Rust

AMD Ryzen 5 5500 + AMD Radeon RX 9060 in Rust: this pairing sits in the 56th percentile of tested combos for the game, ranked 1665th out of 2953. The benchmark data reveals a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions, yet shows surprising CPU headroom at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how this combo scales across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system produces 151 FPS average. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 104 FPS, a 31% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 62 FPS, which is 59% lower than the 1080p Low result. This steep drop-off from 1080p to 4K indicates the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises.

The pattern holds across all settings presets. At High settings, 1080p yields 86 FPS, 1440p yields 59 FPS (31% lower), and 4K yields 35 FPS (59% lower than 1080p). The consistency of this scaling — roughly 30% loss from 1080p to 1440p, then another 40-45% loss from 1440p to 4K — points to a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. The RX 9060's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus width likely contribute to this behavior, though the data itself shows the scaling curve.

At Medium settings, the measured minimum FPS values tell a similar story. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 86 FPS with a maximum of 117. At 1440p Medium, the minimum drops to 59 FPS with a maximum of 80. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 35 FPS with a maximum of 47. The frame time consistency, as indicated by the spread between min and max, remains relatively stable across resolutions — roughly 31 FPS spread at 1080p, 21 FPS at 1440p, and 12 FPS at 4K. This narrowing spread at higher resolutions further confirms the GPU is the bottleneck, as variation reduces when the render pipeline is saturated.

Comparing Low to Ultra at each resolution shows the full impact of settings on resolution scaling. At 1080p, Low hits 151 FPS while Ultra drops to 65 FPS — a 57% reduction. At 1440p, Low hits 104 FPS while Ultra drops to 45 FPS — a 57% reduction. At 4K, Low hits 62 FPS while Ultra drops to 27 FPS — a 56% reduction. The near-identical percentage drops across resolutions suggest that the settings impact is multiplicative rather than additive, which is typical of GPU-bound rendering workloads.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Low settings as the only reliable option for smooth gameplay at 4K, where the average FPS reaches 62. This falls just above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered playable. Medium settings at 4K yield 41 FPS average, which dips below 60 FPS and may feel sluggish for fast-paced survival gameplay. High and Ultra at 4K produce 35 and 27 FPS respectively, which the data shows as marginal for competitive play.

At 1440p, Low settings deliver 104 FPS average, which provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. Medium settings at 1440p produce 70 FPS average with a minimum of 59 FPS, meaning the worst-case frame rate hovers right at the 60 FPS line. High settings at 1440p yield 59 FPS average, which sits below the 60 FPS threshold. For players who prioritize frame rate consistency, Medium at 1440p appears to be the sweet spot — it maintains an average above 60 FPS while offering better visual quality than Low, and the minimum FPS of 59 shows the system rarely drops below playable levels.

At 1080p, the data shows more headroom. Low settings achieve 151 FPS average, which suits high-refresh-rate displays. Medium settings reach 102 FPS average with a minimum of 86 FPS, providing smooth gameplay with a safety margin. High settings at 1080p produce 86 FPS average, which remains above 60 FPS but offers less headroom. Ultra at 1080p drops to 65 FPS average, which is technically above 60 but leaves little room for demanding scenes.

The data suggests Medium settings provide the best balance across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium gives 102 FPS average. At 1440p, Medium gives 70 FPS average. At 4K, Medium gives 41 FPS average. While 4K Medium falls short of 60 FPS, the 1440p Medium result offers both visual improvement over Low and frame rates that remain playable. The measured minimum FPS values reinforce this: 1080p Medium never drops below 86 FPS, and 1440p Medium only briefly touches 59 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame places this pairing at 1665 out of 2953 tested combinations, putting it in the 56th percentile. This indicates a mid-pack performance profile for Rust specifically. The ranking reflects the combined capabilities of the Ryzen 5 5500 and RX 9060 in this particular game's engine, which tends to be sensitive to both CPU single-thread performance and GPU rasterization throughput.

The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 59 places it slightly above the median of all GPUs tested. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (avgScore 16129, delta -0.7%), the AMD Radeon R9 370X (avgScore 15862, delta 1%), the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (avgScore 15852, delta 1%), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (avgScore 15679, delta 2.1%). The RX 9060's avgBenchmarkScore of 16014 sits within 2.1% of these competitors, indicating it performs in a similar tier. The near-zero deltaPct values suggest the RX 9060 offers performance closely matching the RTX 3060 Ti, though the actual Rust FPS data must be considered for game-specific conclusions.

The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 73 places it above the median for all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 (avgScore 19617, delta -0.1%), the Intel Core i5-12500 (avgScore 19668, delta -0.4%), the Intel Core i7-10700F (avgScore 19499, delta 0.5%), and the Intel Core i5-11600KF (avgScore 19723, delta -0.7%). The Ryzen 5 5500's avgBenchmarkScore of 19593 places it within 0.7% of these rivals, showing strong synthetic performance for its class.

The combination of a 73rd-percentile CPU with a 59th-percentile GPU results in a 56th-percentile combo ranking for Rust. This gap suggests the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing for this game, dragging the overall ranking below what the CPU could potentially support.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows the following averages: Low settings hit 151 FPS, Medium hits 102 FPS, High hits 86 FPS, and Ultra hits 65 FPS. The Medium preset has recorded min/max values of 86/117 FPS. This represents a 44% drop from Low to High, and a 57% drop from Low to Ultra.

At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 104 FPS average, Medium produces 70 FPS (min 59, max 80), High produces 59 FPS, and Ultra produces 45 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 31% performance at Low settings, 31% at Medium, 31% at High, and 31% at Ultra. This consistent percentage loss across settings reinforces the GPU-bound nature of the scaling.

At 3840x2160, Low settings produce 62 FPS average, Medium produces 41 FPS (min 35, max 47), High produces 35 FPS, and Ultra produces 27 FPS. Compared to 1440p, the 4K results show a 40% reduction at Low, a 41% reduction at Medium, a 41% reduction at High, and a 40% reduction at Ultra. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is slightly steeper than from 1080p to 1440p, consistent with the quadratic increase in pixel count.

The only preset with complete min/max data across all resolutions is Medium. At 1080p Medium, the range is 86 to 117 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range is 59 to 80 FPS. At 4K Medium, the range is 35 to 47 FPS. The absolute spread between min and max narrows as resolution increases, but the relative spread (max/min ratio) remains near 1.36 at 1080p, 1.36 at 1440p, and 1.34 at 4K. This consistency indicates the frame pacing characteristics remain stable across resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 1700 MHz, with a game clock of 2400 MHz and a boost clock of 2990 MHz. The memory clock is 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). These specifications place it in the mid-range tier of the Radeon RX 9000 series.

The GPU's synthetic benchmarks show a passmark_g3d score of 17631 and a passmark_gpu_compute score of 9919. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 3322. The Geekbench OpenCL score reaches 88183, while Vulkan scores 39476. The passmark DirectX scores are notably lower: DirectX 10 at 104, DirectX 11 at 182, DirectX 12 at 44, and DirectX 9 at 280. These varied scores suggest the GPU performs differently across API generations, though the Rust data shows playable frame rates at lower settings.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity likely plays a role in the performance scaling observed. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 27, which indicates the GPU is struggling with both memory capacity and bandwidth at high resolutions with maxed settings. The 288.0 GB/s bandwidth, while adequate for 1080p and 1440p, may become insufficient at 4K where texture data demands increase substantially. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (27 FPS) versus 1080p Ultra (65 FPS) shows a 58% reduction, which aligns with the GPU's memory subsystem limitations.

The GPU's RDNA 4.0 architecture with 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs provides a pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 21.43 TFLOPS indicates solid compute capability for a mid-range card. These specifications support the observed 1080p performance, where even Ultra settings maintain above 60 FPS average.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Rust?

A: Based on the measured data, 1080p provides the most consistent experience. At 1080p Medium, the average FPS is 102 with a minimum of 86, while at 1440p Medium, the average drops to 70 with a minimum of 59. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 41 with a minimum of 35.

Q: Can this system run Rust at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, where the average FPS is 62. At Medium settings, the average drops to 41 FPS, and at High settings, it falls to 35 FPS. Ultra settings at 4K produce only 27 FPS average.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this pairing?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The resolution scaling shows consistent FPS drops from 1080p to 1440p to 4K across all settings, which is characteristic of GPU-bound rendering. The CPU's percentile ranking (73) is higher than the GPU's (59), further supporting this conclusion.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 1665th out of 2953 tested combos, placing it in the 56th percentile for Rust. This is a mid-pack position, reflecting the GPU's relatively lower percentile ranking compared to the CPU.

Q: What settings should I use for competitive play?

A: At 1080p, Low settings provide 151 FPS average, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate competitive play. If you prefer better visuals, Medium at 1080p still delivers 102 FPS average with a minimum of 86 FPS.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM affect performance at higher resolutions?

A: The data suggests it may. The steep drop from 1440p to 4K, particularly at High and Ultra settings (59 to 35 FPS and 45 to 27 FPS respectively), indicates the GPU's memory capacity and bandwidth are strained at 4K resolutions with higher quality presets.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 brings 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, running at a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. The CPU has a 16 MB L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with dual-channel configuration, providing 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth. Its TDP is rated at 65 W, and it uses the AMD Socket AM4 interface.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks show strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 16429, while the single-core score is 2319. Geekbench multicore scores 7976 and single-core 1730. Passmark multithread scores 19330, with single-thread at 3058. The 3DMark results show 5386 for 16 threads, 5411 for max threads, and 836 for single-thread. These scores place the CPU at the 73rd percentile of all CPUs.

In Rust, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU based on the resolution scaling analysis. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 151 FPS, which suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at lower resolutions. However, the fact that FPS drops consistently with resolution increases indicates the GPU becomes the bottleneck before the CPU does. The CPU's 4.20 GHz boost clock and 12 threads provide sufficient processing power for Rust's simulation and physics workloads at these settings.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 (delta -0.1%), the Intel Core i5-12500 (delta -0.4%), the Intel Core i7-10700F (delta 0.5%), and the Intel Core i5-11600KF (delta -0.7%). The Ryzen 5 5500's avgBenchmarkScore of 19593 places it within 0.7% of these competitors, showing it performs in a similar tier to these mid-range processors.

The combination of a 6-core/12-thread CPU with a 73rd-percentile ranking suggests the processor is capable of handling Rust's demands without becoming the primary limiting factor in most scenarios. The data shows that at 1080p, where the GPU has less pixel work, the system can reach 151 FPS at Low settings, indicating the CPU can support high frame rates when the GPU is not the constraint. At 4K, the CPU's influence diminishes further as the GPU takes longer to render each frame, allowing the CPU to stay ahead of the rendering pipeline.