Rust

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER delivers a broad spread of frame rates in Rust, with performance heavily dictated by both resolution and the selected quality preset. The measured data shows a clear pattern: at 1080p, the combo achieves a very playable 139.4 FPS on Low settings, but this drops to 102.7 FPS on Ultra, indicating that even at the lowest resolution, the CPU’s six threads begin to limit the GPU’s potential. At 1440p, the average frame rates remain strong, with High settings producing 101.2 FPS, while the Ultra preset yields 76.9 FPS. The most demanding scenario in this dataset is 4K Ultra, where the system produces 46.4 FPS, a figure that suggests the GPU is now the primary constraint, but still remains above the threshold for smooth gameplay on less demanding presets.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate degradation from 1080p to 4K is not linear across all settings, revealing the shifting balance between CPU and GPU load. At Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is only 13.8 FPS (from 139.4 to 125.6), and the subsequent fall to 4K is 23.5 FPS (to 102.1). This relatively modest decline at lower presets suggests that the CPU’s six cores are the limiting factor, as the GPU is not yet saturated with pixel work. Conversely, at Ultra settings, the penalty for moving from 1080p to 1440p is 25.8 FPS (102.7 to 76.9), and the drop to 4K is another 30.5 FPS (to 46.4), demonstrating a much steeper curve. This steep decline at Ultra indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER’s rendering workload is scaling with resolution, with the GPU becoming the dominant bottleneck at 4K, where the average frame rate falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

The data shows that the combo is most efficient at 1440p High, where it produces 101.2 FPS, a figure only 11.5 FPS lower than the same settings at 1080p. This suggests that 1440p is a sweet spot where the CPU and GPU are relatively balanced, allowing the system to maintain high frame rates without the GPU being underutilized. At 4K, the performance collapse is most pronounced at Ultra, with a 43.5% reduction in average FPS compared to the 1080p Ultra result. This indicates that while the CPU can still feed the GPU at lower resolutions, the 4K Ultra workload is heavily dependent on the GPU’s 504.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and 35.48 TFLOPS of compute power, which are insufficient to maintain high frame rates in this scenario.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, with its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 192-bit bus, plays a decisive role in the higher-resolution results. The GPU’s 2475 MHz boost clock and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are key to its performance, but the data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 46.4 is below the 60 FPS target, indicating that the memory subsystem is being pushed hard. The GPU’s 56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores are present, but they do not appear to provide a significant advantage in this specific title, as the frame rate scales more directly with the traditional rasterization load. The measured results at 1440p High (101.2 FPS) and 1080p High (112.7 FPS) show that the GPU has ample headroom when the CPU can keep up, but at 4K, the gap between Low and Ultra presets widens to 55.7 FPS (102.1 vs 46.4), a clear sign of the GPU’s limitations at extreme resolutions.

The GPU’s 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the tested presets, but the data suggests that the memory bandwidth is a limiting factor at 4K Ultra. The transition from Medium to Ultra at 4K results in a 21.4 FPS drop (67.8 to 46.4), which is a larger absolute penalty than the same transition at 1080p, where the drop is only 19.1 FPS (121.8 to 102.7). This pattern implies that the GPU’s memory interface is saturated at 4K, and the higher preset’s increased texture and shading demands cannot be met without sacrificing frame rate. The GPU’s 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is substantial, but it is not enough to overcome the memory bandwidth constraint at 4K Ultra, where the combo ranks below the 60 FPS threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader context of tested configurations, this combo ranks 539 out of 1717 combinations, placing it in the 69th percentile of all tested systems. This rank is a composite measure of the CPU and GPU’s combined performance in Rust, and it suggests that while the RTX 4070 SUPER is a high-end GPU (84th percentile for all GPUs), the Intel Core i5-9400 is a mid-range CPU (50th percentile for all CPUs), which drags down the overall combo ranking. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 2305 is very close to its nearest rivals, with the Intel Core i3-10305 scoring 2300 (0.2% delta) and the Intel Xeon E-2134 scoring 2295 (0.4% delta), indicating that the i5-9400 is not significantly faster than these alternatives in general compute tasks. However, in Rust, the combo’s rank of 539 suggests that the CPU’s six threads are a bottleneck, as higher-ranking combos likely feature CPUs with more cores or higher clock speeds.

The GPU’s nearest rivals, based on average benchmark scores, include the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (42653, -0.2% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42723, -0.3% delta), which show that the RTX 4070 SUPER is performant within its class. Yet, the combo rank indicates that pairing this GPU with a weaker CPU results in a system that is not in the top tier for Rust. The rank of 539 out of 1717 means that approximately 68% of tested combos perform better, which aligns with the observation that the CPU is often the limiting factor, especially at lower resolutions where the GPU is not fully utilized. The data suggests that a more capable CPU would allow the RTX 4070 SUPER to achieve higher frame rates, particularly at 1080p and 1440p, where the GPU’s headroom is evident.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide range of results depending on settings. Low settings yield 139.4 FPS, Medium 121.8 FPS, High 112.7 FPS, and Ultra 102.7 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 36.7 FPS, which is significant, but all presets are above 100 FPS, indicating that the system is CPU-limited at this resolution. Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates are still respectable: Low 125.6 FPS, Medium 108.5 FPS, High 101.2 FPS, and Ultra 76.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 48.7 FPS, showing that the GPU is starting to become more involved. At 3840x2160, the performance drops are more pronounced: Low 102.1 FPS, Medium 67.8 FPS, High 59.9 FPS, and Ultra 46.4 FPS. The Low preset remains playable, but the High and Ultra presets fall below the 60 FPS threshold, and Ultra is under 50 FPS.

The data shows that the most consistent performance is at 1080p, where the frame rate is high across all settings, but the scaling from Low to Ultra is not proportional to the GPU load. At 1440p, the Medium preset (108.5 FPS) is only 6.7 FPS slower than the Low preset (125.6 FPS), suggesting that the CPU is still the primary limiter. However, at 4K, the Medium preset (67.8 FPS) is 34.3 FPS slower than Low (102.1 FPS), which is a much larger relative drop, indicating that the GPU’s workload is now the dominant factor. The Ultra preset at 4K (46.4 FPS) is the only result below 50 FPS, and it represents a 53.5% reduction from the 1080p High result (112.7 FPS), highlighting the GPU’s limitations at extreme settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, based on the Coffee Lake architecture. Its 9 MB of shared L3 cache and 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth are adequate for general workloads, but in Rust, the data reveals that the CPU is often the bottleneck, particularly at 1080p and 1440p. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and single-core score of 1125 indicate that its computational power is moderate, and its 50th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that it is not a high-end part. The benchmark results show that at 1080p Low (139.4 FPS), the CPU is limiting the frame rate, as the GPU is capable of far higher performance, but the six threads cannot feed it fast enough.

The CPU’s performance relative to its nearest rivals is marginal, with the Intel Core i3-10305 being 0.2% faster and the Intel Xeon E-2134 being 0.4% slower. This suggests that the i5-9400 is not a standout performer, and its lack of hyper-threading (6 threads vs. potential 12) is a significant disadvantage in Rust, which can utilize multiple threads. The data shows that at 1440p High (101.2 FPS), the CPU is still the primary limiter, as the frame rate is only 11.5 FPS lower than at 1080p High (112.7 FPS), indicating that the GPU is not yet fully saturated. However, at 4K, the CPU’s role diminishes, and the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as the frame rate drops more steeply with increasing settings. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and end-of-life production status suggest that it is a dated part, and the benchmark data confirms that it holds back the RTX 4070 SUPER in CPU-bound scenarios.