To The Core

# To The Core with Intel Core i7-12700KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070

The benchmark data for "To The Core" shows this combination of Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 delivers exceptionally high frame rates across all tested resolutions and settings. With average FPS ranging from 105 at 4K Ultra to 461 at 1080p Low, the system comfortably exceeds the refresh rates of typical high-refresh monitors in every configuration tested. The measured results place this combo at rank 770 out of 3,725 tested combinations, putting it in the top 21% of all systems in the database for this specific idle game. The data reveals a clear pattern: the GPU becomes more relevant as resolution increases, while the CPU's strong multi-threaded performance keeps minimum frame rates high even at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

At 4K, the Ultra preset yields an average of 105 FPS, while High produces 130 FPS, a 24% improvement. Medium delivers 150 FPS, and Low reaches 177 FPS. The question becomes whether the visual quality difference between Ultra and High justifies the frame rate cost. For an idle game where the action is less twitch-dependent, Ultra's 105 FPS remains above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered smooth, making it a viable choice for users prioritizing visual fidelity. However, High at 130 FPS offers a meaningful headroom margin while still maintaining significant graphical enhancements over Medium.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern persists with larger absolute numbers: Ultra averages 183 FPS, High 227 FPS, Medium 262 FPS, and Low 310 FPS. The step from Ultra to High here represents a 44 FPS gain, which could matter for users with 240 Hz displays. Medium's 262 FPS would saturate a 240 Hz panel nearly perfectly, while Low exceeds 300 FPS for competitive play scenarios. For 1080p, all presets exceed 270 FPS, with High at 338 FPS, Medium at 390 FPS, and Low reaching 461 FPS — these numbers are so high that the limiting factor becomes the display's refresh rate rather than the hardware.

The data suggests the optimal experience depends on the target display and personal preference. For 4K users, High provides the best balance between graphical quality and frame rate headroom. At 1440p, Medium or High both offer excellent experiences, with Medium providing higher FPS for high-refresh displays. At 1080p, even Ultra's 272 FPS exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors, so users can freely choose the preset that maximizes visual quality without worrying about frame rate drops. The only configuration with any frame time concerns is 4K Ultra at 105 FPS, which still remains perfectly playable for this genre.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070's specifications directly influence these results. With 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, the card provides 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock runs at 2325 MHz with a boost clock of 2512 MHz, and the card houses 6,144 shading units across 192 texture mapping units and 80 render output units. These specifications produce a pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 30.87 TFLOPS. The 48 ray tracing cores and 192 tensor cores support the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set, though an idle game likely places minimal load on these dedicated units.

The memory configuration deserves attention in the context of resolution scaling. At 4K, the frame rate drops from Low's 177 FPS to Ultra's 105 FPS, a 41% reduction. This scaling behavior indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute resources are being taxed by the higher resolution and more demanding settings. The 12 GB VRAM capacity proves sufficient across all tested configurations, as no outliers or anomalies appear in the minimum FPS data at 4K Medium, where min FPS of 127 FPS and max FPS of 172 FPS bracket the 150 FPS average tightly.

The GPU's benchmark scores provide context for its overall capability. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5,077 and PassMark G3D score of 29,137 place it at the 82nd percentile among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 40,377 closely matches the AMD Radeon Pro 580 at 40,318 (0.1% delta) and exceeds the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 by 0.8%. These relative standings suggest the RTX 5070 is a well-rounded performer, though its nearest rivals in the database are professional-grade cards rather than direct gaming competitors. The GPU's 250 W TDP and 600 W suggested PSU requirement indicate the power delivery needs are substantial but manageable for a modern desktop system.

FAQ

Q: Does the RTX 5070 bottleneck the i7-12700KF in To The Core?

A: At 1080p, the data shows the CPU's influence dominates — the average FPS of 461 at Low settings and 390 at Medium indicate the GPU has significant headroom, suggesting the CPU is the primary limiter at this resolution. At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling from 177 FPS at Low to 105 FPS at Ultra, which aligns with GPU-bound behavior.

Q: What minimum FPS can I expect at 4K Medium settings?

A: The measured data shows a minimum FPS of 127 at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, with the average sitting at 150 FPS and the maximum at 172 FPS. This tight frame time distribution indicates consistent performance without stuttering.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems?

A: The combination ranks 770th out of 3,725 tested combos, placing it in the top 20.7% of all systems in the database for To The Core. This percentile position reflects the strong performance of both components working together.

Q: Is the i7-12700KF's 12-core configuration sufficient for this game?

A: Yes, the benchmark results confirm this. The CPU's 12 cores and 20 threads, with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, produce a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28,838 and a single-core score of 4,071. These scores indicate ample computational headroom for an idle game that likely does not stress all cores simultaneously.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between High and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, High settings average 227 FPS, while Ultra averages 183 FPS — a difference of 44 FPS or 19.4%. This gap is proportionally consistent with the 4K results, where the difference between High and Ultra is 25 FPS (130 vs. 105).

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming with this game?

A: Absolutely. Even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 105, which remains smooth for most gaming scenarios. At 4K High, the 130 FPS average provides additional headroom, and 4K Low achieves 177 FPS, demonstrating that all 4K presets are playable.

How This Combo Ranks

The rank of 770 out of 3,725 combos places this system firmly in the upper quintile of tested configurations. To contextualize this position, consider that 2,955 other combinations rank below this setup, while 769 rank above. The percentile positioning aligns with the individual component percentiles: the CPU sits at the 85th percentile among all CPUs, and the GPU at the 82nd percentile among all GPUs. The combo's slightly lower relative rank (top 20.7%) compared to the individual component percentiles suggests that the pairing in this specific game does not extract the absolute maximum from either component, likely due to the game's relatively light computational demands.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the database provide insight into its positioning. The Intel Core i7-13700T scores 35,403 (0.1% higher), the Intel Core 5 213PE scores 35,428 (0.2% higher), while the Intel Core i5-13600T scores 35,305 (0.2% lower) and the Intel Core i7-12700K scores 35,287 (0.2% lower). This cluster of scores within 0.4% of each other indicates the i7-12700KF is positioned at a performance plateau where minor architectural differences between generations produce negligible benchmark deltas. Similarly, the GPU's nearest rivals — AMD Radeon Pro 580 (0.1% higher), AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (0.8% higher), AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (1.2% lower), and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (2.0% higher) — all fall within a tight 3.2% band, reinforcing that the RTX 5070's average benchmark score of 40,377 is representative of a well-established performance tier.

The rank data also reflects the game's nature as an idle title. Unlike graphically intensive AAA games where the GPU would dominate the ranking spread, To The Core's modest demands mean that even mid-range components can achieve high FPS, compressing the field and making the rank more sensitive to CPU differences at lower resolutions. The fact that this combo still achieves a top 21% rank suggests both components contribute meaningfully to the overall experience.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the shifting bottleneck between CPU and GPU. At 1080p Low, the system produces 461 FPS; at 1440p Low, this drops to 310 FPS (a 32.8% reduction); and at 4K Low, it falls to 177 FPS (a 42.9% reduction from 1440p). This progressive decline with each resolution step indicates the GPU becomes increasingly limiting as pixel count rises. The total drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 284 FPS, representing a 61.6% reduction — a substantial penalty that clearly demonstrates the GPU's workload scaling with resolution.

The pattern holds across all settings presets. For High settings, the progression is 338 FPS at 1080p, 227 FPS at 1440p (32.8% drop), and 130 FPS at 4K (42.7% drop from 1440p). Medium settings show 390 FPS at 1080p, 262 FPS at 1440p (32.8% drop), and 150 FPS at 4K (42.7% drop). Ultra settings follow the same trend: 272 FPS at 1080p, 183 FPS at 1440p (32.7% drop), and 105 FPS at 4K (42.6% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings — approximately 33% from 1080p to 1440p and 43% from 1440p to 4K — indicates that the scaling is resolution-driven rather than setting-driven, reinforcing the GPU-bound nature at higher resolutions.

The transition from 1080p to 1440p represents a 78% increase in pixel count (from 2.07 million to 3.69 million pixels), yet the FPS drops by only about one-third. This sub-linear scaling suggests the GPU has sufficient bandwidth and compute resources to absorb the additional pixel workload efficiently at these settings. The transition from 1440p to 4K represents a 125% increase in pixel count (from 3.69 million to 8.29 million pixels), with the FPS dropping by about 43% — again sub-linear but more pronounced, indicating the GPU's resources are being stretched closer to their limits. For an idle game, these scaling characteristics are unusually favorable, as most titles would show more dramatic FPS drops at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 461 FPS, Medium averages 390 FPS with a minimum of 331 FPS and maximum of 448 FPS, High averages 338 FPS, and Ultra averages 272 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 189 FPS, representing a 41% reduction from the lowest to highest settings. The Medium preset's minimum FPS of 331 FPS indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate never drops below what would be imperceptible to most users. The consistency of the Medium preset's frame times, with a 117 FPS gap between minimum and maximum, suggests stable performance without thermal throttling or driver hiccups.

At 2560x1440, the results scale predictably. Low settings average 310 FPS, Medium averages 262 FPS with a minimum of 223 FPS and maximum of 302 FPS, High averages 227 FPS, and Ultra averages 183 FPS. The Medium preset's frame time distribution narrows slightly to a 79 FPS gap, indicating more consistent performance at this resolution. The Ultra preset's 183 FPS remains well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common among 1440p monitors, meaning users can enable maximum settings without sacrificing smoothness.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates remain high but show the GPU's increasing workload. Low settings average 177 FPS, Medium averages 150 FPS with a minimum of 127 FPS and maximum of 172 FPS, High averages 130 FPS, and Ultra averages 105 FPS. The Medium preset's frame time gap of 45 FPS is the tightest of any resolution, suggesting the GPU handles 4K Medium with particular stability. Even at 4K Ultra, the 105 FPS average exceeds the 60 FPS standard for console-quality smoothness and falls only slightly below the 120 Hz threshold. The progression from 4K Low to 4K Ultra shows a 72 FPS drop (a 40.7% reduction), which is proportionally similar to the reduction seen at 1080p, despite the much higher absolute pixel counts involved.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF brings substantial processing power to this combination. With 12 cores and 20 threads, a base clock of 3.60 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, this Alder Lake-S architecture processor delivers strong single-threaded and multi-threaded performance. The 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample fast memory for game logic and physics calculations. The CPU's benchmark scores confirm its capability: Cinebench R23 multi-core reaches 28,838, single-core reaches 4,071, and Geekbench scores are 14,367 multi-core and 2,255 single-core.

The CPU's role in To The Core becomes evident when examining the frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 1080p, where the GPU has less pixel work, the CPU's ability to feed frames becomes the limiting factor — the 461 FPS at Low settings represents the ceiling imposed by the CPU's instruction throughput. The PassMark multi-thread score of 34,092 and single-thread score of 3,984 indicate that both multi-core and single-core workloads are handled effectively. The CPU's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35,365, places it just 0.1% below the Intel Core i7-13700T and 0.2% above the Intel Core i7-12700K, showing it sits at a performance plateau where generation-on-generation gains are minimal.

The 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier (capable of overclocking) suggest the processor can sustain high clocks under load, which matters for maintaining consistent frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios. The 10 nm process node and 215 mm² die size contribute to efficient power delivery. In the context of this idle game, the CPU's 12 cores may be underutilized — most idle games are not heavily multi-threaded — but the high single-thread performance (evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1,043 and PassMark single-thread score of 3,984) ensures that even lightly threaded game logic runs at maximum speed. The data shows no evidence of CPU-induced frame rate drops at any resolution, as the minimum FPS figures remain consistently high across all settings.