Rust

The Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER pairing in Rust presents a clear case of resolution-dependent performance, where the GPU becomes the dominant constraint as pixel count rises, yet the CPU still holds surprising influence in specific scenarios. The measured frame rates across four settings at three resolutions reveal a component imbalance that shifts predictably but with notable nuances.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The FPS drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is severe across all settings, but the shape of that drop changes with quality. At Low settings, performance falls from 151.5 FPS at 1080p to 102.5 FPS at 1440p, then to 61.9 FPS at 4K — a reduction of roughly 32% and 40% respectively for each step. At High settings, the decline is steeper: 85.1 FPS at 1080p drops to 59.6 FPS at 1440p, then to 38 FPS at 4K, representing a 30% and 36% drop. The Ultra preset shows the most brutal scaling, collapsing from 64.5 FPS at 1080p to 43.8 FPS at 1440p and finally to 27.2 FPS at 4K.

This pattern indicates the RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary bottleneck at 4K, regardless of preset. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 87 FPS (151.5 vs 64.5), but at 4K that gap shrinks to 34.7 FPS (61.9 vs 27.2). When the pixel workload is massive, the GPU's raw throughput saturates, and reducing settings yields diminishing returns. The data suggests that at 4K, even dropping from Ultra to Low only recovers about 2.3x the frame rate, whereas at 1080p the same settings change yields a 2.35x improvement — a surprisingly consistent ratio, implying the GPU is doing nearly all the heavy lifting in both cases.

However, the Medium preset at 1440p (68.7 FPS) versus High at 1080p (85.1 FPS) shows a smaller delta than expected, hinting that the CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads can still feed the GPU adequately at moderate resolutions. The real story is that 1440p represents a sweet spot where the GPU's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are neither starved nor overwhelmed, allowing the CPU to maintain a more balanced role.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is directly reflected in the 4K results. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset drops to 27.2 FPS — a playability floor — while Low manages 61.9 FPS. This 34.7 FPS spread at 4K versus the 87 FPS spread at 1080p indicates that VRAM capacity is likely being exhausted at higher settings with 4K textures, forcing the GPU to thrash. The card's base clock of 1605 MHz and boost of 1770 MHz are modest by today's standards, but the 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is what drives the Medium preset at 1440p to 68.7 FPS — a respectable figure for a survival game with heavy object density.

The GPU's 64 ROPs and 160 TMUs are critical for Rust's texture-heavy environments. At 1080p Medium (101.2 FPS), the texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s is sufficient to keep up with the CPU's physics calculations. But at 4K Ultra, the pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s becomes the ceiling, and the card falls to 27.2 FPS. The 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present but irrelevant here — Rust does not leverage ray tracing in these benchmarks, so the Turing architecture's specialized units contribute nothing to the measured results. The 12 nm process and 215 W TDP suggest the card is power-limited at sustained 4K loads, but the data shows thermal throttling is not evident — the FPS remains stable within each preset.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

For 1080p, the Medium preset at 101.2 FPS is the optimal balance. Low runs faster at 151.5 FPS, but the jump to High only yields 85.1 FPS — a 16 FPS penalty for higher quality. Medium provides a 16.1 FPS advantage over High while still delivering smooth gameplay. At 1440p, Medium (68.7 FPS) is again the sweet spot, beating High (59.6 FPS) by 9.1 FPS and staying well above the 60 FPS threshold. Low at 1440p runs 102.5 FPS, but that preset likely sacrifices too much visibility for competitive play in a survival context.

For 4K, no preset achieves a comfortable 60 FPS. Low at 61.9 FPS is the only option that crosses the 60 FPS line, but just barely. Medium (39.3 FPS) and High (38 FPS) are nearly identical, suggesting that the GPU is not the limiting factor between these two — rather, the increased texture detail and shadow quality demand more bandwidth without proportional visual gains. Ultra (27.2 FPS) is unplayable. The recommendation is clear: use Low at 4K or drop to 1440p Medium for a playable experience with acceptable fidelity. The data shows that Medium at 1440p (68.7 FPS) is 10.9% faster than High at 1440p (59.6 FPS), making Medium the default choice for most users.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific configuration ranks 1042 out of 1717 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the bottom 39% of all pairings. That may sound low, but it reflects the game's demanding nature — Rust is notorious for CPU-heavy simulations, and the i5-14400F, despite its 10 cores and 16 threads, is not a top-tier processor for this workload. The RTX 2070 SUPER, with its 65th percentile performance among all GPUs, is similarly mid-range. The combination of a mid-range CPU and GPU yields a result that is respectable but not exceptional.

The CPU's nearest rivals show a tight cluster: the Intel Core i7-12800H scores 32513 (0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 scores 32446 (+0.2%), and the AMD Ryzen 7 250 scores 32584 (-0.2%). This means the i5-14400F is effectively tied with these processors, and any performance difference in Rust comes down to GPU and memory configuration rather than CPU choice. The GPU's nearest rivals similarly show close margins: the NVIDIA RTX A400 is 0.5% faster, the GTX TITAN Z is 0.9% slower, and the RTX 4060 Mobile is 2.3% faster. The combo's rank of 1042 out of 1717 indicates that while this pairing is not at the top, it sits in the upper-middle of the distribution, likely outperformed by newer GPUs but competitive with other 2019-2020 era hardware.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: Can this combo run Rust at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Only at Low settings, where it achieves 61.9 FPS. Medium (39.3 FPS), High (38 FPS), and Ultra (27.2 FPS) all fall below 60 FPS, making them unsuitable for smooth gameplay at 4K.

Q: What is the best resolution-to-settings combination for 60 FPS?

A: At 1080p, Low (151.5 FPS), Medium (101.2 FPS), and High (85.1 FPS) all exceed 60 FPS. At 1440p, Low (102.5 FPS) and Medium (68.7 FPS) are above 60 FPS, while High (59.6 FPS) just misses. For 4K, only Low (61.9 FPS) passes the threshold.

Q: How does the CPU's 10-core, 16-thread configuration influence results?

A: The i5-14400F has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost of 4.70 GHz, with 20 MB of shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 21914 indicates strong multi-threaded performance, which helps Rust's server-side simulation but does not prevent GPU bottlenecks at high resolutions.

Q: Is the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM sufficient for Rust?

A: The data suggests it is sufficient at 1080p and 1440p, where Medium presets run at 101.2 FPS and 68.7 FPS respectively. At 4K, the performance drop to 27.2 FPS on Ultra implies VRAM capacity is a limiting factor, as the 448.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot compensate for the massive texture data.

Q: What is the upgrade path for better 4K performance?

A: The GPU's nearest rivals include the RTX 4060 Mobile (2.3% faster) and the RX 5700 (2.5% slower), indicating that modest GPU upgrades will not solve 4K issues. A significantly faster GPU would be required, as the current card's 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is insufficient for 4K Ultra in Rust.

Q: Does the combo's rank of 1042 out of 1717 mean it is a poor choice?

A: No. The rank places it in the 39th percentile of all combos, but this includes high-end configurations. The CPU's 88th percentile performance and GPU's 65th percentile performance indicate it is a balanced mid-range pairing that handles 1080p and 1440p well, with 4K as a compromise.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: Low 151.5, Medium 101.2, High 85.1, and Ultra 64.5. The step from Low to Medium costs 50.3 FPS (33.2% reduction), while Medium to High costs 16.1 FPS (15.9%), and High to Ultra costs 20.6 FPS (24.2%). The diminishing returns are clear — Low offers the highest headroom for competitive play, but Medium provides a strong balance of visual quality and smoothness.

At 2560x1440, the values are: Low 102.5, Medium 68.7, High 59.6, and Ultra 43.8. Here, the gap between Low and Medium is 33.8 FPS (33%), but the gap between Medium and High is only 9.1 FPS (13.3%), and High to Ultra is 15.8 FPS (26.5%). The Medium preset at 1440p is the standout, offering 68.7 FPS while maintaining better texture quality than Low.

At 3840x2160, the values are: Low 61.9, Medium 39.3, High 38, and Ultra 27.2. The Medium and High settings are nearly identical (39.3 vs 38), indicating that the GPU's memory bandwidth is saturated at this resolution, and the extra detail in High does not translate to measurable FPS gains. The Low preset is the only viable option, and even it barely maintains 60 FPS.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-14400F brings 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost of 4.70 GHz. Its 20 MB shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache are notable for Rust's entity-heavy world, where CPU cache hits reduce memory latency. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multicore score of 21914 and single-core score of 3093 indicate it is well-suited for the game's simulation thread, which is typically single-threaded. The Geekbench single-core score of 2333 and Passmark single-thread score of 3723 confirm that the 4.70 GHz boost clock delivers competitive per-thread performance.

However, the data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor at 4K — the FPS drops are consistent with GPU saturation. At 1080p Low (151.5 FPS), the CPU is likely the bottleneck, as the GPU can render frames faster than the game's simulation can provide them. But at 1080p Ultra (64.5 FPS), the GPU takes over. The CPU's 88th percentile ranking among all CPUs places it above average, and its nearest rivals — the i7-12800H (0% delta), Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (+0.2%), and Ryzen 7 250 (-0.2%) — show that the 14400F is essentially at parity with these alternatives. The 65 W TDP and Intel Socket 1700 compatibility mean it is an efficient choice, but for Rust specifically, the CPU's 10 cores are more than adequate for the game's simulation load, leaving the RTX 2070 SUPER as the decisive factor in the measured results.