Rust

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for this Intel Core i3-12100F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti combination in Rust reveals a steep performance curve as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 197.6 FPS average, which drops to 136.2 FPS at 1440p and further to 79.3 FPS at 4K. That represents a 31% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 60% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings presets, indicating a strong resolution dependency.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic falloff: 84.1 FPS at 1080p, 57.7 FPS at 1440p, and 32.8 FPS at 4K. This 4K result is below the 44.5 FPS High preset achieves at the same resolution, suggesting that the Ultra settings impose a substantial additional load beyond High. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 46.5 FPS, while at 1080p the same gap is 113.5 FPS. This compression of the settings spread at higher resolutions points to a growing GPU bottleneck — at 4K, even lowering settings cannot fully compensate for the pixel throughput demand.

Medium settings follow the expected middle path: 130.1 FPS at 1080p, 91.9 FPS at 1440p, and 52 FPS at 4K. The resolution scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly harsh for Medium, dropping 39.9 FPS, which is a 43% reduction. High settings show a similar pattern with a 31.8 FPS drop over the same step. The data indicates that the RTX 3070 Ti's 8 GB GDDR6X memory and 608.3 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed hard at 4K, as the frame rate collapse is more pronounced than what a purely compute-bound scenario would produce.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F brings 4 cores and 8 threads to this pairing, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. This Alder Lake-S architecture chip has a 12 MB shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 or DDR5 memory. In Rust, a game known for its simulation-heavy world persistence and entity updates, the CPU's single-thread performance is often a limiting factor. The 3DMark single-thread score of 893 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681 provide context for its capability in lightly-threaded workloads.

However, the measured FPS data suggests that at 1080p Low settings, the CPU is not the primary bottleneck — the 197.6 FPS result indicates the i3-12100F can drive high frame rates when the GPU load is relatively light. The PassMark single-thread score of 3444 and multithread score of 14015 further support the notion that this processor has adequate headroom for Rust's typical CPU demands. The 3DMark 4-thread score of 2859 and 8-thread score of 4026 show that the processor scales reasonably with thread count, though the 4-core limit becomes apparent in the max-thread score of 4023, which nearly matches the 8-thread result.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 72 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13516, places it slightly below the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (13534, -0.1% delta) and just above the Intel Core i7-1250U (13462, +0.4% delta). This indicates that despite having only 4 physical cores, the i3-12100F's strong single-thread performance and high clock speeds keep it competitive with much more expensive processors in general workloads. For Rust specifically, the 4-core/8-thread configuration appears sufficient to avoid severe CPU throttling at the tested resolutions, as evidenced by the smooth scaling of FPS from Low to Medium to High at 1080p — the 67.5 FPS gap between Low and High suggests the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti ranks 637 out of 1717 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the top 37% of all configurations. The GPU's percentile ranking of 74 against all GPUs reinforces that the RTX 3070 Ti is a strong performer in absolute terms, while the CPU's 72nd percentile ranking is nearly matched. The combination of two above-average components yields a solid overall standing, though not a top-tier one.

The rank of 637 out of 1717 is notable because it places this combo ahead of many pairings that might use more expensive CPUs but weaker GPUs. The data suggests that Rust's optimization favors the GPU's rasterization power over CPU core count, at least at the settings tested here. The RTX 3070 Ti's 6144 shading units and 21.75 TFLOPS FP32 performance provide substantial compute throughput, while the i3-12100F's 4 cores handle the game's simulation threads without becoming a hard ceiling.

Compared to the GPU's nearest rivals, the RTX 3070 Ti's average benchmark score of 30849 sits just 0.3% above the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME (30755) and 0.8% below the AMD Radeon RX 6700 (31112). This tight grouping suggests that the RTX 3070 Ti is competitive with mid-range cards from the same era, and the combo's rank in Rust reflects that positioning. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-7700K (13280, +1.8% delta), is worth noting — the i3-12100F actually outperforms that older quad-core flagship in average benchmark score, which explains why the combo can achieve such respectable frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce 197.6 FPS average, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common in gaming monitors. Medium settings reduce this to 130.1 FPS, High to 110.9 FPS, and Ultra to 84.1 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 113.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU has ample headroom to handle even the most demanding preset at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains playable across all settings. Low averages 136.2 FPS, Medium 91.9 FPS, High 76.3 FPS, and Ultra 57.7 FPS. The step from Low to Medium at 1440p costs 44.3 FPS, while the step from Medium to High costs 15.6 FPS — a much smaller penalty. The transition from High to Ultra costs 18.6 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset's additional effects are disproportionately expensive at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results become more constrained. Low averages 79.3 FPS, Medium 52 FPS, High 44.5 FPS, and Ultra 32.8 FPS. The Low preset is the only one that maintains a comfortable frame rate for competitive play at 4K. Medium falls below the 60 FPS threshold, and High and Ultra are best suited for slower-paced gameplay or screenshot capture. The 46.5 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is the smallest of any resolution, confirming that the GPU becomes the limiting factor when pixel count increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture using Samsung's 8 nm process, with a chip size of 392 mm² and 17,400 million transistors. Its 8 GB of GDDR6X memory operates at 19 Gbps effective across a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s. The GPU has 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores, which support hardware-accelerated ray tracing and DLSS, though Rust's measured FPS data does not isolate these features. The base clock of 1575 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz are modest, but the 6144 shading units working at these clocks produce 21.75 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

In the measured results, the GPU's role is clearly dominant. The 1080p Low score of 197.6 FPS demonstrates strong raw throughput, while the 4K Ultra score of 32.8 FPS shows the limits of its memory bandwidth and compute capacity when both resolution and settings are maxed. The pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s are substantial, yet Rust's open-world environment with dynamic lighting and shadows places continuous demand on the GPU's resources. The PassMark G3D score of 23356 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3478 provide synthetic benchmarks that align with the measured gaming performance — the GPU is capable, but not at the top of its class.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 30849, with a percentile ranking of 74, places it among the better-performing cards in the database. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6700 (31112, -0.8% delta) and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (31142, -0.9% delta), indicating that the RTX 3070 Ti's performance is closely matched with those alternatives. The power draw of 290 W TDP and the recommended 600 W PSU are relevant for system planning, but the measured FPS results show that this energy is translated into consistently high frame rates across all tested settings and resolutions. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Rust at 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K Ultra results suggest that texture-heavy scenes may approach the memory limit, contributing to the steep FPS drop at that resolution.