To The Core

# To The Core with AMD Ryzen 7 9700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers a striking performance profile in To The Core, an idle-genre title that clearly rewards raw frame throughput. With measured average FPS ranging from 142 at 4K Ultra to 625 at 1080p Low, this combination sits near the top of the tested field, ranking 66th out of 2,991 combos. The data shows a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but begins to expose CPU limitations at 1080p, making it a fascinating case study in component scaling. This analysis breaks down the measured rows to show exactly where this combo excels, where it leaves performance on the table, and what settings will give you the best experience.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K are steep but consistent with a high-end GPU being pushed by a demanding resolution. At High settings, average FPS falls from 458 at 1080p to 308 at 1440p, then to 176 at 4K — a 61.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K. This steep decline indicates that the RTX 5090's rendering workload scales aggressively with pixel count, which is expected given the 4K resolution has roughly 4.4 times the pixels of 1080p. The GPU is clearly the limiting factor here, as the frame rate drops proportionally with resolution rather than plateauing.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern shifts. The average FPS goes from 625 at 1080p to 420 at 1440p (a 32.8% drop), then to 240 at 4K (a 42.9% drop from 1440p). The fact that 1080p Low yields 625 FPS — well beyond any display's refresh rate — suggests the CPU is starting to cap the frame rate at lower resolutions. The Ryzen 7 9700F's 8 cores and 16 threads are capable, but at 625 FPS, even a strong processor can become a bottleneck. The delta between 1080p and 1440p at Low (205 FPS) is smaller than the delta between 1440p and 4K (180 FPS), hinting that the CPU is holding back the 1080p result more than the GPU.

The Medium preset tells a similar story. At 4K, the average FPS is 203 with a minimum of 173 and maximum of 234. At 1440p, it jumps to 355 (min 302, max 409), and at 1080p it reaches 528 (min 449, max 608). The scaling from 1440p to 1080p (a 48.7% increase) is more modest than from 4K to 1440p (a 74.9% increase), again pointing to CPU limitations creeping in at lower resolutions. For an idle game, these frame rates are extraordinarily high, but the pattern is clear: the RTX 5090 is the star at 4K, while the Ryzen 7 9700F becomes a more significant factor as resolution drops.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling. The average FPS at 1080p is 369, dropping to 248 at 1440p (a 32.8% reduction) and then to 142 at 4K (a 42.7% reduction from 1440p). The 4K Ultra result of 142 FPS is still highly playable, but it represents a 61.5% drop from the 1080p Ultra figure. This pattern across all four presets confirms that the GPU's workload scales nearly linearly with pixel count, while the CPU's ability to feed frames becomes less of a constraint at higher resolutions where the GPU takes longer per frame.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain why it performs so well in To The Core. The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. For an idle game, this massive memory pool is overkill in terms of capacity, but the bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and frame buffering never become a bottleneck. The 28 Gbps effective memory speed is reflected in the smooth frame pacing observed in the Medium preset's minimum FPS values — at 4K Medium, the min FPS of 173 is only 85.2% of the average, showing consistent delivery.

Clock speeds are also a factor. The RTX 5090's base clock of 2017 MHz and boost clock of 2407 MHz are high for a flagship GPU, and the 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power provides ample headroom for the game's rendering demands. The 21,760 shading units and 680 TMUs work together to push pixel rates of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rates of 1,636.8 GTexel/s. In To The Core, which appears to be visually simple but frame-rate hungry, these specs translate directly into the high FPS numbers seen across all resolutions.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its position. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 and the Passmark G3D score of 39,650 place it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 79,842 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605, delta 0.3%) and slightly ahead of the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396, delta 0.6%) and AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940, delta 1.1%). The only rival in the nearest list that edges it out is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80,959, delta -1.4%). This data suggests the RTX 5090 is performing as expected for a top-tier card, and in To The Core, it delivers frame rates that few other GPUs could match.

The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs is notable, but in this specific game, the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (142) shows that even this powerhouse can be brought to more modest levels by the highest preset. The fact that 4K Low yields 240 FPS — 69% higher than 4K Ultra — indicates that the game's Ultra settings impose a significant rendering cost, likely through effects like shadows and post-processing that strain the GPU's compute units.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At 4K Medium, the average FPS is 203 with a minimum of 173 and maximum of 234 — all comfortably above the 144 Hz threshold for high-refresh displays. The minimum FPS of 173 is particularly important because it shows that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate does not dip below playable levels. In contrast, 4K High averages 176 FPS, which is only 13 FPS lower than Medium, but the lack of a reported minimum makes it harder to guarantee consistent performance.

At 1440p, Medium delivers 355 FPS average with a minimum of 302 and maximum of 409. This is an exceptional result for a 1440p display, providing enough headroom for even the fastest refresh rates available. The minimum of 302 FPS ensures that frame drops are unlikely to be noticeable, even on a 360 Hz monitor. For competitive play in To The Core, where idle mechanics might benefit from high frame rates, this is the sweet spot.

For 1080p users, Medium at 528 FPS average (min 449, max 608) is the recommended choice. The jump to Low at 625 FPS average provides a 18.4% improvement, but the visual degradation may not be worth it for an idle game where you're likely staring at the screen for extended periods. Ultra at 1080p drops to 369 FPS, which is still high but represents a 30.1% reduction from Medium — a significant cost for marginal visual gains.

The Ultra preset is the only one where 4K FPS drops below 150, hitting 142 average. Given that Medium at 4K achieves 203 FPS, the 30% performance hit from Ultra is hard to justify unless you demand absolute maximum visual fidelity. The data suggests that Medium is the "best experience" preset: it maintains high frame rates across all resolutions while presumably offering a reasonable balance of visual features. High is a close second, but Medium's reported minimum FPS values provide more confidence in consistency.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 66 out of 2,991 tested combos places this pairing in the top 2.2% of all configurations. This is an exceptional result, though not the absolute top — the data shows there are 65 combos that perform better in To The Core. Given that the RTX 5090 is among the most powerful GPUs available, the fact that it doesn't rank higher suggests that the Ryzen 7 9700F may be holding back the system slightly, or that other combos with more aggressive CPUs (possibly with higher boost clocks or more cores) edge it out.

The Ryzen 7 9700F's percentile ranking of 94 among all CPUs indicates it's a strong processor, but its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are closely matched. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX scores 69,875 (delta 0.2%), the Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70,163 (delta -0.2%), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69,515 (delta 0.7%), and the Intel Core i7-14700K scores 69,355 (delta 0.9%). These deltas are all within 1%, meaning the 9700F is effectively in a statistical tie with these CPUs in general benchmarks. However, in To The Core, the specific combination of CPU and GPU matters, and the 66th rank suggests that the 9700F's 5.50 GHz boost clock is sufficient to keep the RTX 5090 fed at most resolutions.

The GPU's own ranking is 92nd percentile, and its average benchmark score of 79,842 is competitive with the listed rivals. The combo rank of 66 is higher than what either component's percentile would suggest independently, indicating that the pairing works well together in this game. If you were to swap in a faster CPU, you might see the rank improve, but the measured FPS at 4K High (176) and 4K Ultra (142) show that the GPU is the primary limiter at higher resolutions, so the CPU upgrade would only matter at 1080p.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz are respectable, but in To The Core, the data shows that the CPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution drops. At 1080p Low, the 625 FPS average suggests the CPU is nearing its limit — the frame time at 625 FPS is 1.6 ms, which is very tight for even a high-clocked processor to maintain consistently.

The CPU's cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. For an idle game, which may involve frequent memory access patterns, this cache hierarchy is sufficient to avoid major bottlenecks. The dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth provides ample memory throughput for feeding the GPU at high frame rates. The Passmark multithread score of 36,470 and single-thread score of 4,691 indicate balanced performance, but the single-thread result is what matters most for game logic in an idle title.

Benchmark results from Passmark show the CPU excels at data compression (421,988) and integer math (120,788), but scores lower on find prime numbers (183) and physics (2,122). These scores suggest that the CPU is well-suited for general compute tasks but may not be optimized for every workload. In To The Core, the 625 FPS at 1080p Low is likely CPU-bound, as the GPU could theoretically push even higher frames if the CPU could feed it faster. The fact that 1080p Low yields 625 FPS while 1080p Medium yields 528 FPS — a 15.5% difference — indicates that the GPU is still doing meaningful work at Medium, but the CPU is starting to become a co-limiter.

The CPU's 94th percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 69,996 place it just below the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70,163, delta -0.2%) in synthetic tests. However, in a real game scenario, the 9700F's lower TDP of 65 W (compared to presumably higher values for rival chips) means it runs cooler and more efficiently, which could help maintain boost clocks over extended sessions. The 5.50 GHz boost clock is among the highest available, and the data suggests it's sufficient for 4K gaming where the GPU is the bottleneck, but at 1080p, a CPU with higher per-core performance might squeeze out additional frames.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play To The Core with this combo?*

A: The data shows that 1440p Medium delivers 355 FPS average with a minimum of 302, making it the best balance of high frame rates and consistency. At 4K Medium, you get 203 FPS average, which is still excellent, but the 1440p result offers more headroom for frame drops.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 overkill for an idle game?

A: The measured FPS suggests yes — at 1080p Low, the combo hits 625 FPS, far beyond any display's refresh rate. However, at 4K Ultra, the average drops to 142 FPS, showing that the GPU is fully utilized at the highest settings and resolution. The 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are more than the game needs, but they ensure no memory-related stutters.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 9700F compare to its closest CPU rivals?

A: The 9700F's average benchmark score of 69,996 is within 0.9% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69,875), Intel Core i7-14700KF (70,163), AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515), and Intel Core i7-14700K (69,355). These are effectively tied scores, so the 9700F is competitive in general performance.

Q: What is the biggest FPS drop when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At Low settings, the drop is 385 FPS (from 625 to 240), which is a 61.6% reduction. At Ultra, the drop is 227 FPS (from 369 to 142), a 61.5% reduction. The percentage drop is consistent across presets, indicating the GPU's workload scales linearly with resolution.

Q: Should I use Medium or High settings at 4K?

A: The measured data shows Medium at 4K averages 203 FPS with a minimum of 173, while High averages 176 FPS with no reported minimum. Medium provides a 15.3% higher average FPS and the reassurance of a minimum FPS figure, making it the safer choice for consistent performance.

*Q: Is this combo ranked among the best for To The Core?*

A: Yes, the combo ranks 66th out of 2,991 tested combos, placing it in the top 2.2%. This is an excellent result, though not the absolute best, indicating that a different CPU pairing might extract slightly more performance from the RTX 5090 in this game.