To The Core

Settings Recommendations

For To The Core, the measured data reveals a clear performance hierarchy across the four preset tiers. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 391.7 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset. Moving to Medium drops performance to 365.8 FPS, a reduction of 25.9 FPS, while High yields 351.3 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p produces 320.5 FPS, which remains exceptionally smooth but represents a 71.2 FPS deficit compared to Low.

The scaling pattern at 2560x1440 follows the same ordering: Low achieves 341.5 FPS, Medium 312.5 FPS, High 271.7 FPS, and Ultra 219.3 FPS. At 3840x2160, the spread narrows in absolute terms but remains proportionally significant: Low hits 213.9 FPS, Medium 179.8 FPS, High 154.3 FPS, and Ultra 123 FPS.

The ideal preset depends on the target display refresh rate. For 1080p panels, even the Ultra preset at 320.5 FPS exceeds the capabilities of all but the most extreme high-refresh displays, so the choice between presets should prioritize visual fidelity. However, the data suggests that the High preset at 1080p (351.3 FPS) offers a balanced compromise: it sits 45.2 FPS below Medium but 30.8 FPS above Ultra, indicating diminishing returns beyond High. At 1440p, the High preset's 271.7 FPS remains above 240 Hz thresholds, while Ultra at 219.3 FPS still clears 200 FPS. For 4K, the Medium preset at 179.8 FPS provides a solid floor for high-refresh 4K panels, though users with 120 Hz displays could comfortably use Ultra at 123 FPS. The largest relative jump occurs between Ultra and High at 4K, where High delivers 31.3 FPS more, making High the recommended preset for 4K gaming if visual quality is secondary to frame rate stability.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications align closely with the observed frame rates. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. Its base clock is 2295 MHz with a boost clock of 2550 MHz, and the memory operates at 1438 MHz with 23 Gbps effective speed. The AD103 chip, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, contains 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die.

The GPU's benchmark scores contextualize its performance tier. Its PassMark G3D score is 34245, and its average benchmark score across all tests is 53610. The percentileVsAllGpus value of 88 places it in the upper echelon of tested graphics cards. Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4080 SUPER leads the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT by 0.2% (53489 average score), the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 0.4% (53414), the AMD Radeon RX 7700S by 2.1% (52505), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti by 2.9% (52086). These deltas are modest, indicating that the RTX 4080 SUPER sits at the top of a tightly clustered performance group.

In To The Core, an idle game, the GPU's massive compute resources—10240 shading units, 320 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 80 RT cores, and 320 tensor cores—translate into frame rates that are rarely constrained by graphics processing. The FP32 throughput of 52.22 TFLOPS and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s suggest the GPU is vastly overprovisioned for this workload. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is far beyond what an idle game would require at any resolution, meaning memory capacity is not a limiting factor. The high memory bandwidth does help maintain consistent frame pacing at 4K, where the data shows a drop from 213.9 FPS at Low to 123 FPS at Ultra, a 90.9 FPS swing that reflects the GPU's ability to handle increased shading and texture loads without hitting VRAM ceilings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how the system scales across the three tested resolutions. At the Low preset, performance drops from 391.7 FPS at 1080p to 341.5 FPS at 1440p (a 50.2 FPS reduction) and then to 213.9 FPS at 4K (a further 127.6 FPS drop). The total decline from 1080p to 4K at Low is 177.8 FPS, representing a 45.4% reduction. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, where the RTX 4080 SUPER's rendering workload increases with pixel count.

At the Ultra preset, the same resolutions yield 320.5 FPS at 1080p, 219.3 FPS at 1440p, and 123 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 101.2 FPS, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is 96.3 FPS. The Ultra preset exhibits a steeper initial decline than Low, suggesting that the combination of higher resolution and more demanding settings amplifies the GPU's workload more aggressively. The 4K Ultra result of 123 FPS is the lowest measured value in the entire dataset.

The scaling behavior indicates that the limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the frame rates across all presets (320.5 to 391.7 FPS) are so high that the CPU may begin to introduce bottlenecks, particularly given the Intel Core i5-10400F's 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The relatively small spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p (71.2 FPS) compared to 4K (90.9 FPS) supports this interpretation: at 1080p, the CPU's instruction throughput limits how much the GPU can stretch, while at 4K, the GPU's pixel processing becomes the primary constraint. The data shows a consistent pattern where each resolution increase produces a larger absolute FPS penalty at higher presets, confirming that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the performance driver once pixel counts rise.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database for To The Core, this specific combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 280th out of 1756 tested combos. This places the pairing in the top 15.9% of all configurations, a strong showing given that the CPU is a mid-range 10th-generation part while the GPU is a high-end 40-series card.

The combo rank reflects the asymmetric nature of the pairing. The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 88 is substantially higher than the CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 73. The CPU's average benchmark score is 14168, while the GPU's is 53610. In the context of an idle game like To The Core, where the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (123 FPS) still exceeds typical display refresh rates, the combination delivers more than adequate performance. The rank of 280 suggests that many combos with newer or higher-tier CPUs achieve better results, but the data indicates that the RTX 4080 SUPER compensates for the CPU's mid-range standing.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its contribution. The AMD EPYC 7552 scores 14115 (0.4% lower), the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C scores 14277 (0.8% higher), the Intel Core i5-8500 scores 14332 (1.1% higher), and the AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 scores 14336 (1.2% higher). These deltas are all within 1.2%, meaning the i5-10400F performs nearly identically to these alternatives in general benchmarks. For To The Core, this means the CPU is not a differentiator among similar parts; the GPU's dominance in the measured FPS results is what boosts this combo to its 280th position.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process at Intel. It operates with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel configuration, providing a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. The CPU connects via PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes.

The CPU's benchmark scores show a balanced multi-threaded profile. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 10297, while the single-core score is 1453. The Geekbench multicore result is 5783, with a single-core score of 1454. PassMark multithread yields 12115, and the single-thread score is 2541. The 3DMark tests reveal scaling from 1350 (2 threads) to 4748 (16 threads), with a max-thread score of 4735. These figures place the CPU at the 73rd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168.

In To The Core, the CPU's role is secondary but not negligible. An idle game typically has modest CPU demands, and the measured FPS at 1080p—which exceeds 320 FPS even on Ultra—suggests the i5-10400F can feed the RTX 4080 SUPER adequately at lower resolutions. However, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads, combined with its 14 nm process and DDR4 memory support, represent a potential constraint at extreme frame rates. The passmark find prime numbers score of 35 and data encryption score of 4100 indicate modest integer and encryption performance, but these are unlikely to impact an idle game's workload.

The data shows that at 1080p, the FPS differences between Low (391.7) and Ultra (320.5) are 71.2 FPS, while at 4K the same preset gap is 90.9 FPS. This inversion—where the preset gap grows with resolution—suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at 1080p, otherwise the gap would compress as the GPU becomes more loaded. Instead, the GPU's raw throughput dominates, with the CPU providing sufficient single-thread performance (Cinebench R15 single-core score of 146, PassMark single-thread of 2541) to avoid major frame pacing issues. The CPU's 12 threads and 12 MB L3 cache are adequate for the game's threading model, and its boost clock of 4.30 GHz ensures responsive single-threaded execution. Overall, the i5-10400F plays a supporting role, enabling the RTX 4080 SUPER to deliver the high frame rates recorded, while the GPU remains the definitive performance driver in this pairing.