To The Core

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the Intel Arc B390 delivers a highly playable experience in To The Core, though the integrated graphics solution clearly dictates the performance ceiling. The measured data shows a consistent scaling pattern across resolutions and presets, with the system favoring lower settings to maintain fluid frame rates, especially at higher resolutions. This analysis breaks down the benchmark results to determine the optimal settings, the role of each component, and how this specific combination stacks up against other tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data for To The Core reveals a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate, with the Medium preset offering the most balanced experience across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset achieves an average of 124 FPS, which is only 23 FPS behind the Low preset's 147 FPS but provides a substantial 38 FPS advantage over the High preset's 107 FPS. This makes Medium the sweet spot for 1080p gaming, as it maintains a high refresh rate while offering better visual quality than Low.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again proves optimal, delivering 83 FPS on average. This is a significant 16 FPS improvement over High (72 FPS) and a 25 FPS jump over Ultra (58 FPS), while remaining well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The Low preset at this resolution hits 99 FPS, but the visual compromise may not be worth the extra 16 FPS for most users. The Medium settings also show a minimum FPS of 71 and a maximum of 96, indicating stable frame pacing without major dips.

The 4K resolution (3840x2160) presents a different challenge. Here, even the Medium preset struggles to maintain high frame rates, averaging only 48 FPS with a minimum of 41 FPS. The Low preset is the only option that breaks past the 50 FPS mark, reaching 56 FPS on average. For a consistently smooth experience at 4K, the Low preset is recommended, as the High (41 FPS) and Ultra (33 FPS) presets fall below the playable threshold for many users. The data suggests that Medium at 4K is borderline acceptable for slower-paced idle games, but Low provides the safest margin for frame rate stability.

For the best overall experience per the measured rows, Medium at 1080p is the standout choice, offering 124 FPS with a minimum of 105 FPS. This combination maximizes the visual-to-performance ratio without sacrificing responsiveness. Players prioritizing absolute smoothness over visuals should consider Low at 1080p for 147 FPS, while those with 1440p monitors will find Medium at 83 FPS to be the most practical setting.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the primary bottleneck in this configuration, and its specifications explain the performance patterns observed in To The Core. This integrated GPU, based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. The substantial boost headroom allows it to scale performance when thermal and power conditions permit, which is evident in the frame rate differences between presets.

With 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output pipelines, the Arc B390 has a theoretical pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s. These figures translate to a raw FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS. In To The Core, an idle game genre that typically has modest graphical demands, these specs are sufficient for 1080p gaming at medium settings, but the frame rate drops at higher resolutions indicate the GPU's limited fill rate and compute capacity.

The memory configuration is a critical factor. The Arc B390 uses "System Shared" memory, meaning it relies on the system's DDR4 RAM rather than dedicated VRAM. The memory bandwidth is listed as "System Dependent," which introduces variability based on the CPU's memory support. The Ryzen 7 5800X provides dual-channel DDR4 with 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which is shared between the CPU and GPU. This shared memory architecture is likely the reason for the significant performance drop at 4K, where the GPU requires more data throughput than the shared bus can efficiently provide.

The GPU's benchmark score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 places it at the 9th percentile of all GPUs, indicating very low absolute performance. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% slower), GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% slower), GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% slower), and GT 710 (1443, 2.7% slower). These comparisons show that while the Arc B390 leads this low-end pack, its performance class is firmly in entry-level territory. The data confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor in this combo, as the CPU has ample headroom to feed it at all settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a predictable and steep decline as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K, a pattern that strongly suggests GPU-bound performance. At the Medium preset, the average FPS drops from 124 at 1920x1080 to 83 at 2560x1440, a 33% reduction, and then to 48 at 3840x2160, a further 42% decline. This scaling is consistent with an integrated GPU struggling to fill more pixels with the same shading resources.

Looking at the Low preset, the frame rate falls from 147 FPS at 1080p to 99 FPS at 1440p (a 32.7% drop) and then to 56 FPS at 4K (a 43.4% drop from 1440p). The High preset follows a similar trajectory: 107 FPS at 1080p, 72 FPS at 1440p (32.7% drop), and 41 FPS at 4K (43.1% drop). The consistent percentage drops across presets indicate that the GPU's pixel throughput is the dominant constraint, rather than CPU or memory bandwidth, since the relative performance penalty remains uniform.

This resolution scaling reveals that the Arc B390's 24 ROPs and 60.00 GPixel/s pixel rate are insufficient for high-resolution rendering. At 4K, the GPU must process over four times the pixels of 1080p, and the available fill rate simply cannot keep up. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, does not show signs of becoming a limiting factor, as the frame rate scales inversely with pixel count in a predictable manner. For players using this combo, the data clearly indicates that 1080p is the native resolution for smooth gameplay, with 1440p being acceptable only at lower presets, and 4K reserved for the least demanding settings.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for To The Core, this particular pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2643rd out of 2991 combos. This places it in the bottom 12% of all tested systems, which aligns with the GPU's low 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs. The combo rank reflects the overall gaming experience, and the data shows that while the CPU is a high-performing component, the GPU drags the combined score down significantly.

The rank of 2643 out of 2991 indicates that approximately 348 other combinations performed worse, but the vast majority of tested systems outperformed this pairing. This is unsurprising given that the Arc B390 is an integrated GPU with performance comparable to dedicated graphics cards from over a decade ago. For context, the CPU alone achieves an 81st percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 29123, but the GPU's average score of 1482 is far below what modern discrete GPUs achieve.

The disparity between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's low percentile creates a significant bottleneck, and the combo rank reflects this imbalance. The data suggests that pairing this CPU with a more capable GPU would yield a dramatically better result, but within the constraints of this specific configuration, the performance is limited by the integrated graphics. For an idle game like To The Core, this rank is acceptable, but it highlights the inherent limitations of relying on integrated graphics for gaming workloads.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X plays a supporting role in this configuration, providing substantial compute resources that the Arc B390 cannot fully utilize in To The Core. This 8-core, 16-thread processor based on Zen 3 architecture (codename Vermeer) operates with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. The CPU's 7nm process node and 4,150 million transistors enable strong single and multi-threaded performance, as evidenced by its benchmark scores.

In multi-threaded workloads, the 5800X achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15476 and a Geekbench multicore score of 11036. Its Passmark multithread score of 27732 and 3DMark max threads score of 7578 further demonstrate its capability. However, To The Core, being an idle game, does not heavily stress the CPU, and the measured frame rates suggest that the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The CPU's 32 MB of L3 cache and 512 KB of L2 cache per core provide ample data storage for game assets, but the system shared memory architecture means the GPU competes with the CPU for the same 51.2 GB/s of DDR4 bandwidth.

The CPU's single-thread performance is also strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1574.5 and a Passmark single-thread score of 3445. This is relevant because idle games often have a primary game logic thread that can become a bottleneck if the CPU is weak, but the 5800X's single-thread capabilities are more than sufficient to handle the game's simulation. The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor, as frame rates drop linearly with resolution increases, a hallmark of GPU-bound scenarios.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 81st among all CPUs confirms its high performance class, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H (deltaPct 0.1%), Intel Xeon Phi 7210 (deltaPct -0.4%), Intel Core i5-13500HX (deltaPct -0.5%), and AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT (deltaPct 0.6%). These rivals have average benchmark scores within a fraction of a percent of the 5800X's 29123 average, showing that the CPU is competitive with modern mobile and desktop processors. In this game, the CPU provides a solid foundation, but its power is effectively constrained by the GPU's limited output.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combo in To The Core?*

A: The data indicates that 1920x1080 is the optimal resolution, as it delivers 124 FPS at Medium and 147 FPS at Low presets. At 2560x1440, the frame rates drop to 83 FPS and 99 FPS respectively, while 3840x2160 falls below 60 FPS even at Low settings.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% ahead of the GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% ahead of the GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% ahead of the GT 710 (1443).

Q: Which settings preset provides the smoothest experience at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset is the only option that maintains an average above 50 FPS, achieving 56 FPS. The Medium preset averages 48 FPS with a minimum of 41 FPS, while High and Ultra drop to 41 FPS and 33 FPS respectively.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this configuration?

A: The GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The Ryzen 7 5800X ranks in the 81st percentile among all CPUs, while the Arc B390 ranks in the 9th percentile among all GPUs. The frame rate drops uniformly with resolution increases, indicating GPU-bound performance.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all other tested combinations?

A: This pairing ranks 2643rd out of 2991 total combinations for To The Core, placing it in the bottom 12% of all tested systems due to the integrated GPU's limited performance.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra presets at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 147 FPS on average, while the Ultra preset drops to 86 FPS. This represents a 61 FPS difference, with Medium (124 FPS) and High (107 FPS) falling between these extremes.