To The Core

To The Core is an idle game that nevertheless exercises the hardware in measurable ways, and the dataset for the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 provides a clear picture of its capabilities. The measured results span four settings presets across three resolutions, revealing a component pairing that is consistently capable of delivering high frame rates, often far beyond what a typical display can utilize. The analysis below interprets these numbers, focusing on what they indicate about the system's behavior and its standing among other tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows that the "Ultra" preset is the most demanding, producing the lowest average frame rates at every resolution. At 3840x2160, Ultra yields an average of 71 FPS, which is still playable but marks a significant drop from other presets. The "High" preset at 4K delivers 88 FPS, a 24% improvement over Ultra, while "Medium" reaches 102 FPS, and "Low" tops out at 120 FPS. Given that the game is an idle title, the visual fidelity differences between High and Ultra are likely less critical than maintaining a smooth, responsive experience, making High the recommended starting point for 4K displays.

For users with 1440p monitors, the frame rate headroom expands considerably. The High preset at 2560x1440 averages 154 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most standard displays. The Ultra preset still manages a respectable 124 FPS, but the jump to High provides a 24% performance increase. Considering that the Medium preset offers 178 FPS and Low reaches 210 FPS, the data suggests that High is the optimal balance at this resolution, as it provides a substantial performance buffer over Ultra without the diminishing returns of dropping to Medium or Low.

At 1080p, the system is clearly not bound by the GPU. The Ultra preset averages 185 FPS, while High jumps to 229 FPS, Medium to 265 FPS, and Low reaches an exceptional 313 FPS. For competitive or high-refresh-rate gaming, the High preset is the recommended choice, as it delivers a 44 FPS advantage over Ultra while remaining visually robust. The Low preset's 313 FPS is useful only for the most extreme refresh rate displays, and the data shows that the step from High to Medium yields a 36 FPS gain, suggesting that even Medium is a viable option if maximum frame rates are the priority. The measured minimum FPS values, where available, reinforce this: at 1080p Medium, the minimum is 225 FPS, indicating consistent performance even in demanding scenes.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock is rated at 2460 MHz, with a base clock of 1830 MHz. In this game, the GPU's memory capacity appears sufficient, as the performance scales almost linearly with resolution when moving from 1080p to 1440p, but shows a more pronounced drop at 4K. For instance, at High settings, the transition from 1080p (229 FPS) to 1440p (154 FPS) represents a 33% decrease, which is consistent with a GPU-bound workload where the rendering resolution directly impacts output.

The role of the GPU becomes more apparent when examining the 4K results. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset drops to 71 FPS, a 62% reduction from the 1080p Ultra score of 185 FPS. This steep decline indicates that the RTX 4060 is the primary limiting factor at this resolution and settings combination. The card's 15.11 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 118.1 GPixel/s pixel rate are being fully taxed. However, the fact that the Low preset at 4K still achieves 120 FPS suggests that the GPU has ample headroom when the graphical load is reduced, and the bottleneck shifts away from the rendering pipeline. The data shows that the RTX 4060 is a capable performer for this title, but its 8 GB memory and 128-bit bus are not designed to sustain ultra-high frame rates at 4K with maximum settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p monitor according to the measured data?

A: For 2560x1440, the High preset offers an average of 154 FPS, which is 24% faster than the Ultra preset's 124 FPS. Given this significant performance headroom, High is the recommended preset to ensure a consistently smooth experience without the unnecessary load of Ultra.

Q: How does the system perform at 4K with the Ultra preset?

A: The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 71 FPS. This is the lowest score in the dataset, indicating that the combination of the RTX 4060 and Ryzen 5 3600 is heavily stressed at this resolution and quality level.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data indicates a GPU-driven scaling pattern. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 313 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to 185 FPS. This 128 FPS difference is attributable to the increased graphical load on the GPU, suggesting that the RTX 4060 is the primary factor determining performance at this resolution, rather than the Ryzen 5 3600.

Q: What is the average frame rate difference between Medium and Low settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Medium preset averages 265 FPS, while the Low preset averages 313 FPS. This represents a 48 FPS difference, or an 18% improvement when moving from Medium to Low.

Q: Does the data include any minimum FPS values, and what do they show?

A: Yes, minimum FPS values are provided for the Medium preset. At 1080p, the minimum is 225 FPS, at 1440p it is 151 FPS, and at 4K it is 87 FPS. These figures suggest that even the lowest recorded frame rates remain well above playable thresholds, indicating stable performance.

Q: How does the RTX 4060's performance in this game compare to its nearest rival in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 4060 has an average benchmark score of 17639. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon HD 7790, has an average score of 17666, which is 0.2% higher. This places the two cards within a negligible performance margin of each other in general benchmarks, though the in-game results for this specific title are distinct.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 achieves a combo rank of 2004 out of 3725 total combos for To The Core. This places the pairing in the 54th percentile of all tested systems, indicating that it performs better than a slight majority of combinations but is not near the top tier. The ranking is likely influenced by the fact that this is an idle game, where high-end hardware does not always translate to proportionally higher frame rates, as the workload may saturate at lower levels of performance.

The rank suggests that while the system delivers excellent frame rates in absolute terms—often exceeding 150 FPS at 1440p—there are many other configurations that achieve even higher scores. The CPU's percentile rank is 71, meaning it outperforms 71% of all CPUs in general benchmarks, while the GPU's percentile is 61. This indicates that the CPU is relatively stronger than the GPU in this pairing, yet the combo's overall rank is tempered by the game's specific demands. The measured data shows that the system is not a top performer, but it is firmly in the upper-middle range, providing a smooth experience for the vast majority of players without requiring extreme hardware investments.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance scaling across resolutions. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 229 to 154, a 33% decrease. This is a substantial reduction, but it is typical for a GPU-bound scenario where the number of pixels rendered increases by 78%. The frame rate does not drop proportionally to the pixel count, which suggests that other factors, such as memory bandwidth or CPU limitations, are also at play.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is more severe. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 154 at 2560x1440 to 88 at 3840x2160, a 43% decrease. This steeper drop indicates that the GPU is nearing its limits at 4K, as the pixel count doubles from 1440p. The RTX 4060's 272.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is likely a constraining factor at this resolution, as the demand for texture data and frame buffer access increases significantly. The data shows that the system is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can maintain frame rates well above 120 FPS on most presets, while 4K is only viable with lower settings presets like Medium (102 FPS) or Low (120 FPS).

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured average FPS values is as follows. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 313 FPS, Medium achieves 265 FPS with a minimum of 225 FPS and maximum of 304 FPS, High achieves 229 FPS, and Ultra achieves 185 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Low preset reaches 210 FPS, Medium averages 178 FPS with a minimum of 151 FPS and maximum of 205 FPS, High averages 154 FPS, and Ultra averages 124 FPS. At 3840x2160, the Low preset is the highest performer at 120 FPS, followed by Medium at 102 FPS with a minimum of 87 FPS and maximum of 117 FPS, High at 88 FPS, and Ultra at 71 FPS.

These numbers demonstrate a consistent hierarchy where Low > Medium > High > Ultra for every resolution. The differences between presets are more pronounced at lower resolutions. For instance, at 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 128 FPS, while at 4K, the gap narrows to 49 FPS. This suggests that at higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the impact of graphical settings is lessened because the rendering pipeline is already saturated. The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data, showing that the variance between minimum and maximum FPS increases with resolution: 79 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and 30 FPS at 4K. This indicates that the system's frame pacing becomes more consistent at higher resolutions, likely due to the GPU being fully utilized.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. It has a 32 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel interface. In the context of To The Core, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU, as the frame rates scale predictably with resolution and settings, which are primarily GPU-driven variables. However, the CPU's performance is not irrelevant, as it must keep up with the GPU's output to avoid becoming a bottleneck.

The CPU's benchmark scores show a strong multithreaded capability, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15045 and a Passmark multithread score of 17700. Its single-thread performance is also solid, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124. These figures suggest that the Ryzen 5 3600 is more than capable of handling the game's logic and physics, which are typically not as demanding as the rendering workload. The fact that the combo achieves 313 FPS at 1080p Low settings, where the CPU would be more likely to become a limiting factor, indicates that the CPU is not holding back the GPU in this title. The data shows that the CPU's performance is sufficient to support the GPU's output across all tested resolutions and settings, making it a balanced partner for the RTX 4060 in this specific game.