Rust

FAQ

Q: What is the measured average frame rate at 1920x1080 with Low settings?

A: The benchmark data shows an average of 280 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the highest average frame rate recorded across all tested resolutions and settings combinations for this combo.

Q: How does the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D compare to its nearest CPU rival in overall benchmark scores?

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has an average benchmark score of 71660, which is 0.9% higher than the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (71056) and 1.8% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (70420). It trails the Intel Xeon 6517P by 1.9% (73050).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER sits in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, based on its average benchmark score of 53610. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, scores 53489, a margin of just 0.2%.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce an average of 197 FPS, while Ultra settings drop to 86.5 FPS. The gap between these two settings is 110.5 FPS, indicating a substantial performance scaling range.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank in Rust among all tested CPU-GPU combinations?

A: This combination of AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 57th out of 1717 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the top 3.3% of all configurations.

Q: What memory specifications does the CPU support?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D supports DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. It also includes ECC memory support.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, with the AD103 chip containing 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2550 MHz, with memory clocked at 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective). It ships with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s.

In Rust, the GPU's role is most apparent at higher resolutions and settings. At 3840x2160, the frame rate drops from 115.7 FPS on Low to 50 FPS on Ultra, a 56.8% reduction purely from graphics load. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is substantial for a survival game that can accumulate large world-state data, though the benchmark data does not indicate VRAM limitations at any tested setting.

The RTX 4080 SUPER's compute resources are notable: 10240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. It also carries 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores, enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and DLSS features, though Rust's measured data does not isolate these effects. The GPU's FP32 throughput is 52.22 TFLOPS, and it achieves a pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 88th percentile of all graphics cards. Its PassMark G3D score is 34245, while the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test yields 6600. The nearest rival, AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, trails by just 0.2% in average benchmark score (53489 vs 53610), making the two effectively equivalent in synthetic tests. However, the measured Rust data shows this GPU delivering playable frame rates even at 4K with High settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor from the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge codename), manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It carries 16,630 million transistors across a dual-chiplet design with 2x 70.6 mm² dies. The base clock is 4.30 GHz with a boost clock of 5.70 GHz, and the CPU has a TDP of 170 W. Cache configuration includes 80 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and a shared 128 MB L3 cache.

The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 59712, while the single-core test reaches 8430. The 3DMark 16-thread test yields 16374, scaling to 17184 at max threads. PassMark multithread score is 70255, with single-thread at 4737. The CPU sits in the 96th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 71660.

In Rust, the CPU's impact is visible in the scaling patterns across resolutions. At 1920x1080, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is 159.7 FPS (280 vs 120.3), while at 3840x2160 that difference narrows to 65.7 FPS (115.7 vs 50). This indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU has more headroom to drive higher frame rates, whereas at 4K the GPU becomes the limiting factor.

The 128 MB L3 cache is particularly relevant for a game like Rust, which involves large persistent worlds with many entities. The high core count (16 cores) and thread count (32 threads) support the game's background simulation tasks, though Rust is not known for extreme multi-threading. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (0.9% slower), AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (1.8% slower), and Intel Xeon 6517P (1.9% faster).

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 57th out of 1717 tested CPU-GPU combinations in Rust. This places the combo in the top 3.3% of all configurations, indicating that it is a high-end pairing capable of excellent performance in this title.

This ranking reflects the synergy between a 96th-percentile CPU and an 88th-percentile GPU. The CPU's strong single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 8430) is valuable for Rust's game logic, while the GPU's 16 GB VRAM and high bandwidth (736.3 GB/s) handle the game's rendering demands. The combo outperforms the vast majority of tested systems, with only 56 configurations achieving better performance in this specific game.

The rank is particularly impressive given that the GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks (AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT within 0.2%) are close in raw compute, but the combination with this CPU moves the pairing into the top tier for Rust specifically. This suggests that the CPU's cache architecture and high boost clock contribute meaningfully to the game's frame pacing and minimum frame rates, even if the measured data only provides average FPS figures.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 280 FPS average, while Medium reaches 194.8 FPS. High settings hit 165.1 FPS, and Ultra drops to 120.3 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra represents a 57% reduction, with each settings tier costing a significant portion of performance.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings average 197 FPS, Medium achieves 131.6 FPS, and High reaches 113.8 FPS. Ultra settings dip to 86.5 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra here is 110.5 FPS, which is proportionally similar to the 1080p results.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck. Low settings still manage 115.7 FPS, but Medium drops to 77 FPS, High to 64.7 FPS, and Ultra to exactly 50 FPS. The Ultra result at 4K is the lowest measured frame rate across all configurations, yet it remains playable for a survival game where reaction times are less critical than in competitive shooters.

The data shows that this combo is well-suited for high-refresh-rate gaming at 1080p and 1440p, with even Ultra settings exceeding 120 FPS at 1080p and approaching 90 FPS at 1440p. For 4K gaming, players would need to choose between High (64.7 FPS) and Medium (77 FPS) settings to maintain smooth gameplay, as Ultra falls to exactly 50 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at each resolution is consistent, suggesting balanced CPU and GPU utilization without a single bottleneck dominating across all settings.