To The Core

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers exceptional frame rates in To The Core, an Idle genre title released on 2024-02-14. The data shows a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, yet reveals the CPU's significant headroom at 1080p. This combination ranks 16th out of 1756 tested combos in the game, placing it in the top 1% of all configurations, evidence of the raw power of the RTX 5090. The following analysis breaks down the performance metrics, resolution scaling, and the specific roles each component plays in producing these results.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a classic performance curve influenced heavily by resolution. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the combo produces 374.8 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 Ultra drops the average to 254 FPS, a 32% reduction. Scaling further to 3840x2160 Ultra yields 145.6 FPS, which is another 43% drop from the 1440p figure. This steep decline indicates that the rendering load is scaling directly with pixel count, a sign that the RTX 5090 is the primary limiting factor at these higher resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern is even more pronounced. The 1080p Low average of 605 FPS is extraordinarily high, suggesting the CPU is near its maximum output capability. When resolution increases to 1440p Low, the frame rate falls to 427.8 FPS, and at 4K Low, it drops to 245 FPS. The substantial gap between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings—a 29% reduction—indicates that even this powerful CPU begins to hit its ceiling when the GPU is not fully taxed, though the RTX 5090 still manages to push frames well beyond typical display refresh rates.

The difference between settings at 4K is telling. The spread from 145.6 FPS at Ultra to 245 FPS at Low represents a 68% performance uplift when reducing graphical fidelity. This wide margin confirms that the GPU's compute resources are the bottleneck at 4K; lowering settings directly translates to higher throughput. Conversely, at 1080p, the spread from 374.8 FPS at Ultra to 605 FPS at Low is a 61% increase, but the absolute numbers suggest the CPU is starting to constrain the maximum possible output, preventing the GPU from reaching even higher frame rates.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware in To The Core?*

A: The data indicates 2560x1440 at High settings provides a strong balance, yielding 309.3 FPS. This is 65% higher than the 4K High score of 178.5 FPS, while maintaining visual quality. For maximum smoothness, 1080p Low achieves 605 FPS, but the 1440p High figure is more practical for modern displays.

Q: How does the CPU's 10-core configuration impact performance in this game?

A: The Intel Core i5-12600KF features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. In benchmark results, the CPU scores 23444 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 3309 in single-core. The high single-thread performance is crucial for maintaining high frame rates at lower resolutions, as evidenced by the 605 FPS result at 1080p Low.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 overkill for an Idle genre game?

A: The RTX 5090, with its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance, produces exceptionally high frame rates in To The Core. Even at 4K Ultra, it maintains 145.6 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors. The data suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, indicating it is being fully utilized despite the game's genre.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-12600KF has an average benchmark score of 27827, placing it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-10900K, scores 27829, a delta of 0%. The Intel Core i5-12600K scores 27851, which is 0.1% higher, showing these processors are virtually identical in overall performance.

Q: What frame rate can be expected when moving from High to Ultra settings?

A: Across all resolutions, the drop from High to Ultra is consistent. At 1080p, the average falls from 461.4 FPS to 374.8 FPS, a 19% decrease. At 1440p, it falls from 309.3 FPS to 254 FPS, an 18% decrease. At 4K, it falls from 178.5 FPS to 145.6 FPS, an 18% decrease, showing a uniform cost for the Ultra preset.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not a significant bottleneck at 4K, where the RTX 5090 is clearly the limiting factor. However, at 1080p Low, the 605 FPS figure is likely near the CPU's maximum frame output, indicating that the i5-12600KF's single-thread performance is the ceiling for the absolute highest frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. Its base clock of 3.70 GHz boosts up to 4.90 GHz, and it features a 20 MB shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a 3dmark single-thread score of 1016 and a passmark single-thread score of 3925, indicating strong per-core performance. This is critical for To The Core, where the data shows frame rates reaching 605 FPS at 1080p Low.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are also robust, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23444 and a Geekbench multicore score of 12373. The 10-core configuration provides ample parallel processing for game logic and background tasks. The 16 threads allow for efficient scheduling, which is reflected in the 3dmark 16-thread score of 7956, nearly identical to the max-thread score of 7952, suggesting the processor scales well with the game's workload.

The CPU's position in the market, ranking in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, means it outpaces most processors. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-10900K, has an identical average score of 27829, while the Core i5-12600K scores 27851, a negligible 0.1% difference. This indicates that the i5-12600KF offers performance parity with higher-tier options in its class, ensuring it does not hold back the RTX 5090 in most scenarios, with the 1080p Low result being the only indicator of a CPU-imposed limit.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves a rank of 16 out of 1756 tested combos in To The Core. This places the system in the top 0.9% of all configurations tested, a position driven almost entirely by the GPU's immense power. The RTX 5090 itself ranks in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84306, and its nearest rival, the RTX 5090 D, scores 84241, a 0.1% difference.

The CPU's contribution to this high ranking is supportive rather than dominant. While the i5-12600KF is a capable processor, its 84th percentile standing is lower than the GPU's 94th percentile. This disparity suggests that the combo's high rank is primarily due to the RTX 5090's ability to maintain high frame rates even at 4K Ultra, where the CPU's role is minimized. The rank of 16 indicates that only 15 other combinations of CPUs and GPUs produce higher average frame rates in this specific game.

Comparatively, the GPU's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 with an average score of 83209, are 1.3% slower, but none of these are paired with the i5-12600KF in the top 16. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700H, scores 27716, a 0.4% difference, showing that the i5-12600KF is competitive with newer mobile parts. The overall combo rank demonstrates that this pairing is supremely well-suited for To The Core, delivering performance that is both exceptionally high and consistently smooth across all settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the RTX 5090 and i5-12600KF deliver an average of 178.5 FPS on High settings. Lowering to Medium increases the average to 208.8 FPS, while Low settings push it to 245 FPS. The Ultra preset yields 145.6 FPS, which is the lowest score in the dataset but still remains highly playable. These figures show that even at 4K, the GPU is never the cause of sub-60 FPS performance, and the scaling between presets is consistent.

At 2560x1440, the performance is significantly higher. High settings produce 309.3 FPS, Medium achieves 361.2 FPS, and Low reaches 427.8 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p delivers 254 FPS, which is 75% higher than the 4K Ultra score. This resolution appears to be the sweet spot, offering a substantial boost over 4K while still presenting a significant challenge to the GPU, as evidenced by the 39% drop from Low to Ultra settings.

At 1920x1080, the frame rates are exceptionally high, with Low settings hitting 605 FPS. Medium settings average 533.4 FPS, High averages 461.4 FPS, and Ultra still manages 374.8 FPS. The data shows that at this resolution, the CPU's single-thread performance is the limiting factor, as the GPU has ample headroom to render frames faster if the CPU could feed it data more quickly. The 61% difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is similar to the 68% difference at 4K, but the absolute values suggest the CPU is nearing its maximum output at 605 FPS.