Rust

Rust is a demanding survival title, and the data for the Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER shows a configuration that scales predictably with resolution and settings. This combination ranks in the top 100 out of 1717 tested combos for the game, placing it in the 94th percentile of all tested systems. The measured frame rates reveal a system that is capable of high refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p, but requires careful settings management to maintain smooth gameplay at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and follows a clear pattern across all settings presets. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 161.6 FPS at 1920x1080 to 114.3 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 47.3 FPS. Moving to 3840x2160, the average drops further to 66 FPS, which represents a 59.1% decrease from the 1080p figure. This steep decline indicates that at 4K, the rendering load on the RTX 4080 SUPER becomes the primary bottleneck, as the GPU’s 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is being pushed to its limits.

At Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic. The system achieves 220 FPS at 1080p, drops to 191.6 FPS at 1440p, and then falls to 115.3 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is 47.6% lower than the 1080p result, which is a larger relative drop than seen at High settings. This suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is better able to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, making the GPU’s workload at 4K the sole limiting factor. The i5-14400F’s 10 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, are sufficient to avoid becoming a bottleneck until the resolution demands increase.

The Ultra preset shows the most severe scaling, with a 124.5 FPS average at 1080p, 87.1 FPS at 1440p, and only 52.2 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is a 58.1% reduction from 1080p. This indicates that the Ultra preset’s additional graphical effects, likely including higher shadow quality and draw distances, place an extreme load on the GPU. Benchmark results indicate that at 4K Ultra, the system is clearly GPU-bound, as the frame rate is just above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play, but not by a comfortable margin.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of performance across the four presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 220 FPS, which is excellent for competitive play, but the Medium preset still achieves 185.5 FPS, offering a better visual experience with only a 15.7% performance penalty. High settings at 1080p yield 161.6 FPS, which remains highly playable on high refresh rate monitors. Ultra at 1080p produces 124.5 FPS, which is still smooth but represents a 43.4% drop from Low.

For 2560x1440, the recommendations shift. Low settings produce 191.6 FPS, which is optimal for fast-paced gameplay. Medium settings at 130.5 FPS provide a strong balance, while High settings at 114.3 FPS are still above the 100 FPS mark, making them viable for most users. Ultra at 1440p drops to 87.1 FPS, which is playable but begins to show the GPU’s limits. The data suggests that High is the sweet spot at this resolution, offering a significant visual upgrade over Medium with only a 12.4% frame rate reduction.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. Low settings deliver 115.3 FPS, which is excellent for 4K. Medium settings drop to 76.5 FPS, which is still smooth. High settings at 66 FPS are acceptable for slower-paced gameplay, but Ultra at 52.2 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold, which can result in noticeable stutter in a game as dynamic as Rust. The analysis points to Medium as the recommended preset for 4K, as it maintains a comfortable frame rate while providing better visual fidelity than Low.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this configuration for Rust. The GPU’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for a game that often involves large, open-world environments with many assets. The memory clock runs at 1438 MHz, with an effective data rate of 23 Gbps. This memory configuration is sufficient to handle the texture streaming demands of Rust at 4K, as evidenced by the fact that even at Ultra settings, the GPU does not appear to run out of memory, but rather hits a compute limit.

The GPU’s boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz drive its 10240 shading units. The measured performance shows that at 4K Ultra, the average frame rate is 52.2 FPS, which is a clear indication that the GPU’s raw compute power is the limiting factor. The PassMark G3D score of 34245 places this GPU in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, and it is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT in average benchmark score. This relative performance aligns with the observed frame rates, which show a strong but not overwhelming lead over lower-tier cards.

The GPU’s role becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low (220 FPS) and Ultra (124.5 FPS) is 95.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU has headroom to spare. At 4K, the difference between Low (115.3 FPS) and Ultra (52.2 FPS) is 63.1 FPS, showing that the GPU is being stretched to its limits. The data clearly shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER is a high-end card that excels at 1440p but is challenged by 4K Ultra in this specific title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured frame rate data for this configuration is as follows. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 220 FPS, Medium averages 185.5 FPS, High averages 161.6 FPS, and Ultra averages 124.5 FPS. At 2560x1440, Low averages 191.6 FPS, Medium averages 130.5 FPS, High averages 114.3 FPS, and Ultra averages 87.1 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low averages 115.3 FPS, Medium averages 76.5 FPS, High averages 66 FPS, and Ultra averages 52.2 FPS.

The progression across settings is consistent: each step from Low to Medium to High to Ultra reduces performance, but the magnitude of the reduction varies by resolution. At 1080p, the drop from Low to Ultra is 95.5 FPS. At 1440p, the same drop is 104.5 FPS. At 4K, the drop is 63.1 FPS. This pattern indicates that at 1080p, the CPU and GPU are both capable of high throughput, but at 4K, the GPU’s limitations compress the range of achievable frame rates.

The most notable single data point is the 4K Ultra result of 52.2 FPS, which is the only measured average below 60 FPS. This is a significant finding for a GPU that is ranked in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. The 4K Low result of 115.3 FPS shows that the hardware is more than capable of delivering high frame rates at 4K when settings are reduced, highlighting the importance of settings management for this game.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Rust at 4K smoothly?

A: Yes, but not at the highest settings. The Low preset averages 115.3 FPS at 3840x2160, and the Medium preset averages 76.5 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 52.2 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p gaming?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 averages 114.3 FPS, which is a good balance of visual quality and performance. The Medium preset offers 130.5 FPS, while Ultra drops to 87.1 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its closest rivals in this game?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 53610, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT and 2.9% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. This suggests it will have a slight edge over these cards in Rust.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck at 1080p. The Low preset achieves 220 FPS, and the Ultra preset achieves 124.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor even at this resolution.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 4K?

A: The difference is 63.1 FPS. Low averages 115.3 FPS, while Ultra averages 52.2 FPS. This shows a significant performance cost for the Ultra preset’s visual enhancements.

Q: Is the 16 GB of VRAM sufficient for Rust?

A: Yes, the 16 GB of GDDR6X memory is more than adequate for Rust. The measured results show no signs of memory-related stuttering, even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU’s compute limits are reached before its memory capacity.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F plays a supporting role in this configuration, but its performance is critical to achieving the high frame rates seen at lower resolutions. The CPU features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. This Raptor Lake Refresh architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process, delivers strong single-threaded performance, which is essential for Rust’s game logic and physics calculations.

In the Cinebench R23 benchmark, the CPU scores 21914 in multicore and 3093 in single-core tests. These scores rank the CPU in the 88th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32508. Its closest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, scores 32513, putting the i5-14400F within 0.1% of that mobile chip. This level of performance is sufficient to feed the RTX 4080 SUPER at 1080p, as evidenced by the 220 FPS average at Low settings.

The CPU’s 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core help with the large, persistent world of Rust, where asset loading and entity tracking are frequent. The PassMark data shows a multithreaded score of 25783 and a single-thread score of 3723, confirming its balanced capabilities. At 4K, the CPU’s role diminishes, as the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The frame rate at 4K Low is 115.3 FPS, which is still high, but the CPU is likely not the limiting factor at this resolution.

The CPU’s 65 W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory make it a versatile choice, but the data shows that its performance is best utilized at 1080p and 1440p. At these resolutions, the i5-14400F ensures that the GPU is never starved of data, allowing the RTX 4080 SUPER to operate at its full potential. The measured results indicate a balanced pairing, where the CPU provides enough headroom for the GPU to excel in most scenarios, except for the most demanding 4K Ultra settings.