To The Core

Intel Core i5-12400F meets NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 in To The Core, an idle game that pushes frame rates to extremes. The pairing lands at rank 58 out of 1756 tested combos, placing it in the top 3.3% of all configurations. Across twelve measured data points—three resolutions and four quality presets—the combo never drops below 137.1 FPS, with the 1080p Low setting peaking at 533.6 FPS. These numbers reveal a system with massive headroom, but the scaling pattern between resolutions and settings exposes where the bottleneck actually lives.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread Alder Lake-S part built on Intel's 10 nm process. It runs at a 2.50 GHz base clock and boosts to 4.40 GHz. This is a locked multiplier chip, so boost behavior is fixed by the silicon, not user tuning. Cache is substantial: 80 KB L1 per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and 18 MB of shared L3. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus, and its PCIe Gen 5 interface provides 20 lanes from the CPU itself.

For To The Core, the CPU's thread throughput is the key factor. The 3DMark multi-thread score hits 5912 at max threads, which is nearly identical to the 5895 at 16 threads—indicating that 12 threads are fully saturated and adding more wouldn't help. Single-thread performance is solid at 909 in 3DMark and 3481 in PassMark's single-thread test. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16518 shows strong all-core capability, while the single-core score of 2332 confirms that per-thread speed is adequate for game logic.

The CPU's percentile rank vs all processors is 77, meaning it outperforms 77% of CPUs tracked. Its average benchmark score of 19221 puts it in a tight pack: it is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-1335U, while sitting 0.7% behind the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS and 1.3% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7773X. These deltas are tiny, so the i5-12400F sits squarely in a performance cluster rather than standing out.

In To The Core, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU without becoming a constraint. At 1080p High, the combo produces 450.4 FPS, which is a massive load for any CPU to generate. The fact that the 1080p Low setting hits 533.6 FPS—the highest recorded frame rate—suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor at lower settings, since the GPU is being asked to do less work and frame rates still rise. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz, combined with the 6-core/12-thread layout, provides enough single-thread and multi-thread muscle to keep up with the RTX 4090's output.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the AD102 chip using TSMC's 5 nm process, packing 76,300 million transistors into a 609 mm² die. It runs at a 2235 MHz base clock and boosts to 2520 MHz. Memory is 24 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, with 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores. Its compute output is 82.58 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16.

The GPU's percentile rank vs all GPUs is 91, meaning it outperforms 91% of GPUs tracked. Its average benchmark score of 66473 places it near some surprising rivals: it is 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla T4, 0.5% behind the NVIDIA Tesla P40, 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56, and 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro P6000. These are workstation and datacenter cards, which highlights that the RTX 4090's raw compute is comparable to enterprise parts, though its gaming-focused features differ.

In To The Core, the GPU's VRAM and bandwidth are abundant. The game is an idle title, so it likely doesn't stress the 24 GB frame buffer, but the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and resolution scaling are never constrained by memory throughput. The 4K Ultra setting yields 137.1 FPS, which is the lowest recorded value but still far above typical display refresh rates. The GPU's 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are irrelevant for this genre, but the sheer fill rate—443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate—ensures that even the heaviest quality preset is handled with ease.

The GPU's end-of-life production status and 450 W TDP suggest it is a power-hungry but mature part. Its 1x 16-pin power connector and 850 W suggested PSU indicate that system builders need robust power delivery, but the performance data shows that the RTX 4090 is overkill for this title. The bottleneck is not the GPU; it is the CPU's ability to issue draw calls fast enough.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo in To The Core?*

A: The highest average FPS is 533.6, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 504.8 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 450.4 FPS at 1080p High.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores?

A: The i5-12400F's average score of 19221 is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-1335U. It trails the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS by 0.7% and leads the AMD EPYC 7773X by 1.3%.

*Q: What is the lowest frame rate this combo produces in To The Core, and at what settings?*

A: The lowest average FPS is 137.1, recorded at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. For comparison, 4K High yields 170.7 FPS and 4K Medium yields 198.5 FPS.

Q: How does the GPU's benchmark score compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 4090's average score of 66473 is 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla T4 and 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56. It sits 0.5% behind the NVIDIA Tesla P40 and 1.3% behind the NVIDIA Quadro P6000.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more at 1080p Low settings?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo hits 533.6 FPS, which is the highest recorded value. Since the GPU is doing minimal work at Low settings, this frame rate indicates the CPU is the limiting factor at this setting, but it still delivers over 500 FPS.

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

A: The combo ranks 58th out of 1756 tested combinations, placing it in the top 3.3% of all configurations tested in To The Core.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo holds rank 58 out of 1756 tested combos, which is an elite standing. To put this in perspective, only 57 other CPU-GPU pairings out of nearly two thousand achieve higher average frame rates in To The Core. This rank reflects the RTX 4090's dominance as a GPU, since the i5-12400F is a mid-range CPU by current standards—its 77th percentile rank among CPUs is respectable but not top-tier.

The gap between the CPU's 77th percentile and the GPU's 91st percentile reveals an imbalanced pairing. The GPU is the stronger component, and the combo's high rank is largely attributable to the RTX 4090's raw power. The CPU's percentile places it in the upper quartile, but the GPU's percentile places it in the top decile. This mismatch shows up in the frame rate data: the combo delivers playable frame rates even at 4K Ultra, but the CPU's 6-core/12-thread configuration means it cannot fully exploit the GPU's potential at lower resolutions where the CPU becomes the bottleneck.

The nearest rival combos in the benchmark database would likely feature similar high-end GPUs paired with stronger CPUs. The i5-12400F's benchmark score of 19221 is within 1.3% of its nearest rivals, so the CPU is not a standout performer. However, the combo's rank of 58 suggests that the RTX 4090 compensates for the CPU's mid-range status, pulling the overall performance into the top percentile.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a clear pattern of GPU-bound behavior at higher resolutions and CPU-bound behavior at lower resolutions. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 450.4 FPS. Moving to 1440p High drops that to 299.7 FPS, a reduction of 150.7 FPS (33.5%). At 4K High, the frame rate falls to 170.7 FPS, another drop of 129.0 FPS (43.0%). The resolution scaling is substantial, indicating that the GPU's workload increases significantly with pixel count.

The Low settings tell a similar story but with higher absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 533.6 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 413.6 FPS, a 120.0 FPS reduction. At 4K Low, it falls to 232.9 FPS, a 180.7 FPS drop from 1440p. The 4K Low figure is notably lower than the 1080p Low figure, which confirms that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions, even with minimal graphical load.

The Ultra settings show the steepest scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 359.3 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 244.6 FPS, a 114.7 FPS reduction. At 4K Ultra, it falls to 137.1 FPS, a 107.5 FPS further drop. The 4K Ultra figure is the lowest of all twelve measurements, and it represents a 59.6% reduction from 1080p Ultra. This indicates that the GPU's fill rate and bandwidth are being taxed heavily at 4K Ultra, but the frame rate remains far above playable thresholds.

The pattern across all settings reveals that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p Low, where the GPU is underutilized and the frame rate is capped by the CPU's ability to process game logic. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the frame rate scaling reflects the GPU's workload. The 4K Ultra result of 137.1 FPS shows that even a top-tier GPU like the RTX 4090 cannot maintain the same frame rates at maximum resolution that it achieves at lower settings, but it also shows that this combo has no performance issues in To The Core at any tested configuration.