Rust

# FAQ

Q: What is the measured performance of the Intel Core i5-14600KF with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 in Rust?

A: The combo produces an average of 78 FPS at 1080p High, 54 FPS at 1440p High, and 32 FPS at 4K High. At Low settings, the averages are 138 FPS (1080p), 95 FPS (1440p), and 56 FPS (4K).

Q: How does the CPU's overall benchmark score compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Core i5-14600KF has an average benchmark score of 49,394, putting it 0.3% above the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49,228) and 0.4% above the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49,196). It trails the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (49,796) by 0.8%.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The Radeon RX 7600 sits at the 57th percentile for all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15,171. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, scores 15,199, a mere 0.2% difference.

Q: At which resolution and settings does the combo exceed 60 FPS?

A: The combo exceeds 60 FPS at 1080p with High (78), Medium (93), and Low (138) settings, but drops to exactly 60 FPS at 1080p Ultra. At 1440p, only Low (95) and Medium (64) surpass 60 FPS. At 4K, no preset reaches 60 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread performance compare to its multi-thread results?

A: In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 4,594 single-core and 32,544 multi-core. The multi-core result is roughly 7 times higher, reflecting the processor's 14 cores and 20 threads, though the single-core score indicates strong per-thread capability.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in the measured data?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 32 FPS at 4K Medium settings, with a corresponding average of 38 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 54 FPS, and at 1080p Medium, it is 79 FPS.

# GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a Navi 33 chip, featuring 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus. The memory operates at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed, yielding a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is a critical factor in Rust, a game known for heavy texture streaming and large open-world environments. At 4K Ultra, the combo averages only 24 FPS, suggesting that the GPU's 8 GB frame buffer and 128-bit memory interface struggle with the highest resolution and settings.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base of 1720 MHz, a game clock of 2250 MHz, and a boost of 2655 MHz. The boost clock is 35% higher than the base, which helps in less demanding scenes, but the sustained game clock is what typically governs average frame rates. In Rust, the measured data shows a clear pattern: at 1080p Low, the GPU delivers 138 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it falls to 24 FPS. This 5.75x drop indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions, as the pixel throughput requirement scales directly with resolution.

The GPU's shading units number 2,048, with 128 texture mapping units and 64 raster operation units. The pixel rate is 169.9 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 339.8 GTexel/s. These specifications translate to a raw fill rate that is adequate for 1080p gaming but insufficient for 4K at high quality settings. The FP32 performance of 21.75 TFLOPS provides compute headroom, but Rust's rendering pipeline appears to be more bandwidth-limited than compute-limited, given the steep FPS decline as resolution increases.

The GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which means it can handle modern graphics APIs. However, the measured FPS at 4K High (32 FPS) versus 1080p High (78 FPS) shows a 59% reduction, which is steeper than the 4x pixel count difference. This suggests that beyond raw pixel throughput, the 8 GB VRAM may be spilling over at 4K, causing additional performance penalties.

The GPU's benchmark scores show a Passmark G3D score of 16,634 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2,310. These place it at the 57th percentile of all GPUs, meaning it outperforms 57% of the tested graphics cards. In the context of Rust, this mid-range positioning is reflected in the FPS numbers: playable at 1080p and 1440p with adjusted settings, but not competitive at 4K.

# Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent resolution scaling pattern across all four settings presets. At 1080p High, the average is 78 FPS; at 1440p High, it drops to 54 FPS (a 31% reduction); and at 4K High, it falls to 32 FPS (a 59% reduction from 1080p). This scaling is steeper than the pixel count increase, indicating that the GPU's memory bandwidth and fill rate become limiting factors as resolution climbs.

At Low settings, the pattern is similar but with higher absolute numbers: 138 FPS at 1080p, 95 FPS at 1440p (31% drop), and 56 FPS at 4K (59% drop). The consistent percentage drops across settings suggest that the resolution penalty is roughly uniform regardless of graphical complexity, pointing to a fixed hardware bottleneck rather than a settings-dependent issue.

The Medium preset shows the only complete min/max data in the set. At 1080p Medium, the average is 93 FPS with a range from 79 to 107 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 64 FPS with a range from 54 to 73 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 38 FPS with a range from 32 to 43 FPS. The min-to-max spread narrows as resolution increases, from 28 FPS at 1080p to 11 FPS at 4K, suggesting that at higher resolutions, the system is more consistently bottlenecked.

Ultra settings show the most severe scaling: 60 FPS at 1080p, 41 FPS at 1440p (32% drop), and 24 FPS at 4K (60% drop). The 4K Ultra result is the only sub-30 FPS average in the entire dataset, confirming that this configuration is beyond the GPU's practical capability.

The resolution scaling indicates that the limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU with its 14 cores and 20 threads can keep up with the GPU, as evidenced by the 138 FPS Low result. At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck, with the 24 FPS Ultra result being nearly 6x lower than the 1080p Low figure. The inflection point appears to be around 1440p, where the GPU starts to constrain performance but the CPU still has headroom.

# Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset at 1080p offers the best balance of performance and visual quality. The 93 FPS average with a minimum of 79 FPS ensures smooth gameplay without dipping below typical 60 FPS thresholds. In comparison, High at 1080p averages 78 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes.

For 1440p, the Medium preset is the recommended choice, delivering 64 FPS average with a minimum of 54 FPS. This is borderline for competitive play but acceptable for general gaming. The Low preset at 1440p achieves 95 FPS, which would be preferable for players prioritizing frame rate over visuals, but it likely sacrifices significant visual fidelity.

At 4K, no preset achieves 60 FPS. The Low preset averages 56 FPS, which is the highest result at this resolution, but the Medium preset averages 38 FPS and High averages 32 FPS. Ultra at 4K is not viable at 24 FPS. For 4K users, dropping to Low settings is the only way to approach playable frame rates.

The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p, where it averages exactly 60 FPS. This result is borderline, and any demanding scene could push it below 60 FPS. The data shows that the Ultra preset at 1440p (41 FPS) and 4K (24 FPS) is not recommended for gameplay.

The High preset offers a middle ground: 78 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and 32 FPS at 4K. This preset is suitable for players with 1080p monitors who want better visual quality than Medium, but for higher resolutions, the FPS penalty becomes too severe. The measured min FPS data at Medium settings shows that even the minimums remain within 10-15% of the averages, indicating consistent performance rather than sporadic drops.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers the highest performance across all settings. Low settings average 138 FPS, which is the highest result in the entire dataset. Medium settings average 93 FPS with a minimum of 79 and a maximum of 107 FPS. High settings average 78 FPS, and Ultra settings average exactly 60 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 78 FPS drop, representing a 57% reduction in frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low settings average 95 FPS, which is still well above 60 FPS. Medium settings average 64 FPS with a minimum of 54 and a maximum of 73 FPS. High settings average 54 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 41 FPS. The step from Medium to High at 1440p crosses the 60 FPS threshold, making Medium the highest playable preset at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles across all settings. Low settings average 56 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS target. Medium settings average 38 FPS with a minimum of 32 and a maximum of 43 FPS. High settings average 32 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 24 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 32 FPS, a 57% reduction that mirrors the 1080p scaling.

Comparing the same settings across resolutions, the 1080p to 1440p drop is consistent at 31-32% for all presets. The 1440p to 4K drop is steeper at 41-42%, indicating that the GPU's memory bandwidth becomes increasingly inadequate as pixel count grows. The Medium preset provides the only complete min/max data, showing that the FPS range narrows from 28 FPS at 1080p to 19 FPS at 1440p and 11 FPS at 4K, suggesting increased bottleneck consistency at higher resolutions.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF features 14 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This configuration, based on the Raptor Lake architecture, provides substantial multi-threaded throughput. In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 32,544 multi-core and 4,594 single-core, placing it at the 90th percentile among all CPUs. The multi-core to single-core ratio of 7.08 indicates strong parallel scaling for workloads that can utilize all cores.

In Rust, which is known to be CPU-intensive due to its procedural world generation and large numbers of entities, the CPU's single-thread performance is particularly important. The 5.30 GHz boost clock and the 4,594 single-core Cinebench R23 score suggest that the CPU can handle the game's physics and simulation threads effectively. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (138 FPS) is likely constrained by the GPU, but at higher settings, the CPU still maintains sufficient performance to avoid becoming the primary bottleneck.

The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. This large L3 cache is beneficial for Rust's data-intensive operations, where frequently accessed world data can be cached locally. The memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 provides flexibility, though the dual-channel memory bus is a potential limitation for bandwidth-sensitive workloads.

The CPU's benchmark scores show a Passmark multi-thread score of 38,697 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 17,085. These results place it near the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49,228 average score, 0.3% difference) and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49,196, 0.4% difference). This close grouping suggests that the CPU is competitive with high-end alternatives in synthetic benchmarks, and the measured game performance reflects this.

The 14 cores and 20 threads provide headroom for background tasks and future game updates that may utilize more threads. However, in Rust specifically, the measured FPS at 1440p High (54 FPS) versus 1080p High (78 FPS) shows a 31% drop, which aligns with the GPU scaling pattern. This indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor at these resolutions, as the GPU's performance scales predictably with pixel count.

# How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 7600 ranks 2,596 out of 3,723 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the 30th percentile of all CPU-GPU pairings. This ranking reflects the mid-range nature of both components: the CPU is at the 90th percentile overall, but the GPU at the 57th percentile drags down the combined performance.

The ranking suggests that this combo is better suited for 1080p gaming than for higher resolutions. The measured data supports this, with strong performance at 1080p (138 FPS Low, 93 FPS Medium) but diminishing returns at 1440p and 4K. The combo's position in the bottom 30% of tested configurations indicates that many other pairings offer better frame rates in Rust, particularly those with higher-end GPUs.

Comparing the individual components, the CPU's average benchmark score of 49,394 is within 0.8% of its nearest rivals, showing that it is competitive with other high-end processors. The GPU's average score of 15,171 is within 0.7% of its nearest rivals, but it is only at the 57th percentile, meaning 43% of tested GPUs outperform it. This asymmetry between CPU and GPU performance explains the combo's mid-pack ranking.

The combo's rank of 2,596 out of 3,723 means that 1,127 tested combinations perform worse in Rust. This places it in the lower-mid range, suggesting that while it can play the game, it does not excel. The 4K Ultra result of 24 FPS is particularly weak, indicating that this combo is not intended for high-resolution, high-settings gaming.

For comparison, the CPU alone ranks at the 90th percentile, but the combo drops to the 30th percentile in Rust. This discrepancy highlights the GPU's role as the performance limiter in this pairing. Players using this combo should expect playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p with adjusted settings, but should not anticipate high-refresh-rate 4K gaming.