To The Core

The Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers extraordinary frame rates in To The Core, an idle game that clearly scales with both CPU and GPU muscle. The measured data reveals a system capable of triple-digit FPS at 4K and frame rates approaching the refresh rate limits of most monitors at 1080p. This analysis explores how the combination behaves across resolutions and settings, what the numbers indicate about the hardware bottleneck, and how this specific pairing ranks among the thousands of tested combinations.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K produces a dramatic drop in average FPS across all settings, but the pattern reveals a system that remains remarkably fluid even at the highest resolution. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 653 FPS at 1920x1080 to 256 FPS at 3840x2160 — a reduction of roughly 61%. This steep decline suggests that at lower settings, the CPU is heavily involved in frame generation, and the higher pixel count forces the GPU to take on more work, creating a bottleneck shift.

Moving from 1440p to 4K shows a more moderate scaling curve. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 379 at 2560x1440 to 217 at 4K, a decrease of about 43%. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is 39 FPS (256 vs 217), while at 1080p that same gap is 89 FPS (653 vs 564). This compression of differences at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count increases, reducing the impact of CPU-driven settings changes.

The Ultra preset tells a similar story. At 1080p, Ultra yields 393 FPS average, dropping to 265 at 1440p and 151 at 4K. The scaling from 1440p to 4K here is a 43% reduction, nearly identical to the Medium preset’s drop. This consistency across presets suggests that resolution scaling is governed primarily by the GPU’s pixel throughput capabilities rather than by the complexity of the scene or settings. The RTX 5090 D’s 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth and 176 ROPs provide substantial headroom, but the data implies that even this flagship GPU cannot fully compensate for the 4x pixel count increase from 1080p to 4K.

Interestingly, the Low preset at 4K still achieves 256 FPS average, which is higher than the Ultra preset at 1440p (265 FPS). This indicates that settings have a more profound impact on frame rates than resolution alone. A player seeking maximum smoothness could potentially run Low settings at 4K and achieve frame rates comparable to Ultra at 1440p, highlighting the flexibility of this hardware combination. The data does not include minimum frame rates for most rows, so the full stutter picture remains unclear, but the available averages suggest a system that rarely dips below playable thresholds.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide clear guidance for optimizing the experience in To The Core. At 4K, the Medium preset stands out as the balanced choice, delivering 217 FPS average with a minimum of 184 FPS and a maximum of 249 FPS. This is the only 4K row with complete min/max data, and the 65 FPS spread between min and max indicates some frame pacing variation, but the minimum remains far above typical display refresh rates.

For players prioritizing maximum visual quality, Ultra at 4K still delivers 151 FPS average, which is high enough for most high-refresh monitors. However, the jump from Medium to Ultra costs 66 FPS (217 to 151), a 30% reduction that may not justify the visual gains in an idle game where the camera and action are often static. High settings at 4K sit between these two at 188 FPS, offering a middle ground that sacrifices little compared to Medium.

At 1440p, the Medium preset again provides the best measured stability, with 379 FPS average and a min of 322 FPS. The Low preset reaches 448 FPS, but the 69 FPS gain over Medium may not be perceptible on most 144Hz or 240Hz monitors. Ultra at 1440p dips to 265 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth but represents a 30% drop from Medium. The data suggests that Medium settings at 1440p offer the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate consistency, particularly given the available min/max data.

At 1080p, all presets exceed 390 FPS, making the choice less about playability and more about visual preferences. Low settings hit 653 FPS, Medium 564 FPS, High 489 FPS, and Ultra 393 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 260 FPS, but even the lowest of these numbers far exceeds the refresh rate of any mainstream monitor. For competitive play or maximum responsiveness, Low is the clear winner, but for typical usage, Medium with its documented min of 479 FPS and max of 648 FPS provides a stable, high-quality experience.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a monster of a graphics card, with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s base clock of 2017 MHz and boost clock of 2407 MHz, combined with 21,760 shading units, produce a theoretical FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS. These specifications translate directly into the frame rates observed in To The Core, particularly at 4K where the GPU’s pixel processing capabilities become dominant.

The 32 GB VRAM capacity is far beyond what To The Core likely requires, but the memory bandwidth plays a crucial role in the 4K results. The data shows a consistent scaling pattern where increasing resolution reduces average FPS proportionally across all settings. At 4K, the difference between Low and Ultra is 105 FPS (256 vs 151), while at 1080p that same difference is 260 FPS (653 vs 393). This narrowing at higher resolutions points to the GPU’s compute and memory subsystems being the limiting factor, as the CPU cannot feed frames fast enough to maintain the same settings-driven deltas.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its position as a top-tier part. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14,326 and Passmark G3D score of 44,065 place it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,915 suggests strong driver optimization for modern APIs. In To The Core, the GPU’s role is clearly to render at high resolutions without compromising frame rates, and the data confirms it excels at this task. The RTX 5090 D’s predecessor, the GeForce 40 series, would likely struggle to match these numbers, but the data only shows the 5090 D’s performance directly.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset reveals a consistent hierarchy across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 653 (Low) to 393 (Ultra). The Medium preset shows a min of 479 and max of 648 FPS, providing the only complete data row at this resolution. High settings land at 489 FPS average. The scaling from Low to Ultra is roughly linear, with each step down in settings yielding a substantial gain.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop to 448 (Low), 379 (Medium), 329 (High), and 265 (Ultra). The Medium preset again has full min/max data, showing 322 min and 436 max FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p varies by setting: Low loses 31% (653 to 448), Medium loses 33% (564 to 379), High loses 33% (489 to 329), and Ultra loses 33% (393 to 265). This uniformity suggests a consistent scaling factor tied to pixel count rather than settings complexity.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 256 (Low), 217 (Medium), 188 (High), and 151 (Ultra). The Medium preset shows 184 min and 249 max FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper: Low loses 43% (448 to 256), Medium loses 43% (379 to 217), High loses 43% (329 to 188), and Ultra loses 43% (265 to 151). This consistent 43% reduction across all settings at the 4K step indicates a hard GPU bottleneck, likely due to pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth constraints.

The data reveals an interesting anomaly: the Low preset at 4K (256 FPS) outperforms the Ultra preset at 1440p (265 FPS) by only 9 FPS, meaning a player could drop from 4K Low to 1440p Ultra and gain just 3.5% performance. This suggests that settings have a more significant impact than resolution in this game, at least for this hardware. The measured rows lack min/max data for most configurations, so the analysis relies on averages, but the pattern is clear and consistent.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 21st out of 2,991 tested combinations in To The Core. This places it in the top 0.7% of all configurations, indicating that very few setups can match its performance. The rank reflects the synergy between the CPU’s strong multi-threaded capabilities and the GPU’s raw rendering power.

The CPU alone sits in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53,620. Its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6505P, scores 53,701, a mere 0.2% difference, showing how close the i7-14700F is to other high-end processors. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X trails by 0.6%, and the AMD EPYC 7313P by 0.8%. These close margins suggest that the CPU is not the limiting factor in most games, and To The Core likely benefits from the i7-14700F’s 20 cores and 28 threads.

The GPU ranks in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT, is 1.1% faster, while the RX 6850M XT is 1.6% slower. This tight grouping at the top of the GPU rankings indicates that the RTX 5090 D is among the best available, though not definitively the fastest. The combo’s 21st rank out of 2,991 suggests that other pairings of slightly faster CPUs or GPUs can edge it out, but the margin is likely small given the percentile scores.

The fact that this combo ranks 21st rather than higher could be attributed to the CPU’s locked multiplier (it is not unlocked for overclocking) or the GPU’s specific driver optimization for this game. The data shows that the combo achieves exceptional frame rates, so the rank likely reflects the presence of a few combos with even more powerful components, such as higher-clocked CPUs or GPUs with better game-specific tuning.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process. Its base clock of 2.10 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,958. The multi-core score of 35,122 in the same test demonstrates excellent scaling across its many cores, which is critical for games that utilize multiple threads.

In To The Core, an idle game, the CPU’s role is likely to handle game logic, entity management, and frame pacing. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (653 FPS) suggests that the CPU can generate frames faster than almost any display can show, indicating that the i7-14700F is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions. The consistent 43% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings implies that the CPU’s performance ceiling is well above what the GPU can render at higher pixel counts.

The CPU’s cache hierarchy — 80 KB L1 per core, 2 MB L2 per core, and 33 MB shared L3 — provides ample fast storage for game data. The dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 gives flexibility, though the data does not specify which memory type was used in testing. The CPU supports PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes, which matches the GPU’s PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, ensuring no bandwidth limitations between the two components.

The i7-14700F’s benchmark scores further contextualize its performance. Its Passmark multithread score of 41,317 and Geekbench multicore score of 19,620 place it among the top processors. The CPU’s 65 W TDP is notably low for a 20-core part, suggesting efficient power management that could prevent thermal throttling in sustained loads. The nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6505P, is only 0.2% faster in average benchmark score, confirming that the i7-14700F is at the pinnacle of CPU performance for gaming workloads.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved at 4K with this combo?

A: The highest 4K average is 256 FPS, achieved at Low settings. Medium settings deliver 217 FPS, High delivers 188 FPS, and Ultra delivers 151 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations in this game?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700F with the RTX 5090 D ranks 21st out of 2,991 tested combos, placing it in the top 0.7% of all configurations.

Q: Which settings preset provides the most stable frame times at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 shows the only complete min/max data, with an average of 379 FPS, a minimum of 322 FPS, and a maximum of 436 FPS. This suggests the most consistent frame pacing.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory configuration and how does it affect performance?

A: The GPU has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth. This high bandwidth likely enables the strong 4K performance, where the 43% drop from 1440p is consistent across all settings.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: The data shows that at 1080p, the CPU can push frame rates above 650 FPS on Low settings, while at 4K the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The uniform 43% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the CPU’s multi-core performance relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The i7-14700F has an average benchmark score of 53,620, which is 0.2% lower than the Intel Xeon 6505P (53,701) and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (53,288). This places it in a tight cluster at the top of CPU performance charts.