To The Core

FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank of the Intel Core i5-12600KF with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D in To The Core?

A: This combo ranks 28th out of 2991 tested combinations in To The Core, placing it in the top 1% of all tested systems for this game.

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

A: The Intel Core i5-12600KF has an average benchmark score of 27799, which is 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (27896) and 0.3% higher than the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE (27712). It sits essentially tied with the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, -0.3%).

Q: What is the GPU's benchmark percentile and how does it compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 5090 D sits in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 77712 is 1.1% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76904) but 1.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78940) and 2.1% lower than the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79396).

Q: What are the memory specifications of the RTX 5090 D?

A: The GPU comes with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. Its memory clock runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed.

Q: What is the CPU's core and thread configuration?

A: The Intel Core i5-12600KF has 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. It features 20 MB of shared L3 cache and uses the Alder Lake architecture on a 10 nm process.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded in the measured data?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 600 at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. The lowest measured average is 151 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The data places this Intel-NVIDIA pairing at rank 28 out of 2991 tested combos in To The Core. That is an elite position — roughly the 99th percentile of all tested configurations. The combo outperforms the vast majority of systems, which is unsurprising given the components involved, but the exact rank reveals something more subtle.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 27799 places it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs. The GPU's average score of 77712 places it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Yet the combo achieves a rank that is higher than either component's individual percentile. This suggests the pairing works particularly well together for this specific game, rather than simply being a sum of two strong parts.

Looking at the nearest CPU rivals, the i5-12600KF is effectively tied with the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, -0.3%) and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (27896, -0.3%). These are all high-end processors from previous generations, and the i5-12600KF matches them within a fraction of a percent. The AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE (27712, +0.3%) is the only rival the i5 edges out, and only barely.

The GPU comparison is more interesting. The RTX 5090 D's nearest rivals are not other flagship consumer cards — they are the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76904, +1.1%) and RX 6850M XT (78940, -1.6%), plus two NVIDIA Tesla P100 variants (79396, -2.1% and 79605, -2.4%). The fact that a mobile GPU like the RX 6650M XT comes within 1.1% of the RTX 5090 D in average benchmark score highlights how synthetic benchmarks may not capture the full picture of gaming performance. In actual To The Core gameplay, the combo rank of 28 suggests the real-world performance is far more competitive than the raw average scores might imply.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how this combo scales across resolutions. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 489. Moving to 2560x1440 High drops that to 329 FPS — a 32.7% reduction. At 3840x2160 High, the average falls to 188 FPS, which is another 42.9% drop from 1440p. The total scaling from 1080p to 4K at High settings is a 61.6% reduction in average FPS.

The pattern is consistent across all settings presets. At Low settings, the combo produces 600 FPS at 1080p, 448 FPS at 1440p, and 256 FPS at 4K. That represents a 57.3% drop from 1080p to 4K. At Medium settings, the numbers are 564, 379, and 217 FPS respectively — a 61.5% total reduction. At Ultra, the figures are 393, 265, and 151 FPS, a 61.6% drop.

The consistency of these scaling ratios — all hovering around 57-62% reduction from 1080p to 4K — indicates that the limiting factor shifts predictably with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU is likely the primary bottleneck, as the GPU has enough headroom to push extremely high frame rates. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the limiting component, and the frame rate drops accordingly.

The fact that even at 4K Ultra the combo maintains an average of 151 FPS is remarkable. This indicates that To The Core, being an idle game, does not place extreme demands on the rendering pipeline. The RTX 5090 D has substantial headroom even at the highest resolution and settings tested.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest performance. Low settings produce an average of 600 FPS, which appears to be a ceiling for this configuration — likely a VSync or engine cap. Medium settings yield 564 FPS with a minimum of 479 and maximum of 648. High settings drop to 489 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 393 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 207 FPS, or 34.5% of the Low setting's performance.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high. Low settings average 448 FPS. Medium settings produce 379 FPS (minimum 322, maximum 436). High settings yield 329 FPS, and Ultra settings deliver 265 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is roughly 25-29% reduction, which is less than the resolution's pixel count increase of 78%, suggesting that the GPU has ample bandwidth and processing power to handle the additional pixels.

At 3840x2160, the performance is still impressive but shows a more pronounced drop. Low settings average 256 FPS. Medium settings produce 217 FPS (minimum 184, maximum 249). High settings yield 188 FPS, and Ultra settings deliver 151 FPS. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium (184) is still higher than many systems' average FPS at 1080p, which contextualizes the sheer performance level of this combo.

The measured data shows only one setting preset with min/max values recorded — Medium at each resolution. The minimums are consistently about 15-18% below the averages, and the maximums are about 10-15% above. This suggests relatively stable frame times, with no severe spikes or drops that would indicate stuttering or hitches.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a flagship GPU with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. This massive memory capacity and bandwidth are likely why the combo maintains high frame rates even at 4K Ultra — the GPU can quickly access all the textures and geometry data required without becoming a bottleneck.

The GPU's clock speeds are 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). These clocks are relatively modest compared to the sheer number of processing units: 21760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. The architecture is Blackwell 2.0 on a 5 nm process from TSMC, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die.

In To The Core, an idle game, the GPU's role is interesting. The game likely does not stress the GPU's ray tracing cores (170) or tensor cores (680) heavily, since idle games typically use simple rendering techniques. The benchmark results show the GPU reaching 600 FPS at 1080p Low, which may be an engine frame rate cap rather than a hardware limitation.

The GPU's benchmark scores show a passmark G3D score of 44065 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14326. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 310674 and Vulkan score of 376915 indicate strong compute performance. However, the nearest rivals — which include mobile GPUs and workstation cards — suggest that the RTX 5090 D's raw benchmark scores may not fully reflect its gaming capabilities in this specific title.

The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs places it in the top tier, but the combo's 28th rank out of 2991 shows that the pairing with the i5-12600KF extracts near-optimal performance. The 575 W TDP and 950 W suggested PSU indicate this is a power-hungry card, but the benchmark data does not show thermal throttling or power-related performance dips.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which settings preset offers the best experience in To The Core. The Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot across all resolutions, balancing visual quality with frame rate headroom.

At 1920x1080, Medium settings produce 564 FPS average, which is only 36 FPS less than Low (600) but 171 FPS more than Ultra (393). The minimum FPS at Medium is 479, which is still extremely high. Since the difference between Medium and Low is marginal in frame rate, but Medium likely provides better visual fidelity, Medium is the recommended preset at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, Medium settings yield 379 FPS, compared to 448 FPS at Low and 265 FPS at Ultra. The 1440p Medium preset provides enough frame rate headroom for any display, while Ultra's 265 FPS is still excellent. Medium is recommended because it offers the best balance — the 1440p Medium minimum of 322 FPS is higher than the 4K Medium average.

At 3840x2160, Medium settings produce 217 FPS with a minimum of 184. This is the only resolution where the minimum FPS drops below 200, but it remains well above the refresh rate of most monitors. High settings at 4K yield 188 FPS, and Ultra drops to 151 FPS. For 4K, Medium is the recommended preset, as it provides a significant frame rate buffer over High and Ultra.

The data shows that Ultra settings consistently reduce frame rates by roughly 30-35% compared to Medium across all resolutions. For an idle game like To The Core, where the visual differences between Medium and Ultra are likely minimal, this performance hit is not justified. Medium settings provide the best experience per the measured rows, offering high frame rates with enough visual quality for the game's genre.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF has 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. This configuration is a hybrid design — Alder Lake architecture combines performance and efficiency cores, though the exact core distribution is not specified in the data. The CPU has 20 MB of shared L3 cache, with 80 KB L1 and 1.25 MB L2 per core.

In To The Core, an idle game, the CPU's role is likely more significant than in graphically intensive titles. Idle games typically involve background calculations, resource generation, and incremental progress systems that may be single-threaded or lightly threaded. The i5-12600KF's single-thread performance is strong — a 3DMark single-thread score of 1016 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2157.

The CPU's multi-threaded performance is also solid, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23391 and a Geekbench multicore score of 12137. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7956 is nearly identical to the max-thread score of 7952, suggesting that the CPU does not scale significantly beyond 16 threads — which is expected given its 16-thread limit.

The i5-12600KF's percentile rank of 79 among all CPUs places it in the upper tier, though not the absolute top. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, -0.3%) and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (27896, -0.3%), both of which are strong gaming processors. The fact that the i5-12600KF matches these CPUs within 0.3% suggests that To The Core does not heavily depend on CPU cache size or core count beyond what this processor provides.

The CPU's boost clock of 4.90 GHz is likely the key factor for this game. Idle games often have a single main thread that handles game logic, and high clock speeds directly benefit such workloads. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1995, which is roughly double the single-thread score of 1016, indicates strong scaling for lightly threaded workloads.

The data implies that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo for To The Core. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 600 FPS, which appears to be a cap. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 151 FPS, but this is more likely GPU-limited given the increased resolution. The CPU's 79th percentile ranking, combined with the combo's 28th rank, suggests that this processor provides sufficient performance for the GPU to operate at near-full potential in this game.