To The Core

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and Intel Arc B570 combination delivers a remarkably smooth experience in To The Core, with the data showing that the Medium preset offers the most balanced performance across all tested resolutions. At 1080p, Medium produces 191 FPS average, which is 26 FPS higher than High and 58 FPS higher than Ultra, while only sacrificing 34 FPS compared to Low. The Medium preset also provides the only complete FPS data in the entire measurement set, with a recorded minimum of 162 FPS and maximum of 219 FPS at 1080p, indicating consistent frame delivery. At 1440p, Medium maintains 128 FPS average with a minimum of 109 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Even at 4K, Medium sustains 73 FPS average with a 62 FPS minimum, making it the only preset that guarantees playable frame rates at every resolution tested. The data suggests that Medium is the optimal choice because it provides the best visual quality per frame rate cost, with the jump from Low to Medium costing only 22 FPS at 1080p while High costs an additional 26 FPS over Medium for presumably marginal visual gains.

FAQ

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

A: The highest recorded average FPS is 225, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This represents the absolute performance ceiling for this combination in the game.

Q: Does this combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the combo produces a 73 FPS average with a 62 FPS minimum. High settings at 4K deliver 64 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 51 FPS average, which may be borderline for some users.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of FPS cost?

A: At every resolution, Ultra costs exactly 32 FPS compared to High. At 1080p, High produces 165 FPS while Ultra produces 133 FPS; at 1440p, High produces 111 FPS while Ultra produces 89 FPS; at 4K, High produces 64 FPS while Ultra produces 51 FPS. This consistent delta suggests a fixed rendering cost for Ultra features.

Q: What frame rates can users expect at 1440p with this hardware?

A: The data shows 152 FPS average at Low, 128 FPS at Medium, 111 FPS at High, and 89 FPS at Ultra settings for 2560x1440 resolution. This makes 1440p a sweet spot for high refresh rate monitors with Medium or High settings.

Q: Is there a significant performance difference between Low and Medium settings?

A: The gap is relatively modest. At 1080p, Low produces 225 FPS while Medium produces 191 FPS, a 34 FPS difference. At 1440p, the gap narrows to 24 FPS (152 vs 128), and at 4K it narrows further to 14 FPS (87 vs 73). This suggests diminishing returns for Low settings at higher resolutions.

Q: Does the 10 GB VRAM capacity of the Arc B570 become limiting in this game?

A: The data does not indicate VRAM limitations, as even at 4K Ultra, the combo maintains a 51 FPS average. The consistent FPS scaling across resolutions suggests the GPU's memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s is sufficient for this title's demands at all tested settings.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 serves as the primary rendering engine in this configuration, and its specifications directly explain the observed performance patterns. The GPU features 2304 shading units operating at a 2500 MHz base and boost clock, with 144 texture mapping units and 80 render output units. This hardware configuration produces a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, which are directly relevant to To The Core's idle game rendering requirements. The 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus provides 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which appears sufficient for even the 4K Ultra workload that produced 51 FPS average.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20556. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, scores 20534, representing a 0.1% delta, while the Intel Arc A750 scores 20582, a -0.1% delta. This positions the B570 in a narrow performance band where small differences separate competitors. In To The Core specifically, the GPU demonstrates strong scaling from 1080p to 4K, with the FPS drop at each resolution step remaining proportional to the pixel count increase. This linear scaling suggests the GPU is not hitting any architectural bottleneck at lower resolutions, and instead the frame rate is primarily determined by raw pixel throughput.

The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility align well with modern game engines, and the measured FPS data confirms that the hardware is fully utilized across all settings. The fact that Low settings at 1080p achieve 225 FPS average indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU fast enough, and the GPU has headroom that is only constrained by the rendering workload. The 150 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest this is a power-efficient solution that does not require exotic cooling, and the PCIe 4.0 x8 interface provides adequate bandwidth for the 10 GB frame buffer.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete FPS dataset reveals a consistent pattern across all resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 225 FPS average at Low, 191 FPS at Medium (with 162 minimum and 219 maximum), 165 FPS at High, and 133 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset's complete data range shows a 57 FPS spread between minimum and maximum, indicating some scene-dependent variance but generally stable performance. At 2560x1440, the averages drop to 152 FPS at Low, 128 FPS at Medium (with 109 minimum and 147 maximum), 111 FPS at High, and 89 FPS at Ultra. The Medium spread at 1440p is 38 FPS, suggesting tighter frame pacing at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes more demanding but remains playable: 87 FPS at Low, 73 FPS at Medium (with 62 minimum and 84 maximum), 64 FPS at High, and 51 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K shows a 22 FPS spread, which is the narrowest range in the entire dataset, indicating that at the highest pixel count, the workload becomes more uniform. The most striking observation is the linear FPS reduction as settings increase: at every resolution, the drop from Low to Medium is roughly 15-16%, from Medium to High is 13-14%, and from High to Ultra is 19-20%. This consistency suggests that each preset tier adds a similar computational cost, likely from increased shading complexity and potentially higher resolution textures.

The data also reveals how the GPU's 11.52 TFLOPS FP32 performance translates to real-world gaming. At 1080p Low, the 225 FPS average represents a theoretical 1.9 milliseconds per frame, while at 4K Ultra, the 51 FPS represents 19.6 milliseconds per frame. This tenfold increase in frame time aligns with the 4x pixel count difference combined with higher settings, indicating that the GPU is being utilized efficiently without any apparent driver overhead issues. The 200.0 GPixel/s pixel rate would theoretically allow for 51.2 FPS at 4K (3840x2160 = 8.3 million pixels, 200 million pixels per second divided by 8.3 million), which closely matches the observed 51 FPS at Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior in To The Core provides insight into which component is the limiting factor. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 (a 1.78x pixel increase), the FPS drops by a factor of 1.48 at Low settings (225 to 152), 1.49 at Medium (191 to 128), 1.49 at High (165 to 111), and 1.49 at Ultra (133 to 89). This consistent 1.49x FPS reduction for a 1.78x pixel increase indicates that the GPU is not fully saturated at 1080p, and the scaling is not purely pixel-bound. If the GPU were the sole bottleneck, the FPS would drop by the exact pixel ratio of 1.78x. The smaller actual drop suggests that the CPU is providing some frame rate limitation at lower resolutions.

From 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 (a 2.25x pixel increase), the FPS drops by a factor of 1.75 at Low (152 to 87), 1.75 at Medium (128 to 73), 1.73 at High (111 to 64), and 1.75 at Ultra (89 to 51). This scaling is closer to the expected 2.25x pixel ratio, indicating that at these higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the primary limiting component. The difference between the observed 1.75x and theoretical 2.25x drop suggests that the GPU has some efficiency gains at higher resolutions, possibly due to better memory access patterns or reduced CPU overhead per frame.

The overall scaling from 1080p Low to 4K Low shows a 2.59x FPS reduction (225 to 87) for a 4x pixel increase, while 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra shows a 2.61x reduction (133 to 51). This near-identical ratio across settings indicates that the resolution scaling is independent of quality settings. The data strongly implies that at 1080p, the CPU is partially limiting performance, as the GPU could deliver higher frame rates if the CPU could feed it faster. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, as the FPS scales nearly proportionally with pixel count. This mixed limiting behavior is common in games with light CPU loads, where lower resolutions expose CPU bottlenecks that disappear at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F provides the computational foundation for this gaming configuration. This 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Zen 4 architecture operates at a 4.20 GHz base clock and 4.70 GHz boost clock, with 64 KB L1 cache per core, 1 MB L2 cache per core, and 16 MB shared L3 cache. The processor's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20851 and a single-core score of 2943, indicating balanced capabilities for both single-threaded game logic and background tasks.

The CPU's percentile ranking at 77% of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25005, places it in a competitive position. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, scores 24964 (0.2% delta), while the Intel Core i7-13620H scores 24911 (0.4% delta). This tight clustering suggests that the 8400F's performance is well within the expected range for its class. In To The Core, an idle game, the CPU likely handles game logic, UI updates, and background calculations that are not graphically intensive. The fact that 1080p Low achieves 225 FPS average indicates that the CPU can sustain high frame rates, but the resolution scaling data suggests it becomes a limiting factor at lower resolutions.

The CPU's 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth on dual-channel DDR5 provides adequate data throughput for the game's physics and state management. The 4 nm process node and 65 W TDP indicate efficient power usage, which is beneficial for sustained gaming sessions common in idle games. The 3DMark scores show a clear scaling pattern: 1874 for 2 threads, 3563 for 4 threads, 5275 for 8 threads, and 6165 for max threads. This scaling indicates that the processor benefits from additional threads up to its full 12-thread count, but the incremental gains diminish, suggesting that To The Core likely uses only a few threads for its core simulation, leaving headroom for the operating system and other processes.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and Intel Arc B570 ranks 2380 out of 2991 tested combos in To The Core, placing it in the 20th percentile of all configurations. This ranking may seem surprising given the strong FPS numbers, but it reflects the fact that many other combos achieve higher frame rates in this relatively undemanding idle game. The ranking is more indicative of the competitive landscape than any deficiency in this specific hardware, as the measured FPS shows that the combo delivers playable performance at all settings and resolutions.

The CPU and GPU each occupy different percentile positions relative to their respective hardware pools. The CPU ranks in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, which is a strong position, while the GPU ranks in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. The combo's overall ranking being in the 20th percentile suggests that many other tested combinations feature more powerful GPUs, which is common in a game like To The Core where the graphical demands are modest but the frame rate potential is high. The data shows that this combo can achieve 225 FPS at 1080p Low, which is excellent for competitive play, but many higher-end GPUs would likely exceed 300 FPS in the same scenario.

The ranking also reflects the balance between CPU and GPU capabilities. With a CPU that ranks in the 77th percentile but a GPU in the 65th percentile, the combo is somewhat CPU-heavy, meaning that the GPU is more likely to be the limiting factor at higher resolutions. This is confirmed by the resolution scaling analysis, which shows the GPU becoming the bottleneck at 4K. For users prioritizing high refresh rates at 1080p or 1440p, this combo offers a good balance, but for 4K gaming, a more powerful GPU would be necessary to achieve higher rankings. The 2380 out of 2991 rank suggests that this is a mid-range configuration that excels in its intended use case but does not compete with top-tier hardware in this specific game's benchmark hierarchy.