Rust

The Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT pairing delivers a playable Rust experience, but the data reveals a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the combination produces an average of 134.6 FPS, which drops to 25.8 FPS at 4K Ultra, indicating a massive performance swing that depends entirely on the workload. This combo ranks 1272nd out of 1717 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle tier for Rust specifically, despite the individual components sitting near the 71st and 73rd percentiles for their respective categories.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this pairing?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 134.6 FPS average, which is the highest recorded figure. For a balanced experience, 2560x1440 Medium yields 63.6 FPS, while 4K High drops to 30.5 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-10400F has an average benchmark score of 14168, which is 0.4% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7552, 0.8% behind the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C, and 1.1% behind the Intel Core i5-8500.

Q: Is the GPU better or worse than the RTX 3070?

A: The RX 6600 XT has an average score of 27985, which is 0.9% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070's 28238. It sits 0.1% ahead of the GTX 980 Ti.

Q: What kind of frame rate can be expected at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured data shows an average of 81.1 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings. This is a solid figure for a survival game where consistent performance matters.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary limiter at higher settings. For example, at 4K Ultra the combo produces 25.8 FPS, while at 4K Low it reaches 58.2 FPS, a difference that points to GPU-bound rendering rather than CPU limitations.

Q: How does the combo rank overall for Rust?

A: It ranks 1272nd out of 1717 tested combinations. This places it well below the median, indicating that many other hardware pairings deliver higher frame rates in this specific title.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 1968 MHz, with a boost clock of 2589 MHz and a game clock of 2359 MHz. The card is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 7 nm process, with 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It delivers 10.60 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s.

In Rust, the GPU's role becomes apparent when examining the performance scaling across settings. At 1920x1080, moving from Low to High settings reduces the average frame rate from 134.6 to 81.1 FPS, a drop of 53.5 FPS. The jump to Ultra further reduces it to 57.2 FPS. This pattern indicates that the graphics card is handling the increased shading and texture work, but the 8 GB VRAM capacity and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth appear sufficient for the game's demands at these settings.

The card's performance relative to its rivals is tight. It scores 0.1% higher than the GTX 980 Ti and 0.4% higher than the R9 M395X, while trailing the RTX 3070 by 0.9%. This suggests the RX 6600 XT is a capable mid-range option, but not a standout performer. The 32 ray accelerators and DirectX 12 Ultimate support are present, though Rust's rendering workload in this data does not heavily rely on those features.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. The CPU uses PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes.

The CPU's benchmark results show a single-thread score of 688 in 3DMark and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1453. Its multi-core performance is more substantial, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10297 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 5783. The 3DMark scores scale from 1350 with 2 threads to 4748 with 16 threads, showing reasonable scaling across the 12 threads available.

In Rust, the CPU's influence is most visible at lower resolutions and settings where the GPU is not the bottleneck. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo achieves 134.6 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's ceiling for this game. The fact that 4K Low produces 58.2 FPS — a 76.4 FPS drop — indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. The CPU's 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is above average, but its nearest rivals, like the Ryzen 3 7320C and Core i5-8500, perform within 1.2% in synthetic benchmarks.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1272nd out of 1717 tested combinations for Rust, placing it in the bottom 26% of all tested systems. This is a weak showing for a pairing where the CPU sits in the 73rd percentile and the GPU in the 71st percentile. The discrepancy between component percentiles and the combo rank suggests that Rust's specific engine characteristics do not favor this hardware pairing.

The rank indicates that most other combinations tested deliver higher average frame rates. For context, the CPU's nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7552, scores 0.4% lower in synthetic benchmarks, while the GPU's nearest rival, the GTX 980 Ti, scores 0.1% lower. However, these synthetic similarities do not translate to Rust performance, where the combo's rank is clearly below the median.

The low rank could be attributed to the balance between the 6-core CPU and the mid-range GPU. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo reaches 134.6 FPS, but this is not enough to push the rank higher. Many other tested combos likely feature stronger CPUs or GPUs that handle Rust's demanding simulation and rendering workloads more effectively.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear GPU bottleneck. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 134.6 at 1920x1080 to 93.7 at 2560x1440, then to 58.2 at 3840x2160. This represents a 56.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the drop is from 81.1 to 52.8 to 30.5 FPS, a 62.4% reduction.

The pattern is consistent across all settings. Medium settings produce 91.6 FPS at 1080p, 63.6 FPS at 1440p, and 35.4 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings yield 57.2, 41.6, and 25.8 FPS respectively. The consistent percentage drops indicate that the GPU's rendering capacity is the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The CPU's role becomes less significant at higher resolutions. The i5-10400F's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p, but at 4K the GPU's 10.60 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is overwhelmed. The data shows that 4K Low (58.2 FPS) is still higher than 1080p Ultra (57.2 FPS), which suggests that the game's graphics settings have a more significant impact on performance than resolution alone.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best performance. Low settings produce an average of 134.6 FPS, Medium settings yield 91.6 FPS, High settings drop to 81.1 FPS, and Ultra settings bottom out at 57.2 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 77.4 FPS, showing that graphics settings have a substantial impact on frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease across the board. Low settings average 93.7 FPS, Medium settings produce 63.6 FPS, High settings reach 52.8 FPS, and Ultra settings manage 41.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 52.1 FPS, indicating that the GPU is becoming more saturated.

At 3840x2160, performance drops significantly. Low settings average 58.2 FPS, Medium settings fall to 35.4 FPS, High settings produce 30.5 FPS, and Ultra settings bottom out at 25.8 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 32.4 FPS, the smallest spread across all resolutions.

The data shows that for a smooth 60 FPS experience, the combo must run at 1080p Low or Medium settings. At 1440p, only Low settings achieve above 60 FPS. For 4K gaming, the combo is not viable for competitive play, as even Low settings barely reach 60 FPS. The GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game, but the raw compute power is not enough for high-fidelity 4K rendering.