To The Core

# To The Core with Intel Core i5-12400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 produces a striking performance profile in To The Core, an idle game that scales dramatically with both resolution and settings. The measured data reveals a system capable of triple-digit frame rates at every resolution tested, with the 1080p Low preset reaching 535 FPS average. This pairing sits at rank 129 out of 3725 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top 3.5% of all configurations evaluated. The benchmark results show a clear pattern: this system delivers playable frame rates far beyond display refresh rate capabilities at mainstream resolutions, while 4K Ultra remains the only configuration that drops below 150 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior in To The Core reveals a system that remains GPU-bound at 4K but transitions toward CPU limitations at lower resolutions. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average frame rate drops from 458 FPS to 308 FPS, a reduction of 150 FPS or approximately 33%. Continuing to 3840x2160 High, the average falls further to 176 FPS, representing another 132 FPS decline (43% reduction from 1440p). This scaling pattern—roughly 33% loss from 1080p to 1440p and 43% loss from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the frame rate decreases proportionally with pixel count increases.

At Low settings, the resolution scaling becomes even more pronounced. The 1920x1080 Low average of 535 FPS drops to 420 FPS at 2560x1440 Low (a 21.5% reduction) and then to 240 FPS at 3840x2160 Low (a 42.9% reduction from 1440p). The diminishing returns at 1080p Low, where the frame rate barely increases from the Medium preset's 504 FPS, suggest that the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are approaching their throughput ceiling around 500-535 FPS. The 535 FPS figure at 1080p Low versus 504 FPS at 1080p Medium indicates only a 6.1% gain from lowering settings, while the 4K Low to 4K Medium gap shows a 15.4% difference (240 FPS to 203 FPS), confirming the GPU becomes more relevant as resolution climbs.

The Ultra preset scaling shows the steepest resolution penalties. At 1920x1080 Ultra, the average is 369 FPS; at 2560x1440 Ultra, it falls to 248 FPS (32.8% reduction); and at 3840x2160 Ultra, it reaches 142 FPS (42.7% reduction from 1440p). The 4K Ultra result of 142 FPS represents the only measured configuration below the 144 FPS threshold commonly associated with high-refresh displays. The consistent ~33% and ~43% reductions across all settings presets indicate that To The Core's resolution scaling follows predictable fill-rate and shading-load patterns, with the RTX 5090's 32 GB GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth providing ample headroom even at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data supports Ultra settings at 1080p and 1440p as the optimal experience for this combination, while 4K users should consider High as the best balance. At 1920x1080, Ultra delivers 369 FPS average, which is 80 FPS higher than the High preset's 458 FPS would suggest if one prioritizes maximum visual quality—but the raw numbers show Ultra still maintains well above 300 FPS, making it the clear choice for 1080p displays. The 1080p Medium preset produces 504 FPS average, but the jump to Ultra only costs 135 FPS (26.8% reduction) while providing the full visual feature set. Given that even the lowest 1080p result (Ultra at 369 FPS) exceeds any current display refresh rate, there is no reason to compromise on settings at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 248 FPS, which remains comfortably above 240 Hz refresh rate displays. The Medium preset at this resolution delivers 355 FPS average with a minimum of 302 FPS, but the Ultra setting's 248 FPS average is still sufficient for the fastest gaming monitors. The High preset at 1440p (308 FPS average) sits between Medium and Ultra, but the data shows the visual quality jump from High to Ultra is worth the 60 FPS cost when the result still exceeds 240 FPS. For users with 144 Hz or 165 Hz displays, even the 4K High preset (176 FPS average) exceeds display capability, making 4K High the recommended configuration for 4K monitors.

At 3840x2160, the choice becomes more nuanced. Ultra averages 142 FPS, which falls below the 144 Hz threshold but remains playable on 120 Hz displays. High at 4K averages 176 FPS, providing a 24% performance uplift over Ultra while still delivering substantial visual quality. The data suggests that 4K Ultra is only appropriate for users with 120 Hz displays who prioritize image quality over frame rate headroom. The 4K Medium preset (203 FPS average) offers a 43% improvement over Ultra, but the visual degradation from High to Medium is typically more noticeable than from Ultra to High, making High the best compromise at 4K. The minimum measured frame rate in the entire dataset is 173 FPS at 4K Medium, indicating that even the most demanding configurations maintain smooth performance without severe frame-time spikes.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate measured for this combination?

A: The highest measured average is 535 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The 1080p Medium preset trails at 504 FPS, while 1080p High reaches 458 FPS and 1080p Ultra achieves 369 FPS.

Q: Does this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra in To The Core?

A: Yes, with substantial headroom. The 3840x2160 Ultra preset averages 142 FPS, which is more than double the 60 FPS threshold. The lowest average across all measured configurations is 142 FPS (4K Ultra), and the only recorded minimum frame rate is 173 FPS at 4K Medium.

Q: How does the 1440p Medium preset compare to 4K High in terms of frame rate?

A: The 2560x1440 Medium preset averages 355 FPS with a minimum of 302 FPS, while 3840x2160 High averages 176 FPS. The 1440p Medium result is 102% higher than 4K High, demonstrating a significant frame rate advantage at the lower resolution with medium visual settings.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low averages 535 FPS while Ultra averages 369 FPS. This represents a 166 FPS difference (31% reduction from Low to Ultra). The gap narrows at higher resolutions: 180 FPS at 1440p (420 to 248) and 98 FPS at 4K (240 to 142).

Q: Is this combination more CPU-limited or GPU-limited in To The Core?

A: The data indicates CPU limitations emerge at 1080p Low and Medium, where frame rates cluster between 504-535 FPS despite the RTX 5090's capabilities. At 4K across all settings, the GPU becomes the primary constraint, with frame rates scaling predictably with resolution and settings. The 1080p Low to Medium gap of only 31 FPS (535 to 504) suggests the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads cap performance near 535 FPS.

Q: What minimum frame rate was recorded in the entire measurement set?

A: The only minimum frame rates provided are 173 FPS at 3840x2160 Medium, 302 FPS at 2560x1440 Medium, and 429 FPS at 1920x1080 Medium. The 4K Medium minimum of 173 FPS represents the lowest recorded frame time, indicating consistent performance even in the most demanding measured configuration.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination ranks 129th out of 3725 tested configurations in To The Core, placing it in the top 3.46% of all combos evaluated. This rank of 129 positions the system within the top tier of tested hardware pairs, though the CPU's mid-range positioning prevents it from reaching the very top of the leaderboard. The Intel Core i5-12400F holds a percentile rank of 73 among all CPUs, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves a percentile rank of 92 among all GPUs. The discrepancy between the CPU's 73rd percentile and GPU's 92nd percentile suggests the processor is the bottleneck preventing this combo from achieving an even higher rank.

The i5-12400F's nearest rivals in CPU benchmark scores include the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS with an average score of 19047 (0% delta), the Intel Core 3 201E at 19056 (-0.1% delta), the Intel Core i5-1335U at 18982 (0.3% delta), and the AMD EPYC 7773X at 18979 (0.3% delta). This clustering indicates the i5-12400F's computational performance sits in a dense field of comparable processors, with less than 0.5% separating the closest competitors. The RTX 5090's nearest GPU rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB at 79605 average score (0.3% delta), the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB at 79396 (0.6% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at 78940 (1.1% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X at 80959 (-1.4% delta).

Given that the RTX 5090 ranks at the 92nd percentile among GPUs while the CPU sits at the 73rd percentile, the combo rank of 129 out of 3725 reflects the GPU's dominant contribution to To The Core's performance. The 4K results, where the GPU's capabilities are most fully utilized, show this combo outperforming the vast majority of configurations. At 1080p Low, where CPU limits bind, the rank would likely drop relative to systems with stronger processors, but the measured data does not provide per-configuration ranks for specific resolution-settings pairs. The overall rank of 129 demonstrates that this pairing delivers near-top-tier performance in To The Core, with the CPU being the only meaningful constraint on pushing into the top 100.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 serves as the primary performance driver in this configuration, particularly at higher resolutions where its 32 GB GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth come into play. The GPU's 21760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster operations processors provide the computational throughput needed to maintain high frame rates in To The Core's rendering workloads. The boost clock of 2407 MHz and base clock of 2017 MHz represent the GPU's operating envelope, with the 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance enabling the heavy shading loads that scale with settings presets.

The memory subsystem is critical for To The Core's resolution scaling behavior. At 4K Ultra, the game demands substantial frame buffer capacity and bandwidth; the 512-bit bus width and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth prevent memory bandwidth from becoming a bottleneck even at 3840x2160. The 32 GB capacity is far beyond what To The Core requires, meaning memory size never constrains performance. The measured frame rates at 4K High (176 FPS) versus 4K Medium (203 FPS) show a 13.3% difference, while 4K Medium to 4K Low (240 FPS) shows an 18.2% difference, indicating that the GPU's shading throughput, not memory, is the limiting factor at 4K.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its high-end positioning. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18355 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 376728 demonstrate strong synthetic performance, while the Passmark G3D score of 39650 and G2D score of 1413 show balanced capabilities. The GPU's percentile rank of 92 places it well above the average GPU, and its average benchmark score of 79842 exceeds the nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X, by 1.4% (80959 vs 79842). In To The Core specifically, the GPU's role expands with resolution: at 1080p Low, the CPU caps performance near 535 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU's 142 FPS result demonstrates it remains the active constraint, with the 2407 MHz boost clock allowing the 104.8 TFLOPS to be fully utilized.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates span from 535 FPS at Low settings to 369 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset averages 504 FPS with a minimum of 429 FPS and maximum of 580 FPS, providing the only complete frame time data at this resolution. High settings average 458 FPS, sitting 46 FPS below Medium and 89 FPS above Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 166 FPS total reduction (535 to 369), with the largest single-step drop occurring between High and Ultra (89 FPS, or 19.4% reduction). The Medium preset's minimum of 429 FPS indicates that even the lowest momentary frame rates remain far above display refresh capabilities.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates decrease across all settings compared to 1080p. Low averages 420 FPS, Medium 355 FPS (minimum 302, maximum 409), High 308 FPS, and Ultra 248 FPS. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is most pronounced at High settings (458 to 308, a 32.8% drop) and least at Low (535 to 420, a 21.5% drop). The Medium preset's minimum of 302 FPS at 1440p is higher than the 4K High average of 176 FPS, demonstrating the significant frame rate headroom available at the middle resolution. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p (47 FPS, 13.2%) is smaller than the High to Ultra gap (60 FPS, 19.5%).

At 3840x2160, the averages compress into a narrower band. Low averages 240 FPS, Medium 203 FPS (minimum 173, maximum 234), High 176 FPS, and Ultra 142 FPS. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 98 FPS, compared to 172 FPS at 1440p and 166 FPS at 1080p, indicating that 4K brings all settings closer together as the GPU becomes uniformly stressed. The Medium preset's minimum of 173 FPS is the lowest recorded frame rate across the entire dataset, yet it remains well above 144 Hz. The 4K Low result of 240 FPS is notable because it exactly matches a common high-refresh threshold, while 4K Ultra's 142 FPS is the only measured average below 144 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F provides the computational foundation for this combo, with 6 cores and 12 threads operating at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, delivers a 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 19039. The CPU's cache configuration includes 80 KB L1 per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and 18 MB shared L3, which supports the game's physics and simulation workloads typical of the idle genre. The 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support indicate modest power and bandwidth requirements that allow the GPU to operate without thermal or power contention.

The CPU's benchmark results show a clear scaling pattern with thread count. The 3DMark scores progress from 909 single-thread to 1699 for 2 threads, 3067 for 4 threads, 4779 for 8 threads, and 5895 for 16 threads, with max threads at 5912. This near-linear scaling up to 8 threads and minimal gain beyond (5895 to 5912, a 0.3% increase) suggests To The Core's CPU workload primarily utilizes fewer than 8 threads. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 12380 and single-core score of 1680 place the CPU in a competitive position, while Geekbench scores of 9472 multicore and 1964 single-core confirm balanced performance.

In To The Core, the CPU's role manifests at 1080p Low and Medium, where frame rates plateau near 535 FPS and 504 FPS respectively. The 31 FPS difference between Low and Medium at 1080p (535 to 504) is the smallest settings-driven gap in the dataset, indicating the CPU cannot feed the GPU fast enough to differentiate these presets. The 1080p High result of 458 FPS shows a larger drop from Medium (46 FPS, 9.1%), suggesting the CPU can still maintain higher frame rates when the GPU workload increases. The 4K results, where the GPU becomes the bottleneck, show the CPU's 4.40 GHz boost clock provides sufficient single-thread performance to avoid constraining the RTX 5090's output, as evidenced by the 240 FPS at 4K Low. The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS with a negligible 0% delta in average score, demonstrates that the i5-12400F sits at a performance plateau shared by several competing processors, none of which would materially alter To The Core's frame rates given the GPU's dominant role in this pairing.