To The Core

Settings Recommendations

For To The Core, an idle game with unusually high frame rates, the data shows a clear recommendation: Medium settings at any resolution offer the best balance of visual quality and performance headroom. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 467 FPS average, which is 60 FPS higher than High (405 FPS) and 141 FPS higher than Ultra (326 FPS). The jump from Medium to High costs you 62 FPS at 1080p, while the jump from High to Ultra costs another 79 FPS — a steep price for the final tier of visual fidelity.

The Medium preset also shows the only measured frame time variance in the dataset, with a minimum of 397 FPS and maximum of 537 FPS at 1080p. That 140 FPS spread indicates the game is actively loading assets or processing idle-game logic during certain moments, but even the worst-case minimum is far above any display refresh rate currently on the market. At 2560x1440, Medium holds 314 FPS average with a 267 FPS minimum and 361 FPS maximum — still massively overshooting the 144Hz-240Hz displays most gamers use.

Ultra settings are hard to justify from the numbers. At 1920x1080, Ultra drops to 326 FPS average — a 30% reduction from Medium. At 2560x1440, Ultra hits 219 FPS, which is still smooth but begins to approach the territory where a high-refresh monitor might actually notice the difference. At 3840x2160, Ultra falls to 125 FPS average. That is still playable, but it is the only preset/resolution combination where the frame rate drops below the 144 FPS threshold that competitive players often target.

The measured data also reveals that Low settings provide diminishing returns. At 1080p, Low hits 527 FPS average versus 467 FPS on Medium — a 60 FPS gain (12.8%) for what is likely a significant visual downgrade. At 1440p, Low gives 371 FPS versus 314 FPS on Medium, a similar 57 FPS gain. At 4K, Low reaches 212 FPS versus 180 FPS on Medium, a 32 FPS gain. The Medium preset appears to be where the game's visual features actually engage, and the extra frames from Low do not justify losing those features given how far above refresh rates the Medium scores already sit.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing, and the measured FPS data reflects its capabilities. This GPU carries 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, with memory clocked at 1400 MHz (22.4 Gbps effective) for 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The AD103 chip, built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 45,900 million transistors, boosts to 2505 MHz and delivers 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. Its 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are present but largely irrelevant for an idle game like To The Core, which does not appear to leverage ray tracing or DLSS-based features based on the measured frame rates.

The GPU's benchmark profile shows it sits at the 86th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54247. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54209 — a 0.1% delta that places the standard 4080 essentially at parity with its SUPER variant. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54828 (1.1% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55698 (2.6% higher). These deltas are within noise for most workloads, but the 4080's 16 GB frame buffer gives it a capacity advantage over the 12 GB RX 6750 GRE that could matter in future titles — though not in To The Core, where even the 4K Ultra preset only produces 125 FPS average, suggesting the game is not VRAM-limited in any measurable way.

The GPU's role in To The Core is best understood through the scaling pattern across resolutions. At 1080p, the RTX 4080 produces 527 FPS on Low settings. At 1440p, that drops to 371 FPS (a 29.6% reduction). At 4K, it drops further to 212 FPS (a 42.9% reduction from 1440p). This scaling is roughly proportional to pixel count — 1440p has 1.78x the pixels of 1080p, and 4K has 2.25x the pixels of 1440p — which indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The fact that the game still produces 125 FPS at 4K Ultra with this GPU speaks to the title's modest graphical demands. The RTX 4080 is overkill for To The Core at 1080p, where the CPU is likely limiting performance, but it becomes the clear limiting factor as resolution climbs.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor from the Alder Lake-S family, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It runs at a 3.30 GHz base clock and boosts to 4.30 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 80 KB L1 plus 1.25 MB L2 per core. Despite its modest core count, the CPU's benchmark scores are respectable: it sits at the 68th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 13494. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core 3 N355 at 13492 (0% delta), the Intel Core i5-9500 at 13452 (0.3% higher), and the Intel Core 5 120UL at 13594 (0.7% lower).

The CPU's single-thread performance is its strength. It scores 893 in 3dmark single-thread, 1674 in Cinebench R23 single-core, and 3444 in Passmark single-thread. Multi-threaded scores are predictably lower for a 4-core part: Cinebench R23 multicore hits 11860, and Passmark multithread reaches 14015. The gap between single-thread and multi-thread performance is narrow — 3dmark 16-thread scores 4051 versus 4023 for max threads, indicating the chip cannot meaningfully scale beyond its 8 threads. This matters for To The Core because idle games typically rely heavily on single-threaded logic processing rather than parallel workloads.

The CPU's role in this game is most visible at 1080p, where the RTX 4080 is capable of producing frame rates well above 500 FPS. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo hits 527 FPS average. This number is likely constrained by the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and game state updates. The 4.30 GHz boost clock and strong single-thread scores suggest the i3-12100F is doing its job, but 4 cores are fundamentally limited for high-FPS scenarios. The measured data shows that at 1080p Medium, the frame rate swings between 397 and 537 FPS — a 140 FPS variance that points to CPU-bound spikes where the processor's 8 threads become saturated.

The CPU's 58W TDP and 163 mm² die size indicate a power-efficient part, but its benchmark deltas against rivals tell the story: the i3-12100F trades blows with the Intel Core 3 N355 and i5-9500, both of which are older or lower-tier designs. For To The Core, the CPU is not the bottleneck at 4K — the GPU takes over that role — but at 1080p, the CPU's 4 cores are the ceiling. The 3dmark 2-thread score of 1659 versus the 4-thread score of 2859 shows that the chip scales reasonably up to 4 threads, but the 8-thread score of 4026 is nearly identical to the max-thread score of 4023, confirming that additional threads beyond 8 provide no benefit.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 144Hz monitor?

A: At 1440p, Medium settings produce 314 FPS average with a 267 FPS minimum, which is nearly double the 144Hz refresh rate. Even Ultra at 1440p hits 219 FPS average. At 4K, Medium drops to 180 FPS average with a 153 FPS minimum, which still exceeds 144Hz, but Ultra at 4K falls to 125 FPS average and would not saturate a 144Hz display.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 overkill for this game?

A: The data suggests yes for most resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 527 FPS average, and at 1440p Low it hits 371 FPS. The GPU is only pushed to its limits at 4K Ultra, where it delivers 125 FPS average. Given that the RTX 4080 sits at the 86th percentile of all GPUs, this is an extremely high-end card for a game that runs at hundreds of frames per second on lower presets.

Q: Which component limits performance at 1080p?

A: The CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p. The i3-12100F's 4 cores and 8 threads produce a 3dmark max-thread score of 4023, and the 1080p frame rates (527 FPS Low, 467 FPS Medium) are likely capped by the CPU's ability to process game logic. The GPU's benchmark scores — 34457 in Passmark G3D and 54247 average — are far higher than what the CPU can feed at low resolutions.

Q: Does the game benefit from the GPU's 16 GB of VRAM?

A: The measured data does not indicate VRAM limitations at any preset. The 4K Ultra preset produces 125 FPS average, and no resolution or settings combination shows frame rates collapsing in a way that suggests memory capacity issues. The 16 GB GDDR6X with 716.8 GB/s bandwidth is far more than To The Core appears to require.

Q: How does the i3-12100F compare to its closest rivals?

A: The i3-12100F's average benchmark score of 13494 is essentially tied with the Intel Core 3 N355 at 13492 (0% delta). It sits 0.3% below the Intel Core i5-9500 (13452) and 0.7% above the Intel Core 5 120UL (13594). The Intel Core i7-1250U scores 13351, putting the i3-12100F 1.1% higher. These are all within a 2% band, meaning the CPU's performance is competitive with its price-adjacent peers.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 4K with this combo?

A: The measured data shows 212 FPS on Low, 180 FPS on Medium (with a 153 FPS minimum), 156 FPS on High, and 125 FPS on Ultra at 3840x2160. All presets except Ultra exceed 144Hz, and even Ultra remains above 120Hz, making 4K gaming viable across the entire settings range.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear transition from CPU-bound to GPU-bound performance. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 527 FPS average. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 371 FPS — a 156 FPS reduction (29.6%). Moving from 1440p to 4K Low drops it further to 212 FPS — a 159 FPS reduction (42.9%). The percentage drops are not perfectly proportional to pixel count, but they are close enough to indicate GPU scaling is the dominant factor at these resolutions.

The Medium preset shows a similar pattern: 467 FPS at 1080p, 314 FPS at 1440p (a 32.8% drop), and 180 FPS at 4K (a 42.7% drop from 1440p). High settings follow: 405 FPS at 1080p, 272 FPS at 1440p (32.8% drop), and 156 FPS at 4K (42.6% drop). Ultra settings: 326 FPS at 1080p, 219 FPS at 1440p (32.8% drop), and 125 FPS at 4K (42.9% drop). The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings presets — roughly 33% from 1080p to 1440p and 43% from 1440p to 4K — strongly suggests the RTX 4080 is the limiting component at 1440p and above.

At 1080p, however, the scaling pattern breaks down. If the GPU were the sole bottleneck, the 1080p-to-1440p drop should be larger than the 1440p-to-4K drop in absolute terms, but the absolute FPS losses are nearly identical (156 FPS versus 159 FPS for Low). This indicates the CPU is partially limiting at 1080p, preventing the GPU from reaching its full potential. The i3-12100F's 4 cores simply cannot sustain frame rates much above 500 FPS in this title, so the GPU is left with unused headroom at 1080p. The practical takeaway: if you own a 1080p high-refresh monitor, the CPU will hold you back; at 1440p or 4K, the GPU becomes the primary constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 527 FPS average
• Medium: 467 FPS average, 397 FPS minimum, 537 FPS maximum
• High: 405 FPS average
• Ultra: 326 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 371 FPS average
• Medium: 314 FPS average, 267 FPS minimum, 361 FPS maximum
• High: 272 FPS average
• Ultra: 219 FPS average

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 212 FPS average
• Medium: 180 FPS average, 153 FPS minimum, 207 FPS maximum
• High: 156 FPS average
• Ultra: 125 FPS average

The Medium preset is the only one with measured minimum and maximum values across all resolutions, providing insight into frame pacing. At 1080p, the spread between minimum and maximum is 140 FPS (397 to 537). At 1440p, the spread narrows to 94 FPS (267 to 361). At 4K, the spread is 54 FPS (153 to 207). This tightening of frame variance as resolution increases further confirms that the CPU introduces frame time spikes at lower resolutions where it is stressed, while the GPU's consistent workload at higher resolutions smooths out the frame delivery.

The Ultra preset consistently delivers roughly 62-63% of the Low preset's frame rate at every resolution: 326/527 = 61.9% at 1080p, 219/371 = 59.0% at 1440p, and 125/212 = 59.0% at 4K. This consistent ratio suggests Ultra settings impose a fixed rendering cost that scales linearly with resolution. The High preset sits between Medium and Ultra, delivering 405 FPS at 1080p (86.7% of Medium), 272 FPS at 1440p (86.6% of Medium), and 156 FPS at 4K (86.7% of Medium). The uniformity of these ratios across resolutions confirms the GPU is handling the settings overhead consistently.

For the combo's overall standing, this pairing ranks 305th out of 3725 combos tested in To The Core, placing it in the top 8.2% of all tested configurations. The data is measured, not estimated, which lends confidence to the frame rates. Given that the RTX 4080 is end-of-life production status and the i3-12100F remains active, this pairing represents a high-end GPU with a mid-range CPU. The measured results show the combination is capable of maxing out virtually any display on the market at 1440p, and only 4K Ultra falls below 144 FPS — a scenario where the 125 FPS average is still smooth for the vast majority of gaming scenarios.