Rust

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Rust with the Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 reveals a clear pattern: the game becomes progressively more GPU-bound as resolution increases, but the CPU still exerts a significant influence at lower settings. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 214.4 FPS, which drops to 144 FPS at 1440p Low and then to 88.6 FPS at 4K Low. This scaling from 1080p to 1440p represents a 32.8% reduction, while the jump from 1440p to 4K yields another 38.5% reduction. These are substantial drops that indicate the rendering workload is scaling heavily with pixel count.

The story changes when looking at higher settings. At 1080p High, the average is 120.3 FPS; at 1440p High it drops to 85.2 FPS; and at 4K High it falls to 50.9 FPS. The Ultra preset shows similar behavior: 94.4 FPS at 1080p, 65.4 FPS at 1440p, and 39.4 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops between resolutions are relatively consistent across presets, but the absolute FPS values at 4K Ultra (39.4 FPS) and 4K High (50.9 FPS) suggest the GPU is the limiting factor there. At 1080p Low, the 214.4 FPS result is high enough that the CPU's 16 cores and 24 threads are likely preventing even higher frame rates, as the GPU has less work per frame.

The data indicates that at 1080p with Low settings, the system is heavily CPU-bound; the Radeon RX 9070 with its 2520 MHz boost clock is capable of far more than 214.4 FPS in lighter scenes. Conversely, at 4K Ultra, the GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are being taxed, and the 39.4 FPS result shows the GPU is the clear bottleneck. The middle ground—1440p Medium at 97.6 FPS—represents a balanced point where neither component is fully saturated, but the scaling still favors the GPU being the primary constraint as resolution climbs.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience per the measured rows, the Medium preset at 1440p stands out as the optimal balance. It delivers 97.6 FPS, which is 14.5% higher than 1440p High (85.2 FPS) and 49.3% higher than 1440p Ultra (65.4 FPS). The jump from Medium to High at this resolution costs 12.4 FPS, while the jump from High to Ultra costs 19.8 FPS, making Ultra a poor trade-off for the visual gain. At 1080p, Medium provides 144.3 FPS, which is already well above the 120.3 FPS of High and the 94.4 FPS of Ultra; the difference between Medium and High is 24 FPS, while Ultra falls 49.9 FPS behind Medium.

At 4K, no preset reaches 60 FPS except Low, which hits 88.6 FPS. High (50.9 FPS) and Medium (56.7 FPS) are both sub-60, and Ultra is unplayable at 39.4 FPS. The data suggests that for 4K, Low is the only viable preset if smoothness is prioritized, as it is 31.9 FPS ahead of Medium. For 1440p, Medium is the sweet spot: it is 32.4 FPS behind Low but 12.4 FPS ahead of High, offering a better visual experience without sacrificing much performance. For 1080p, High at 120.3 FPS is a strong recommendation because it is only 24 FPS behind Medium but provides higher fidelity, while Ultra's 94.4 FPS is a 25.9 FPS penalty that is hard to justify.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070's specifications directly explain the measured performance. It has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for Rust's high-resolution textures, as evidenced by the 4K High result of 50.9 FPS, which is not a memory capacity failure but a raw compute limitation. The GPU's boost clock is 2520 MHz, with a game clock of 2070 MHz, and it has 3584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 128 ROPs. The pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s are the likely constraints at 4K Ultra, where the 39.4 FPS result indicates the ROPs are saturated.

The GPU's FP32 performance is 36.13 TFLOPS, which is a strong figure, but Rust's rendering engine at Ultra settings appears to push the ROPs harder than the shaders. The 4K Low result of 88.6 FPS shows that when shading complexity is reduced, the GPU can still push high frame rates, meaning the bottleneck at higher presets is the pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth interaction. The GPU's 220 W TDP and PCIe 5.0 x16 interface are not limiting factors in these results. Compared to its nearest rivals, the RX 9070 has an average benchmark score of 34780, which is 0.2% below the NVIDIA A2 (34866) and 0.7% above the AMD Radeon HD 7970 (34541); these small deltas indicate the RX 9070's raw compute is in a specific performance tier, and the Rust results are consistent with that positioning.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: Low 214.4, Medium 144.3, High 120.3, and Ultra 94.4. The spread from Low to Ultra is 120 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium (70.1 FPS). The drop from Medium to High is 24 FPS, and from High to Ultra it is 25.9 FPS. This suggests that the Low preset removes significant GPU workload, allowing the CPU to drive frame rates to 214.4, while the Ultra preset's added effects cost 25.9 FPS over High.

At 2560x1440, the values are: Low 144, Medium 97.6, High 85.2, and Ultra 65.4. The drop from Low to Medium is 46.4 FPS, which is a larger absolute penalty than at 1080p, indicating the GPU is working harder at the higher resolution. The Medium to High drop is 12.4 FPS, and High to Ultra is 19.8 FPS. The 1440p Low result of 144 FPS is exactly 70.4 FPS below the 1080p Low result, showing that even at Low settings, the resolution increase has a major impact.

At 3840x2160, the values are: Low 88.6, Medium 56.7, High 50.9, and Ultra 39.4. The Low to Medium drop is 31.9 FPS, Medium to High is 5.8 FPS, and High to Ultra is 11.5 FPS. The 4K results show that Medium and High are very close (5.8 FPS apart), which is unusual; this suggests that beyond a certain point, the GPU's ROPs become the limit, and the difference between Medium and High settings has diminishing impact on the frame rate. The 4K Ultra result of 39.4 FPS is the lowest in the entire dataset, and it is 18.9 FPS below the 4K Medium result.

How This Combo Ranks

This combo ranks 479 out of 1717 tested combinations in Rust, placing it in the upper 27.9% of all systems tested. This rank is respectable but not top-tier, which is consistent with the GPU's percentile of 79 among all GPUs and the CPU's percentile of 93 among all CPUs. The CPU is a stronger performer relative to its peers than the GPU, which suggests that in Rust, the GPU is the limiting factor for this pairing. The CPU's average benchmark score is 47282, which is 0.1% below the Intel Core i7-13700KF (47334) and 0.3% above the AMD EPYC 4364P (47131); this places the i7-13700K in a tight cluster with those rivals. The GPU's average score of 34780 is 0.2% below the NVIDIA A2 (34866) and 0.3% above the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (34677), indicating the RX 9070 is similarly clustered.

The rank of 479 out of 1717 means there are 1238 combos that perform worse in Rust, but also 478 that perform better. Given the CPU's high percentile (93) and the GPU's moderate percentile (79), the combo's rank is likely dragged down by the GPU's performance at 4K Ultra (39.4 FPS), where many other GPUs with higher fill rates would excel. The data shows that this combo is well-suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it achieves competitive frame rates, but it falls behind at 4K Ultra, which is a common weakness for mid-to-high-tier GPUs.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K has 16 cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. Its architecture is Raptor Lake, built on a 10 nm process, and it has 30 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU's benchmark scores are particularly strong in multi-threaded tests: the Cinebench R23 multicore score is 39000, and the Passmark multithread score is 45887. In Rust, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p Low, where the 214.4 FPS result is likely CPU-limited because the GPU has less work to do. The single-thread performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 singlecore (5505) and Geekbench singlecore (2850), is also strong, which matters for a game like Rust that has a significant simulation and physics component.

The data shows that at 1080p Low, the frame rate is 214.4 FPS, which is 70.4 FPS higher than at 1440p Low (144 FPS). This large gap at Low settings indicates that the CPU can push frame rates higher at lower resolutions, but the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases. At 4K Low, the CPU's influence is still present (88.6 FPS), but the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The CPU's 16 cores and 24 threads are more than sufficient for Rust's threading model, as evidenced by the 3dmark 16-thread score of 10717 and max-thread score of 12412, which show strong scaling. The CPU's L3 cache of 30 MB likely helps with the game's world streaming, but the measured FPS data indicates that the CPU is not the primary constraint at 1440p and 4K, where the GPU's ROPs and memory bandwidth dominate.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Rust?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 214.4, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: At 4K, which preset is the only one to exceed 60 FPS?

A: At 3840x2160, only the Low preset exceeds 60 FPS, with an average of 88.6 FPS. Medium (56.7 FPS), High (50.9 FPS), and Ultra (39.4 FPS) all fall below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-core performance compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Intel Core i7-13700K has an average benchmark score of 47282, which is 0.1% lower than the Intel Core i7-13700KF (47334) and 0.3% higher than the AMD EPYC 4364P (47131).

Q: What is the FPS difference between Medium and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium achieves 97.6 FPS, while Ultra achieves 65.4 FPS, a difference of 32.2 FPS in favor of Medium.

Q: Does the GPU's memory capacity appear to be a limiting factor in Rust?

A: The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth. The data shows that at 4K Ultra (39.4 FPS), the limiting factor is more likely the GPU's pixel fill rate (322.6 GPixel/s) rather than memory capacity, as 4K Low (88.6 FPS) performs much better with the same memory.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems in Rust?

A: It ranks 479 out of 1717 tested combos, placing it in the upper 27.9% of all systems tested.