Rust

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and AMD Radeon RX 580 combination delivers a playable but constrained experience in Rust, with the measured frame rates showing a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling across resolutions and settings. The data set includes twelve measured FPS rows covering three resolutions and four quality presets, all collected on this specific CPU-GPU pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a steep performance drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 74 FPS at 1080p to 51 FPS at 1440p, then down to 30 FPS at 4K. That represents a 31% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, followed by another 41% drop when moving to 4K. At High settings, the progression is 42 FPS at 1080p, 29 FPS at 1440p, and 17 FPS at 4K — a 31% decline from 1080p to 1440p and a further 41% decline from 1440p to 4K. The pattern is consistent: each resolution step costs roughly one-third to two-fifths of the remaining performance.

This scaling behavior indicates that the Radeon RX 580 is the limiting component at higher resolutions. The GPU’s 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 6.175 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are fixed resources, and the pixel workload at 3840x2160 is four times that of 1920x1080. The measured 4K Low average of 30 FPS versus the 1080p Low average of 74 FPS shows that even the lowest quality preset cannot overcome the raw pixel fill demands at 4K. The RX 580’s 32 ROPs produce a pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s, which is insufficient for smooth 4K output in Rust regardless of settings.

At 1080p, the scaling between settings is more moderate. The spread from Low (74 FPS) to Ultra (32 FPS) is approximately 2.3x, which suggests the CPU still has headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions. The Ryzen 5 5500’s six cores and twelve threads, combined with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, can maintain frame delivery at 1080p Low where the GPU is less stressed. However, the 1080p Ultra average of 32 FPS indicates that the RX 580’s shading units (2304) and texture units (144) become saturated when effects and draw distances increase.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is particularly punishing. At Medium settings, 1440p averages 34 FPS while 4K averages 20 FPS — a 41% loss. At Ultra, 1440p delivers 22 FPS and 4K drops to 13 FPS. These numbers suggest that 4K is not viable for this combination except at Low settings, where 30 FPS sits at the edge of playability. The 1080p Medium row shows a min FPS of 42 and max of 57, which brackets the average of 49 FPS, indicating moderate frame time variance even at the most balanced preset.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this CPU-GPU combo in Rust?

A: The highest measured average is 74 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only preset in the data that exceeds 60 FPS, making it the sole configuration that reaches a smooth frame rate threshold.

Q: How does the RX 580 perform at 4K in Rust?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 13 FPS on Ultra to 30 FPS on Low. Medium settings produce 20 FPS (min 17, max 23), while High yields 17 FPS. None of these averages reach 30 FPS except Low, and even that is marginal.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5500 holding back the RX 580 in Rust?

A: The data shows a GPU-bound pattern. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 74 FPS, and the frame rate scales almost linearly with resolution, which is typical of a GPU limitation. The CPU’s 3dmark single-thread score of 836 and passmark single-thread score of 3058 are sufficient to keep up at these frame rates, as evidenced by the consistent scaling.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo if targeting 60 FPS?

A: No measured configuration achieves 60 FPS at 1440p or 4K. At 1080p, only Low settings reach 74 FPS. Medium at 1080p averages 49 FPS, which is below 60. Thus, 60 FPS is only attainable at 1080p Low.

Q: How much performance is lost going from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 49 FPS at 1920x1080 to 34 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 15 FPS or approximately 31%. The 1440p Medium row also shows min 29 and max 39 FPS.

Q: Does the RX 580’s 8 GB VRAM affect Rust performance?

A: The GPU has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. Rust’s large world maps and texture streaming can utilize this capacity, but the measured FPS scaling suggests bandwidth and compute limits dominate. No VRAM-specific metrics are present in the data.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for selecting settings based on target frame rates. For 1080p, Low settings deliver 74 FPS average, which is the only configuration above 60 FPS. Medium settings at 1080p produce 49 FPS average with a min of 42 and max of 57 — this is the most balanced preset for visual quality while maintaining playable frame rates. High settings at 1080p drop to 42 FPS, and Ultra falls to 32 FPS, which is below the 40 FPS threshold many players consider acceptable for a survival game.

At 1440p, Low settings average 51 FPS, which approaches 60 FPS but does not reach it. Medium settings at 1440p average 34 FPS (min 29, max 39), making it a borderline choice for competitive play. High settings at 1440p average 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 22 FPS — both are below 30 FPS and likely to feel sluggish. For 4K, the data shows that only Low settings (30 FPS) are worth attempting, and even then, the experience will be marginal. Medium at 4K averages 20 FPS, High averages 17 FPS, and Ultra averages 13 FPS.

The optimal recommendation is 1080p Medium. This preset yields 49 FPS average, with the min FPS of 42 staying above 40, providing a reasonably consistent experience. The 1080p Low preset offers 74 FPS but sacrifices visual fidelity to the point where the environment rendering may hinder gameplay in a survival context where spotting distant players matters. The 1080p High preset at 42 FPS is also viable, but the Medium row’s min-max range (42-57) shows tighter frame pacing than High, which has no min or max data available. For users with 1440p monitors, Low settings at 51 FPS is the only preset above 50 FPS, making it the default choice despite the visual downgrade.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS values across settings are as follows: Low 74, Medium 49 (min 42, max 57), High 42, and Ultra 32. The Medium preset provides the only complete min-max data at this resolution, indicating a 15 FPS variance between the lowest and highest recorded frames. The drop from Low to Medium is 25 FPS, from Medium to High is 7 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 10 FPS. This pattern shows diminishing returns as settings increase, with the largest single-step penalty occurring between Low and Medium.

At 2560x1440, the averages are Low 51, Medium 34 (min 29, max 39), High 29, and Ultra 22. The Medium preset again has min-max data, showing a 10 FPS spread. Compared to 1080p, each setting loses roughly 23-31% of its average FPS at 1440p. The Low preset drops from 74 to 51 FPS (-23 FPS), Medium from 49 to 34 (-15 FPS), High from 42 to 29 (-13 FPS), and Ultra from 32 to 22 (-10 FPS). The absolute loss decreases as settings increase, but the percentage loss remains consistent.

At 3840x2160, the averages are Low 30, Medium 20 (min 17, max 23), High 17, and Ultra 13. The Medium preset shows a 6 FPS min-max spread. Compared to 1440p, the Low preset drops from 51 to 30 FPS (-21 FPS), Medium from 34 to 20 (-14 FPS), High from 29 to 17 (-12 FPS), and Ultra from 22 to 13 (-9 FPS). The 4K Low average of 30 FPS is exactly half of the 1080p Low average of 74 FPS, highlighting the pixel density impact on the RX 580.

The complete data set shows that the RX 580’s performance in Rust is characterized by a roughly linear scaling with resolution. Doubling the pixel count from 1080p to 4K results in an average FPS reduction of approximately 59-60% across all settings, which is slightly better than the theoretical 75% reduction expected from pure pixel count scaling, likely due to CPU involvement at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 operates at a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz, with memory running at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective). Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 2304 shading units, 144 texture units, and 32 ROPs, yielding a texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s. The FP32 compute throughput is 6.175 TFLOPS, with FP16 also at 6.175 TFLOPS due to the 1:1 ratio.

These specifications align with the measured Rust performance. The 4K Ultra average of 13 FPS corresponds to a pixel throughput of approximately 0.6 GPixel/s at that resolution, which is far below the theoretical pixel rate but realistic given shader complexity. The 1080p Low average of 74 FPS requires a pixel rate of about 0.15 GPixel/s, which is well within the GPU’s capabilities. The scaling between settings at a fixed resolution shows the impact of shader load: at 1080p, Low (74 FPS) versus Ultra (32 FPS) represents a 57% reduction in frame rate, indicating that the shading units are heavily utilized at higher presets.

The RX 580’s percentile rank of 53 against all GPUs places it in the mid-range, and its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER with a deltaPct of -0.4%, meaning the RX 580 scores 0.4% lower in average benchmark score. The GTX 1660 SUPER would likely produce similar Rust frame rates, though no direct game comparison exists in this data. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Rust’s typical memory footprint at 1080p and 1440p, but the 256.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a constraint at 4K where higher resolution textures and larger draw distances demand more memory traffic.

The GPU’s process node is 14 nm from GlobalFoundries, with 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die. The transistor density of 24.6M / mm² reflects the older GCN architecture. The directx 12 (12_0) support and Vulkan 1.3 API compatibility are relevant for Rust, which uses DirectX 11 and Vulkan paths. The passmark_directx_11 score of 60 and passmark_directx_12 score of 43 suggest that the GPU handles DirectX 11 workloads better than DirectX 12, which may explain why Rust’s DX11 mode performs adequately at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a six-core, twelve-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (Cezanne codename) on a 7 nm TSMC process. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. The CPU has 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and a shared 16 MB L3 cache. Memory support is DDR4 dual-channel with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth. The TDP is 65 W, and the processor uses the AMD Socket AM4 interface with PCIe Gen 3.

In Rust, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, entity updates, and draw call submission. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 74 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s practical limit for this game at that resolution. The 3dmark_single_thread score of 836 and passmark_single_thread score of 3058 indicate moderate single-core performance, which matters for Rust’s main thread. The cinebench_r23_singlecore score of 2319 and multicore score of 16429 show that the CPU can handle multi-threaded workloads, but the game’s frame pacing may be limited by single-thread performance.

The CPU’s percentile rank of 73 against all CPUs places it above the median. Its nearest rival is the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 with a deltaPct of -0.1%, meaning the Ryzen 5 5500 scores 0.1% lower in average benchmark score. The Intel Core i5-12500 has a deltaPct of -0.4%, placing the Ryzen 5 5500 slightly below that processor as well. This positioning suggests that the CPU is not a weak link in this combo for Rust at 1080p, where the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher settings.

Evidence of CPU headroom appears in the resolution scaling. At 1080p Low, the GPU is underutilized, allowing the CPU to push frame rates to 74 FPS. When moving to 1440p Low, the FPS drops to 51, which is a 31% reduction — this matches the GPU workload increase more closely than a CPU limitation would. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain similar across resolutions at Low settings. The data shows the opposite, confirming that the RX 580 is the primary limiter.

The Ryzen 5 5500’s boost clock of 4.20 GHz and 16 MB L3 cache are adequate for Rust’s streaming world, which requires frequent asset loading. The 7 nm process and 10,700 million transistors on a 180 mm² die indicate a power-efficient design, though TDP is not a performance metric in this context. The CPU’s support for DDR4-3200 (implied by 51.2 GB/s bandwidth) provides sufficient memory throughput for the game’s data structures.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 + AMD Radeon RX 580 combination holds a rank of 3397 out of 3723 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the bottom 9% of the database. This low ranking reflects the RX 580’s age and mid-range positioning rather than a fundamental mismatch between the components. The GPU’s percentile of 53 against all GPUs, combined with the CPU’s percentile of 73, suggests that the GPU drags the combo down in a game that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions.

The combo’s rank of 3397 means that 326 other tested combinations perform worse in Rust, likely featuring older or lower-end GPUs. The RX 580’s nearest GPU rival, the GTX 1660 SUPER, has a deltaPct of -0.4%, so combos with that GPU would rank similarly. The CPU’s nearest rivals — the Ryzen AI 5 430, Core i5-12500, Core i7-10700F, and Core i5-11600KF — all have average benchmark scores within 0.7% of the Ryzen 5 5500, meaning that swapping the CPU for any of those would not significantly alter the combo’s Rust performance.

The rank is consistent with the measured FPS data. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 49 FPS, which is playable but not competitive with high-end systems that might exceed 100 FPS. At 4K, the combo falls below 30 FPS on all presets except Low, making it unsuitable for modern high-resolution monitors. The combination’s performance in Rust is defined by the RX 580’s limitations, as the CPU has sufficient headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions but cannot compensate for the GPU’s lack of raw throughput at higher pixel counts.

Given the data, this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming at Medium or Low settings, where it delivers 49-74 FPS. The 1440p Low preset at 51 FPS is also viable for users who prioritize resolution over visual quality. The 4K performance is marginal at best, with only Low settings reaching 30 FPS. The rank of 3397 out of 3723 confirms that while this combo is not the worst in the database, it sits firmly in the lower quartile for Rust, and users seeking higher frame rates would need to upgrade the GPU to move up significantly in the rankings.