Rust

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER lands at rank 1529 out of 1717 tested combinations for Rust. This places the combo in the lower 11% of all tested systems, indicating that while it can run the game, it does so from a position of significant compromise. The data suggests this pairing is far from optimal for Rust, with the GPU and CPU both contributing to a constrained experience, particularly at higher resolutions and detail settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 1529 out of 1717 is a decisive indicator of its standing. It is not merely mid-pack; it sits firmly in the lower tier, meaning the vast majority of other tested CPU-GPU pairings deliver better performance in Rust. The percentile positioning implies that users with this hardware are likely to encounter noticeable frame rate limitations compared to more balanced or modern systems. The ranking reflects the combined ceiling of the Ryzen 5 2600’s Zen architecture and the GTX 1660 SUPER’s Turing-based design, both of which are now several generations old.

In relative terms, the CPU’s average benchmark score of 19616 places it within 0.7% of the Intel Core i7-10700F and 0.6% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U, showing that the processor is not the sole bottleneck. However, the GPU’s average score of 14286 puts it just 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11, a far less capable part in most scenarios. This suggests that the graphics card is the more significant limiting factor in this pairing, as its standing among rivals is weaker than the CPU’s. The data indicates that the combo’s low rank is primarily a function of the GPU’s modest performance tier, which cannot fully leverage the CPU’s six cores in a demanding survival title like Rust.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU116 chip, featuring 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. Its memory configuration of 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The base clock is 1530 MHz with a boost clock of 1785 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz, effectively 14 Gbps. These specifications are modest by modern standards, and the GPU’s percentile rank of 55 against all GPUs confirms it is a mid-range part.

In Rust, the GPU’s role is critical, as the game’s rendering load scales heavily with detail settings. The PassMark G3D score of 12699 and DirectX 11 score of 104 indicate that the card can handle rasterization tasks, but its 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is a hard ceiling. The 6 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p, but at 4K, the memory capacity and bandwidth become strained, leading to the low frame rates seen in the measured data. The boost clock of 1785 MHz helps at lower resolutions, but the card’s overall throughput is inadequate for maintaining high frame rates when pixel count increases. The data shows that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the primary constraint, as the CPU’s relative performance is stronger, and the GPU’s scores are near those of much older integrated graphics solutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of resolution-dependent performance. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 108.8 FPS, which is playable. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 72 FPS, a 33.8% reduction, and at 4K Low it falls to 43.5 FPS, a further 39.6% reduction from 1440p. This scaling is steep and indicative of a GPU-bound system, as the CPU’s workload does not change with resolution, yet frame rates plummet.

The trend is even more pronounced at High settings. At 1080p High, the average is 57.5 FPS; at 1440p High, it drops to 38.3 FPS (a 33.4% decrease); and at 4K High, it collapses to 25.5 FPS (a 33.4% decrease from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the GPU is the limiting component, as the rendering pipeline becomes saturated. At Ultra settings, the frame rates are already low at 1080p (46.9 FPS), and they fall to 29.2 FPS at 1440p and 18.1 FPS at 4K. This data indicates that the combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, and even then, only at Low or Medium settings can it maintain near-60 FPS. The steep declines at higher resolutions confirm that the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the pixel throughput required by 1440p and 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers an average of 108.8 FPS on Low settings, which is the only configuration that approaches high refresh rates. Medium settings drop this to 69.6 FPS, still playable, while High settings yield 57.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 46.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 61.9 FPS, showing that the GPU’s shading units are heavily taxed by higher detail levels.

Moving to 2560x1440, Low settings produce 72 FPS, which is a 33.8% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings at 1440p yield 49.2 FPS, High settings 38.3 FPS, and Ultra only 29.2 FPS. The 1440p data shows that even Low settings are marginal for smooth play, and anything above Medium results in sub-40 FPS averages. At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable: Low settings average 43.5 FPS, Medium 27.9 FPS, High 25.5 FPS, and Ultra 18.1 FPS. The 4K Ultra figure of 18.1 FPS is the lowest in the entire dataset, highlighting the GPU’s inability to handle the pixel count. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is a 60% reduction (from 108.8 to 43.5 FPS), and at Ultra settings, it is a 61.4% reduction (from 46.9 to 18.1 FPS), confirming that the GPU is consistently the bottleneck across all settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 3.90 GHz. Its 16 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 46.9 GB/s of bandwidth are adequate for gaming, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11186 and single-core score of 1579 indicate a balanced performer. The CPU’s percentile rank of 77 against all CPUs is respectable, and its average benchmark score of 19616 places it close to the Intel Core i5-11600KF (deltaPct -0.6) and the Intel Core i7-10700F (deltaPct 0.7).

In Rust, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, as the resolution scaling data shows that frame rates drop consistently with higher pixel counts, which is a classic sign of GPU limitation. However, the CPU’s 12 threads are still relevant for the game’s simulation and entity updates, which can be demanding in a survival title. The PassMark multi-thread score of 13160 and single-thread score of 2239 suggest that the CPU can handle the game’s logic, but it is not so powerful that it compensates for the GPU’s weakness. The boost clock of 3.90 GHz is modest, and the Zen architecture’s single-thread performance is behind newer designs, but the data shows that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 108.8 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this game, but the GPU is still the limiting factor at higher settings and resolutions, as evidenced by the steep FPS drops. The CPU’s performance is sufficient to avoid being the weak link, but it cannot boost the combo’s rank given the GPU’s constraints.