To The Core

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER delivers measured frame rates in To The Core that range from 263 FPS at 1080p Low to 63.2 FPS at 4K Ultra. This combination ranks 1229th out of 1756 tested combos, placing it in the lower half of the database despite the CPU’s strong 88th percentile standing. The data indicates a GPU-bound configuration at higher resolutions, with the CPU providing ample headroom. The CPU has a launch MSRP of $196, and the GPU has a launch MSRP of 399 USD.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 263 FPS; at 1440p Low, it falls to 180 FPS; and at 4K Low, it drops to 103.6 FPS. The same pattern holds across all settings. For the Ultra preset, the average FPS goes from 153.3 at 1080p to 106.9 at 1440p and then to 63.2 at 4K. This scaling behavior is typical of a GPU-limited scenario: the frame rate degrades proportionally with the increase in pixel count, while the CPU’s contribution remains relatively constant.

The magnitude of the drop is substantial. At 1080p Low, the system produces 263 FPS, but at 4K Low it produces 103.6 FPS—a reduction of more than half. Similarly, at High settings, the 1080p result of 193.9 FPS falls to 72.2 FPS at 4K. The fact that the FPS decreases by roughly 60% from 1080p to 4K across all presets indicates that the rendering load is scaling with resolution, and the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher pixel counts. At 1080p, the FPS are high enough that the CPU could become a limiting factor, but the data does not show a plateau; instead, the FPS continue to rise as settings are lowered, suggesting that even at 1080p the GPU is still the main constraint. The game’s idle genre likely means low geometric complexity, but the resolution scaling still points to the GPU as the component that determines the upper bound of performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1229th out of 1756 tested combinations in To The Core. This places it in the lower half of the database, with 1228 combos achieving higher average FPS and 527 combos performing worse. The rank is notably lower than the individual component percentiles: the CPU sits in the 88th percentile of all CPUs, and the GPU in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs. This discrepancy suggests that the game is not particularly demanding, and many combinations—even those with weaker components—can produce high frame rates. The ranking is therefore more a reflection of the game’s low system requirements than of any deficiency in this specific pairing.

The CPU’s average benchmark score of 32508 places it within 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 and within 0.2% of the Intel Core i7-13705H, while the nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, scores 32513 with a delta of 0%. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 19774 is 0.3% higher than the GeForce GTX TITAN’s 19706 and 0.5% higher than the RTX 2070’s 19680. These margins are small, indicating that the components are competitive within their respective tiers. Yet the combo’s rank in To The Core is mid-pack, which reinforces the idea that the game’s frame rates are not tightly coupled to raw component strength. The measured FPS are all above 60 FPS even at 4K Ultra, so the combo is fully playable, but the rank shows that many other systems can match or exceed these numbers.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip, featuring 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. It has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1470 MHz, with a boost clock of 1650 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). These specifications place the GPU in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19774. In To The Core, the GPU’s role is evident in the resolution scaling: the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is consistent with a GPU-bound workload. The 8 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for this idle game, which likely does not require large texture pools or high memory bandwidth.

The GPU’s benchmark results show a Passmark G3D score of 16462 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2011. These numbers, while not directly comparable to in-game FPS, indicate a mid-range graphics card that can handle modern titles at 1080p and 1440p. In To The Core, the GPU delivers 263 FPS at 1080p Low and 63.2 FPS at 4K Ultra, demonstrating that it is not a limiting factor for playability. The nearest rival, the GeForce GTX TITAN, scores 19706, a 0.3% delta, and the RTX 2070 scores 19680, a 0.5% delta, meaning the RTX 2060 SUPER is slightly ahead of both in average benchmark score. This suggests that the GPU is well within its expected performance envelope for this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers four resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 263 FPS on Low, 224.5 FPS on Medium, 193.9 FPS on High, and 153.3 FPS on Ultra. At 2560x1440, the results are 180 FPS on Low, 148.9 FPS on Medium, 130.4 FPS on High, and 106.9 FPS on Ultra. At 3840x2160, the averages are 103.6 FPS on Low, 86 FPS on Medium, 72.2 FPS on High, and 63.2 FPS on Ultra. All of these values are above 60 FPS, meaning the combo maintains smooth gameplay even at the most demanding settings tested.

The scaling between presets is consistent across resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 109.7 FPS (263 vs. 153.3), while at 4K the difference is 40.4 FPS (103.6 vs. 63.2). The absolute gap narrows as resolution increases, but the relative performance drop from Low to Ultra remains similar—roughly a 40% reduction in FPS at each resolution. This pattern indicates that the GPU’s workload scales with both resolution and quality settings, and the CPU is not introducing a bottleneck that would flatten the curve. The data also shows that the game is not particularly demanding; even the lowest-end settings produce frame rates that exceed typical display refresh rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, based on the Raptor Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, with 20 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU’s benchmark scores are strong: Cinebench R23 multi-core reaches 21914, single-core 3093; Geekbench multi-core 11209, single-core 2333; and Passmark multithread 25783 with a single-thread score of 3723. These results place the CPU in the 88th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32508. The nearest rivals are the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513, 0% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32446, 0.2% delta), and AMD Ryzen 7 250 (32584, -0.2% delta), showing that the i5-14400F is competitive with higher-tier mobile and desktop parts.

In To The Core, the CPU’s role is less prominent than the GPU’s. The game is an idle genre title, which typically involves minimal simulation and low thread usage. The high FPS at 1080p—263 on Low—suggests that the CPU can feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck. The single-thread performance, as indicated by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093, is sufficient to handle the game’s logic and draw calls. The 10 cores and 16 threads are overkill for this workload, but they ensure that any background tasks or future updates will not cause frame drops. The CPU’s 88th percentile ranking and its proximity to the i7-12800H and Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 in average score indicate that it is a high-performing part, but the combo’s overall rank in To The Core is limited by the GPU’s mid-range standing. The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration; the GPU’s resolution scaling is the primary determinant of frame rate.