Rust

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Rust with the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti reveal a pronounced shift in performance scaling as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 140.9 FPS, but moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops that to 124 FPS, a reduction of roughly 12%. The scaling continues at 3840x2160, where Low settings yield 103.9 FPS — a further 16% decline from the 1440p figure. This pattern indicates that even at low graphical presets, the rendering load at 4K begins to tax the GPU more heavily, though the frame rates remain highly playable.

The gap between 1080p and 4K widens considerably at higher settings. At High preset, the combo delivers 114.6 FPS at 1080p, 103 FPS at 1440p, and 64.3 FPS at 4K. That represents a 44% drop from 1080p to 4K, which is substantial. The Ultra preset shows an even steeper curve: 101.6 FPS at 1080p falls to 84.9 FPS at 1440p and then plummets to 46.2 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is less than half of the 1080p Ultra figure, underscoring how demanding Rust's maximum settings become at high resolution.

What does this scaling tell us about the limiting component? The fact that 1080p Low (140.9 FPS) and 1440p Low (124 FPS) are relatively close suggests the CPU is holding back the upper ceiling, preventing the GPU from stretching its legs at lower resolutions. But the sharp drop at 4K Ultra (46.2 FPS) indicates the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck once pixel count and shader complexity rise together. The data points to a system where the i5-9400's six threads cap performance in lighter scenes, while the RTX 5070 Ti's 16 GB frame buffer and Blackwell architecture are pushed to their limits only at the most demanding settings. The 4K Medium result of 74.3 FPS versus 4K High at 64.3 FPS shows that even modest preset changes yield meaningful gains at this resolution, a sign that the GPU is working hard across the board.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti brings substantial memory and clock resources to Rust. Its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for Rust's large, persistent world assets and frequent texture streaming. The GPU's boost clock sits at 2452 MHz, with a base of 2295 MHz. These clocks, combined with 8960 shading units and 280 texture mapping units, drive a texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s. The RTX 5070 Ti also carries 70 ray tracing cores and 280 tensor cores, though Rust's primary workload is rasterization-heavy rather than RT-heavy.

The measured results show the GPU's role shifting with resolution and settings. At 1080p Low, the system hits 140.9 FPS, which is strong but not exceptional for a GPU that posts a Passmark G3D score of 32974 and an average benchmark score of 52086. The GPU sits at the 87th percentile among all GPUs, placing it in the upper tier. When compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 5070 Ti's average score of 52086 is essentially identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, which scores 52085 with a 0% deltaPct. It also edges out the AMD Radeon RX 7700S, which scores 52505, putting the 5070 Ti 0.8% behind that part, while leading the NVIDIA RTX A1000 by 2.5% and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 2.5%.

The GPU's VRAM capacity of 16 GB proves sufficient even at 4K Ultra, where the 46.2 FPS result is limited by compute rather than memory spills. The 896.0 GB/s bandwidth keeps texture streaming smooth even in Rust's dense forest and building-heavy scenes. At 4K Medium, the 74.3 FPS result shows the GPU can handle higher pixel counts when shader complexity is moderated, but the jump from Medium to High at 4K costs 10 FPS, indicating that the GPU's raw shader throughput becomes the constraining factor at this tier.

How This Combo Ranks

Among the 1717 tested combos in the database, this pairing of Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ranks 489th in Rust specifically. That places it in the upper 28.5% of all tested configurations, which is respectable for a CPU that launched in late 2018 paired with a GPU from early 2025. The rank reflects the lopsided nature of the pairing: the GPU is clearly the dominant component, while the CPU is a legacy part with a 50th percentile standing among all CPUs.

The combo's position relative to other tested configurations suggests that Rust's performance is more sensitive to GPU capability at higher settings, which is where this pairing excels. The i5-9400's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and single-core score of 1125 put it in the middle of the pack, and its nearest CPU rivals — the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300 avg score, 0.2% delta), Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2299, 0.2%), and Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295, 0.4%) — are all within a hair of its 2305 average benchmark score. This tight clustering means the CPU is not providing any unique advantage or disadvantage; it is simply average.

The ranking of 489 out of 1717 is notable because it outpaces what the CPU alone would suggest. If the CPU were the limiting factor, this combo would likely rank lower. Instead, the RTX 5070 Ti's 87th percentile GPU standing lifts the overall result. However, the ranking also shows that many combos with newer, higher-core-count CPUs paired with similarly powerful GPUs achieve better Rust performance, likely because Rust's simulation and entity update loops benefit from additional threads. The i5-9400's six cores and six threads are a clear ceiling here.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 140.9 FPS, Medium yields 124 FPS, High reaches 114.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 101.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 39.3 FPS, showing that even at 1080p, settings choices matter significantly. The 1080p results are all above the 100 FPS mark, making this resolution comfortable for high-refresh displays.

Moving to 2560x1440, the figures tighten. Low settings deliver 124 FPS, Medium 110.7 FPS, High 103 FPS, and Ultra 84.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra shrinks to 39.1 FPS, nearly identical to 1080p in absolute terms but smaller in percentage. The 1440p results remain playable across all presets, with even Ultra clearing the 85 FPS threshold. This resolution appears to be the sweet spot for this pairing, balancing visual fidelity with smooth motion.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens dramatically. Low settings hold at 103.9 FPS, which is still excellent. Medium drops to 74.3 FPS, High to 64.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 46.2 FPS. The gap from Low to Ultra expands to 57.7 FPS, the largest of any resolution. The 4K Ultra result is the only measured configuration that dips below 50 FPS, suggesting that players targeting 4K should stick to Medium or High presets for a consistent experience. The 4K Medium figure of 74.3 FPS is a more practical target, offering a 60% improvement over Ultra while still looking substantially better than Low.

The data pattern across resolutions shows diminishing returns from settings at lower resolutions and increasing penalties at higher ones. At 1080p, the difference between Medium and High is 9.4 FPS; at 4K, that same difference grows to 10 FPS. But the difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is 13 FPS, while at 4K it balloons to 18.1 FPS. This indicates that Ultra settings impose a disproportionate cost at 4K, likely due to shader complexity and texture filtering demands that scale with pixel count.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor from the Coffee Lake architecture, built on Intel's 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.90 GHz boosts to 4.10 GHz, and it carries 9 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s, and it connects via PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes. These specifications are modest by modern standards, and the CPU's benchmark results reflect that: Cinebench R23 multi-core scores 7969, single-core 1125, and its average benchmark score is 2305, placing it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs.

In Rust, the CPU's role is significant because the game is known for its server-side and client-side simulation load, which includes entity updates, building integrity checks, and physics calculations. The i5-9400's six threads handle these tasks, but the lack of hyper-threading means only six concurrent threads are available. This limitation is visible in the measured FPS data at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system produces 140.9 FPS, but at 1440p Low it only drops to 124 FPS, a modest decline that suggests the CPU is still the primary limiter in both cases. The GPU is capable of far more than 140.9 FPS at 1080p Low, but the CPU cannot feed it frames fast enough.

The CPU's single-core performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 single-core at 1125, is adequate but not stellar. Rust's main thread is often the bottleneck in crowded scenes, and the 4.10 GHz boost clock helps, but the architecture's age shows. The nearest CPU rivals — the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.2% delta), Intel Core i3-1125G4 (0.2%), and Intel Xeon E-2134 (0.4%) — all perform within 0.6% of the i5-9400's average score, confirming that this is a middling processor even among its peers. The Intel Core i7-8809G scores 2319, which is 0.6% higher, but that margin is negligible in real-world gaming.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and end-of-life production status indicate it is a legacy part, and its performance in Rust is consistent with its age. At 4K Ultra, the CPU is less of a factor because the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, but at 1080p and 1440p with lower settings, the CPU's six threads cap performance. The data suggests that upgrading to a CPU with more cores or higher single-thread performance would yield measurable gains at 1080p Low and Medium, but at 4K Ultra, the RTX 5070 Ti would still be the limiting factor, so the CPU upgrade would offer little benefit in that scenario. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (46.2) versus 1080p Ultra (101.6) shows a 55.4 FPS difference, almost entirely attributable to GPU load, confirming that CPU influence wanes as resolution rises.