To The Core

# To The Core with Intel Core i5-12600KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER delivers exceptional performance in To The Core, an Idle genre title released on 2024-02-14. Benchmark data places this combination at rank 294 out of 1,756 tested combos, placing it in the top 16.7% of all tested configurations. This ranking reflects a balanced pairing where both the processor and graphics card contribute meaningfully to the frame rates observed across all tested resolutions and settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 294 out of 1,756 tested configurations places it comfortably in the upper tier of systems tested for To The Core. This positioning is notable because the game's Idle genre typically imposes lighter computational demands than action-oriented titles, yet this pairing still demonstrates substantial headroom. The CPU's percentile ranking of 84 across all tested CPUs indicates that the Core i5-12600KF outperforms 84% of processors in the benchmark database, while the GPU's identical 84th percentile ranking among all GPUs shows a well-matched system where neither component dramatically outclasses the other.

The nearest CPU rivals provide context for the processor's standing. The Intel Core i9-10900K scores essentially identically at 27,829 average benchmark points versus the i5-12600KF's 27,827, a delta of 0%. The Core i5-12600K trails by just 0.1%, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H by 0.2%. Only the Intel Core i7-13700H edges ahead by 0.4%. This clustering indicates the i5-12600KF sits at a performance inflection point where minor architectural differences between generations produce negligible real-world separation.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4070 SUPER's average benchmark score of 42,576 places it within 0.2% of the NVIDIA RTX A6000 and 0.3% of the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE. The AMD Radeon Pro 580X trails by 1.4%, and the NVIDIA Tesla M40 by 1.6%. These narrow deltas confirm the GPU is performing at its expected tier, with no anomalous results skewing the To The Core measurements.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER brings 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration proves sufficient for To The Core at all tested resolutions, as evidenced by the absence of any resolution-limited frame rate collapses. The GPU's base clock of 1980 MHz and boost clock of 2475 MHz represent the operating envelope within which the Ada Lovelace architecture executes its 7,168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units.

The RTX 4070 SUPER's 56 ray tracing cores and 224 tensor cores are present in the hardware, though the Idle genre's rendering requirements in To The Core likely do not stress these specialized units as heavily as the traditional rasterization pipeline. The GPU's FP32 throughput of 35.48 TFLOPS provides the raw compute headroom that allows the card to maintain high frame rates even at Ultra settings. The pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 554.4 GTexel/s indicate the card can sustain the fill rate demands of the game's visual effects without becoming a bottleneck.

The GPU's production status is end-of-life, having been released on 2024-01-07, with the GeForce 50 series as its successor. Despite this, benchmark results show no degradation in To The Core performance. The card's PCIe 4.0 x16 interface provides adequate bandwidth for the game's data streaming requirements, and its 220 W TDP is supported by the recommended 550 W power supply configuration.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how the system's bottleneck shifts as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the system achieves 284.3 FPS, while at 3840x2160 Ultra, it drops to 109.7 FPS, a reduction of 61.4%. This scaling pattern indicates the GPU becomes progressively more load-bearing at higher resolutions, which is typical for a well-balanced system.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at High settings shows a decrease from 350.7 FPS to 240.1 FPS, a 31.5% drop. Moving from 1440p to 4K at the same settings yields a further reduction from 240.1 FPS to 133.2 FPS, a 44.5% drop. The larger percentage decrease at the 1440p-to-4K transition confirms that pixel throughput becomes the dominant constraint at higher resolutions, as expected when the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are increasingly taxed.

At Low settings, the 1080p-to-1440p transition reduces performance from 481.4 FPS to 323.3 FPS, a 32.8% drop, while the 1440p-to-4K transition brings it down to 186.1 FPS, a 42.4% reduction. The similar proportional decreases across settings suggest the CPU keeps pace with the GPU's output even at lower graphics loads, preventing it from becoming the limiting factor. The consistent pattern across all four settings levels indicates a system where neither component creates a disproportionate bottleneck at any tested configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings yield 481.4 FPS, Medium settings deliver 406 FPS, High settings achieve 350.7 FPS, and Ultra settings maintain 284.3 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 41% reduction in frame rate, reflecting the increased GPU workload from higher-quality textures, lighting, and post-processing effects. Even at the most demanding 1080p configuration, the frame rate exceeds 280 FPS, which is far beyond the refresh rate capabilities of most displays.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains exceptionally high. Low settings produce 323.3 FPS, Medium settings reach 273 FPS, High settings sustain 240.1 FPS, and Ultra settings hold 193.8 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result still exceeds 190 FPS, indicating the combination has substantial headroom for high-refresh-rate gaming at this resolution. The drop from 1080p Ultra to 1440p Ultra is 31.8%, which aligns with the increased pixel count requiring more GPU resources.

At 3840x2160, the system delivers 186.1 FPS on Low settings, 155.4 FPS on Medium, 133.2 FPS on High, and 109.7 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Ultra result remains above 100 FPS, demonstrating that this pairing can drive a 4K display at high quality settings without falling below playable thresholds. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 41%, consistent with the scaling observed at lower resolutions. This consistency suggests the GPU's 12 GB memory buffer and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth prevent any resolution-specific memory capacity or bandwidth limitations from emerging.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF contributes to this system's performance through its 10 cores and 16 threads, running at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.90 GHz. This Alder Lake-S architecture processor, built on Intel's 10 nm process, features a 20 MB shared L3 cache and per-core L1 cache of 80 KB with L2 cache of 1.25 MB per core. The processor's performance in synthetic benchmarks demonstrates its capability to feed the GPU sufficiently in To The Core.

In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 23,444 in multicore and 3,309 in single-core tests. The 3DMark results show scaling from 1,016 in single-thread to 7,956 in 16-thread workloads, indicating effective use of its hybrid core configuration. PassMark results reinforce this pattern, with a multithread score of 27,575 and single-thread score of 3,925. These figures translate to real-world performance where the CPU can handle the game's simulation and logic tasks without introducing frame pacing issues.

The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all tested processors places it in the same tier as its GPU counterpart. The nearest rival comparisons show the i5-12600KF virtually tied with the i9-10900K, trailing the i5-12600K by only 0.1%, and ahead of the i7-13700H by 0.4%. This competitive positioning means the processor does not artificially limit the system's To The Core performance. The CPU's memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 provides flexibility, and its dual-channel memory bus ensures adequate bandwidth for feeding the GPU's texture and geometry pipelines.

The processor's 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier indicate it is designed for enthusiast systems where overclocking headroom could further enhance performance. In the context of To The Core, the data shows the CPU maintains high frame rates even at 1080p Low settings where the GPU is least burdened, achieving 481.4 FPS without the processor becoming the limiting factor. This behavior suggests the i5-12600KF's single-thread performance and core count are well-matched to the game's requirements, allowing the RTX 4070 SUPER to operate at its full potential across all tested configurations.