Rust

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER delivers a playable experience in Rust, but only when settings are managed carefully. The data shows that this combination is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can achieve smooth frame rates across most presets. For the optimal balance of visual fidelity and performance, the Medium preset at 1920x1080 is the clear recommendation, as it provides a solid average of 71 FPS while maintaining a minimum of 60 FPS. While the Low preset offers a higher average of 106 FPS, the jump to Medium adds significant visual detail for a moderate performance cost, making it the superior choice for most players. At higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, and players will need to drop to Low settings to maintain acceptable performance.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy of performance across the four presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 106 FPS, which is excellent for competitive play. However, the Medium preset still provides a highly playable 71 FPS average, with a minimum of 60 FPS, ensuring a consistent experience. The High preset drops to 60 FPS average, which is acceptable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset falls to 46 FPS, which is below the ideal threshold for a smooth experience in a fast-paced survival game.

Given these numbers, the Medium preset is the best overall choice for 1080p gameplay. It offers a 45 FPS improvement over Ultra, while only sacrificing 35 FPS compared to Low. The minimum frame rate of 60 FPS on Medium is particularly important for Rust, where sudden frame drops can be disorienting. For players who prioritize maximum frame rates, the Low preset is the alternative, but the visual compromise is significant. Moving up to 2560x1440, the Medium preset still provides a reasonable 49 FPS average, with a minimum of 42 FPS. This is playable, though not ideal. The High preset at this resolution drops to 41 FPS, making Medium the better option. At 3840x2160, all presets fall below the 60 FPS threshold, with Medium being the only setting that maintains a minimum above 24 FPS, averaging 29 FPS. This resolution is not recommended for this combo, as even the Low preset only manages 43 FPS.

The data indicates that the Medium preset is the sweet spot for this hardware combination across all resolutions. It consistently provides the best ratio of visual quality to performance, particularly when considering the minimum frame rates, which are only recorded for the Medium settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER ranks at position 3188 out of 3723 tested combos in Rust. This places it in the lower half of all tested systems, indicating that it is a modest setup by current standards. The rank of 3188 suggests that while this combo can run the game, it will not deliver top-tier performance. The CPU itself sits in the 71st percentile of all CPUs, which is a respectable mid-range position. The GPU, however, is in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, showing that it is an average performer.

The performance gap to the top of the chart is substantial. This combo is clearly not designed for maximum settings or high refresh rate monitors. Instead, it occupies a space where players must make compromises to achieve a playable experience. The data shows that the combo is more capable at 1080p, where it can handle Medium and High settings, but struggles at higher resolutions. The ranking reflects this reality, as it is a configuration that prioritizes affordability over raw performance. The nearest rivals for the CPU, such as the AMD EPYC 7H12 and Intel Core i5-12450H, have very similar average scores, with deltas of 0.3% and -0.4% respectively, indicating that the i5-11400F's computational power is well within the expected range for its class.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture and features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The GPU has a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz, with a memory clock of 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). It contains 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 raster operation units, delivering a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s. The GPU's FP32 performance is rated at 5.027 TFLOPS.

In Rust, the GPU's role is critical, especially at higher resolutions. The data shows a clear drop in performance as resolution increases, which is a classic sign of GPU limitation. At 1920x1080, the GPU is able to feed the CPU sufficiently, with the Low preset hitting 106 FPS. However, at 2560x1440, the same preset drops to 73 FPS, and at 3840x2160, it falls to 43 FPS. This scaling is consistent with the GPU's 6 GB memory capacity and bandwidth constraints. The 6 GB VRAM is likely sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at Medium settings, but it may become a limiting factor at 4K with higher texture quality. The benchmark results for the GPU show a PassMark G3D score of 12699, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 580, has a nearly identical average score with a delta of 0.4%, confirming that this GPU is a solid mid-range option.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at how this combo performs across different resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 106 FPS. The Medium preset averages 71 FPS, with a minimum of 60 FPS and a maximum of 82 FPS. The High preset averages 60 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 46 FPS. This shows a steady decline in performance as settings increase, with the Medium preset offering the most balanced experience.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 73 FPS, which is still quite playable. The Medium preset averages 49 FPS, with a minimum of 42 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS. The High preset averages 41 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 31 FPS. The step from Low to Medium at this resolution costs 24 FPS, which is a significant hit, but the visual improvement may be worth it for some players. The minimum frame rate of 42 FPS on Medium suggests that there may be noticeable stutters in dense areas.

At 3840x2160, the performance is severely limited. The Low preset averages 43 FPS, which is below the ideal 60 FPS target. The Medium preset averages 29 FPS, with a minimum of 25 FPS and a maximum of 33 FPS. The High preset averages 24 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 19 FPS. These numbers indicate that 4K gaming is not viable with this combination, even on the lowest settings. The data suggests that players should stick to 1080p for a smooth experience, with 1440p being a compromise for those who prefer higher resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals the bottleneck in this system. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 106 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, the frame rate drops to 73 FPS, a reduction of 31%. At 4K Low, it falls to 43 FPS, a 59% reduction from 1080p. This scaling is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. The GTX 1660 SUPER simply does not have the raw compute power or memory bandwidth to handle the increased pixel count at higher resolutions.

This pattern is consistent across all settings. For the Medium preset, the frame rates are 71 FPS at 1080p, 49 FPS at 1440p, and 29 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is 31%, and from 1080p to 4K is 59%. The CPU, which is a 6-core, 12-thread part with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, is likely not the primary bottleneck here. The data suggests that the GPU is the limiting component, as the frame rates scale almost linearly with the number of pixels rendered. For players seeking higher resolution, dropping to Low settings is the only viable path, but even then, 4K remains below 60 FPS. The conclusion is that this combo is optimized for 1080p gaming, and any resolution above that requires significant compromises.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 12 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. It has a TDP of 65 W and uses the Intel Socket 1200. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 14340 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2024 in single-core, with a PassMark multithread score of 16908.

In Rust, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and entity management. The data shows that at 1080p, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU, as the frame rates are high enough to suggest no CPU bottleneck. For instance, the Low preset at 1080p achieves 106 FPS, which is a strong result. The CPU's performance is further validated by its 71st percentile ranking among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i5-12450H, have a delta of -0.4%, showing that the i5-11400F is competitive. The 12 threads are likely beneficial for Rust's multi-threaded nature, helping to maintain stable frame times in complex scenes. However, the CPU's performance is not the main constraint, as the frame rates drop significantly at higher resolutions, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's boost clock of 4.40 GHz provides adequate single-thread performance for the game's core logic.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Rust?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the optimal resolution. At 1080p, the Medium preset averages 71 FPS with a minimum of 60 FPS, which is the best balance of performance and quality. At 1440p, the same preset drops to 49 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 29 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset perform at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the combo averages 46 FPS. This is below the ideal 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the Ultra preset is too demanding for this hardware at this resolution. The Medium preset is a better choice, offering 25 FPS more on average.

Q: Is 4K gaming possible with the GTX 1660 SUPER and i5-11400F?

A: The measured data indicates that 4K gaming is not viable. At 3840x2160, even the Low preset only averages 43 FPS, and the Medium preset drops to 29 FPS with a minimum of 25 FPS. These frame rates are too low for a smooth experience in a survival game like Rust.

Q: Which component is the bottleneck at higher resolutions?

A: The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly shows the GPU is the limiting factor. The frame rates drop by roughly 30% from 1080p to 1440p and by nearly 60% from 1080p to 4K, which is characteristic of GPU-bound performance. The CPU's performance is sufficient, as it ranks in the 71st percentile.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate on Medium settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the minimum frame rate is 42 FPS, with an average of 49 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS. This indicates that while the average is playable, there may be occasional stutters in demanding scenes.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested systems in Rust?

A: This combination ranks 3188 out of 3723 tested combos, placing it in the lower half of all systems. This rank reflects the modest performance of the GTX 1660 SUPER, which is in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU is more capable at the 71st percentile.