To The Core

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers an exceptionally strong showing in To The Core, an idle genre title that clearly favors high refresh rate output. The measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings are remarkably high, with the lowest average recorded being 125.2 FPS at 4K Ultra. This combination does not merely play the game; it saturates common high-refresh displays with headroom to spare.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that remains firmly GPU-bound at the highest settings, yet exhibits signs of CPU limitation at lower resolutions. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops from 325.5 FPS at 1920x1080 to 219.6 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 32.5%. Moving further to 3840x2160, the Ultra average falls to 125.2 FPS, representing another sharp decline of about 43% from the 1440p figure. This steep trajectory at Ultra indicates that the rendering load scales aggressively with pixel count, which is typical for a title pushing high-fidelity effects.

However, the scaling pattern changes character at lower settings. When set to Low, the frame rate at 1080p reaches 549.1 FPS, but this drops to 371.8 FPS at 1440p and then to 210.8 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings is roughly 32.3%, similar to the Ultra scaling. Yet the transition from 1440p to 4K at Low settings shows a smaller relative decline of about 43.3%, which is nearly identical to the Ultra pattern. This suggests that even at Low settings, the GPU's fill rate and shading capacity remain the primary bottleneck at 4K, as the RTX 4080 SUPER's 112 ROPs and 816.0 GTexel/s texture rate are heavily taxed.

The data indicates that at 1080p Low, the system is likely hitting a CPU-imposed ceiling. The i5-13400F, with its 10 cores and 16 threads, produces a 549.1 FPS average at that configuration. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p is substantial, going from 549.1 to 462 FPS, a 15.9% drop. From Medium to High, the decline continues to 400.9 FPS (down 13.2%), and then to Ultra at 325.5 FPS (down 18.8%). These diminishing returns at 1080p suggest that the processor's multi-threaded performance, reflected in its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21279, is sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but the frame rate growth is constrained by the graphics card's ability to execute draw calls.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global context of tested hardware combinations, this pairing sits at rank 112 out of 1756 combos for To The Core. This places it in the top 6.4% of all tested systems, which is a strong result for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The ranking reflects the synergy between the i5-13400F's solid single-thread performance and the RTX 4080 SUPER's raw rasterization power.

The CPU's own percentile ranking against all processors is 82, meaning it outperforms 82% of CPUs in general benchmark suites. Its average benchmark score of 25236 is nearly identical to its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13620H, which scores 25201, a delta of just 0.1%. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D trails by a similar margin at 25365, a delta of -0.5%, while the AMD EPYC 9474F and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 are essentially tied at 25103 and 25099, respectively. This indicates that the i5-13400F is remarkably consistent with other competitive CPUs, offering no significant advantage or disadvantage in raw compute terms.

For the GPU, the RTX 4080 SUPER holds an 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 53610 places it just ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (53489, delta 0.2%) and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (53414, delta 0.4%). The gap widens slightly against the AMD Radeon RX 7700S (52505, delta 2.1%) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (52086, delta 2.9%). In To The Core, the combination's rank of 112 suggests that the GPU's high percentile is the dominant factor in the overall score, as the CPU's mid-range standing does not drag the pairing down significantly in this particular title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. The memory bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s is critical for feeding the high frame rates observed in this game. The GPU's boost clock of 2550 MHz, combined with its 10240 shading units, contributes to a FP32 performance of 52.22 TFLOPS, which is ample for an idle genre game that does not heavily utilize ray tracing.

The measured FPS figures suggest that the GPU's 16 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor at any tested setting, as even at 4K Ultra with 125.2 FPS, the memory allocation is evidently sufficient. The 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores present on the chip are likely underutilized in this title, as To The Core does not appear to leverage ray tracing or DLSS from the data provided. Instead, the traditional rasterization pipeline, driven by the 112 ROPs, is what determines the frame rate at higher resolutions.

The GPU's performance relative to its rivals is telling. The nearest competitor, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, is only 0.2% behind in average benchmark score, yet the observed FPS in To The Core shows the RTX 4080 SUPER maintaining over 125 FPS at 4K Ultra. This suggests that the NVIDIA card's driver overhead and architectural efficiency in this specific title provide a tangible benefit, even if raw compute scores are comparable. The 2.9% delta against the RTX 5070 Ti also highlights that the 4080 SUPER remains a formidable option, despite being listed as end-of-life production status.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing the experience in To The Core. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 400.9 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any high-refresh display, while Ultra drops to 325.5 FPS, a 18.8% reduction for likely marginal visual gains. Given that the title is an idle game where visual fidelity is not the primary focus, High at 1080p offers the best balance between frame rate and image quality, as the jump from Medium (462 FPS) to High is a modest 13.2% FPS penalty.

At 2560x1440, the High preset again appears optimal, producing 268.9 FPS. This is a 13.2% drop from Medium (309.6 FPS) but still far above the 219.6 FPS seen at Ultra. The data indicates that Medium at 1440p provides the highest frame rate with reasonable quality, but High is the sweet spot for those who want both smoothness and detail. The 4K resolution tells a different story: High yields 157.8 FPS, while Ultra drops to 125.2 FPS, a 20.6% penalty. For 4K users, High is strongly recommended, as the 157.8 FPS average is still exceptionally smooth, and the drop to Ultra is not justified by the visual improvements in a game of this genre.

Across all resolutions, Low settings are never necessary, as even the most demanding configuration (4K Ultra) maintains a playable frame rate. The Low preset at 4K (210.8 FPS) offers no practical benefit over High (157.8 FPS) for most users, as both are far above typical refresh rate limits. The recommendation is to use High at any resolution for the best combination of performance and visual quality, with Ultra reserved for those who prioritize maximum fidelity and have displays capable of exceeding 125 FPS at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for this combination is as follows:

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 549.1 FPS. Medium increases the visual load and drops the average to 462 FPS. High further reduces it to 400.9 FPS, and Ultra brings the average down to 325.5 FPS. This represents a full range of 223.6 FPS from lowest to highest settings at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the same settings pattern emerges with lower absolute values. Low produces 371.8 FPS, Medium 309.6 FPS, High 268.9 FPS, and Ultra 219.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 152.2 FPS, indicating that the GPU is still able to handle the increased resolution with substantial headroom.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 210.8 FPS for Low, 180.9 FPS for Medium, 157.8 FPS for High, and 125.2 FPS for Ultra. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 85.6 FPS, which is the smallest absolute spread across the three resolutions, confirming that the GPU's rendering pipeline is the limiting factor at this resolution regardless of settings.

Notably, min and max FPS data are not provided in the measured set, so the stability of these averages cannot be assessed from this dataset. However, the consistent scaling between settings at each resolution indicates a well-behaved performance curve. The 4K Ultra result of 125.2 FPS is the only configuration that dips below the 144 Hz threshold, while all other settings at 1440p and below exceed 219 FPS, ensuring a fluid experience on most high-refresh monitors.