Rust

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows for Rust with the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER reveal a clear hierarchy across presets, with the Medium preset offering the most balanced experience at every resolution tested. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 92 FPS average, which is only 46 FPS behind Low (138 FPS) but 33 FPS ahead of High (78 FPS) and 33 FPS ahead of Ultra (59 FPS). The Medium preset also provides the only complete min/max frame data in the entire dataset—79 FPS minimum and 106 FPS maximum at 1080p—indicating a stable frame delivery that neither the Low nor High presets can substantiate with measured bounds.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again stands out with 64 FPS average, accompanied by a 54 FPS minimum and 73 FPS maximum. This sits comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold commonly associated with smooth gameplay, while Low (95 FPS) sacrifices visual fidelity for headroom that may not be necessary at this resolution. High (54 FPS) dips below that threshold, and Ultra (41 FPS) falls further behind, making Medium the only preset that balances playability with visual quality. The same pattern holds at 3840x2160, where Medium produces 38 FPS average with a 32 FPS minimum and 43 FPS maximum—Low (56 FPS) remains the only preset exceeding 40 FPS, but Medium's narrow frame range suggests more consistent pacing.

The data indicates that Low presets at all three resolutions produce the highest raw averages, but the gap between Low and Medium narrows as resolution increases: 46 FPS at 1080p, 31 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K. This convergence suggests diminishing returns from dropping to Low at higher resolutions, where the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck. For players prioritizing a smooth experience without sacrificing all visual settings, Medium is the recommended preset across the board. The Ultra preset, meanwhile, produces the lowest averages at every resolution—24 FPS at 4K, 41 FPS at 1440p, and 59 FPS at 1080p—making it viable only at 1080p, and even then, the margin over High is a mere 19 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's base clock runs at 1470 MHz with a boost clock of 1650 MHz, and memory operates at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed. These specifications place the card in the 62nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18093. The nearest rivals in the database—the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile (deltaPct -0.4), AMD Radeon Pro 5700 (deltaPct -0.5), AMD Radeon RX 460 (deltaPct -1.5), and Intel Arc A770M (deltaPct -1.6)—all score within 1.6% of the RTX 2060 SUPER, indicating that this card sits at a competitive parity point in the broader GPU landscape.

In Rust specifically, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution scales. At 1920x1080, the card delivers 138 FPS on Low, which is 2.3x the frame rate of the Ultra preset (59 FPS). This 79 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p shows that the RTX 2060 SUPER has enough headroom to handle the game's lower settings comfortably, but the Ultra preset at this resolution still manages a playable 59 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the spread narrows to 54 FPS (95 FPS on Low versus 41 FPS on Ultra), and at 3840x2160, it narrows further to 32 FPS (56 FPS on Low versus 24 FPS on Ultra). This progressive narrowing with resolution indicates that the GPU's 8 GB frame buffer and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth become increasingly taxed as pixel count rises, limiting the impact of preset changes.

The RTX 2060 SUPER's Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process with TU106 chip, provides 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. The card's 34 RT cores and 272 tensor cores are present but play a secondary role in Rust, which does not appear to leverage ray tracing or DLSS features in the measured data. The GPU's 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 224.4 GTexel/s texture rate are the relevant metrics for rasterization-heavy gameplay. The 105.6 GPixel/s pixel rate directly influences how quickly the card can fill frames at higher resolutions, and the data reflects this: the 4K Ultra average of 24 FPS corresponds to a pixel throughput challenge that the card cannot overcome, while the 1080p Low average of 138 FPS demonstrates the card's capability when pixel count is reduced by 75%.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves at 1920x1080?

A: The highest average FPS at 1920x1080 is 138 FPS, achieved with the Low settings preset. The Medium preset delivers 92 FPS, High delivers 78 FPS, and Ultra delivers 59 FPS.

Q: Does the Ultra preset ever produce playable frame rates?

A: At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset produces an average of 59 FPS, which is marginally playable. At 2560x1440, Ultra drops to 41 FPS, and at 3840x2160, it falls to 24 FPS, making Ultra viable only at 1080p with this hardware combination.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 18093, which places it in the 62nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals—RTX 3060 Mobile (deltaPct -0.4), Radeon Pro 5700 (deltaPct -0.5), Radeon RX 460 (deltaPct -1.5), and Arc A770M (deltaPct -1.6)—all score within 1.6% of it, indicating close performance parity across these cards.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested hardware combinations in Rust?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 with the RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 2071 out of 2953 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the tested hardware pool.

Q: Which preset offers the most stable frame delivery based on the data?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data at all three resolutions. At 1080p, it ranges from 79 to 106 FPS; at 1440p, from 54 to 73 FPS; and at 4K, from 32 to 43 FPS. This consistent availability of frame bounds suggests more predictable performance compared to other presets.

Q: How much FPS does the combo lose when moving from 1080p to 4K on the same preset?

A: On the Low preset, the drop is 82 FPS (from 138 FPS at 1080p to 56 FPS at 4K). On Medium, the drop is 54 FPS (from 92 FPS to 38 FPS). On High, the drop is 46 FPS (from 78 FPS to 32 FPS). On Ultra, the drop is 35 FPS (from 59 FPS to 24 FPS).

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured data shows a clear performance gradient across presets. The Low preset achieves an average of 138 FPS, the highest of any configuration in the entire dataset. The Medium preset produces an average of 92 FPS, with a minimum of 79 FPS and a maximum of 106 FPS—these are the only complete frame bounds recorded for this resolution. The High preset drops to 78 FPS average, and the Ultra preset falls to 59 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p spans 79 FPS, demonstrating that the RTX 2060 SUPER has substantial headroom at this resolution when settings are reduced.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with compressed margins. Low delivers 95 FPS average, which is the only preset above 90 FPS at this resolution. Medium follows at 64 FPS average, with a minimum of 54 FPS and a maximum of 73 FPS. High produces 54 FPS average, and Ultra drops to 41 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra narrows to 54 FPS, indicating that the GPU's performance ceiling at 1440p limits the impact of preset changes compared to 1080p. The Medium preset's minimum of 54 FPS exactly matches the High preset's average, suggesting that Medium at 1440p provides performance equivalent to the floor of High's frame delivery.

At 3840x2160, the highest resolution tested, the GPU's limitations become apparent. Low achieves 56 FPS average, which is the only preset above 40 FPS. Medium delivers 38 FPS average, with a minimum of 32 FPS and a maximum of 43 FPS. High drops to 32 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 24 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra narrows to just 32 FPS, the smallest of any resolution. The Medium preset's maximum of 43 FPS is only 13 FPS below Low's average, indicating that at 4K, the GPU is the dominant constraint and preset selection has diminishing returns. None of the 4K presets except Low achieve frame rates that would be considered consistently smooth for fast-paced survival gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 2071 out of 2953 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the 70th percentile of the tested pool (lower rank number indicates better performance, so 2071 of 2953 means it outperforms approximately 882 combos). This ranking reflects the combination of a high-end CPU with a mid-range GPU, where the CPU's capabilities are not fully utilized due to GPU constraints in this title. The CPU itself sits in the 90th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 48995, while the GPU sits in the 62nd percentile with an average score of 18093—the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing.

Comparing to the CPU's nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 5 245 scores within 0.8% of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (deltaPct -0.4), AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (deltaPct -0.5), Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (deltaPct 0.6), and Intel Core i5-14600K (deltaPct 0.8). This indicates that the CPU is performing at parity with a broad range of processors, none of which would meaningfully change the Rust frame rates given the GPU bottleneck. The GPU's nearest rivals are similarly clustered, with all four—RTX 3060 Mobile, Radeon Pro 5700, Radeon RX 460, and Arc A770M—scoring within 1.6% of the RTX 2060 SUPER.

The combo's rank of 2071 suggests that in Rust, this hardware pairing delivers mid-pack performance. The game's engine appears to favor the GPU more heavily at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the narrowing FPS spreads from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p, the combo can push beyond 100 FPS on Low settings, which would place it in a more competitive position relative to higher-ranked combos. At 4K, however, the RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB frame buffer and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth become insufficient to maintain high frame rates, dragging the overall ranking down. The measured data at 4K Ultra (24 FPS) and 4K High (32 FPS) represent the combo's weakest performance, and these results likely contribute significantly to its position in the lower third of the tested pool.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 provides 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. This Arrow Lake-S architecture CPU, built on a 3 nm TSMC process, features a 24 MB shared L3 cache and 3 MB L2 cache per core. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s over dual-channel DDR5, combined with 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die, positions it as a strong performer in synthetic benchmarks. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and single-core score of 4648 place it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48995.

In Rust, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, but its performance ceiling ensures that it does not introduce a bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 138 FPS, which is high enough that the CPU's single-thread performance becomes relevant. The Cinebench R15 single-core score of 468 and R20 single-core score of 1952 indicate strong per-thread capability, which matters for Rust's simulation and physics workloads. The PassMark single-thread score of 4394 further confirms this, and the CPU's 14 threads provide ample parallelism for the game's background processes.

The CPU's nearest rivals all score within 0.8% of its average benchmark score, meaning that swapping the Core Ultra 5 245 for an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G or Ryzen 9 7900 would produce nearly identical Rust performance. This is consistent with the measured data, which shows the GPU as the limiting factor at all resolutions above 1080p. At 4K, the FPS differences between presets (56 FPS on Low versus 24 FPS on Ultra) are entirely attributable to GPU load, as the CPU has more than enough headroom to feed frames at those rates. The CPU's 65 W TDP and 5.10 GHz boost clock indicate that it maintains high clocks under load, but the game's frame rates at 4K are constrained by the RTX 2060 SUPER's limits, not the CPU's processing capacity.