Rust

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-13700K brings 16 cores and 24 threads to the test bench, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This Raptor Lake-S part, built on Intel's 10 nm process, is a desktop-class processor with an unlocked multiplier, meaning it can be pushed beyond stock frequencies by enthusiasts. Its cache layout includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 30 MB L3 pool. The processor supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory through a dual-channel interface, and it connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 20 CPU lanes.

For Rust, a game known for its demanding simulation and frequent entity updates, the CPU's multi-threaded muscle matters. The 13700K's passmark multithread score of 45887 and its Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 39000 indicate substantial parallel compute capacity. In the measured frames, the CPU's influence is most visible at lower resolutions and lower settings, where the GPU has headroom to spare. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 252.9 FPS average — a figure that suggests the CPU is feeding frames rapidly without becoming the primary constraint. The single-thread performance is equally relevant; Rust's main game thread often becomes a bottleneck in dense bases or large player-population servers. Here, the 13700K posts a 3DMark single-thread score of 1136 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4333, which is strong enough to keep even the most demanding simulation ticks moving.

Interestingly, the CPU's benchmark percentile ranks in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 47282 places it in a tight cluster with rivals. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF, scores 47334 — a delta of -0.1%, meaning the 13700K is essentially identical to its KF sibling. The AMD EPYC 4364P and Intel Core i9-12900F are also within 0.3–0.4% of the 13700K's average score, showing that this CPU sits in a performance band where small architectural differences translate to negligible real-world deltas. The data suggests that in Rust, the 13700K's 16-core layout provides enough parallelism for background tasks (like physics and AI) without starving the main render thread.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Rust, and at which settings?

A: The highest recorded average is 252.9 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is substantially higher than the 117.6 FPS at 1080p Ultra, showing a 135.3 FPS gap between the lowest and highest graphical presets at the same resolution.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival in raw benchmark scores?

A: The Intel Core i7-13700K's average benchmark score is 47282, while the Intel Core i7-13700KF scores 47334. The delta is -0.1%, meaning the 13700K is statistically tied with its KF counterpart. The AMD EPYC 4364P (47131) and Intel Core i9-12900F (47081) are within 0.3–0.4% as well.

Q: Does the GPU's benchmark percentile suggest it is a bottleneck at 4K Ultra?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti sits in the 87th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 52086. At 4K Ultra, the combo only reaches 49.2 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS threshold. This suggests the GPU is heavily loaded at this extreme preset, as the CPU has ample headroom from its 93rd percentile ranking.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested systems for Rust?

A: This specific combination of Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ranks 108th out of 1717 tested combos in Rust. This places it in the top 6.3% of all configurations tested for this game.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p Low to 4K Low?

A: The drop from 252.9 FPS at 1080p Low to 110.3 FPS at 4K Low represents a 142.6 FPS reduction (approximately 56%). This indicates that even at Low settings, resolution scaling significantly taxes the GPU.

Q: What is the GPU's VRAM capacity and memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s. This large memory pool is well-suited for Rust's large textures and open-world environments, though the measured FPS suggests memory capacity is not the limiting factor at any tested setting.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling pattern in Rust reveals a classic GPU-bound progression, but with interesting nuances at each setting tier. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 252.9 at 1080p to 191.2 at 1440p, then to 110.3 at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 61.7 FPS, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 80.9 FPS. The larger absolute drop at higher resolutions indicates that the RTX 5070 Ti's rendering throughput is being increasingly taxed as pixel count grows.

At Medium settings, the progression is 187 FPS (1080p) → 126.3 FPS (1440p) → 77.1 FPS (4K). The relative scaling here is steeper, with the 4K result being only 41% of the 1080p figure. This suggests that Medium settings add enough shading and texture work to amplify the GPU's load disproportionately at higher resolutions. The High preset shows 156.4 FPS at 1080p, 105.9 FPS at 1440p, and 62.5 FPS at 4K — again, the 4K figure is just 40% of the 1080p result.

Ultra settings present the most dramatic scaling: 117.6 FPS at 1080p, 81.1 FPS at 1440p, and 49.2 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result falls below 50 FPS, which is notable for a GPU with the RTX 5070 Ti's 43.94 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The data implies that Rust's Ultra preset includes effects that are particularly heavy on the GPU's shading units and ROPs (96 total), causing the rendering pipeline to become the clear bottleneck. The CPU's role appears secondary here; its 3DMark max-thread score of 12412 and 16-core layout are more than sufficient to feed frames even at 1080p Ultra, where the GPU is still the limiting factor at 117.6 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combo's rank of 108 out of 1717 tested configurations places it in the upper echelon for Rust performance. Being in the top 6.3% of all tested combos is a strong result, but it also invites scrutiny: what is separating this combo from the 107 configurations ranked above it? The data shows that the CPU's 93rd percentile and GPU's 87th percentile are both high, but neither is at the absolute top. The GPU's nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, scores 52085 in average benchmark — a delta of 0% from the RTX 5070 Ti's 52086. This near-identical performance suggests that the GPU tier, not the specific model, is what matters most for Rust's rendering workload.

The CPU side shows a similar clustering. The 13700K's average score of 47282 is within 0.5% of its nearest rivals, meaning the CPU choice among similar-tier parts has minimal impact on the final rank. The combination of a 93rd-percentile CPU and an 87th-percentile GPU yields a rank that is better than either component's individual percentile, which suggests Rust benefits from a balanced pairing. The gap between this combo and higher-ranked systems likely comes from either more powerful GPUs (those in the 90th+ percentile) or CPUs with even higher multi-thread scores — though the data does not specify exactly which combos sit above this one.

The rank also implies that for Rust specifically, the RTX 5070 Ti's 16 GB of VRAM and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient to avoid memory-related stutters, as the measured average FPS figures show no anomalies that would indicate VRAM overflow. The 108th rank out of 1717 is a solid mid-to-high-tier placement, and the measured FPS data confirms that this combo can handle Rust at high settings across common resolutions without falling below playable thresholds.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the full settings sweep shows a wide performance envelope. Low settings produce 252.9 FPS average, Medium drops to 187 FPS, High yields 156.4 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 117.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 135.3 FPS, which is the largest range across all three resolutions. This indicates that at 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom to show meaningful differences between presets, and the CPU is not preventing any of these settings from hitting their full potential.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 191.2 FPS (Low), 126.3 FPS (Medium), 105.9 FPS (High), and 81.1 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 110.1 FPS, suggesting that the GPU's rendering work begins to compress the performance differences at higher pixel counts. The 1440p High result of 105.9 FPS is notable because it remains above the 100 FPS mark, which is a common threshold for smooth gameplay on high-refresh monitors.

At 3840x2160, the results are 110.3 FPS (Low), 77.1 FPS (Medium), 62.5 FPS (High), and 49.2 FPS (Ultra). The Low setting is the only one that maintains a triple-digit average at 4K. The Ultra setting falls below 50 FPS, which may be problematic for fast-paced PvP encounters in Rust. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a 61.1 FPS spread, the smallest of the three resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the sole limiting factor at this resolution — the CPU's contribution to the frame time is negligible when the GPU is saturated.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured data points to a clear recommendation for most players: the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 1080p, Medium delivers 187 FPS, which is 30.6 FPS higher than High and 69.4 FPS higher than Ultra. At 1440p, Medium hits 126.3 FPS, which remains well above the 100 FPS threshold and is 20.4 FPS higher than High. Even at 4K, Medium achieves 77.1 FPS, which is playable and only 14.6 FPS below High.

For players with 144Hz or 165Hz monitors at 1080p, the High preset's 156.4 FPS is sufficient, but Medium's 187 FPS provides more headroom for frame drops during intense firefights or when entering large bases. At 1440p, High at 105.9 FPS is acceptable for 100Hz monitors, but Medium's 126.3 FPS offers a safer margin. The Ultra preset, while visually impressive, produces 117.6 FPS at 1080p and 81.1 FPS at 1440p — the latter being below the 100 FPS mark and likely not worth the visual trade-off for competitive play.

At 4K, the recommendation changes. High at 62.5 FPS is the highest-quality preset that stays above 60 FPS, making it the optimal choice for 60Hz displays. Ultra at 49.2 FPS would require a VRR display to avoid noticeable stutter, and the performance cost from High to Ultra (a 13.3 FPS drop) is substantial for the incremental visual gain. Low settings are not recommended for any resolution above 1080p, as the 110.3 FPS at 4K Low does not justify the significant visual degradation, and the 191.2 FPS at 1440p Low is overkill for most displays.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, with a chip designated GB203. Its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth — a figure that proves more than adequate for Rust's texture streaming and draw call demands. The GPU's base clock of 2295 MHz boosts to 2452 MHz, and the memory operates at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed. The 8960 shading units, 280 TMUs, and 96 ROPs provide a raw compute capability of 43.94 TFLOPS in FP32, with the same figure for FP16.

In the measured Rust results, the GPU's role is clearly dominant at higher resolutions and settings. The transition from 1080p High (156.4 FPS) to 4K High (62.5 FPS) represents a 93.9 FPS drop, which is a 60% reduction. This is a larger relative drop than what the CPU's benchmark scores would suggest, confirming that the GPU is the primary scaling factor. The RTX 5070 Ti's 70 RT cores and 280 tensor cores are present for ray tracing and DLSS workloads, though Rust's standard renderer does not heavily utilize these features based on the measured FPS.

The GPU's percentile rank of 87 and its average benchmark score of 52086 place it in a dead tie with the RTX 4080 (delta of 0%), while the AMD Radeon RX 7700S scores 52505 (delta -0.8%) and the NVIDIA RTX A1000 scores 50826 (delta 2.5%). This tight clustering indicates that the RTX 5070 Ti's performance in Rust is representative of its class, and the 16 GB VRAM allocation ensures that no memory-related bottlenecks appear even at 4K Ultra, where the 49.2 FPS average is purely a compute-limited result. The GPU's 300 W TDP and 700 W suggested PSU are appropriate for sustained gaming sessions, and the dual-slot design with a 16-pin connector fits standard ATX cases.