To The Core

# To The Core with Intel Core i7-14700F + AMD Radeon RX 9060

The Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 delivers a surprisingly strong experience in To The Core, an idle genre title. The data shows this combo sustains high frame rates across all tested resolutions, with the 1440p Ultra setting hitting 115 FPS and 4K Ultra still playable at 66 FPS. The combination ranks 1719th out of 2991 tested combos, placing it in the upper-middle tier, which is respectable given the game's light computational demands relative to this hardware's capabilities.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in To The Core?*

A: Based on the measured FPS data, 2560x1440 offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At High settings, the combo delivers 143 FPS, which is well above smooth-play thresholds, while 1080p reaches 213 FPS and 4K drops to 82 FPS at the same settings.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700F has an average benchmark score of 53620, placing it 0.2% behind the Intel Xeon 6505P (53701) and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (53469). It also leads the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (53288) by 0.6% and the AMD EPYC 7313P (53206) by 0.8%.

Q: How does the GPU perform relative to similar graphics cards?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 scores 16014 on average, sitting 0.7% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129) and 1% above the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862). It also edges out the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852) by 1% and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679) by 2.1%.

Q: What is the CPU's multithreaded performance like?

A: The i7-14700F scores 35122 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 14751 in Cinebench R20 multicore. Its PassMark multithread score is 41317, and it achieves 3540 in Cinebench R15 multicore, indicating strong parallel processing capability from its 20 cores and 28 threads.

Q: Does the GPU have enough VRAM for this game?

A: The RX 9060 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s bandwidth. In To The Core, the highest tested setting (4K Ultra) runs at 66 FPS, suggesting 8 GB is sufficient for this title's demands.

Q: What is the GPU's single-thread and compute performance?

A: The RX 9060 achieves 88183 in Geekbench OpenCL and 39476 in Geekbench Vulkan. Its PassMark GPU compute score is 9919, and it hits 17631 in PassMark G3D, showing balanced compute and graphics capabilities.

Settings Recommendations

The data reveals a clear hierarchy across settings presets at each resolution. At 1080p, Low runs at 290 FPS, Medium at 246 FPS, High at 213 FPS, and Ultra at 171 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 119 FPS, indicating the GPU is not the limiting factor — the CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads keep the scene fed even at higher settings. For the best experience, High is the sweet spot: it delivers 213 FPS at 1080p, which is 25% faster than Ultra while still looking substantially better than Low.

At 1440p, the pattern holds with High at 143 FPS, Medium at 165 FPS, Low at 195 FPS, and Ultra at 115 FPS. Here, High is 28 FPS slower than Medium but 28 FPS faster than Ultra. Given that Medium shows a measured min FPS of 140 and max of 190, Medium provides the most consistent frame pacing for competitive play, while High offers better visuals with still-smooth performance.

At 4K, the differences compress: Low hits 112 FPS, Medium 94 FPS, High 82 FPS, and Ultra 66 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K shows a min FPS of 80 and max of 109, which is the only setting with recorded variance data. For 4K gaming, Medium is the recommended preset because it stays above 80 FPS at minimum while providing a 12 FPS improvement over High. Ultra at 4K drops below 70 FPS, which may feel less fluid for some users.

The overall recommendation is to use High settings at 1080p or 1440p for the best visual-to-performance ratio. The i7-14700F's single-core Cinebench R23 score of 4958 and multicore score of 35122 indicate the CPU can handle the game's logic threads without bottlenecking the RX 9060 at these settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck shifts. At High settings, FPS drops from 213 at 1080p to 143 at 1440p (a 32.9% reduction) and then to 82 at 4K (a 42.6% reduction from 1440p). This scaling pattern shows the GPU becoming progressively more stressed as pixel count increases, which is expected given the RX 9060's 8 GB VRAM and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth.

At Low settings, the scaling is similar: 290 FPS at 1080p, 195 FPS at 1440p (32.8% drop), and 112 FPS at 4K (42.6% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests the GPU is the primary limiter at all resolutions, but the CPU has enough headroom to avoid becoming the bottleneck even at 1080p Low where 290 FPS is achieved.

The Medium preset shows the most interesting pattern with min and max FPS data: at 1080p it ranges from 209 to 282 FPS (average 246), at 1440p from 140 to 190 FPS (average 165), and at 4K from 80 to 109 FPS (average 94). The frame variance grows proportionally with resolution, indicating that the RX 9060's 128-bit memory bus and 8 GB VRAM become more strained at higher pixel counts.

Ultra settings show the steepest 4K performance: 171 FPS at 1080p, 115 FPS at 1440p, and 66 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is 61.4% lower than 1080p Ultra, which is a more significant drop than the High preset's 61.5% reduction (213 to 82). This suggests that at Ultra, the GPU's shading units (1792) and ROPs (64) are fully utilized, and the 4 nm process node's thermal limits may come into play.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700F + AMD Radeon RX 9060 combination ranks 1719th out of 2991 tested combos in To The Core. This places the combo in the 42.5th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly 57.5% of combos perform better in this specific game.

The rank reflects the game's nature as an idle genre title, which typically doesn't stress high-end hardware as much as AAA shooters or simulators. The i7-14700F's percentile vs. all CPUs is 91, indicating it outperforms 91% of tested processors in general benchmarks. However, the RX 9060's percentile vs. all GPUs is only 59, meaning the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing.

This rank discrepancy makes sense: the CPU's 33 MB L3 cache and 28 threads provide ample headroom for the game's background simulation logic, while the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 1792 shading units are modest by modern standards. The combo's rank of 1719 suggests that in To The Core, the GPU's mid-tier standing (59th percentile) drags the overall system down from what the CPU alone could achieve.

Comparatively, the CPU's nearest rivals (Xeon 6505P, Xeon Phi 7290, Ryzen 9 7900X, EPYC 7313P) all have similar average benchmark scores within 0.8% of the i7-14700F, but none of those are typically paired with an RX 9060-class GPU in gaming systems. The GPU's rivals (RTX 3060 Ti, R9 370X, RX 7700, Pro W5500) are all within 2.1% of the RX 9060's average score, indicating this is a tightly contested performance tier.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 plays a crucial but not dominant role in this combo's To The Core performance. The GPU's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for the game's textures and frame buffers at 1080p and 1440p, but becomes constrained at 4K Ultra where the average FPS drops to 66.

The GPU's clock speeds show a significant spread: base clock at 1700 MHz, game clock at 2400 MHz, and boost clock at 2990 MHz. This 1290 MHz range between base and boost indicates the card can dynamically adjust its power draw (132 W TDP) and thermals to deliver higher performance when the game demands it. The memory clock at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) is modest, which aligns with the 288.0 GB/s bandwidth figure.

The RX 9060's architecture (RDNA 4.0, Navi 44) on a 4 nm TSMC process provides 21.43 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput. Its 112 TMUs and 64 ROPs handle texture and pixel processing, while 28 RT cores offer ray tracing support (though To The Core likely doesn't use it). The pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s are the key specs that determine how quickly the GPU can fill the screen at each resolution.

In the measured results, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions. At 1080p High, the 213 FPS suggests the GPU is not fully saturated — the CPU's 28 threads can feed frames faster than the GPU can render them. At 4K High, 82 FPS indicates the GPU is working much harder, and at 4K Ultra, 66 FPS shows the GPU's limits with 8 GB VRAM and a 128-bit bus.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 290 FPS average, which is the peak performance measured in any configuration. Medium settings average 246 FPS with a minimum of 209 FPS and maximum of 282 FPS. High settings average 213 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 171 FPS. The 119 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p shows that even the most demanding preset remains far above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, performance remains strong but scales down proportionally. Low settings average 195 FPS, Medium averages 165 FPS (with a range of 140-190 FPS), High averages 143 FPS, and Ultra averages 115 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 80 FPS at this resolution, indicating the GPU is starting to become more relevant. The Medium preset's min FPS of 140 is still comfortably above 60 FPS, making 1440p a viable option for high-refresh-rate monitors.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the GPU's limitations become evident. Low settings average 112 FPS, Medium averages 94 FPS (with a range of 80-109 FPS), High averages 82 FPS, and Ultra drops to 66 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is now only 46 FPS, showing that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at this resolution. Even at Ultra, the 66 FPS average is above 60 FPS, but the lack of min FPS data for Ultra suggests potential frame drops below that threshold.

The Medium preset is the only configuration with complete min/max data at all three resolutions. At 1080p, the 73 FPS range (209-282) indicates high variance, while at 1440p the range narrows to 50 FPS (140-190), and at 4K it tightens to 29 FPS (80-109). This decreasing variance at higher resolutions suggests the GPU's rendering time becomes more consistent as it becomes the limiting factor, whereas at 1080p the CPU's frame delivery causes more fluctuation.