To The Core

This analysis examines the performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 in the idle game To The Core. The data presented is based on measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets, providing a clear picture of how this high-end combination handles the title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data for To The Core reveals a clear hierarchy across the four available presets at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 613.6 FPS for Low, 515.7 FPS for Medium, 449 FPS for High, and 358.8 FPS for Ultra. The step from Low to Medium costs roughly 98 FPS, while the jump from High to Ultra costs about 90 FPS, indicating a consistent performance scaling with each tier.

At 2560x1440, the pattern remains similar but with a narrower spread. The Low preset delivers 413.8 FPS, Medium drops to 347.4 FPS, High offers 304.3 FPS, and Ultra settles at 242.8 FPS. The differences between adjacent presets are roughly 66, 43, and 62 FPS respectively, suggesting that the GPU still has ample headroom to handle the increased pixel count without a disproportionate penalty.

Moving to 3840x2160, the frame rates compress further. Low produces 234 FPS, Medium yields 200.9 FPS, High reaches 170.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 138.1 FPS. Here, the gaps between presets are 33, 31, and 32 FPS, showing a remarkably linear relationship between quality level and performance. This consistency across resolutions suggests that the game's rendering load scales predictably with both settings and pixel count.

For the best experience, the High preset appears to be the optimal choice at all three resolutions. At 4K, High still delivers 170.3 FPS, which is far beyond the refresh rate of most displays. The Ultra preset, while providing the highest visual fidelity, only costs about 32 FPS compared to High at 4K, but the relative gain in visual quality for an idle game may not justify the drop from 170.3 to 138.1 FPS. The data indicates that High offers the best balance, as it maintains a substantial frame rate advantage over Ultra while only sacrificing a modest amount of visual detail.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its benchmark scores show strong single-thread performance with a PassMark single-thread score of 4238 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6168. In multithreaded workloads, it achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 43695 and a PassMark multithread score of 51406.

Given that To The Core is an idle game, the CPU's role is likely minimal in determining the final frame rates. The data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the combo reaches 613.6 FPS, which confirms the CPU's ability to feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck. The processor's high single-thread performance, indicated by its 3DMark single-thread score of 1093, is particularly relevant for games that rely on a single primary simulation thread.

The Ryzen 9 7900X's 64 MB of shared L3 cache and 24 threads provide ample resources for background tasks and game logic, but the measured FPS patterns suggest that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this title. Even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains 138.1 FPS, which is well above playable thresholds. The CPU's percentile rank of 93 among all CPUs further reinforces that it is a top-tier performer, but the game's idle nature means that even a mid-range processor could likely achieve similar results.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the flagship of the GeForce 40-series, featuring the AD102 chip with 16,384 shading units and 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. Its boost clock is 2520 MHz, and it holds a percentile rank of 91 among all GPUs. The PassMark G3D score for this card is 38194, with a GPU compute score of 26613.

In To The Core, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. The frame rate drop from 1080p to 1440p is substantial, with the High preset falling from 449 FPS to 304.3 FPS, a decrease of 144.7 FPS. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the High preset drops further to 170.3 FPS, a reduction of 134 FPS. This scaling indicates that the GPU is the primary driver of performance, as the pixel count directly impacts the rendering workload.

The RTX 4090's massive memory bandwidth and 24 GB of VRAM are more than sufficient for an idle game, which likely has modest texture and geometry demands. The card's raw compute power, evidenced by its 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 performance, ensures that even at 4K Ultra, the system never dips below 138.1 FPS. The GPU's average benchmark score of 66473 places it far ahead of most competitors, and its nearest rivals are professional-grade cards like the NVIDIA Tesla T4 and Quadro P6000, which are not designed for consumer gaming.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a combo rank of 38 out of 1756 tested combinations in To The Core. This places the pairing in the top 2.2 percent of all systems tested, which is an exceptional result. The high rank is likely driven by the RTX 4090's dominance in GPU-bound scenarios, as the game's performance scales heavily with resolution.

The CPU's individual performance is closely matched with its nearest rivals. The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 scores 50598 with a delta of -0.1 percent, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT scores 50738 with a delta of -0.4 percent, and the Intel Core i7-13850HX scores 50827 with a delta of -0.5 percent. The Ryzen 9 7900X's average benchmark score of 50556 is within 1 percent of all these processors, indicating that CPU choice has minimal impact on the final ranking in this game.

The GPU's nearest rivals are less relevant for gaming. The NVIDIA Tesla T4 has an average score of 66733 with a delta of -0.4 percent, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 scores 67097 with a delta of -0.9 percent. These cards are workstation-focused and lack the gaming-specific optimizations of the RTX 4090. The fact that this combo ranks 38th overall suggests that the RTX 4090 is the dominant factor in achieving such a high position, as the CPU is statistically equivalent to many other options.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 613.6 FPS, which drops to 413.8 FPS at 1440p and 234 FPS at 4K. This represents a 32.6 percent decrease from 1080p to 1440p, and a 43.4 percent decrease from 1440p to 4K. The percentage drop is larger at higher resolutions, which is typical of GPU-bound scenarios.

For the Ultra preset, the scaling is similar: 358.8 FPS at 1080p, 242.8 FPS at 1440p, and 138.1 FPS at 4K. The drops are 32.3 percent and 43.1 percent respectively, matching the Low preset's pattern almost exactly. This consistency suggests that the game's rendering pipeline scales uniformly with resolution, regardless of quality settings.

The data strongly indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions. The RTX 4090's performance at 4K is nearly half of its 1080p performance, which is expected given the fourfold increase in pixel count. However, the CPU's influence is still visible at 1080p, where the frame rates exceed 600 FPS, suggesting that the processor can keep up with even the fastest GPU. The fact that the frame rates do not plateau at 1080p indicates that both components have headroom, but the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases.

FAQ

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

A: All three resolutions produce playable frame rates, with 4K High delivering 170.3 FPS. If a high refresh rate monitor is used, 1440p High at 304.3 FPS offers the best balance of visual quality and speed.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 7900X compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 7900X has an average benchmark score of 50556, which is 0.1 percent lower than the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and 0.4 percent lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT. These differences are negligible for gaming.

Q: Does the RTX 4090 bottleneck the CPU in this game?

A: At 1080p Low, the system reaches 613.6 FPS, indicating the CPU can handle high frame rates. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 138.1 FPS, showing the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth the performance cost?

A: At 4K, Ultra delivers 138.1 FPS compared to High's 170.3 FPS, a 32.2 FPS difference. For an idle game, the visual upgrade may not justify the 19 percent performance drop.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested systems?

A: This pairing ranks 38th out of 1756 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2.2 percent of all systems tested for To The Core.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4090 have and is it sufficient?

A: The RTX 4090 has 24 GB of GDDR6X memory with a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. This is more than sufficient for an idle game, which typically has low VRAM demands.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average frame rates across presets are as follows: Low delivers 613.6 FPS, Medium reaches 515.7 FPS, High achieves 449 FPS, and Ultra produces 358.8 FPS. The lowest frame rate at this resolution is 358.8 FPS on Ultra, which is still exceptionally smooth.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low yields 413.8 FPS, Medium drops to 347.4 FPS, High settles at 304.3 FPS, and Ultra provides 242.8 FPS. Every preset remains above the 240 FPS threshold, making this resolution ideal for high refresh rate displays.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are more moderate but still impressive. Low produces 234 FPS, Medium achieves 200.9 FPS, High reaches 170.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 138.1 FPS. Even the most demanding settings maintain a frame rate above 120 FPS, ensuring a smooth experience on 4K displays. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 95.9 FPS, showing that the RTX 4090 has enough headroom to handle the full range of quality settings without compromising playability.