To The Core

# To The Core with AMD Ryzen 5 7500F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers exceptional frame rates across all tested configurations in To The Core, an Idle genre title. With measured average FPS ranging from 151 at 4K Ultra to 587 at 1080p Low, this combination sits comfortably in the top tier of tested systems. The combo ranks 30th out of 2,991 tested combinations, placing it in the upper 1% of all configurations. The data reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with the RTX 5090 D's massive 32 GB GDDR7 memory pool and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth proving more than sufficient for even the most demanding settings in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior of this combo tells a clear story about where the performance bottleneck lies. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, average FPS drops from 489 to 329, a reduction of 160 FPS or approximately 32.7%. Scaling further to 3840x2160 High yields 188 average FPS, another 141 FPS drop from 1440p, representing a 42.9% decrease. This pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases is typical of a system where the GPU becomes progressively more stressed at higher pixel counts.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced. The 1080p Low average of 587 FPS drops to 448 at 1440p (a 23.7% decrease) and then to 256 at 4K (a 42.9% decrease from 1440p). The fact that the 1080p Low result reaches nearly 600 FPS suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at extremely high frame rates, but the GPU's rendering workload at 4K ultimately limits performance. The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases: at 1080p, the spread between Low (587 FPS) and Ultra (393 FPS) is 194 FPS, while at 4K the spread between Low (256 FPS) and Ultra (151 FPS) is 105 FPS. This narrowing gap at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU's fill rate and shading capabilities become the limiting factor, rather than the CPU's ability to issue draw calls.

The Medium settings row provides the only complete min/max FPS data across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the range spans from 470 to 636 FPS (average 553), at 1440p Medium from 322 to 436 FPS (average 379), and at 4K Medium from 184 to 249 FPS (average 217). The frame time consistency, as indicated by the relatively tight min-to-max spread, remains solid even at 4K, with the minimum staying above 180 FPS. This suggests that the combination of the Ryzen 5 7500F's Zen 4 architecture and the RTX 5090 D's Blackwell 2.0 design delivers stable frame delivery without significant stuttering or hitches, even when the GPU is under maximum load at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's position in the global rankings for To The Core is impressive but not surprising given the hardware involved. With a rank of 30 out of 2,991 tested combinations, this configuration outperforms approximately 99% of all tested systems. The percentile placement for the CPU alone is 77th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU sits at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs. This disparity in percentile rankings indicates that the GPU is the stronger component in this pairing, which aligns with the resolution scaling data showing GPU-bound behavior at higher settings.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its contribution to this combo's performance. The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F has an average benchmark score of 24,964, which is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-11850H (24,935, deltaPct 0.1%), the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F (25,005, deltaPct -0.2%), the Intel Core i7-13620H (24,911, deltaPct 0.2%), and the Intel Core 5 210H (24,872, deltaPct 0.4%). These deltaPct values are all within 0.4% of each other, meaning that from a pure CPU benchmark perspective, the Ryzen 5 7500F is effectively tied with its closest competitors. The actual in-game performance differences would therefore be minimal when swapping between these CPUs, assuming the GPU remains constant.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals show a similar clustering. The RTX 5090 D's average benchmark score of 77,712 compares to the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904, deltaPct 1.1%), AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940, deltaPct -1.6%), NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396, deltaPct -2.1%), and NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605, deltaPct -2.4%). The deltaPct values here are slightly larger in magnitude, ranging from -2.4% to +1.1%, but still indicate that the RTX 5090 D is in the same performance tier as these competing GPUs. The Tesla P100 cards, despite being data-center oriented, show comparable average benchmark scores, which is notable given their different design goals.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance on which settings presets deliver the best experience across different resolutions. At 1080p, all four settings presets produce average FPS well above 300, with even the most demanding Ultra preset achieving 393 average FPS. The High preset at 489 average FPS offers an excellent balance, delivering over 100 FPS more than Ultra while maintaining visual quality that would be difficult to distinguish at typical viewing distances on most monitors. For players with 144Hz or 240Hz displays, the Medium preset at 553 average FPS ensures that the display's refresh rate is consistently saturated, making Medium the recommended choice for competitive play at this resolution.

At 1440p, the situation remains favorable for high settings. The High preset delivers 329 average FPS, which is more than sufficient for any current display technology. The Ultra preset at 265 average FPS still exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end gaming monitors, making it a viable option for those prioritizing visual fidelity. The Medium preset at 379 average FPS provides headroom for future content or for maintaining consistent frame times during intense gameplay sequences. Given that the min FPS at 1440p Medium is 322, there's minimal risk of dropping below the refresh rate threshold of common 144Hz displays.

At 4K, the recommendations shift toward more conservative settings. The High preset at 188 average FPS is the sweet spot, providing smooth gameplay on high-refresh-rate 4K displays while maintaining substantial visual quality. The Medium preset at 217 average FPS offers additional headroom for those wanting to ensure frame rates stay above 144 FPS at all times, with the min FPS of 184 providing a comfortable buffer. The Ultra preset at 151 average FPS is still playable but sits close to the 144Hz threshold that many 4K gaming monitors use, meaning any scene complexity spikes could push frame rates below the display's refresh rate. The Low preset at 256 average FPS is unnecessary at this resolution, as the visual compromises would be noticeable while the frame rate benefit over High is relatively modest.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset reveals consistent performance scaling across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the average FPS values are 587 (Low), 553 (Medium), 489 (High), and 393 (Ultra). The Medium preset's min and max FPS of 470 and 636 respectively show a spread of 166 FPS, indicating some scene-to-scene variability but maintaining a minimum well above 400 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a total drop of 194 FPS, representing a 33.0% reduction in frame rate when maxing out all settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 448 (Low), 379 (Medium), 329 (High), and 265 (Ultra). The Medium preset at this resolution has a min of 322 and max of 436, creating a 114 FPS spread. The drop from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 183 FPS, a 40.8% reduction, which is proportionally larger than at 1080p. This suggests that the GPU's workload increases superlinearly with resolution, as expected given the pixel count scaling from 1080p to 1440p (approximately 1.78x the pixels).

At 3840x2160, the averages are 256 (Low), 217 (Medium), 188 (High), and 151 (Ultra). The Medium preset's min of 184 and max of 249 create a 65 FPS spread, which is narrower in absolute terms than at lower resolutions but still represents roughly 30% of the average FPS. The transition from Low to Ultra at 4K results in a 105 FPS drop, a 41.0% reduction. Interestingly, the percentage drop from Low to Ultra is remarkably consistent across resolutions (33.0% at 1080p, 40.8% at 1440p, 41.0% at 4K), suggesting that the settings presets impose a roughly proportional workload increase regardless of resolution.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K within each settings preset shows: Low drops from 587 to 256 FPS (56.4% reduction), Medium from 553 to 217 (60.8% reduction), High from 489 to 188 (61.6% reduction), and Ultra from 393 to 151 (61.6% reduction). The consistency of these percentages across settings presets indicates that the GPU's rendering pipeline scales predictably with pixel count, with no unexpected bottlenecks emerging at any particular settings combination.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D plays the dominant role in this combo's performance, as evidenced by the resolution scaling data and the GPU's superior percentile ranking. The card's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth, which is critical for maintaining high frame rates at 4K resolution where texture and geometry data demands are highest. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (151 average) shows that even the most demanding settings in To The Core remain within the GPU's capability envelope, with the 32 GB frame buffer ensuring that no texture streaming or memory capacity issues arise.

The GPU's clock speeds of 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost represent the operating frequencies under load. With 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units, the RTX 5090 D offers substantial raw compute throughput. The 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores provide specialized processing capabilities, though the Idle genre of To The Core likely doesn't heavily utilize these features. The FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s indicate that the GPU can handle the pixel and texture processing demands of high-resolution rendering without becoming a limiting factor.

The GPU's benchmark results reinforce its capability. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14,326, Geekbench OpenCL score of 310,674, and Vulkan score of 376,915 all demonstrate strong synthetic performance. The PassMark G3D score of 44,065 and GPU Compute score of 28,396 further validate the card's compute capabilities. The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, combined with its nearest rivals all being within approximately 2.4% of its average benchmark score, suggests that the RTX 5090 D is competitively positioned within the high-end GPU market segment. The 575 W TDP and 950 W suggested PSU indicate that this is a power-hungry component, but the measured FPS results show that this power budget translates directly into exceptional gaming performance.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system in To The Core?*

A: At 4K, High settings with 188 average FPS provides the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, while at 1440p, Ultra settings at 265 average FPS are recommended for maximum fidelity. At 1080p, Medium settings at 553 average FPS ensure the highest possible frame rates for competitive play.

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems in To The Core?*

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combination ranks 30th out of 2,991 tested combos, placing it in the top 1% of all configurations tested for this game.

*Q: Is the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB memory sufficient for 4K gaming in To The Core?*

A: Yes, the 32 GB GDDR7 memory with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient. The 4K Ultra preset achieves 151 average FPS with no indication of memory capacity or bandwidth limitations affecting performance.

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

A: The average FPS drops by 56.4% at Low settings (587 to 256 FPS), 60.8% at Medium (553 to 217 FPS), 61.6% at High (489 to 188 FPS), and 61.6% at Ultra (393 to 151 FPS).

Q: What are the closest competing CPUs to the Ryzen 5 7500F?

A: The nearest rivals are the Intel Core i7-11850H (deltaPct 0.1%), AMD Ryzen 5 8400F (deltaPct -0.2%), Intel Core i7-13620H (deltaPct 0.2%), and Intel Core 5 210H (deltaPct 0.4%), all within 0.4% of the Ryzen 5 7500F's average benchmark score.

Q: Does the system maintain consistent frame times at 4K Medium settings?

A: Yes, the 4K Medium preset shows a min FPS of 184 and max FPS of 249, with an average of 217 FPS. The minimum staying above 180 FPS indicates stable frame delivery without major frame time spikes.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F provides the processing foundation for this combo, and while the GPU dominates at higher resolutions, the CPU's capabilities ensure that frame rates remain high even at 1080p where CPU overhead is more significant. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.00 GHz deliver strong single-threaded performance that is critical for game logic and draw call submission. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB L2 cache per core help maintain low latency access to frequently used data, which is particularly important for maintaining high frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios.

The CPU's benchmark scores demonstrate its balanced performance profile. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 22,799 and single-core score of 3,218 show strong multi-threaded scaling and excellent single-thread performance. The Geekbench multicore score of 12,362 and single-core score of 2,374 further validate these results. The PassMark multithread score of 26,825 and single-thread score of 3,841 indicate that the CPU can handle both multi-threaded workloads and latency-sensitive single-threaded tasks effectively. The 3DMark scores, including 6,376 for 16 threads and 974 for single-thread, provide a view into how the CPU performs in gaming-oriented benchmark scenarios.

The CPU's 77th percentile ranking among all CPUs places it above the majority of processors, though not at the very top tier. Its nearest rivals all fall within 0.4% of its average benchmark score of 24,964, indicating that the CPU is well-matched against similarly positioned processors. The 5 nm process node from TSMC, with 6,570 million transistors on a 71 mm² die, enables the 65 W TDP while still delivering competitive performance. The dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth ensures that the CPU can feed data to the GPU without creating a memory bandwidth bottleneck, which is particularly important at high frame rates where CPU-to-GPU data transfer rates become more critical.

In To The Core, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p where the 587 average FPS at Low settings approaches the limits of what the CPU can sustain. The fact that frame rates scale down predictably when moving to higher resolutions suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck in this configuration. The 12 threads provide adequate parallelism for the game's workload, and the boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures that single-threaded game logic runs at maximum speed. The CPU's PCIe Gen 5 support with 24 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the GPU to communicate with the CPU and system memory, preventing any interface-related performance limitations.