Rust

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 1487th out of 1717 tested combinations for Rust. This places the combo in the lower 13th percentile of all tested systems, indicating that while the hardware is functional, it is not positioned to deliver a high-end experience in this specific title. The ranking reflects a significant bottleneck scenario where the graphics card limits performance substantially, a conclusion supported by the FPS scaling patterns across resolutions and settings discussed below.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1487 out of 1717 is a low placement, suggesting that most other hardware pairings outperform it in Rust. The data indicates a fundamental imbalance: the CPU is a high-end part, but the GPU is a modest one. Benchmark results show the i5-14600K sits at the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49166. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (avg score 49062, delta 0.2%) and the Intel Core i5-14600KF (avg score 49367, delta -0.4%), meaning the CPU is well within 1% of these top-tier processors in synthetic tests.

In contrast, the GTX 1660 SUPER sits at the 55th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14286. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (avg score 14314, delta -0.2%) and the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (avg score 14315, delta -0.2%). The GPU is essentially tied with these integrated and entry-level discrete solutions, which explains why the overall combo ranks so low. The CPU’s strength is largely wasted in Rust at higher settings because the GPU becomes the limiting factor, dragging the entire system down to a rank that reflects the weakest link rather than the average of the two components.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU116 chip, fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC with 6,600 million transistors. It features 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). It has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s.

In Rust, the GPU’s role is decisive. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 109 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 47.1 FPS. This 56% performance decline from Low to Ultra demonstrates that the GTX 1660 SUPER’s compute capabilities (5.027 TFLOPS FP32) and memory bandwidth are insufficient for the game’s higher graphical demands. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is also a constraint; at 4K Ultra, the average FPS falls to 22, indicating that the card is not only compute-bound but also memory-bound when handling large textures and high-resolution buffers. The pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s are modest figures that explain why the card struggles to maintain playable frame rates at higher resolutions and settings in Rust’s dense environments.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound profile. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 109 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, it drops to 73.2 FPS, a 33% reduction. At 4K Low, it falls to 42.2 FPS, a further 42% reduction from 1440p. This steep decline with increasing resolution indicates that the GPU is the limiting component; the CPU has ample headroom, but the GTX 1660 SUPER cannot keep up with the pixel throughput demands.

The pattern holds across all settings. At 1080p Medium, the average is 73 FPS, which drops to 48.2 FPS at 1440p Medium (34% reduction) and 30.4 FPS at 4K Medium (37% reduction). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings confirms that resolution scaling is the dominant factor, not the CPU. At 1080p High, the combo achieves 57.4 FPS, falling to 39.7 FPS at 1440p High and 26.3 FPS at 4K High. This scaling suggests that the GTX 1660 SUPER’s memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s is saturated early, and each resolution increase compounds the pressure on the GPU’s ROPs and shading units. The data clearly shows that for this combo, lower resolutions are the only path to smooth gameplay, and even then, only at reduced settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed picture of the combo’s performance envelope. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low settings yield an average of 109 FPS, Medium 73 FPS, High 57.4 FPS, and Ultra 47.1 FPS. These numbers indicate that 1080p Low is the only configuration that approaches a high-refresh-rate experience, while 1080p Ultra remains playable but far from smooth.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop to 73.2 FPS (Low), 48.2 FPS (Medium), 39.7 FPS (High), and 32.5 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra narrows from 62 FPS at 1080p to 40.7 FPS at 1440p, showing that the GPU is becoming the dominant constraint at higher resolutions. At 3840x2160, the averages are 42.2 FPS (Low), 30.4 FPS (Medium), 26.3 FPS (High), and 22 FPS (Ultra). The 4K Low result is barely playable, and 4K Ultra is effectively a slideshow. These figures demonstrate that the GTX 1660 SUPER cannot sustain 60 FPS at any resolution above 1080p Low, and even at 1080p, only the lowest settings provide comfortable headroom. The data shows a clear hierarchy: the combo is viable for 1080p gaming at Medium or lower settings, marginal at 1440p Low, and unsuitable for 4K in Rust.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 24 MB shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 per core. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory via a dual-channel bus and has a 125 W TDP. Its benchmark results are strong: Cinebench R23 multicore score of 32881 and singlecore score of 4642, Geekbench multicore of 15846 and singlecore of 2803, and a Passmark multithread score of 38682.

In Rust, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, but it is not irrelevant. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 109 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this game’s simulation and entity-tick logic. However, the fact that FPS drops so aggressively when settings are increased (from 109 FPS at Low to 47.1 FPS at Ultra) indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The CPU’s 14 cores and 20 threads provide ample parallelism for Rust’s server-side and client-side physics, but the GTX 1660 SUPER simply cannot feed the CPU with enough frames at higher settings. The Passmark physics score of 2473 and data compression score of 482020 suggest the CPU excels at the type of procedural generation and map-loading tasks Rust demands, but this strength is masked by the GPU’s limitations. The percentile ranking of 93 for the CPU versus 55 for the GPU highlights the mismatch: the i5-14600K is a top-tier processor, but its potential is unrealized in this pairing, as the GTX 1660 SUPER caps the system’s performance at levels far below what the CPU could support with a more capable graphics card.