To The Core

To The Core pairs an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, a combination that sits at rank 821 out of 1756 tested combos in this idle title. The measured results show a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but capable of extreme frame rates at 1080p, making it a strong fit for high-refresh displays. The data set covers four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) across three resolutions, with average FPS figures only; no minimum or maximum frame rates were recorded.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark rows show a clear hierarchy where Low presets produce the highest frame rates, but the game’s idle genre means that visual fidelity can be prioritized without sacrificing playability. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 197.3 average FPS, which is still far above the 60 FPS threshold and even above 144 Hz refresh rates. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is substantial — 328.9 FPS versus 197.3 FPS — but both are playable. For users with 144 Hz monitors, the Medium preset at 283.1 FPS or High at 245.1 FPS offers a better balance of image quality and headroom, as neither drops below 200 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the story changes slightly. High preset yields 164.4 FPS, while Ultra falls to 133.7 FPS. The Medium preset at 188.6 FPS is the sweet spot for 1440p monitors running at 144 Hz, as it maintains a comfortable margin above the refresh ceiling. Low preset at 225.1 FPS is excessive for most displays and will not provide a visible benefit over Medium. For 4K (3840x2160), the Ultra preset drops to 77.1 FPS, which is still above 60 FPS but leaves little headroom. High preset at 94.4 FPS is the recommended choice for 4K, offering a 17.3 FPS improvement over Ultra while staying visually close. Medium at 108.9 FPS is also viable if the user prefers higher frame rates over maximum detail.

The data suggests that the High preset is the most consistent recommendation across all three resolutions. It provides 245.1 FPS at 1080p, 164.4 FPS at 1440p, and 94.4 FPS at 4K, all of which are playable and smooth. Ultra is only advisable for 1080p or 1440p users who value image quality over raw frame rates, as the 4K Ultra result of 77.1 FPS is the only sub-80 FPS measurement in the entire dataset.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 carries 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus, with a memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The GPU’s base clock is 2280 MHz with a boost clock of 2497 MHz, and it draws 145 W of power. In To The Core, an idle game, the GPU’s role is primarily to render simple scenes at high frame rates, which explains why even the Ultra preset at 1080p exceeds 190 FPS. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not stressed by this title’s graphics load, as the frame rates remain high even at 4K Ultra (77.1 FPS), indicating no memory bottleneck.

The RTX 5060’s benchmark percentile sits at 73 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30109. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (deltaPct 0.0), the AMD Radeon RX 570 (deltaPct -0.2), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile (deltaPct 0.6). These deltas are tiny, meaning the RTX 5060 performs essentially on par with those cards in synthetic tests. In this game, the GPU is the primary driver of frame rates, as evidenced by the large FPS swings when changing settings. For instance, at 4K, switching from Low (127.4 FPS) to Ultra (77.1 FPS) costs 50.3 FPS, a 39.5% reduction. This behavior is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the render load scales with preset complexity.

The PCIe 5.0 x8 interface and 145 W TDP indicate a modern mid-range card, but the game’s low graphical demand means the RTX 5060 rarely operates at full boost. The measured frame rates suggest that the GPU has ample headroom, particularly at 1080p where it exceeds 300 FPS on Low settings. The 28 Gbps effective memory speed and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient for this title’s texture and shader workload.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 ranks 821 out of 1756 tested combos in To The Core. That position places it in the upper-middle tier of the database, just above the median (878) but far from the top performers. The ranking reflects the CPU’s age — the Ryzen 5 2600 is a 2018 release with a 77 percentile versus all CPUs and an average benchmark score of 19616. Its nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core i5-1345U (deltaPct -0.4), AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (deltaPct 0.6), and Intel Core i7-10700F (deltaPct 0.7), all of which have nearly identical average scores. This means the CPU is not a differentiator in this game’s performance.

The combo rank of 821 out of 1756 indicates that roughly 47% of tested configurations outperform this pairing, while 53% fall behind. Given the GPU’s strong standing (73rd percentile), the CPU is likely the limiting factor in the overall ranking. The Ryzen 5 2600’s 6 cores and 12 threads, with base clock 3.40 GHz and boost 3.90 GHz, are adequate for an idle game, but its Zen architecture and 12 nm process node are dated compared to newer chips. The RTX 5060, by contrast, is a current-generation card (released 2025) with a 5 nm process and Blackwell 2.0 architecture. The pairing creates a bottleneck where the CPU cannot fully feed the GPU in certain scenarios, though the game’s low thread usage mitigates this.

The rank data shows that many combos with newer CPUs achieve higher positions, but the FPS measurements here are still high across all settings. The 821st rank is not a reflection of poor playability; rather, it indicates that other CPU-GPU pairings deliver even higher frame rates, particularly at 1080p where the CPU’s single-thread performance matters more.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5060 with the Ryzen 5 2600 produces the following average FPS: Low at 328.9, Medium at 283.1, High at 245.1, and Ultra at 197.3. The scaling from Low to Ultra is a 131.6 FPS drop, which is a 40.0% reduction. The gap between consecutive presets is 45.8 FPS (Low to Medium), 38.0 FPS (Medium to High), and 47.8 FPS (High to Ultra). These numbers indicate that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 1080p, as the CPU has enough headroom to push the GPU to its limits.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are 225.1 (Low), 188.6 (Medium), 164.4 (High), and 133.7 (Ultra). The drop from Low to Ultra is 91.4 FPS, a 40.6% reduction. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p reduces each preset’s FPS by roughly 30-35%, which is consistent with the additional pixel count. The Ultra preset at 1440p (133.7 FPS) is still above 120 FPS, making it suitable for high-refresh gaming.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are 127.4 (Low), 108.9 (Medium), 94.4 (High), and 77.1 (Ultra). The Low-to-Ultra drop is 50.3 FPS, a 39.5% reduction. The 4K results show that even the Low preset stays above 120 FPS, while the Ultra preset barely exceeds 60 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 77.1 FPS is the only measurement below 100 FPS in the entire dataset, highlighting the GPU’s limits at this resolution with maximum settings.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows how FPS scales with resolution for each preset. Going from 1080p to 1440p, the FPS drops by 31.6% on Low (328.9 to 225.1), 33.4% on Medium (283.1 to 188.6), 32.9% on High (245.1 to 164.4), and 32.2% on Ultra (197.3 to 133.7). These percentages are remarkably consistent, around one-third, which indicates that the limiting component scales predictably with pixel count. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the drop would be smaller at higher resolutions because the GPU becomes more stressed. The uniform ~33% drop suggests the GPU is doing the heavy lifting at 1440p.

Going from 1440p to 4K, the FPS drops by 43.4% on Low (225.1 to 127.4), 42.3% on Medium (188.6 to 108.9), 42.6% on High (164.4 to 94.4), and 42.3% on Ultra (133.7 to 77.1). The 4K scaling shows a larger drop (around 42%) compared to the 1440p scaling (around 33%). This is expected because 4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, but the FPS drop is less than 2.25 times, indicating that the GPU is not purely pixel-bound — other factors like memory bandwidth and cache efficiency also play a role.

The overall scaling from 1080p to 4K is substantial: Low drops from 328.9 to 127.4 FPS (61.3% reduction), Medium from 283.1 to 108.9 FPS (61.5% reduction), High from 245.1 to 94.4 FPS (61.5% reduction), and Ultra from 197.3 to 77.1 FPS (60.9% reduction). The consistency of these drops — all around 61% — strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting component across all settings. A CPU-bound system would show smaller percentage drops at higher resolutions because the CPU work per frame stays constant while GPU work increases. Here, the GPU is fully utilized, and the Ryzen 5 2600’s 6-core/12-thread configuration provides enough processing power to avoid becoming a frame rate cap even at 1080p Low, where 328.9 FPS is achieved.

The 4K Ultra result of 77.1 FPS, compared to the 1080p Ultra result of 197.3 FPS, represents a 60.9% reduction. This is a typical GPU-bound scaling pattern. The RTX 5060’s 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for 4K in this title, as evidenced by the playable frame rates. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the 4K numbers would be much closer to the 1080p numbers, since the CPU would be the limiting factor regardless of resolution. The data confirms that this combo is GPU-limited in To The Core, which is beneficial because the RTX 5060 is a powerful card capable of high frame rates even at 4K.