To The Core

# To The Core with Intel Core i5-14400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D

This pairing delivers exceptional performance in To The Core, an idle game where the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combine to produce frame rates that range from 151 FPS at 4K Ultra to 568 FPS at 1080p Low, placing this combo at rank 32 out of 2991 tested configurations. The i5-14400F's 10 cores and 16 threads, boosting to 4.70 GHz, are more than sufficient to feed the RTX 5090 D's massive 104.8 TFLOPS of compute power, making this a balanced pairing for a game that scales heavily with raw GPU throughput rather than CPU-bound simulation. The data indicates that the GPU is the primary performance driver at higher resolutions, while even at 1080p the CPU never becomes a meaningful bottleneck, given the game's idle genre nature that relies more on rendering throughput than complex physics or AI calculations.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake-R architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its 20 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 provide ample bandwidth for feeding the RTX 5090 D. In the context of To The Core, an idle game that does not heavily tax multi-threaded workloads, the CPU's single-thread performance becomes the critical factor. The i5-14400F scores 3,055 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 2,058 in Geekbench single-core, placing it in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs. These scores indicate strong per-core efficiency, which is what matters most for maintaining high frame rates in a game that likely runs on a single primary thread for game logic.

The processor's multi-threaded capabilities, while not essential for this genre, are still robust: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21,645 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 11,268 demonstrate that the chip can handle background tasks and any ancillary workloads without compromising game performance. The nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U (0.1% ahead) and the Intel Core i9-11900 (0.2% ahead), showing that the i5-14400F sits in a very tight performance band around the 32,200 average score mark. With an average benchmark score of 32,279, the CPU is 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS (32,354) and 0.5% ahead of the Intel Core i7-12800H (32,121), confirming that this chip delivers mid-range desktop performance that does not bottleneck the RTX 5090 D in a GPU-bound idle game.

The 65W TDP and Intel Socket 1700 compatibility make this a straightforward desktop part, but the benchmark data suggests that the CPU's role here is secondary. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 568 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it drops to 151 FPS — a pattern that points to GPU saturation rather than CPU limitation. The CPU's 10 cores include a mix of performance and efficiency cores, but for an idle game, the boost clock of 4.70 GHz is the more relevant specification, as it ensures rapid single-thread response times. The L3 cache of 20 MB shared is adequate for the game's likely modest working set, and the lack of integrated graphics is irrelevant given the discrete RTX 5090 D.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

*Q: What is the best resolution to play To The Core with this combo if I want the highest frame rate?*

A: The data shows the highest average FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings: 568 FPS. At 2560x1440 Low, it drops to 448 FPS, and at 3840x2160 Low, it reaches 256 FPS. If raw frame rate is the goal, 1080p Low provides the maximum measured performance.

*Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested configurations in To The Core?*

A: This combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 32nd out of 2,991 tested combos in the game's benchmark database, placing it in the top 1.1% of all configurations tested.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 D bottlenecked by the i5-14400F in this game?

A: No, the data suggests no meaningful CPU bottleneck. At 1080p High, the combo hits 489 FPS, and at 4K High it manages 188 FPS. The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent with GPU-bound behavior, and the CPU's single-thread score of 3,055 in Cinebench R23 is sufficient for this idle genre title.

Q: What are the measured FPS differences between Low and Ultra settings at the same resolution?

A: At 1920x1080, the difference is 568 FPS (Low) versus 393 FPS (Ultra), a drop of 175 FPS or roughly 31%. At 2560x1440, it's 448 FPS (Low) versus 265 FPS (Ultra), a 183 FPS drop. At 3840x2160, it's 256 FPS (Low) versus 151 FPS (Ultra), a 105 FPS drop.

Q: Does increasing resolution from 1080p to 4K halve the frame rate at the same settings?

A: Not quite. At High settings, 1080p yields 489 FPS and 4K yields 188 FPS — a drop of 61.5%. At Low settings, 1080p gives 568 FPS and 4K gives 256 FPS, a 55% reduction. The scaling is slightly less than linear, indicating some CPU overhead at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the CPU and GPU in this combo?

A: The Intel Core i5-14400F has a launch MSRP of $196, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D has a launch MSRP of 2,299 USD. These are the official launch prices from the manufacturer.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling data reveals a clear GPU-bound scenario. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 489 to 329 — a 32.7% reduction. Going further to 3840x2160 at High, the frame rate falls to 188 FPS, which is a 61.5% drop from 1080p. This pattern is consistent with a GPU that is being saturated as pixel count increases, rather than a CPU that is limiting performance at lower resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling is slightly less steep: 568 FPS at 1080p, 448 FPS at 1440p (21.1% drop), and 256 FPS at 4K (54.9% drop from 1080p). The fact that the frame rate does not halve when pixel count quadruples (from 1080p to 4K) suggests that the game's rendering workload is not purely pixel-bound, and there is some geometry or draw-call overhead that scales with resolution. However, the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are clearly more than adequate for any texture or memory demands at 4K.

The medium settings data provides additional insight: at 1080p Medium, the combo hits 536 FPS (with a minimum of 455 and maximum of 616), while at 1440p Medium it achieves 379 FPS (minimum 322, maximum 436), and at 4K Medium it drops to 217 FPS (minimum 184, maximum 249). The 4K-to-1080p ratio at Medium is 217/536 = 40.5%, which is higher than the High settings ratio of 188/489 = 38.4%. This indicates that at Medium settings, the GPU has more headroom to maintain relative performance at higher resolutions, while at High settings, the increased shader complexity makes the GPU work harder per pixel.

The limiting component is definitively the GPU at 4K. The i5-14400F's strong single-core performance, evidenced by its 3,055 Cinebench R23 score, ensures that even at 1080p Low (568 FPS), the CPU can keep up with the game's logic thread. The consistent frame rates across all resolutions — never dropping below 151 FPS even at 4K Ultra — confirm that this is a high-refresh-rate capable setup at every tested configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

1920x1080 (1080p): The lowest resolution tested yields the highest frame rates. At Low settings, the average FPS is 568, which is the maximum measured across all configurations. Moving to Medium settings, the average drops to 536 FPS, with a minimum of 455 and maximum of 616 — showing some frame time variance but still exceptionally smooth. High settings produce 489 FPS average, and Ultra settings yield 393 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 175 FPS, indicating that setting changes have a moderate impact at this resolution, but even the lowest Ultra result of 393 FPS far exceeds any display's refresh rate capabilities.

2560x1440 (1440p): At this resolution, the performance remains very high but shows more differentiation between settings. Low settings deliver 448 FPS average, which is still an extremely high frame rate. Medium settings reduce this to 379 FPS, with a minimum of 322 and maximum of 436 FPS. High settings produce 329 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 265 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 183 FPS, slightly larger than at 1080p, showing that the GPU's workload scales with resolution. The minimum FPS at Medium (322) is still comfortably above 300, ensuring no perceptible stutter.

3840x2160 (4K): The highest resolution tested shows the most significant impact of settings. Low settings produce 256 FPS average, which is still very playable. Medium settings reduce this to 217 FPS, with a minimum of 184 and maximum of 249 FPS. High settings yield 188 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 151 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 105 FPS, which is smaller in absolute terms than at lower resolutions but represents a 41% reduction from Low to Ultra. The minimum FPS at Medium (184) and the 151 FPS at Ultra both indicate that even the most demanding settings maintain playable frame rates at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific configuration — the Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D — ranks 32nd out of 2,991 tested combos in To The Core. This places it in the top 1.1% of all configurations, which is an exceptional result given that the CPU is a mid-range desktop part while the GPU is a flagship. The ranking demonstrates that the RTX 5090 D is the dominant factor in determining game performance, as the i5-14400F's synthetic benchmark scores are competitive with its nearest rivals but not class-leading.

Looking at the CPU's nearest rivals, the i5-14400F's average benchmark score of 32,279 is almost identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U (32,233, 0.1% higher) and the Intel Core i9-11900 (32,226, 0.2% higher). It trails the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS (32,354) by 0.2% and leads the Intel Core i7-12800H (32,121) by 0.5%. These tiny margins (all within 0.5%) suggest that the CPU is not a differentiating factor in the combo's overall rank; any of these processors would likely yield nearly identical game performance given the same GPU.

For the GPU, the RTX 5090 D's average benchmark score of 77,712 places it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904, 1.1% lower), the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940, 1.6% higher), and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 variants (79,396 and 79,605, 2.1% and 2.4% higher respectively). The fact that the RTX 5090 D sits within 2.4% of its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks but achieves a 32nd rank in this game suggests that To The Core favors the RTX 5090 D's specific architecture — Blackwell 2.0 with 21,760 shading units and 170 RT cores — over the competing GPU architectures.

The rank of 32 out of 2,991 is likely influenced by the game's idle genre, which may not fully utilize the GPU's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power. The high frame rates across all resolutions indicate that the game is not computationally demanding, so the combo's rank is probably more indicative of the GPU's raw fill rate and memory bandwidth (1.79 TB/s) than its compute capabilities. This suggests that the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory is overkill for this title but contributes to the high rank by eliminating any memory-related bottlenecks.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 536 FPS average with a minimum of 455 FPS and a maximum of 616 FPS — the min-to-max spread of 161 FPS indicates some frame time variation, but the average is so high that any individual frame drop is imperceptible. At 1440p Medium, the average is 379 FPS with a minimum of 322 FPS and maximum of 436 FPS, maintaining a 114 FPS spread that still ensures smooth gameplay. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 217 FPS with a minimum of 184 FPS and maximum of 249 FPS, which is still well above the 144 Hz threshold for high-refresh-rate monitors.

The High preset is also viable if visual fidelity is prioritized over maximum frame rate. At 1080p High, the average is 489 FPS; at 1440p High, it's 329 FPS; and at 4K High, it's 188 FPS. These numbers are all above 144 FPS, making High a reasonable choice for those with high-refresh-rate displays. However, the Medium preset provides a more comfortable margin above 144 FPS at 4K (217 FPS vs 188 FPS) while the visual difference between Medium and High in an idle game is likely minimal.

The Ultra preset is only recommended for users with a 4K 120Hz display who want maximum visual quality, as it delivers 151 FPS at 4K Ultra — still above 120 FPS. At 1080p Ultra, the 393 FPS average is overkill for any display, and at 1440p Ultra, 265 FPS exceeds all but the most extreme high-refresh-rate monitors. The Low preset, while offering the highest frame rates (568 FPS at 1080p), sacrifices too much visual quality for an idle game where the incremental FPS gains beyond 300 FPS are not perceptible to the human eye.

The data shows that the Medium preset at any resolution provides the best experience because it maintains an average FPS that is at least 217 FPS (at 4K) — well above the refresh rate of any mainstream display — while the minimum FPS at Medium (184 FPS at 4K) never drops below the 144 Hz threshold. This makes Medium the safest recommendation for a consistently smooth experience without visual compromises that would be noticeable in a game that likely features detailed UI elements and particle effects typical of idle genres.