Rust

The Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT combination ranks at position 1058 out of 1717 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the lower-mid tier of the database. This position reflects a pairing where the CPU is exceptionally strong—sitting in the 93rd percentile against all processors—while the GPU, at the 72nd percentile, is the clear bottleneck for this title. The data shows a system that can handle the game’s demanding simulation logic but is held back by graphics throughput, particularly at higher resolutions and settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 1058 out of 1717 puts it in the bottom 40% of all tested configurations for Rust, which is a surprising result given the hardware’s individual strengths. The Intel Core i7-13700K is a heavyweight processor, with an average benchmark score of 47282 and a percentile ranking of 93 against all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF, scores 47334, a negligible 0.1% delta, meaning the K-series chip is effectively tied with its F-variant counterpart. The AMD EPYC 4364P trails by 0.3% with a score of 47131, and the Intel Core i9-12900F is 0.4% behind at 47081.

On the graphics side, the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT holds an average benchmark score of 29024 and sits at the 72nd percentile against all GPUs. It is essentially matched with the AMD Radeon RX 6800M, which scores 29011 with a 0% delta, and the AMD Radeon RX 470 at 28996 (0.1% ahead). The Intel Arc A370M and AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH are marginally behind at 29175 (-0.5%) and 29197 (-0.6%) respectively, showing this GPU sits in a tightly packed performance cluster.

The stark contrast between the CPU’s top-tier standing and the GPU’s mid-range position explains the low combo rank. In Rust, the data suggests that the processor’s 16 cores and 24 threads are more than sufficient for the game’s server-side and simulation workloads, but the GPU cannot translate that CPU headroom into frame rate at the highest visual demands. This is a classic imbalance where the weakest link dictates the overall experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the Low preset offers the most playable experience across all resolutions, with frame rates that consistently exceed 55 FPS even at 4K. At 1920x1080, Low delivers 146.2 FPS, which is more than double the 62.3 FPS seen at Ultra, making it the only setting that fully exploits the system’s potential for high-refresh-rate displays. At 2560x1440, Low still produces a solid 101.2 FPS, while 4K Low manages 55.5 FPS—borderline but functional for less demanding play.

Medium is a viable middle ground for users prioritizing visual fidelity over raw speed. It provides 97.7 FPS at 1080p, 64.8 FPS at 1440p, and 39.8 FPS at 4K. High settings are only recommended for 1080p, where 82.2 FPS remains smooth, but the drop to 56.7 FPS at 1440p and 32.8 FPS at 4K makes those resolutions impractical. Ultra is the least favorable option, with 62.3 FPS at 1080p being the only passable result; 1440p Ultra drops to 46 FPS, and 4K Ultra falls to 24.8 FPS, which is below the threshold for consistent gameplay.

The data suggests that for the best balance of responsiveness and visual quality, Medium at 1080p or Low at 1440p are the sweet spots. Users with 4K monitors should stick to Low, as the jump from Low to Medium at that resolution yields only a 14.3 FPS improvement, which is not worth the visual trade-off in frame pacing.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a GPU-bound scenario that becomes increasingly severe at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the system delivers 146.2 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 101.2 FPS at 1440p—a reduction of 45 FPS—and then plunges to 55.5 FPS at 4K, a 62% loss from 1080p. This steep decline indicates that the RX 6650 XT’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus are struggling to feed the pixel count, despite the CPU’s ability to maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions.

The pattern is consistent across all settings. At High, the drop from 82.2 FPS at 1080p to 56.7 FPS at 1440p is 25.5 FPS, and then 4K High falls to 32.8 FPS. Ultra shows the most dramatic scaling: 62.3 FPS at 1080p, 46 FPS at 1440p, and 24.8 FPS at 4K. The percentage losses are more pronounced at higher presets, confirming that the GPU’s compute resources—2048 shading units and 64 ROPs—are saturated early when visual effects are enabled.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU. At 1080p Low, the CPU is likely still providing headroom, as evidenced by the 146 FPS result, but by 1440p the GPU’s pixel rate of 168.6 GPixel/s becomes the constraint. The data shows that the 13700K’s 30 MB of L3 cache and high boost clock of 5.40 GHz are not the bottleneck; instead, the RX 6650 XT’s bandwidth of 280.3 GB/s is insufficient for 4K workloads, where the fill rate demands exceed what the card can deliver.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RX 6650 XT demonstrates its best performance. Low settings achieve 146.2 FPS, which is the highest result in the entire dataset. Medium reduces this to 97.7 FPS, a 33% drop from Low, while High delivers 82.2 FPS. Ultra is the most demanding, producing 62.3 FPS, which is 57% lower than Low. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 83.9 FPS, showing that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution but is heavily taxed by Ultra effects.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance gap narrows. Low still leads with 101.2 FPS, followed by Medium at 64.8 FPS and High at 56.7 FPS. Ultra rounds out the group at 46 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 55.2 FPS, which is smaller than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly low. Low settings produce 55.5 FPS, which is the only playable figure. Medium drops to 39.8 FPS, High to 32.8 FPS, and Ultra to 24.8 FPS. The 4K results show that even the lowest preset cannot maintain 60 FPS, and the jump from Low to Ultra costs 30.7 FPS, a 55% reduction. Across all resolutions, the data shows a linear relationship between settings and FPS, with Low consistently outperforming Medium by roughly 1.5x.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 23 chip manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It features 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with 32 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2055 MHz and a boost clock of 2635 MHz, with a game clock of 2410 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 280.3 GB/s. These specifications, while capable for 1080p gaming, are outpaced by the CPU in Rust’s context.

The GPU’s 8 GB memory capacity is a critical factor in the 4K results. At 3840x2160, the game’s texture and geometry data likely exceed the 8 GB allocation, causing the card to rely on slower memory operations. This is evident in the 4K Low score of 55.5 FPS, which is only 38% of the 1080p Low result, despite the same settings. The 128-bit bus width, combined with the 280.3 GB/s bandwidth, cannot sustain the data throughput required at higher resolutions, even though the shading units are capable of handling the computational load.

The boost clock of 2635 MHz is a notable strength, allowing the card to perform well at 1080p where the pixel fill rate is less demanding. However, the FP32 performance of 10.79 TFLOPS is not sufficient to overcome the memory limitations at 4K. The GPU’s pixel rate of 168.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 337.3 GTexel/s are respectable for its class, but they are the primary constraints on frame rates when paired with a high-end CPU. The data confirms that the RX 6650 XT acts as the performance ceiling for this combo, and any further gains in Rust would require a GPU with greater memory bandwidth and capacity.