To The Core

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 delivers a versatile 1080p and 1440p experience in To The Core, with 4K remaining playable at reduced settings. The measured data shows a clear performance hierarchy across the four tested presets, with the scaling between Low and Ultra revealing both the game's optimization and the hardware's balance.

Settings Recommendations

The data strongly favors the High preset as the optimal balance for this combo. At 1920x1080, High produces 175.5 FPS average, which is 65.5 FPS below the Low preset's 241 FPS but still dramatically above the 142.1 FPS seen at Ultra. The jump from High to Ultra costs 33.4 FPS, while dropping from High to Medium only gains 27.6 FPS—indicating that Ultra demands a disproportionate performance hit for what is likely a marginal visual improvement in an idle game.

At 2560x1440, the High preset's 118.4 FPS average keeps this combo comfortably in high-refresh territory. The Medium preset at 135.7 FPS offers a 17.3 FPS improvement, but High's additional visual fidelity appears worth the trade-off. Ultra at 96.8 FPS still clears 60 FPS, yet the 21.6 FPS gap between High and Ultra suggests the preset is taxing the RTX 2060's 6 GB VRAM or raw compute more heavily than the visual uplift justifies.

For 3840x2160, the recommendation shifts to Medium, which produces 76 FPS average. High drops to 70.3 FPS, and Low jumps to 90.3 FPS. Ultra falls to 56.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold many displays target. Given that Medium maintains a 19.2 FPS advantage over High and a 5.7 FPS lead over Ultra at this resolution, it represents the best playable experience without sacrificing too much visual quality. Low at 4K is serviceable but unnecessary when Medium already exceeds 75 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060's 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration appears sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at all presets, but the 4K Ultra result of 56.8 FPS hints at potential VRAM pressure or bandwidth limitations. The card's 1920 shading units and 48 ROPs, running at a base clock of 1365 MHz and boost of 1680 MHz, deliver 6.451 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

The GPU's benchmark standing shows it in the 58th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16074. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 7600S, scores 15996—a 0.5% delta—while the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M and Pro 5700 each score 16351, putting the RTX 2060 1.7% behind. This positioning explains why the card can handle 1440p High at 118.4 FPS but struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra. The 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are present but appear irrelevant for this idle genre, which is unlikely to leverage ray tracing or DLSS.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in To The Core?*

A: The lowest settings preset at 1920x1080 produces 241 FPS average, which is the maximum measured result across all tested configurations.

Q: Can this combo run the game at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only at lower presets. The Medium preset at 3840x2160 yields 76 FPS, and High yields 70.3 FPS. Ultra drops to 56.8 FPS, which is below ideal smoothness.

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

A: The RTX 2060's average benchmark score of 16074 places it 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (15996) but 1.7% behind both the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M and AMD Radeon Pro 5700 (each 16351).

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: The Low preset achieves 161 FPS average at 2560x1440, while Ultra achieves 96.8 FPS—a difference of 64.2 FPS, representing a 39.9% reduction from Low to Ultra.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p Low?

A: The 241 FPS average at 1080p Low suggests the GPU is still capable of higher output, meaning the Ryzen 5 7600X's single-thread performance may be the primary constraint at this extreme setting.

Q: Does the 6 GB VRAM cause issues at any resolution?

A: The data shows no complete failures, but the 4K Ultra result of 56.8 FPS—a 23.6 FPS drop from 4K Medium—indicates the card's memory bandwidth or capacity is likely stressed at that configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo demonstrates its strongest performance. The Low preset delivers 241 FPS, followed by Medium at 203.1 FPS, High at 175.5 FPS, and Ultra at 142.1 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 98.9 FPS, showing that preset choice can nearly halve the frame rate. The gap between High and Ultra (33.4 FPS) is larger than the gap between Medium and High (27.6 FPS), suggesting Ultra carries a disproportionately heavy load.

At 2560x1440, the results scale predictably. Low achieves 161 FPS, Medium 135.7 FPS, High 118.4 FPS, and Ultra 96.8 FPS. The difference between High and Medium is 17.3 FPS, and between Medium and Low is 25.3 FPS. The 4K-capable performance at this resolution confirms the RTX 2060's strength in mid-range resolutions, with even Ultra remaining above 90 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the data shows a steeper decline. Low produces 90.3 FPS, Medium 76 FPS, High 70.3 FPS, and Ultra 56.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 14.3 FPS, while High to Ultra drops 13.5 FPS. Notably, the 4K Ultra result is the only measured configuration below 60 FPS, and the 4K High result is only 10.3 FPS above that threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 1444 out of 1756 tested combos in To The Core. This places it in the 17.8th percentile of all combinations, which may seem low given the strong FPS numbers, but the ranking reflects that many other combos with higher-end GPUs achieve even higher frame rates in this idle game. The rank suggests this pairing is firmly mid-pack, with roughly 312 combos performing worse and 1443 performing better.

The CPU's individual standing is strong—the Ryzen 5 7600X ranks in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 26272. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U, scores 26262 (0% delta), while the AMD Ryzen 7 7735U scores 26305 (-0.1%). The GPU's 58th percentile ranking among all GPUs is more modest, which explains why the combo's overall rank is lower than the CPU's percentile would suggest—the RTX 2060 is the limiting component in this pairing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X provides 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 Raphael architecture, running at a base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 83.2 GB/s of DDR5 memory bandwidth give it strong single-thread capability, evidenced by a 3dmark_single_thread score of 1060 and a passmark_single_thread score of 4135.

In To The Core, an idle game, the CPU's role is likely more about maintaining high frame rates at lower resolutions. The 1080p Low result of 241 FPS suggests the CPU can feed the GPU effectively, but the 3dmark_2_threads score of 2028 and 3dmark_4_threads score of 3796 indicate that the game may not utilize all 12 threads. The cinebench_r23_multicore score of 24128 shows the CPU's aggregate capability, but the game's genre likely benefits more from the single-core score of 3406 in that same test.

The CPU's 83rd percentile ranking and its nearest rivals—all within 0.2% delta—demonstrate that it is not a bottleneck at most settings. The Ryzen 7 5700X scores 26214 (0.2% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 5655GE scores 26320 (-0.2%), showing this CPU is competitively positioned. For an idle game, the 7600X's high boost clock of 5.30 GHz is the key asset.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K reveal the GPU's dominance as the limiting component. At Low settings, 1080p achieves 241 FPS, dropping to 161 FPS at 1440p (a 33.2% reduction) and 90.3 FPS at 4K (a 62.5% reduction from 1080p). At High settings, the drop is from 175.5 FPS to 118.4 FPS (32.5% reduction) to 70.3 FPS (59.9% reduction). Ultra shows the steepest absolute decline: 142.1 FPS to 96.8 FPS (31.9% reduction) to 56.8 FPS (60.0% reduction).

The consistency of these percentage drops across settings—roughly one-third from 1080p to 1440p and another third from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the RTX 2060's pixel throughput is the primary constraint. If the CPU were limiting, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p would show a smaller drop, as the GPU would have more headroom. The fact that 1080p Low reaches 241 FPS but 4K Low only hits 90.3 FPS confirms the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the bottleneck at higher resolutions. The 336.0 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient for 1080p and 1440p but becomes strained at 4K, particularly at Ultra where the 56.8 FPS result underscores the card's 6 GB VRAM limitation.