To The Core

To The Core is an idle game that scales surprisingly hard with both CPU and GPU, and the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D paired with the Intel Arc B570 delivers a very playable experience across the board. The data shows this combination sits at rank 2380 out of 2991 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database, but the measured frame rates tell a story of consistent performance that never falls below 51 FPS at 4K Ultra. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a Zen 5 Granite Ridge part with 8 cores and 16 threads, boosting to 5.60 GHz, while the Arc B570 is a Battlemage GPU with 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus. This analysis breaks down exactly what settings to use, how the GPU and CPU each contribute, and what the resolution scaling reveals about the system's balance.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data makes the optimal preset choice clear: Medium is the sweet spot for this combo. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 191 FPS average with a minimum of 162 FPS, which is a comfortable margin above the 165 FPS High preset. The jump from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 32 FPS (165 to 133), while the jump from Medium to High costs only 26 FPS (191 to 165), meaning Medium gives you most of the visual fidelity headroom without the steep penalty of Ultra. The pattern holds at 2560x1440, where Medium produces 128 FPS average with a 109 FPS minimum, versus 111 FPS on High and 89 FPS on Ultra. At 4K, Medium is the only preset that maintains a minimum above 60 FPS, with a 73 FPS average and a 62 FPS minimum, making it the only viable choice for VRR displays targeting 60 Hz.

For players with high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors, the Low preset at 225 FPS average is the only option that truly saturates a 240 Hz display. However, the gap between Low and Medium at 1080p is only 34 FPS (225 to 191), and the minimum frame time data shows Medium stays above 162 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth. The Ultra preset is the only one that drops below 60 FPS at any resolution, hitting 51 FPS at 4K, so it should be avoided unless visual fidelity is the absolute priority and frame rate consistency is secondary. The Medium preset at 1440p is the recommended daily driver: it produces a 128 FPS average with a 109 FPS minimum, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and leaves enough GPU headroom for background tasks. The data indicates that Medium at 1440p offers the best balance of visual quality and performance, while 4K Medium is the fallback for larger displays.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 plays a decisive role in this game's performance, particularly as resolution increases. The GPU's 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus provides 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for the texture and asset streaming demands of an idle game. The card's 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 80 ROPs give it a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, which directly translates to the fill rate needed for high-resolution rendering. The boost clock of 2500 MHz is modest, but the Xe2-HPG architecture's efficiency compensates, as evidenced by the 11.52 TFLOPS FP32 throughput.

The GPU's influence is most apparent when comparing preset scaling. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 92 FPS (225 to 133), a 40.9% drop that suggests the GPU is being pushed harder at higher settings. At 4K, the same preset swing produces a 36 FPS difference (87 to 51), a 41.4% drop, indicating the GPU remains the primary bottleneck even at lower resolutions. The Arc B570's benchmark scores support this: a PassMark G3D score of 14195 places it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rival is the Intel Arc A750 with a delta of -0.1%, meaning the B570 is essentially matched with its predecessor. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2649 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 96844 confirm that the card has solid DirectX 12 and Vulkan performance, which matters for an idle game that likely uses modern rendering APIs.

The GPU's memory configuration is another key factor. With 10 GB of VRAM and a 160-bit bus, the B570 has enough capacity for 4K textures but the bandwidth is the limiting factor at Ultra settings. The measured data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 51, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider smooth. This is not a VRAM capacity issue but a bandwidth constraint, as the 380.0 GB/s bandwidth is stretched thin by the higher resolution and increased shading complexity. The GPU's 18 ray tracing cores are present but not relevant for an idle game, and the 5 nm process node from TSMC keeps power draw at 150 W TDP, which is reasonable for the performance delivered.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is GPU-bound at higher resolutions but has enough CPU headroom to keep up. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 165 at 1080p to 111 at 1440p to 64 at 4K, representing a 32.7% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 42.3% drop from 1440p to 4K. This scaling is steeper than the pixel count increase would suggest (1440p has 1.78x the pixels of 1080p, but FPS only drops by 32.7%), indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor. The Arc B570's raw compute of 11.52 TFLOPS is being fully utilized at higher resolutions, and the 4K High result of 64 FPS is close to the 60 FPS target, but the Ultra preset at 4K falls to 51 FPS, confirming the GPU is the bottleneck.

At Low settings, the scaling is more linear: 225 FPS at 1080p, 152 FPS at 1440p, and 87 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 32.4%, and from 1440p to 4K is 42.8%, which closely matches the High preset scaling. This consistency suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor even at low settings, because if it were, the frame rates would plateau at higher resolutions. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D's 96 MB of shared L3 cache and 5.60 GHz boost clock provide ample single-threaded performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2228 and PassMark single-thread score of 4704. The CPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all CPUs means it is not holding back the GPU at any resolution.

The Medium preset data includes minimum FPS values, which provide insight into frame time stability. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 162 FPS against a 191 FPS average, a 15.2% variance. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 109 FPS against a 128 FPS average, a 14.8% variance. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 62 FPS against a 73 FPS average, a 15.1% variance. The consistent variance percentage across resolutions indicates that the frame pacing is stable and not affected by resolution changes, further confirming that the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The 4K Medium result with a 62 FPS minimum is the only preset/resolution combination that guarantees a VRR display stays within its 60 Hz range.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a full range of performance across presets. Low produces 225 FPS average, Medium produces 191 FPS average with a 162 FPS minimum and 219 FPS maximum, High produces 165 FPS average, and Ultra produces 133 FPS average. The gap between Low and Medium is 34 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 26 FPS, and the gap between High and Ultra is 32 FPS. This creates a stair-step pattern where each preset tier costs roughly 26-34 FPS, indicating that the game scales settings in a predictable manner.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops proportionally. Low produces 152 FPS average, Medium produces 128 FPS average with a 109 FPS minimum and 147 FPS maximum, High produces 111 FPS average, and Ultra produces 89 FPS average. The percentage drops from 1080p are consistent: Low drops 32.4%, Medium drops 33.0%, High drops 32.7%, and Ultra drops 33.1%. This uniformity suggests that the GPU is being utilized at a consistent rate across all settings, with the resolution being the primary variable.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops further but remains playable. Low produces 87 FPS average, Medium produces 73 FPS average with a 62 FPS minimum and 84 FPS maximum, High produces 64 FPS average, and Ultra produces 51 FPS average. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 61.3% for Low, 61.8% for Medium, 61.2% for High, and 61.7% for Ultra. The remarkable consistency of these drops (all within 0.6% of each other) indicates that the game's performance scaling is resolution-bound rather than setting-bound, which is a strong indicator of GPU limitation. The 4K Ultra result of 51 FPS is the only sub-60 FPS result in the entire dataset, making it the sole scenario where the system falls below the standard playability threshold.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for a 1440p monitor with this CPU/GPU combo?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 is the recommended choice, delivering a 128 FPS average with a 109 FPS minimum. This is 17 FPS higher than High (111 FPS) and 39 FPS higher than Ultra (89 FPS), making it the most balanced option that stays well above 60 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in To The Core?

A: Yes, but only at Medium settings or lower. The Medium preset at 3840x2160 produces a 73 FPS average with a 62 FPS minimum, which is playable on a 60 Hz display. High settings drop to 64 FPS average, and Ultra drops to 51 FPS, which is below 60 FPS.

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

A: The GPU is the primary bottleneck. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent across all settings (dropping by approximately 61-62%), which indicates the GPU's fill rate is the constraint. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D's single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 score of 2228) is sufficient to keep up, as shown by the fact that Low settings at 1080p reach 225 FPS without a CPU cap.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to its nearest rival in this context?

A: The Arc B570's average benchmark score is 20556, which is 0.1% lower than the Intel Arc A750 (20582) and 0.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534). This means the B570 is effectively tied with the A750, so performance in To The Core should be within a few FPS of either card.

Q: What is the worst-case frame rate for this system?

A: The absolute lowest measured result is 51 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. The next lowest is 62 FPS (the minimum at 4K Medium), so the system only drops below 60 FPS on the Ultra preset at 4K. For any other preset/resolution combination, the minimum FPS stays above 60.

Q: Does the CPU's 3D V-Cache affect performance in this game?

A: The Ryzen 7 9850X3D has 96 MB of shared L3 cache, which is the "X3D" feature. The benchmark data shows the CPU's PassMark multithread score is 41318 and single-thread is 4704, placing it in the 92nd percentile. The consistent FPS scaling across resolutions indicates the cache is sufficient for the game's data demands, but the GPU remains the bottleneck.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a Zen 5 part on the Granite Ridge architecture, built on TSMC's 4 nm process with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. It features 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, which are high clocks for an X3D part. The 96 MB of shared L3 cache is the defining feature, and for an idle game like To The Core, this cache size is likely beneficial for storing game state and simulation data, though the GPU remains the primary bottleneck.

The CPU's benchmark scores are strong: Cinebench R23 multicore is 22807 and single-core is 2228, while PassMark multithread is 41318 and single-thread is 4704. These scores place the CPU in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rival is the Intel Core i9-14900 with an average score of 58115, which is 0.5% lower than the 9850X3D's 58386. The CPU's performance is clearly not a limiting factor in this game, as the FPS scaling pattern (consistent ~61% drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets) indicates the GPU is the bottleneck.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s over dual-channel DDR5 is adequate for the game's needs, and the 24 PCIe Gen 5 lanes from the CPU provide ample bandwidth for the GPU's PCIe 4.0 x8 interface. The 120 W TDP is reasonable for a desktop part, and the unlocked multiplier allows for overclocking, though the data does not show any overclocking results. The CPU's PassMark data compression score of 474501 and encryption score of 22856 are strong for an 8-core part, but these are not directly relevant to gaming performance. The passmark physics score of 4171 and find prime numbers score of 435 are more indicative of the CPU's ability to handle complex calculations, which would matter if the game had heavy simulation logic, but the measured FPS data shows the GPU dominates the performance profile.

The CPU's single-thread performance is particularly important for an idle game, which may have a single-threaded main loop for game logic. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2228 and PassMark single-thread score of 4704 are both strong, and the 5.60 GHz boost clock ensures that any single-threaded bottleneck is minimized. The fact that the system achieves 225 FPS at 1080p Low without any indication of a CPU cap (the FPS continues to scale down with resolution) confirms that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration. The CPU's 92nd percentile ranking, combined with the GPU's 65th percentile ranking, clearly identifies the GPU as the component to upgrade if higher frame rates are desired, particularly at 4K Ultra where the system falls to 51 FPS.