Rust

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti delivers a highly playable Rust experience across the board, but the data reveals a distinct shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution and settings change. At 1080p, the system is clearly CPU-bound in lighter settings, while at 4K Ultra, the GPU becomes the definitive limiting factor. This combination ranks in the 82nd percentile of tested configurations, placing it firmly in the upper tier for this demanding survival title.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a classic resolution scaling curve, but with notable deviations depending on the quality preset. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 174 FPS at 1920x1080 to 109.1 FPS at 3840x2160—a 37.3% reduction. This relatively modest decline suggests that even at 4K, the CPU is still contributing significantly to the frame time, as GPU load at Low settings is not yet overwhelming the RTX 4070 Ti.

The scaling becomes more aggressive at higher presets. At High settings, the drop from 140.6 FPS at 1080p to 62 FPS at 4K represents a 55.9% decrease. The Ultra preset shows the steepest curve, falling from 116.2 FPS at 1080p to 44.2 FPS at 4K—a 62% reduction. This pattern indicates that the GPU's rendering workload scales exponentially with pixel count when shader complexity and texture quality are maximized, while the CPU's contribution remains relatively flat.

The Medium preset offers an interesting middle ground. At 1080p, it runs at 152.6 FPS, which is only 12.3% slower than Low. However, at 4K, Medium drops to 70.1 FPS, which is 35.7% slower than Low's 4K result. This suggests that Medium settings introduce enough GPU-heavy effects that the 4K resolution begins to strain the graphics card, but not to the extent seen at High or Ultra. The data indicates that the transition from 1440p to 4K is the steepest performance cliff for this combo, particularly at High and Ultra settings where the frame rate nearly halves.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 12 MB shared L3 cache. In Rust, which is known for its heavy server-side simulation and entity processing, the CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are crucial for maintaining high frame rates, especially at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the primary constraint.

The benchmark data shows that this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14372 and a single-core score of 2029. In the 3DMark suite, it scores 5652 at max threads and 868 in single-thread tests. These figures place the i5-11400F in the 75th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17181. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, scores 17189, a mere 0% delta, indicating that the i5-11400F is perfectly competitive with that mobile chip in synthetic tests.

For Rust specifically, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining the 1080p Low results. The system achieves 174 FPS, which is only 14.1% higher than the 4K Low result of 109.1 FPS. This relatively small gap at Low settings suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough frames even at 4K when the graphics load is light. However, at 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 116.2 FPS, which is 33.2% lower than 1080p Low. This indicates that while the CPU is strong, the GPU's rendering of Ultra effects at 1080p still creates a bottleneck, preventing the system from reaching the CPU-limited ceiling seen at Low settings.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested configurations for Rust, this Intel Core i5-11400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti combo ranks 309 out of 1717 total combinations. This places it in the top 18% of all tested systems, which is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The ranking reflects the balance between the i5-11400F's solid multi-threaded performance and the RTX 4070 Ti's considerable graphics throughput.

The GPU itself sits in the 85th percentile of all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 44900. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, scores 45152, a delta of -0.6%, meaning the RTX 4070 Ti is just 0.6% behind that mobile flagship. The Intel Arc A730M trails by 1.5%, while the AMD Radeon Pro 580 is 1.6% ahead. These narrow margins indicate that the RTX 4070 Ti is exceptionally well-positioned among its peers.

Given that the CPU ranks in the 75th percentile and the GPU in the 85th percentile, the combo's 309th overall ranking is slightly lower than what the GPU's percentile alone would suggest. This discrepancy is likely due to the CPU's 6-core/12-thread configuration, which, while adequate, may not provide the headroom that higher-core-count processors offer in Rust's most demanding server-side scenarios. The data shows that this combo is a strong mid-to-high-tier performer, but not at the absolute peak of the rankings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 174 FPS, while Medium drops to 152.6 FPS, a 12.3% reduction. High settings yield 140.6 FPS, which is 19.2% below Low. Ultra is the most demanding, at 116.2 FPS, representing a 33.2% drop from Low. All 1080p results are comfortably above 60 FPS, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably. Low settings run at 152.8 FPS, which is 12.2% lower than the 1080p Low result. Medium achieves 123.6 FPS, a 19.1% drop from its 1080p counterpart. High settings hit 103.5 FPS, down 26.4% from 1080p High. Ultra falls to 77.3 FPS, a 33.5% reduction from 1080p Ultra. The 1440p results remain highly playable, with even Ultra staying above 75 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's workload becomes the dominant factor. Low settings manage 109.1 FPS, which is still excellent for 4K gaming. Medium drops to 70.1 FPS, a 35.7% reduction from Low. High settings fall to 62 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Ultra is the only setting that dips below 60 FPS, at 44.2 FPS. This represents a 59.5% drop from 4K Low, highlighting the immense GPU demand of Ultra effects at 4K resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, with a die size of 294 mm² and 35,800 million transistors. It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2310 MHz and a boost clock of 2610 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). Its 7680 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 80 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 626.4 GTexel/s.

In Rust, the GPU's role becomes increasingly critical as resolution and settings rise. At 1080p Low, the RTX 4070 Ti is clearly underutilized, as the CPU limits the frame rate to 174 FPS. However, at 4K Ultra, the GPU is fully saturated, resulting in 44.2 FPS. The 62 FPS result at 4K High suggests that the GPU is operating near its practical limit for this game, as the frame rate hovers just above the 60 FPS target.

The GPU's 12 GB of VRAM is sufficient for Rust's texture-heavy environments, even at 4K Ultra, as the data shows no evidence of memory-related stuttering or frame drops. The 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth ensures that texture streaming remains smooth, even when the game world loads large asset packs. The RTX 4070 Ti's position in the 85th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 44900, confirms its high-end status. Its performance in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, scoring 5024, and Geekbench OpenCL, scoring 205028, further validates its compute capabilities, which are relevant for Rust's dynamic lighting and physics calculations. The GPU's nearest rival, the RTX 5090 Mobile, scores 45152, a delta of -0.6%, meaning the desktop RTX 4070 Ti is essentially on par with that mobile flagship in synthetic benchmarks.