Rust

Settings Recommendations

For Rust, the measured data across all three resolutions shows a clear pattern: the Low preset delivers the most playable experience, while Ultra settings push frame rates into territory that will feel sluggish in a survival game where reaction time matters. At 1920x1080, the Low preset produces 139.8 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset and leaves substantial headroom for the frame-time spikes that Rust's server-side simulation can introduce. Medium at 1080p drops to 92.3 FPS, still playable but a 34% reduction from Low, while High falls further to 80.8 FPS and Ultra bottoms out at 59.8 FPS.

The situation becomes more restrictive at higher resolutions. At 2560x1440, Low yields 95.1 FPS, which remains smooth for competitive play, but Medium drops to 66.7 FPS and High to 56.5 FPS. Ultra at 1440p produces 42.7 FPS, which is below the threshold where most players would consider the experience fluid. At 3840x2160, even the Low preset manages only 58.8 FPS, and every other setting falls below 40 FPS: Medium at 39.1 FPS, High at 32.6 FPS, and Ultra at 25.9 FPS.

The data suggests that for a consistent experience, the Low preset is the recommended starting point at all resolutions. At 1080p, Low's 139.8 FPS provides enough performance margin to enable higher settings on a per-scene basis without falling below 60 FPS in dense areas. At 1440p, Low's 95.1 FPS is the only preset that keeps the average comfortably above 60 FPS, making it the sensible choice for competitive play. At 4K, the Low preset's 58.8 FPS is the only configuration that approaches playability, though the 60 FPS target remains just out of reach. For players prioritizing visual fidelity over frame rate, Medium at 1080p (92.3 FPS) offers a balanced compromise, but the measured data does not support Medium or higher at 1440p or 4K for sustained smooth gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 1130 out of 1717 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the lower third of the field. This ranking is notable because the CPU itself is a high-end part — the Ryzen 7 9800X3D sits in the 90th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37780. The GPU, however, is a mid-range part from a previous generation, sitting in the 63rd percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 19774. The combination of a top-tier CPU with a mid-tier GPU produces a system that is heavily GPU-limited in most scenarios, which the measured frame rates confirm.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database illustrate its standing. The Intel Xeon 6353P scores 37811, a delta of -0.1% from the Ryzen's average, while the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 scores 37831, also -0.1% behind. The Intel Core i9-13900HK and Intel Core i5-13600KF score 38020 and 38028 respectively, placing them 0.6% and 0.7% ahead. These differences are negligible in real-world terms, meaning the Ryzen 7 9800X3D performs essentially on par with these competing parts in synthetic CPU benchmarks. For the GPU, the RTX 2060 SUPER's nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN at 19706 (0.3% behind), the RTX 2070 at 19680 (0.5% behind), the Quadro K5200 at 19623 (0.8% behind), and the Tesla K40m at 19519 (1.3% behind). The RTX 2060 SUPER's average score of 19774 places it marginally ahead of all four rivals, though the margins are within noise.

The rank of 1130 out of 1717 means that roughly two-thirds of tested combinations deliver better performance in Rust than this CPU-GPU pairing. This is not a reflection of the CPU's capability, which is exceptional, but rather the GPU's position as the bottleneck. In a game like Rust, where draw distances and object counts strain both CPU and GPU, the measured results indicate that the RTX 2060 SUPER cannot fully leverage the Ryzen 7 9800X3D's processing power.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER operates with a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz, paired with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. The memory runs at 1750 MHz, delivering 14 Gbps effective throughput and a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the 8 GB capacity becomes a constraint at 4K resolution, particularly with higher texture quality settings. The GPU's 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units provide a raw compute throughput of 7.181 TFLOPS for FP32 operations, with texture rate at 224.4 GTexel/s and pixel rate at 105.6 GPixel/s.

In Rust specifically, the GPU's role is to render the game's large open-world environments, which include complex geometry, dynamic lighting, and numerous entities. The measured frame rates show that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1080p, the Low preset's 139.8 FPS suggests the GPU has enough headroom to handle the CPU's output, but at 4K, even Low drops to 58.8 FPS — a 58% reduction. This scaling is consistent with a GPU that is bandwidth and fill-rate limited at higher resolutions.

The RTX 2060 SUPER's Turing architecture includes 34 ray tracing cores and 272 tensor cores, though Rust does not heavily utilize ray tracing. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility mean it can run the latest graphics APIs, but the measured performance is constrained by the hardware's 12 nm process node and 175 W TDP. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 16462 and DirectX 12 score of 61 indicate mid-range DirectX 12 performance, which aligns with the observed frame rates in Rust.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates span a wide range depending on settings. Low produces 139.8 FPS, Medium drops to 92.3 FPS, High falls to 80.8 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 59.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is significant — 80 FPS — which indicates that Rust's Ultra settings impose a substantial rendering load that the RTX 2060 SUPER struggles to sustain at full HD. The step from Low to Medium costs 47.5 FPS, while the step from Medium to High costs only 11.5 FPS, and High to Ultra costs another 21 FPS. This non-linear scaling suggests that certain Ultra features are particularly expensive.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but at lower absolute values. Low delivers 95.1 FPS, Medium 66.7 FPS, High 56.5 FPS, and Ultra 42.7 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 28.4 FPS, Medium to High costs 10.2 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 13.8 FPS. The relative penalty for Ultra is less severe at 1440p than at 1080p, but the absolute frame rates are lower across the board. The 1440p results show that this combo can maintain above 60 FPS only on Low settings, with Medium just barely above the threshold at 66.7 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the measured results are marginal. Low achieves 58.8 FPS, Medium 39.1 FPS, High 32.6 FPS, and Ultra 25.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 19.7 FPS, Medium to High is 6.5 FPS, and High to Ultra is 6.7 FPS. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, and even the lowest settings cannot reach 60 FPS. The data indicates that 4K gaming with this combo requires dropping to Low and accepting frame rates below 60, or reducing the resolution to 1440p for a more fluid experience.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the extent to which the RTX 2060 SUPER becomes the bottleneck as pixel count increases. At Low settings, 1080p yields 139.8 FPS, 1440p drops to 95.1 FPS (a 32% reduction), and 4K falls to 58.8 FPS (a further 38% reduction from 1440p, or 58% from 1080p). At Medium settings, the progression is 92.3 FPS at 1080p, 66.7 FPS at 1440p (down 28%), and 39.1 FPS at 4K (down 41% from 1440p, or 58% from 1080p). High settings show 80.8 FPS at 1080p, 56.5 FPS at 1440p (down 30%), and 32.6 FPS at 4K (down 42% from 1440p, or 60% from 1080p). Ultra settings produce 59.8 FPS at 1080p, 42.7 FPS at 1440p (down 29%), and 25.9 FPS at 4K (down 39% from 1440p, or 57% from 1080p).

The consistency of the percentage drops across settings — roughly 28-32% from 1080p to 1440p and 38-42% from 1440p to 4K — indicates that the scaling is driven primarily by pixel count rather than by specific settings. This is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, where the rendering workload scales linearly with resolution. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rate drops would be smaller at higher resolutions because the CPU workload per frame would remain constant while the GPU work increases. The data instead shows that the RTX 2060 SUPER's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the constraining resources.

The implication for this combo is that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D has significant untapped potential in Rust. The CPU's 8 cores, 16 threads, and 96 MB of shared L3 cache provide ample processing power for the game's simulation and draw call handling, but the GPU cannot keep pace at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 139.8 FPS result suggests the CPU is delivering frames faster than the GPU can render, but at 4K, the GPU's limitations dominate. Players seeking higher visual fidelity should prioritize 1440p with Medium settings (66.7 FPS) as the best balance, while those wanting maximum frame rates should stay at 1080p Low. The measured data does not support 4K as a viable resolution for this combination in Rust, as even the lowest settings fail to reach 60 FPS.