To The Core

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking in To The Core?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 combination ranks 548th out of 1,756 tested combos in this game. That places it in the upper third of all tested configurations, though not at the very top tier.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X averages a benchmark score of 54,450, sitting 0.4% below the Ryzen 9 9900X3D (54,681) and 1.5% below the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K (55,304). It is 0.7% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700F (54,097) and 1.8% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF (55,421 is the rival's score, meaning the 9900X trails by that margin).

Q: What is the GPU's performance percentile?

A: The RTX 3080 sits in the 80th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35,787. Its closest rival is the AMD Radeon Pro Duo at 35,860 (0.2% higher), while the AMD Radeon 880M trails by 0.4%.

Q: What is the best measured FPS at 1080p?

A: The highest 1080p result is 415.7 FPS on Low settings. Medium yields 348.6 FPS, High delivers 302.1 FPS, and Ultra drops to 243.7 FPS.

Q: How does 4K performance compare to 1080p?

A: At 4K Ultra, the combo achieves 92.3 FPS, which is 62.1% lower than the 1080p Ultra result of 243.7 FPS. Even 4K High (117.7 FPS) falls significantly short of 1080p Medium (348.6 FPS).

Q: Is the data measured or estimated?

A: The data is explicitly marked as measured (dataIsMeasured: true), meaning these FPS figures come from actual benchmark runs rather than theoretical calculations.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X brings 12 cores and 24 threads to this idle game, built on the Zen 5 architecture with a 4 nm process. Its base clock of 4.40 GHz boosts up to 5.60 GHz, and the CPU supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration. The 64 MB of shared L3 cache is substantial for an idle title that may not demand heavy cache usage, but the sheer thread count ensures no CPU-bound bottleneck appears at lower resolutions.

The CPU's benchmark profile shows strong multi-threaded capability: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 46,438, while single-core reaches 6,555. Geekbench multicore hits 19,827 and single-core 3,341. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 12,552 and max-thread score of 13,929 indicate that scaling beyond 16 threads still yields gains. For an idle game, single-thread performance often matters more than raw core counts, and the 3DMark single-thread score of 1,286 suggests solid per-core efficiency.

What is curious is how the CPU's 94th percentile ranking (vs all CPUs) translates to game performance. The nearest rival data shows the 9900X within 1.8% of four competitors, meaning the CPU tier is tightly clustered. The 0.4% gap to the 9900X3D is negligible in real terms. Passmark results reinforce this: multithread score of 54,643, single-thread of 4,672, and floating-point math at 120,083. These are strong numbers, but the game's idle genre likely means the CPU is rarely the limiting factor.

The CPU's TDP of 120 W and 16,630 million transistors on a dual-die design (2x 70.6 mm²) suggest efficient power delivery. With PCIe Gen 5 support and 24 lanes, the CPU has ample bandwidth for the GPU. The integrated Radeon Graphics provide a fallback but are irrelevant when a discrete RTX 3080 is present. For a game like To The Core, the 12 cores may be overkill, but they ensure headroom for background tasks or future updates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is built on the Ampere architecture with an 8 nm process from Samsung, featuring 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die. Its 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus delivers 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock of 1440 MHz boosts to 1710 MHz, with memory running at 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective). These specifications place it in the 80th percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU's compute capabilities are substantial: 8,704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. It includes 68 RT cores and 272 tensor cores, supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The FP32 performance of 29.77 TFLOPS matches FP16 at a 1:1 ratio, which is notable for a card of this generation. Pixel rate of 164.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s indicate strong fill-rate capabilities.

In benchmark terms, the RTX 3080 scores 25,086 in Passmark G3D and 14,397 in GPU compute. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,407 shows modern API performance. Vulkan and OpenCL scores of 145,176 and 167,014 respectively suggest the GPU handles diverse workloads well. The nearest rival data shows it within 1% of three competitors, meaning the 3080 sits in a tight performance band.

For To The Core, an idle game, the GPU's 10 GB VRAM may be more than needed, but the 320-bit bus and high bandwidth ensure texture streaming is never a bottleneck. The 80th percentile ranking means this GPU outperforms 80% of all GPUs tested, which is strong for a card from the 30-series generation. The power draw of 320 W with a suggested 700 W PSU indicates this is a power-hungry component, but the performance justifies the requirement.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 548th out of 1,756 tested combinations in To The Core. This places it in the 68.8th percentile of all combos (calculated as 1 - 548/1756). That is a solid position, though not elite — there are 547 combos that perform better. The combination of a 94th percentile CPU and 80th percentile GPU yields a result that is better than either component's individual percentile might suggest, indicating good synergy.

The ranking implies that many other CPU-GPU pairings achieve higher FPS in this game. However, the measured FPS data shows the combo is far from struggling. At 1080p Low, it hits 415.7 FPS — well above any display refresh rate. Even at 4K Ultra, it maintains 92.3 FPS, which is playable for most users. The gap between the 548th rank and the top combos is likely small in absolute FPS terms, given the idle genre's modest demands.

The CPU's nearest rivals all sit within 1.8% of its average score, and the GPU's rivals are within 1%. This suggests that swapping either component for a direct competitor would produce minimal FPS changes. The combo's rank is therefore more a function of the overall pool of tested hardware than of any weakness in this specific pairing. A higher-ranked combo might use a newer GPU or a CPU with more cache, but the data does not show that such changes yield dramatic improvements in this game.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1080p, even Ultra settings deliver 243.7 FPS, which exceeds all but the highest refresh-rate monitors. Low settings reach 415.7 FPS, but this is unnecessary for most displays. Medium at 348.6 FPS and High at 302.1 FPS both offer ample headroom. The best experience at 1080p is likely High settings, balancing visual quality with a massive FPS buffer.

At 1440p, High delivers 202.4 FPS, which is still excellent for high-refresh displays. Medium hits 236.4 FPS, and Low reaches 278.8 FPS. Ultra drops to 162.6 FPS, which remains smooth but uses more GPU resources. For 1440p, High or Medium are the sweet spots, as they stay above 200 FPS while providing good visuals. Ultra is viable but offers diminishing returns for the 40 FPS loss compared to High.

At 4K, the situation changes. High produces 117.7 FPS, Medium 131.7 FPS, and Low 157.3 FPS. Ultra falls to 92.3 FPS, which is still playable but approaches the threshold where frame pacing becomes noticeable. For 4K, Medium appears optimal — it delivers 131.7 FPS, which is 14 FPS higher than High and only 25.6 FPS below Low. The visual uplift from Medium to High costs 14 FPS, while High to Ultra costs 25.4 FPS. Medium offers the best balance of quality and performance at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The data provides 12 measured FPS points across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the progression is: Low 415.7 FPS, Medium 348.6 FPS, High 302.1 FPS, and Ultra 243.7 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 67.1 FPS (16.1% reduction), Medium to High costs 46.5 FPS (13.3% reduction), and High to Ultra costs 58.4 FPS (19.3% reduction). The Ultra penalty is proportionally the largest, suggesting the settings preset adds significant GPU load.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 278.8 FPS, Medium 236.4 FPS, High 202.4 FPS, and Ultra 162.6 FPS. The reductions are 42.4 FPS (15.2%) from Low to Medium, 34 FPS (14.4%) from Medium to High, and 39.8 FPS (19.7%) from High to Ultra. The pattern mirrors 1080p, with Ultra exacting the highest relative penalty. The 1440p numbers are consistently 33-42% lower than their 1080p counterparts, indicating resolution scaling is roughly linear.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 157.3 FPS, Medium 131.7 FPS, High 117.7 FPS, and Ultra 92.3 FPS. The reductions are 25.6 FPS (16.3%) from Low to Medium, 14 FPS (10.6%) from Medium to High, and 25.4 FPS (21.6%) from High to Ultra. The Medium-to-High step is notably smaller at 4K, suggesting the GPU has more headroom at that tier. The 4K numbers are 42-47% lower than 1440p and 62-66% lower than 1080p across settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component. At Low settings, 1080p yields 415.7 FPS, 1440p yields 278.8 FPS (32.9% drop), and 4K yields 157.3 FPS (43.6% drop from 1440p). The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 62.2%. At Ultra settings, 1080p yields 243.7 FPS, 1440p yields 162.6 FPS (33.3% drop), and 4K yields 92.3 FPS (43.2% drop from 1440p). The total reduction is 62.1%.

These percentages are remarkably consistent across settings presets. The 1080p-to-1440p drop of roughly 33% and the 1440p-to-4K drop of roughly 43% suggest the GPU is the primary scaling factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect smaller FPS differences at lower resolutions where CPU load dominates. Instead, the consistent pixel-count-driven reductions indicate the GPU's rendering pipeline is the limiting resource.

The fact that 4K Ultra still achieves 92.3 FPS means the GPU is not overwhelmed — it has enough compute and memory bandwidth to handle the load. The 10 GB VRAM and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for this game at 4K. The CPU, with its 12 cores and high boost clock, never appears to constrain performance, as even at 1080p Low the FPS reaches 415.7 — far beyond what any current display can show.

The scaling pattern implies that users with 1080p or 1440p monitors will see GPU headroom that could be redirected to higher settings. At 4K, the combo is closer to its performance ceiling, but still capable of high refresh rates. The data suggests this pairing is well-balanced for To The Core, with neither component clearly dominating the performance equation.