest rivals — the NVIDIA Quadro K6000, GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile, Tesla K20m, and RTX 2000 Ada Generation — also have scores within 0.4% of the RX 6600, but these are largely workstation or mobile parts, not direct desktop gaming competitors.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of 3723 tested combos for Rust, this pairing ranks 2900th. That places it in the lower 22% of all combinations tested. The rank reflects the performance ceiling imposed by the RX 6600, as the CPU is comparatively stronger. The combo’s rank of 2900 means that 823 other combinations outperform it, and 2900 combinations perform worse. This is not a top-tier result, but it is also not near the bottom of the list. The rank is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows playable performance at 1080p and 1440p Low, but not at 4K.

The GPU’s percentileVsAllGpus of 63 means it performs better than 63% of all GPUs in the database, which is a mid-range standing. The CPU’s percentileVsAllCpus of 77 places it above 77% of all CPUs. The combination of a stronger CPU and weaker GPU creates an imbalance that is reflected in the combo rank. If the CPU were weaker, the rank might be similar due to the GPU bottleneck; if the GPU were stronger, the rank would likely improve significantly. The data suggests that pairing the i5-13400F with a more capable GPU would yield a much higher combo rank in Rust, but that is outside the scope of this analysis.

The combo rank of 2900 out of 3723 also implies that many other CPU-GPU pairings deliver better Rust performance. The measured FPS at 1080p High (71 FPS) and 1440p Low (87 FPS) are respectable for a mid-range setup, but they do not compete with high-end combinations that would likely exceed 144 FPS at 1080p. The rank serves as a useful benchmark for users to compare this specific pairing against others in the database, based solely on measured performance data.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU’s nearest rivals, based on average benchmark scores, include the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (avgScore 25284, deltaPct 0), Intel Core 5 120 (avgScore 25362, deltaPct -0.3), AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (avgScore 25365, deltaPct -0.3), and AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (avgScore 25201, deltaPct 0.4). These processors have scores within 0.4% of the i5-13400F’s 25292 average, meaning they would behave nearly identically in Rust when paired with the same GPU. Swapping the i5-13400F for any of these would produce negligible FPS changes, as the deltaPct is effectively zero. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D is particularly interesting because its 3D V-Cache could theoretically help in CPU-bound scenarios, but the data shows no meaningful difference in average benchmark score, so the impact in Rust would be minimal.

The GPU’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 (avgScore 19030, deltaPct 0), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile (avgScore 19049, deltaPct -0.1), NVIDIA Tesla K20m (avgScore 19089, deltaPct -0.3), and NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation (avgScore 18954, deltaPct 0.4). These GPUs have scores within 0.4% of the RX 6600’s 19036 average. In Rust, each of these would produce similar FPS numbers at the same settings and resolutions. The RTX 4050 Mobile is a laptop part, so its desktop equivalent performance might differ, but the benchmark data treats it as comparable. The Quadro K6000 and Tesla K20m are older workstation cards, and their driver support for gaming could be a factor, but the raw scores suggest similar frame rates.

For a user considering an upgrade or alternative, the data indicates that neither the CPU nor the GPU has a clearly superior rival within the nearestRivals set. The deltaPct values are all within half a percent, so any swap would result in nearly identical measured FPS. This means that the combo rank of 2900 would not improve by switching to any of these specific rivals. To move up in rank, a user would need to choose a GPU or CPU outside this immediate rival group, but the FACT PACK does not provide data on such alternatives.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Rust at 1080p with high settings?

A: Yes. Measured data shows an average of 71 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings, which is above the 60 FPS playable threshold. Medium and Low also clear the threshold at 85 FPS and 126 FPS, respectively. Ultra falls short at 54 FPS.

Q: Is 1440p playable with this hardware?

A: Only at Low settings. The 2560x1440 Low preset averages 87 FPS, which is playable. Medium averages 58 FPS, just below the 60 FPS threshold, with a minimum of 49 FPS. High and Ultra are not playable at 49 FPS and 37 FPS.

Q: What about 4K performance?

A: 4K is not playable. At 3840x2160, Low averages 51 FPS, Medium averages 34 FPS, High averages 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 22 FPS. No preset reaches the 60 FPS threshold, and the verdict data confirms there are no playable settings at this resolution.

Q: Which component is the bottleneck for this game?

A: The GPU. The RX 6600 has a percentileVsAllGpus of 63, while the i5-13400F has a percentileVsAllCpus of 77. Measured FPS drops consistently as resolution increases — from 126 FPS at 1080p Low to 87 FPS at 1440p Low to 51 FPS at 4K Low — indicating the GPU cannot handle higher pixel counts.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems in Rust?

A: It ranks 2900 out of 3723 tested combinations. This places it in the lower portion of the database, consistent with the mid-range GPU and stronger CPU pairing.

Q: What hardware would perform similarly to the CPU or GPU?

A: The CPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS, Intel Core 5 120, AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D, and AMD Ryzen 7 6800H, all within 0.4% average benchmark score. The GPU’s nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Quadro K6000, GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile, Tesla K20m, and RTX 2000 Ada Generation, also within 0.4%. Swapping to any of these would yield nearly identical Rust performance.