Rust

Rust presents a demanding survival sandbox where the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination demonstrates a clear performance hierarchy across resolutions. The data indicates that this pairing is heavily influenced by resolution and settings, with the 1080p results suggesting a CPU bottleneck at lower graphical loads, while 4K shifts the burden firmly onto the GPU. Benchmark results show that the combination ranks in the 1028th position out of 3723 tested combos, placing it comfortably in the upper third of all systems tested for this game.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic scaling pattern that points to different limiting factors at each resolution. At 1080p with Medium settings, the system produces an average of 122 FPS, while at 2560x1440 the same settings yield 108 FPS, and at 3840x2160 the average drops to 79 FPS. This translates to a 13% performance reduction from 1080p to 1440p, but a much steeper 35% reduction from 1440p to 4K, indicating that the GPU becomes increasingly constrained as pixel count rises.

The 1080p to 4K scaling at High settings shows a similar but slightly different pattern. At 1080p High, the average is 115 FPS, dropping to 101 FPS at 1440p (a 12% decrease), and then falling to 66 FPS at 4K (a 35% decrease from 1440p). This consistent drop-off pattern across both Medium and High settings suggests that the RTX 4080's rendering capabilities are being progressively saturated at higher resolutions, while the CPU has sufficient headroom to maintain its part of the workload.

Examining the Low settings data provides the clearest evidence of a CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 142 FPS, which only drops to 125 FPS at 1440p (a 12% reduction) and then to 105 FPS at 4K (a 16% reduction from 1440p). The relatively modest scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings compared to the steeper drops at higher settings strongly suggests that the Intel Core i5-9400's six cores and six threads are reaching their practical limit around the 125-142 FPS range, regardless of resolution.

The Ultra preset data reinforces this interpretation. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 104 FPS, which is only slightly below the 115 FPS at High settings, but at 1440p Ultra the average drops to 85 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it falls to 50 FPS. The 41% reduction from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra is the steepest drop of any settings preset, confirming that the RTX 4080 is the primary limiting component at 4K when graphical demands are at their highest.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 features six physical cores and six threads, a configuration that is becoming increasingly dated for modern survival games like Rust, which often benefit from additional thread count. The processor has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with 9 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU scores 668 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, 2784 in Cinebench R20 multi-core, and 6629 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, placing it in the 47th percentile of all CPUs tested.

The benchmark results in Rust indicate that the i5-9400's six cores are sufficient to drive frame rates above 100 FPS at 1080p and 1440p, but the scaling patterns suggest that additional threads would likely provide diminishing returns. The fact that the 1080p Low preset only reaches 142 FPS, while the 1440p Low preset reaches 125 FPS, implies that the CPU is not fully saturating the GPU at these settings. However, the relatively small difference between 1080p and 1440p Low results (17 FPS) compared to the larger differences at Medium and High settings suggests that the CPU is becoming a more significant contributor to the overall performance picture as graphical load increases.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 2254 places it in close competition with several other mid-range processors. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, has an average score of 2259, representing a deltaPct of -0.2%, meaning the i5-9400 is essentially tied with that chip. Similarly, the Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2264 for a deltaPct of -0.4%, while the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2246 for a deltaPct of 0.4%. This narrow performance band indicates that the i5-9400 is right at the expected performance level for its class, and Rust's frame rates reflect this mid-range positioning.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 1028th out of 3723 tested combinations for Rust, placing it in the 72.4th percentile of all systems tested. This ranking is notable because the RTX 4080 is a high-end graphics card that sits in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, while the i5-9400 sits in only the 47th percentile of all CPUs. The disparity between the GPU's high percentile ranking and the CPU's mid-range percentile ranking explains why this combination does not place higher in the overall rankings for Rust.

The RTX 4080's nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark database include the RTX 4080 SUPER with an average score of 54209 and a deltaPct of 0.1%, meaning the standard 4080 is essentially tied with its SUPER counterpart. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54828 for a deltaPct of -1.1%, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55698 for a deltaPct of -2.6% and the AMD Radeon 8060S scores 55757 for a deltaPct of -2.7%. These small deltas indicate that the RTX 4080 is very closely matched with several other high-end GPUs, and any performance differences in Rust come down to game-specific optimization rather than raw hardware capability.

Given that the RTX 4080 is performing near its expected level (as evidenced by its 86th percentile GPU ranking), the combo's 72.4th percentile ranking in Rust suggests that the i5-9400 is holding the system back from reaching the top tier. The data supports this conclusion: at 1080p Low, the system only achieves 142 FPS, which is likely below what the RTX 4080 could deliver with a more capable processor. The gap between the GPU's potential and the actual measured frame rates widens at lower resolutions where the CPU becomes the limiting factor.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 a bottleneck for the RTX 4080 in Rust at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes. At 1080p Low, the system averages 142 FPS, while at 4K Low it still achieves 105 FPS. The relatively small performance drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings (37 FPS or 26%) compared to the larger drops at Medium and High settings indicates that the CPU is limiting frame rates at 1080p, preventing the RTX 4080 from reaching its full potential.

Q: How does this combination perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the system averages 50 FPS. This is a playable frame rate for many survival games, though it falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many players prefer. The drop from 1440p Ultra's 85 FPS to 4K Ultra's 50 FPS represents a 41% reduction, showing that the GPU is doing most of the work at this resolution.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain high frame rates?

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the system averages 101 FPS, which is a good balance of visual quality and smoothness. At 1080p, the system exceeds 115 FPS on High settings, but the CPU bottleneck prevents the RTX 4080 from delivering significantly higher frame rates than it would at 1440p.

Q: How does the i5-9400 compare to its closest CPU rivals in terms of overall benchmark scores?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2254, which is within 0.4% of all its nearest rivals. The Intel Core i7-1068NG7 scores 2259 (deltaPct -0.2%), the Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2264 (deltaPct -0.4%), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2246 (deltaPct 0.4%), and the Intel Core i7-10710U scores 2248 (deltaPct 0.3%). This means the i5-9400 is squarely in the middle of its performance class.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 have enough VRAM for Rust at 4K?

A: The RTX 4080 comes with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. Given that Rust at 4K High averages 66 FPS and at 4K Medium averages 79 FPS, the memory configuration appears sufficient for this game, as frame rates remain consistent without indications of memory-related stuttering.

Q: What is the RTX 4080's percentile ranking compared to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 4080 sits in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the RTX 4080 SUPER (average score 54209, deltaPct 0.1%), AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (average score 54828, deltaPct -1.1%), AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (average score 55698, deltaPct -2.6%), and AMD Radeon 8060S (average score 55757, deltaPct -2.7%). All these deltas are within 3%, indicating very close performance parity.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is a high-end graphics card built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC. It features 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster operating units, along with 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores. The card has a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz, with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory running at 22.4 Gbps effective speed across a 256-bit bus, delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Rust, the RTX 4080's performance is clearly visible at 4K resolution where the GPU is the primary limiting factor. At 4K Medium, the system achieves 79 FPS with minimum frame rates of 67 FPS and maximums of 90 FPS. At 4K High, the average drops to 66 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it falls to 50 FPS. This scaling shows that the RTX 4080 can handle Rust at 4K with playable frame rates up to High settings, but Ultra settings push it below the 60 FPS threshold.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark results confirm its high-end positioning. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 6567, while in Geekbench OpenCL it scores 214739 and in Geekbench Vulkan it scores 263779. The Passmark G3D score of 34457 places it well above most gaming GPUs, and its Passmark GPU Compute score of 20671 demonstrates strong compute performance. The RTX 4080's 86th percentile ranking among all GPUs, combined with its launch MSRP of 1,199 USD, positions it as a premium component that pairs awkwardly with a mid-range CPU.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which settings preset offers the best experience for this specific CPU-GPU combination. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 115 FPS average, while the Ultra preset only drops to 104 FPS. This small 11 FPS difference suggests that players at 1080p can comfortably use Ultra settings without significant performance loss, since the CPU bottleneck at this resolution means the GPU has enough headroom to handle the extra graphical load.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset provides 108 FPS average with minimums of 92 FPS and maximums of 124 FPS, while the High preset delivers 101 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 85 FPS, which is still playable but shows a more noticeable performance penalty. The data indicates that High settings at 1440p offer the best balance, with 101 FPS average and no recorded minimum frame rate dips below playable levels.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset is the recommended choice for this combination. It delivers 79 FPS average with a minimum of 67 FPS and maximum of 90 FPS, which maintains smooth gameplay throughout. The High preset at 4K drops to 66 FPS, which is still acceptable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset at 4K falls to 50 FPS, which is below the ideal threshold for a survival game that often requires quick reactions to environmental threats and other players.

The Low settings preset provides the highest frame rates across all resolutions, with 142 FPS at 1080p, 125 FPS at 1440p, and 105 FPS at 4K. However, the visual quality reduction is significant, and the performance gains over Medium settings are modest (20 FPS at 1080p, 17 FPS at 1440p, and 26 FPS at 4K). Given the RTX 4080's capabilities, players should prioritize Medium or High settings to get the most out of the hardware, reserving Low settings only for competitive scenarios where maximum frame rates are paramount.