Rust

The Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX combination delivers a stark illustration of how Rust’s engine scales with resolution. At 1080p, the data shows a tight grouping of average frame rates: 149 FPS on Low, 128 FPS on Medium, 121 FPS on High, and 109 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is just 40 FPS, suggesting the CPU is holding the system back from fully exploiting the GPU’s capabilities at this resolution. Moving to 1440p, the picture changes slightly; Low settings yield 131 FPS, Medium drops to 113 FPS, High to 102 FPS, and Ultra falls to 78 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 53 FPS, indicating the GPU is beginning to take on more of the workload as pixel count increases.

The most dramatic shift occurs at 4K. Here, the RX 7900 XTX is clearly the dominant factor, with average frame rates of 107 FPS on Low, 72 FPS on Medium, 60 FPS on High, and 46 FPS on Ultra. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is a substantial 61 FPS, a clear sign that the rendering load has shifted almost entirely onto the graphics card. The data also reveals a peculiar pattern: the 4K Low preset (107 FPS) outperforms the 1440p Ultra preset (78 FPS) by a wide margin. This suggests that while resolution scaling is significant, the preset’s effect on visual fidelity and shader complexity is the more potent lever for adjusting performance in this test. The 4K Medium preset shows a min FPS of 61 and a max of 82, demonstrating that even at high resolution, the frame pacing is consistent when the settings are moderate.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is a formidable piece of silicon, built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC. Its core configuration includes 6144 shading units, 384 texture mapping units, and 192 raster operation pipelines. The GPU is equipped with 96 ray tracing cores and operates with a base clock of 1929 MHz, a boost clock of 2498 MHz, and a game clock of 2365 MHz. Memory is a key strength: 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s.

In Rust, the GPU’s role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. At 1080p, the benchmark results suggest the card is underutilized, as the CPU bottleneck prevents it from reaching its full potential. However, at 4K, the card’s raw throughput is what keeps the average FPS above 60 on High settings (60 FPS) and at a playable 46 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low preset’s 107 FPS average reflects the card’s ability to push frames when the shading load is light. The GPU’s memory capacity of 24 GB is more than sufficient for Rust’s textures, even at 4K Ultra, though the data does not indicate any memory-related stutters or dips. The measured FPS at 4K Medium (min 61, max 82) and 1440p Medium (min 96, max 130) shows stable frame delivery, indicating that the card’s memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor in these scenarios. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 19410 places it in the 64th percentile of all GPUs, though its nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB and the NVIDIA TITAN Xp, which are vastly different in age and capability—a quirk of the ranking system that does not reflect real-world performance parity.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings?

A: The 1080p High preset yields an average of 121 FPS.

Q: Does the 4K Ultra preset maintain a playable frame rate?

A: The 4K Ultra preset averages 46 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold often considered smooth for action games.

Q: How does the 1440p Medium preset compare to 1080p Ultra?

A: The 1440p Medium preset averages 113 FPS, which is slightly higher than the 1080p Ultra preset’s average of 109 FPS.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded at 4K Medium?

A: The 4K Medium preset shows a minimum FPS of 61.

Q: Which resolution shows the largest performance drop when moving from Low to Ultra?

A: The 4K resolution shows the largest drop, with a difference of 61 FPS between the Low (107 FPS) and Ultra (46 FPS) presets.

Q: Is the GPU’s memory size a likely bottleneck in Rust?

A: The GPU has 24 GB of GDDR6 memory, and the measured FPS data does not show any signs of memory-related performance degradation, suggesting it is sufficient.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX combination delivers its highest frame rates. The Low preset averages 149 FPS, while Medium averages 128 FPS with a minimum of 109 FPS and a maximum of 147 FPS. High settings average 121 FPS, and Ultra drops to 109 FPS. The data indicates that the CPU is the primary limiter here, as the GPU’s high-end capabilities are not fully exercised.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average FPS figures are 131 for Low, 113 for Medium (min 96, max 130), 102 for High, and 78 for Ultra. The performance gap between Low and Ultra widens to 53 FPS, hinting that the GPU is starting to take a more significant role. The 1440p Medium preset’s minimum of 96 FPS shows that the system can maintain a high floor even during demanding scenes.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the dominant component. Low settings produce an average of 107 FPS, Medium yields 72 FPS (min 61, max 82), High drops to 60 FPS, and Ultra falls to 46 FPS. The 4K results show a clear scaling pattern where each step up in settings costs a significant number of frames, confirming that the RX 7900 XTX is working near its limits at this resolution, particularly on Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 974th out of 3723 tested combos in Rust. This places it in the upper half of all configurations, though not in the top tier. The rank of 974 suggests that while the GPU is extremely powerful, the CPU’s performance characteristics hold the combo back from reaching the highest echelons of the ranking. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 14185, placing it in the 68th percentile of all CPUs, which is respectable but not elite. In contrast, the GPU’s average score of 19410 lands it in the 64th percentile of all GPUs, a lower standing that reflects the database’s inclusion of many older or mid-range cards. The combo’s rank is a direct result of the CPU’s inability to feed the GPU enough data at lower resolutions, as evidenced by the 1080p results. At 4K, the combo’s performance is more competitive, as the GPU’s workload increases and the CPU bottleneck becomes less severe. The data suggests that this pairing is best suited for high-resolution gaming, where the GPU’s strengths are fully utilized.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 10th Generation desktop processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 14 nm process. It features 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The CPU has 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 256 KB of L2 cache per core, and a shared 12 MB L3 cache. It supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s and connects via PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes. The CPU’s TDP is rated at 65 W.

In the Rust benchmark, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates across different presets are relatively close together. The 149 FPS on Low versus 109 FPS on Ultra shows a 40 FPS drop, which is a moderate range. This indicates that the CPU is the primary driver of performance, as the GPU’s frame output is limited by the CPU’s ability to process game logic and draw calls. The CPU’s 3DMark scores support this: it achieves 4748 in the 16-thread test and 688 in the single-thread test. The single-thread performance is particularly relevant for Rust, which often relies on a few cores for critical tasks. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10283 and single-core score of 1451 further illustrate the CPU’s capability, but the data shows it is not enough to keep pace with the RX 7900 XTX’s raw power at 1080p. At 4K, the CPU’s workload does not increase proportionally with resolution, allowing the GPU to become the bottleneck, which is why the 4K results show a wider spread between presets. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.30 GHz is a key factor in maintaining playable frame rates, but the benchmark results make it clear that this processor is a limiting factor in a system built around a top-tier GPU like the RX 7900 XTX. The CPU’s nearest rivals in the database, such as the Intel Xeon 6756E and AMD EPYC 7552, have similar average scores, but they are server-class parts with different performance characteristics, underscoring that the i5-10400F’s desktop-oriented design is tailored for mainstream workloads rather than extreme high-FPS gaming.