Rust

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER combination delivers its most balanced experience at Medium settings across all tested resolutions, where frame rates remain fluid enough for the survival gameplay loop without sacrificing the visual clarity needed for spotting distant threats. At 1080p Medium, the combo produces 91.2 FPS average, which is a substantial improvement over the 60.8 FPS seen at Ultra, while the jump to Low yields 139.1 FPS — a figure that exceeds the refresh rate of most standard monitors. The data indicates that Medium is the sweet spot, as it provides a 50% performance uplift over Ultra at 1080p (91.2 vs 60.8 FPS) while maintaining a noticeably higher level of graphical fidelity than Low.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows point to Medium as the optimal preset for this hardware pairing. At 1440p, Medium delivers 64.1 FPS average, which clears the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, whereas High drops to 53.3 FPS and Ultra falls to 39.3 FPS. The 1080p results reinforce this conclusion: Medium’s 91.2 FPS is more than sufficient for competitive play, and it sits comfortably between the extremes of Low (139.1 FPS) and High (77 FPS). For users prioritizing maximum frame rates, Low settings at 1080p are the clear choice, but the visual downgrade is significant enough that Medium represents the best trade-off between responsiveness and image quality. At 4K, no preset achieves a playable 60 FPS average — Medium produces 37.5 FPS, High 34 FPS, and Low 56.9 FPS — so users with 4K displays should either lower resolution or accept a sub-60 experience.

GPU Role

The RTX 2060 SUPER’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth proves adequate for Rust’s demands at 1080p and 1440p, but the VRAM capacity becomes a limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS collapses to 26. The GPU’s 1470 MHz base clock and 1650 MHz boost clock, paired with 2176 shading units, drive the raw compute throughput — the FP32 rating of 7.181 TFLOPS is the engine behind the pixel rate of 105.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s. The benchmark data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K: dropping from Ultra to Low at 3840x2160 improves performance by more than double (26 to 56.9 FPS), indicating that the render load is saturating the GPU’s resources. The card’s TDP of 175 W and dual-slot design are consistent with its mid-range positioning, and its DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures compatibility with modern rendering paths.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS degradation from 1080p to 4K is steep and non-linear, revealing where the GPU becomes the dominant constraint. At Medium settings, the frame rate drops from 91.2 FPS at 1080p to 64.1 FPS at 1440p (a 30% reduction), then further to 37.5 FPS at 4K (a 59% reduction from 1440p). The Low preset shows a similar pattern: 139.1 FPS at 1080p, 94.7 FPS at 1440p, and 56.9 FPS at 4K. This scaling behavior — where the 4K-to-1440p drop is larger than the 1440p-to-1080p drop — is classic GPU-bound behavior, as pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K while the CPU workload remains relatively constant. The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, are sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions but cease to be the limiting factor once resolution increases. At 4K Ultra (26 FPS), the GPU is clearly overwhelmed, while at 1080p Low (139.1 FPS), the CPU’s single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 696) is likely the ceiling.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU pairing ranks 1221st out of 1717 tested combinations in Rust, placing it in the lower third of the database. The percentile positioning (roughly 29th percentile) reflects the hardware’s age: the CPU sits at the 76th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 18129, while the GPU is at the 63rd percentile with an average score of 19774. The combo’s rank is dragged down by the GPU’s relative weakness at high resolutions — at 1080p Medium, the 91.2 FPS average is respectable, but the 4K Ultra result of 26 FPS is poor compared to modern combos. The nearest CPU rivals illustrate the balanced nature of this processor: the Intel Core i5-11400 scores 18150 (0.1% higher), the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS scores 18101 (0.2% lower), and the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 scores 18158 (0.2% lower). These sub-1% deltas show the 3600 is still competitive in processing power, but the GPU’s nearest rivals (GTX TITAN at 19706, RTX 2070 at 19680) confirm the 2060 SUPER is a mid-tier card from its generation.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 3600’s 6 cores and 12 threads, based on the Zen 2 architecture on a 7 nm process, provide ample parallel processing for Rust’s world simulation and entity management. The 32 MB shared L3 cache is particularly relevant for a game that streams large map data, and the 3,800 million transistors on a 74 mm² die keep power efficiency high with a 65 W TDP. In multi-threaded benchmarks, the CPU scores 15045 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 17700 in Passmark multithread, while single-thread performance is represented by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124 and a Passmark single-thread score of 2562. These numbers indicate that the CPU can handle Rust’s background tasks (building physics, NPC AI, resource gathering) without bottlenecking the GPU at 1080p. The 3dmark results show strong scaling from 2 threads (1361) to 8 threads (3844) but diminishing returns beyond 8 threads (max threads score of 4603), which matches Rust’s typical usage of 4-8 cores. The boost clock of 4.20 GHz, up from a 3.60 GHz base, is sufficient for the game’s primary game thread, though the Passmark find prime numbers score of 108 suggests some integer-heavy workloads may struggle.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS averages are: Low 139.1, Medium 91.2, High 77, and Ultra 60.8. The 1080p Low result is the only preset across all resolutions that exceeds 120 FPS, making it the choice for high-refresh-rate monitors. At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 94.7, Medium 64.1, High 53.3, and Ultra 39.3. The 1440p Medium result of 64.1 FPS is the best playable option for 1440p displays, as it stays above the 60 FPS line while High dips below it. At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 56.9, Medium 37.5, High 34, and Ultra 26. No 4K preset reaches 60 FPS, and even Low fails to hit 60, making 4K gaming impractical with this combo. The performance delta between Low and Ultra is consistent across resolutions: 78.3 FPS at 1080p (139.1 vs 60.8), 55.4 FPS at 1440p (94.7 vs 39.3), and 30.9 FPS at 4K (56.9 vs 26). This narrowing gap at higher resolutions confirms the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck, as the CPU’s ability to push frames is increasingly irrelevant when the GPU is render-bound.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: Medium settings provide the best balance, yielding 91.2 FPS average. Low settings offer 139.1 FPS for maximum frame rates, while Ultra drops to 60.8 FPS.

Q: Can this hardware run Rust at 4K?

A: No preset achieves 60 FPS at 3840x2160. The best 4K result is Low settings at 56.9 FPS, with Ultra producing only 26 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 5 3600’s average benchmark score is 18129, which is 0.1% lower than the Intel Core i5-11400 (18150) and 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS (18101).

Q: What is the GPU’s performance percentile among all GPUs?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER sits at the 63rd percentile with an average benchmark score of 19774, placing it ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN by 0.3% (19706).

Q: How much faster is 1080p Low compared to 1440p Low?

A: The 1080p Low average of 139.1 FPS is 46.9% higher than the 1440p Low average of 94.7 FPS, showing a significant resolution penalty.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested systems in Rust?

A: This pairing ranks 1221st out of 1717 tested combinations, placing it in the lower third of the database.