To The Core

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for To The Core show a clear hierarchy across the four quality presets, with the gap between Low and Ultra widening as resolution increases. At 1920x1080, the RTX 4060 paired with the Core i5-11400F delivers 311.8 FPS on Low, 264.2 FPS on Medium, 231.7 FPS on High, and 185.6 FPS on Ultra. The step from Medium to High costs roughly 32 FPS, while the jump from High to Ultra costs another 46 FPS — a pattern that suggests diminishing returns at the top end.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with lower absolute numbers: 208.5 FPS on Low, 175.5 FPS on Medium, 152.5 FPS on High, and 125.6 FPS on Ultra. The relative drop from Medium to High is about 13 percent, and from High to Ultra about 18 percent. At 3840x2160, the spread tightens considerably: 117.5 FPS on Low, 99.9 FPS on Medium, 86.5 FPS on High, and 72.8 FPS on Ultra.

The data indicates that High is the optimal preset for most users. It maintains 231.7 FPS at 1080p, which is well above any practical refresh rate, and 152.5 FPS at 1440p — still comfortably smooth. Ultra offers only a modest visual improvement for an 80 FPS penalty at 1080p and a 53 FPS penalty at 1440p. At 4K, High keeps the average above 86 FPS, which is playable, but Medium at 99.9 FPS provides more headroom if you want to avoid dips. For competitive play, Low at 1080p hits 311.8 FPS, but the gap to Medium is only 47.6 FPS, making Medium the better balance of responsiveness and visual quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, with memory running at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective) for 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock sits at 2460 MHz, and the card is built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 18,900 million transistors on a 159 mm² die. The pixel rate is 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate is 236.2 GTexel/s, with FP32 throughput of 15.11 TFLOPS.

In To The Core, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the card is clearly not the bottleneck — even Ultra settings produce 185.6 FPS, which is far beyond what most monitors can display. But at 4K, the workload shifts: Ultra drops to 72.8 FPS, and the gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 44.7 FPS, compared to 126.2 FPS at 1080p. This compression indicates that at 4K, the GPU's shading and memory bandwidth are being taxed more evenly across settings, whereas at lower resolutions the CPU can feed the card fast enough to expose the settings' differences.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 66 places it above most cards, with an average benchmark score of 23181. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6600M at 23321 (0.6 percent faster), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti at 23338 (0.7 percent faster), the Intel Arc B580 at 23021 (0.7 percent slower), and the AMD Radeon 760M at 22999 (0.8 percent slower). For an idle game like To The Core, the 4060's 8 GB frame buffer is sufficient even at 4K Ultra, as the 72.8 FPS result demonstrates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Rocket Lake architecture, built on Intel's 14 nm process. It runs at a base clock of 2.60 GHz with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, and its 65 W TDP makes it a modest power draw for a desktop part. The L3 cache is 12 MB shared, with 512 KB L2 per core and 80 KB L1 per core. Memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel configuration and 51.2 GB/s bandwidth.

In To The Core, the CPU's contribution is most evident at 1080p where frame rates exceed 300 FPS on Low settings. At 311.8 FPS, the CPU is feeding the GPU at a very high rate, which requires strong single-thread performance. The 11400F's single-core 3DMark score is 868, and its Cinebench R23 single-core score is 2029. These numbers are solid for a mid-range part, and they translate into the ability to push high frame rates in a physics-light idle game.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are less critical here. Its 3DMark max-threads score is 5652, and Cinebench R23 multi-core is 14372, but To The Core's workload doesn't appear to scale heavily with thread count — otherwise we'd see a larger FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p. The CPU's percentile of 75 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17181, puts it in the upper quarter. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U at 17189 (0 percent difference), the Intel Core i7-1260P at 17212 (0.2 percent slower), the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U at 17215 (0.2 percent slower), and the Intel Core i5-1240U at 17141 (0.2 percent faster).

At 4K, the CPU's influence fades. The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K on Ultra is from 185.6 to 72.8 — a 60.8 percent reduction — which is far larger than any CPU-related variance. This indicates that at higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the limiting component, while at 1080p the CPU is doing the heavy lifting to maintain triple-digit frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core i5-11400F and RTX 4060 ranks 1022 out of 1756 tested combos in To The Core. This places it in the 58th percentile of all combinations — slightly above the median, but not a top-tier pairing. Given that the CPU sits in the 75th percentile and the GPU in the 66th percentile, the combo ranking is lower than either component's individual standing, which suggests that the pairing is well-matched but the game's idle genre doesn't demand extreme hardware.

The rank of 1022 means there are 734 combos that perform better, many of which likely feature higher-end CPUs or GPUs that push frame rates beyond what this pairing achieves. However, the measured FPS data shows that this combo is far from inadequate. At 1080p Ultra, it produces 185.6 FPS, which is smooth for any display, and at 4K High it still hits 86.5 FPS. The ranking reflects the absolute performance ceiling, not the practical experience.

For context, the GPU's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600M, scores 0.6 percent higher on average benchmarks, and the Intel Arc B580 is 0.7 percent lower. These small deltas mean that swapping the GPU for a close rival would likely shift the combo rank by only a handful of positions. The CPU's rivals are similarly close, with the Ryzen 7 5700U matching it exactly. This combo sits in a dense cluster of mid-range hardware where performance differences are minimal.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck lies at each setting. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (311.8 FPS) to 2560x1440 (208.5 FPS) is a 33 percent drop, and from 1440p to 3840x2160 (117.5 FPS) is a 44 percent drop. At Ultra settings, the drops are 32 percent (185.6 to 125.6) and 42 percent (125.6 to 72.8), respectively. These percentages are remarkably consistent across settings, which indicates that the scaling is driven primarily by resolution — the GPU's pixel throughput — rather than by settings complexity.

The fact that the drop from 1080p to 4K is roughly 60-65 percent at every preset (from 311.8 to 117.5 on Low, from 264.2 to 99.9 on Medium, from 231.7 to 86.5 on High, from 185.6 to 72.8 on Ultra) points to a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. The CPU can maintain high frame rates at 1080p, but as pixel count quadruples, the RTX 4060's 8 GB memory and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth become the limiting factors.

At 4K, even Low settings (117.5 FPS) cannot reach the frame rates that 1080p Ultra achieves (185.6 FPS). This is a clear sign that resolution scaling in To The Core is heavily GPU-bound. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we'd expect the FPS to converge at high resolutions regardless of settings — but instead, the 4K Low to Ultra spread is 44.7 FPS, showing that settings still matter at 4K. The GPU's 128-bit memory bus and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth are the likely constraints at 4K, as the card's compute throughput (15.11 TFLOPS) is substantial for an idle game.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p gaming with this combo?

A: High settings at 2560x1440 produce 152.5 FPS average, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate that most 1440p monitors support. Ultra drops to 125.6 FPS, which is still playable but offers diminishing visual returns for a 27 FPS penalty.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K at playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 4K High, the average FPS is 86.5, which is smooth for an idle game. Medium at 4K gives 99.9 FPS, and Low gives 117.5 FPS. Ultra at 4K drops to 72.8 FPS, which is borderline for some users.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for this game?

A: At 1080p, the CPU is more important — the 311.8 FPS on Low settings shows the Core i5-11400F can feed the GPU at very high rates. At 4K, the GPU dominates, as evidenced by the 60-65 percent FPS drop from 1080p to 4K across all settings.

Q: How does this combo compare to similar hardware in benchmarks?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 23181 puts it 0.6 percent behind the AMD Radeon RX 6600M and 0.7 percent behind the GTX 780 Ti. The CPU's average score of 17181 is exactly matched by the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, with the Intel Core i7-1260P 0.2 percent behind.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average is 185.6 FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings. This is well above the 144 Hz maximum of most gaming monitors, so you have headroom for V-Sync or frame rate limiting.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM limit performance at 4K?

A: The data shows playable frame rates at 4K (86.5 FPS on High), so 8 GB is sufficient for To The Core at this resolution. The GPU's 272.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 128-bit bus are more likely constraints, given the consistent FPS drops at 4K across all settings.