To The Core

FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank of the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 with the Intel Arc B570 in To The Core?

A: This combination ranks 2380th out of 2991 tested combos in the game, placing it in the lower 20% of all tested configurations.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B570 compare to its nearest GPU rival?

A: The Arc B570's average benchmark score is 20,556, which is essentially tied with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20,534, deltaPct 0.1%) and the Intel Arc A750 (20,582, deltaPct -0.1%). It sits at the 65th percentile among all GPUs.

Q: What is the CPU's closest competitor in benchmark performance?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 2600's average benchmark score is 21,484. Its nearest rival is the Intel Core Ultra 5 228V at 21,440 (deltaPct 0.2%), meaning the Ryzen is effectively performance-matched with that chip. It also trails the Intel Xeon D-1746TER by 0.7% and leads the AMD EPYC 9454 by 1.2%.

Q: What is the best average FPS measured for this combo?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 225, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This drops to 133 FPS at Ultra settings for the same resolution.

Q: What happens to performance when moving from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS falls from 191 at 1920x1080 to 128 at 2560x1440, then to 73 at 3840x2160. The frame rate at 4K is only 38% of what it is at 1080p.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the CPU and GPU in this combo?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 has a launch MSRP of $199, and the Intel Arc B570 has a launch MSRP of 219 USD.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, packing 19,600 million transistors into a 272 mm² die. The GPU operates at a fixed 2500 MHz for both base and boost clocks, which is unusual—there is no boost headroom beyond the base frequency. Memory consists of 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 160-bit bus, providing 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The card has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units, along with 18 ray tracing cores.

In the context of To The Core, an idle game, the GPU's raw throughput is more than sufficient. The measured FPS data confirms this: even at 4K Ultra, the combo maintains 51 FPS average. The card's FP32 compute is rated at 11.52 TFLOPS, and its pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s. These specifications place the Arc B570 at the 65th percentile among all GPUs, meaning it outperforms roughly two-thirds of the GPUs in the benchmark database.

Comparing to its nearest rivals, the Arc B570's average benchmark score of 20,556 puts it within a fraction of a percent of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20,534, +0.1%) and the Intel Arc A750 (20,582, -0.1%). The GPU also edges out the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M by 0.4% and trails the AMD Radeon R9 M390X by 0.5%. These deltaPct values are remarkably tight, indicating that the Arc B570 sits in a performance tier where small architectural differences determine ranking.

For To The Core specifically, the GPU's 10 GB VRAM is generous for this title. The game's genre—idle—typically does not demand large texture pools or complex geometry. The memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s ensures that even at 4K resolution with higher settings, the bus does not become a bottleneck. The GPU's 18 ray tracing cores are largely irrelevant for this game, as idle games rarely implement ray-traced effects. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures compatibility with modern API features, though the game's performance profile suggests it does not stress the GPU heavily.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 2000 series, based on the Zen+ architecture (Pinnacle Ridge). It runs at a base clock of 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 3.90 GHz. The CPU has a 65 W TDP and supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration, offering 46.9 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Cache hierarchy includes 96 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 16 MB of shared L3 cache. The chip is manufactured on GlobalFoundries' 12 nm process, featuring 4,800 million transistors on a 213 mm² die.

In benchmark terms, the Ryzen 5 2600 achieves an average score of 21,484, placing it at the 75th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals show how tightly packed this performance tier is: the Intel Core Ultra 5 228V scores 21,440 (deltaPct 0.2%), the Intel Xeon D-1746TER scores 21,635 (deltaPct -0.7%), and the AMD EPYC 9454 scores 21,223 (deltaPct 1.2%). The Ryzen 5 2600 is neither clearly ahead nor behind—it sits in a cluster where differences are within measurement noise.

For To The Core, the CPU's role is more pronounced than the GPU's. An idle game often runs logic ticks, timers, and UI updates that are single-threaded or lightly threaded. The Ryzen 5 2600's single-thread performance, measured at 157.3 in Cinebench R15 single-core and 1,154 in Geekbench single-core, dictates how smoothly the game's simulation runs. Multi-threaded scores (1,248 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, 5,648 in Geekbench multi-core) suggest that the 12 threads are available for background tasks, but the game likely does not scale across all of them.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 46.9 GB/s is adequate for this game. Because To The Core is not memory-bandwidth-intensive, the dual-channel DDR4 setup does not become a limiting factor. The PCIe Gen 3 interface with 16 lanes provides sufficient bandwidth for the Arc B570, which uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface—backward compatible with Gen 3 without significant performance loss for this workload. The CPU's 65 W TDP means thermal throttling is unlikely in typical desktop scenarios, allowing consistent clock speeds during extended play sessions.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 + Intel Arc B570 combination ranks 2380th out of 2991 tested combos in To The Core. This places the combo in the bottom 20% of all configurations tested, which is notable given that both components individually sit above the 50th percentile in their respective categories (CPU at 75th, GPU at 65th). The discrepancy suggests that the game's performance is constrained by something other than raw component strength—likely the CPU's single-threaded capabilities or a bottleneck in the interaction between these two specific parts.

This ranking means that a large majority of tested combos outperform this pairing in To The Core. The measured FPS data supports this: at 1080p Ultra, the combo achieves 133 FPS, which is playable but not exceptional for a game of this genre. Many modern CPUs with higher single-thread scores would likely push the game's logic faster, and many GPUs would not be the limiting factor at these frame rates.

The combo's rank relative to its components' individual percentiles indicates a mismatch. The GPU is capable of much higher frame rates than the CPU delivers—at 1080p Low, the GPU produces 225 FPS, but this number is capped by CPU limitations rather than GPU throughput. The CPU's 75th percentile ranking suggests it is a competent chip, but for an idle game where simulation speed matters, the 3.90 GHz boost clock may not be sufficient to fully utilize the Arc B570's capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest performance. Low settings produce an average of 225 FPS. Medium settings yield 191 FPS with a minimum of 162 and maximum of 219. High settings drop to 165 FPS average. Ultra settings bring the average down to 133 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 92 FPS, indicating that the GPU has headroom even at the highest settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally. Low settings average 152 FPS. Medium settings average 128 FPS with a range of 109 to 147. High settings average 111 FPS. Ultra settings fall to 89 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 63 FPS, narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops more steeply. Low settings average 87 FPS. Medium settings average 73 FPS with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 84. High settings average 64 FPS. Ultra settings drop to 51 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra here is 36 FPS, showing that the GPU is now the dominant constraint as resolution increases.

The Medium settings rows are the only ones with both minimum and maximum FPS recorded. At 1080p Medium, the range is 162-219 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it is 109-147 FPS; at 4K Medium, it is 62-84 FPS. These ranges suggest that the game's frame time variability increases with resolution, though even the minimum values remain playable at all tested settings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, Medium settings at 1920x1080 offer the best balance of performance and visual quality. The average of 191 FPS with a minimum of 162 ensures smooth gameplay without any perceptible stutter. The minimum FPS at this setting is higher than the average FPS at Ultra (133 FPS at 1080p), meaning Medium delivers a more consistent experience than pushing to higher presets.

At 2560x1440, Medium settings with 128 FPS average (109 minimum) remain an excellent choice. The frame rate is still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the visual upgrade over 1080p may be worthwhile for users with higher-resolution displays. High settings at 1440p (111 FPS average) are also viable if users prefer visual fidelity over the extra margin provided by Medium.

At 3840x2160, the data suggests that High settings (64 FPS average) are the ceiling for a consistently smooth experience. Medium at 4K (73 FPS average, 62 minimum) is the safer recommendation, as it maintains a minimum above 60 FPS. Ultra at 4K (51 FPS average) drops below the 60 FPS threshold, which may introduce noticeable judder in a game that relies on smooth timer updates.

For users prioritizing maximum visual fidelity regardless of frame rate, Ultra at 1080p (133 FPS) is the only Ultra preset that maintains a triple-digit average. The step from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 32 FPS (from 165 to 133), which is a 19% reduction for what may be marginal visual gains in an idle game. Given the game's genre, Medium or High settings at 1080p or 1440p provide the most enjoyable experience per the measured data.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the bottleneck characteristics of this combo. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 225 at 1080p to 152 at 1440p to 87 at 4K. This represents a 33% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 61% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At Ultra settings, the averages are 133 (1080p), 89 (1440p), and 51 (4K)—a 33% drop to 1440p and a 62% drop to 4K.

The consistency of these percentage drops across different settings is telling. Whether at Low or Ultra, moving from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly one-third of the frame rate, and moving to 4K costs roughly two-thirds. This uniform scaling indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor as resolution increases. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the frame rates to plateau at higher resolutions—the CPU's work does not increase with resolution, so the FPS should stay flat if the CPU were the constraint.

The fact that FPS continues to drop sharply with resolution means the Arc B570 is operating at its performance ceiling. At 1080p Low, the 225 FPS figure likely approaches the CPU's limit for feeding the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates. As resolution increases, the GPU's pixel throughput becomes the dominant cost, and the frame rate scales accordingly. The 10 GB VRAM and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient—the drop is not due to memory exhaustion but rather to raw shading and rasterization workload.

This scaling behavior suggests that users with 1080p displays are CPU-limited at lower settings, while users with 4K displays are firmly GPU-limited. The crossover point appears to be around 1440p, where the FPS values (89-152 depending on settings) reflect a balance between CPU and GPU contributions. For a game like To The Core, where the simulation speed may be tied to frame rate, users on 4K displays should consider dropping to Medium settings (73 FPS) to keep the game responsive, while 1080p users can run High or even Ultra without sacrificing smoothness.