Inside

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers overwhelming performance in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer. The measured frame rates across all resolutions and presets are exceptionally high, with the lowest average FPS recorded at 145.8 (4K Ultra) and the highest at 425.8 (1080p Low). This combination ranks 23rd out of 3,716 tested combos, placing it in the top 0.6% of all configurations for this title. The data shows a system that is not merely playable but operates in a performance tier that suggests the game is far from taxing these components.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are consistently above 300 FPS across all settings. The Low preset yields an average of 425.8 FPS, Medium drops to 397.9, High produces 331.2, and Ultra maintains 321.2. The gap between Low and Ultra is roughly 24.5%, indicating that even the most demanding preset at this resolution leaves substantial headroom. The difference between Medium and High is more pronounced than between High and Ultra, suggesting diminishing returns at the top end of the settings ladder.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably but remains far beyond any playability threshold. Low averages 380.3 FPS, Medium 351.5, High 240.9, and Ultra 231.6. The drop from High to Ultra is only 3.9%, while the jump from Medium to High is a significant 31.4%. This pattern reveals that the High preset represents a notable computational step up from Medium, whereas Ultra adds comparatively little overhead at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the 4K results show the first signs of the GPU being exercised, though still at extraordinary levels. Low averages 303.3 FPS, Medium 245.3, High 150.2, and Ultra 145.8. The most striking observation is the 38.8% performance drop from Medium to High, which is far larger than the 2.9% decline from High to Ultra. This indicates that the High preset at 4K introduces a substantial rendering load that the lower presets avoid, likely tied to specific visual effects that scale with resolution.

Across all resolutions, the delta between Low and Ultra narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, Ultra is 24.5% slower than Low; at 1440p, the gap grows to 39.1%; at 4K, it reaches 51.9%. This suggests that the RTX 5090's compute resources are increasingly the limiting factor at higher resolutions, while at 1080p the CPU's single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 1286) plays a more prominent role in maintaining the extreme frame rates.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset is the recommended choice, delivering 321.2 FPS average. This represents the most demanding settings that still clear the 60 FPS threshold by a massive margin. Given that even the most intensive configuration at this resolution exceeds 300 FPS, there is no practical reason to reduce quality.

For 2560x1440, Ultra remains the best option with an average of 231.6 FPS. The performance headroom here is still enormous, and the data shows no settings combination dips anywhere near the playability threshold. The 231.6 FPS figure is more than 3.8 times the 60 FPS baseline.

At 3840x2160, Ultra again proves optimal, averaging 145.8 FPS. This is the lowest average across all tested configurations, yet it still provides more than double the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 150.2 FPS is nearly identical, differing by only 3%, so selecting Ultra for the marginal visual improvement costs almost nothing in frame rate.

The verdict data confirms that all four settings presets at every resolution are classified as playable, with Ultra being the best setting at each resolution. This is an unusual outcome; most hardware combinations show at least one preset falling below 60 FPS at 4K, but this configuration does not.

FAQ

Q: Does this combination maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes. The measured average at 3840x2160 Ultra is 145.8 FPS, which is 143% above the 60 FPS threshold. The lowest recorded average across all tests is this 145.8 FPS figure, so every configuration clears the playability bar with substantial margin.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Low to Ultra at each resolution?

A: At 1080p, the drop from Low (425.8 FPS) to Ultra (321.2 FPS) is 24.5%. At 1440p, Low (380.3) to Ultra (231.6) represents a 39.1% reduction. At 4K, Low (303.3) to Ultra (145.8) shows a 51.9% decrease, indicating the GPU becomes more of a bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Q: Which resolution shows the largest relative gap between Medium and High presets?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium to High transition drops from 245.3 to 150.2 FPS, a 38.8% reduction. This is notably larger than the 16.8% drop at 1440p (351.5 to 240.9) and the 16.8% drop at 1080p (397.9 to 331.2).

Q: What is the performance difference between High and Ultra at 4K?

A: High averages 150.2 FPS while Ultra averages 145.8 FPS, a difference of only 2.9%. This is the smallest High-to-Ultra gap across any resolution, suggesting the Ultra preset adds minimal additional load at 4K.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to limit performance at 1080p Low?

A: The 1080p Low result of 425.8 FPS is the highest recorded average, and the CPU's 3dmark single-thread score of 1286 (92nd percentile) suggests strong single-core performance. The relatively small gap between Low and Medium at 1080p (6.6%) compared to the larger jump to High (16.8%) implies the CPU handles the simplest presets easily.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra result compare to the 1080p Low result?

A: The 4K Ultra average of 145.8 FPS is 65.8% lower than the 1080p Low average of 425.8 FPS. This substantial difference illustrates how resolution scaling impacts the RTX 5090, even though both results are far beyond playable thresholds.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its positioning. The AMD EPYC 9015 scores 57,555, which is 0.1% higher than the Ryzen 9 9900X's average benchmark score of 57,498. The AMD EPYC 7313 sits 0.2% lower at 57,399. Intel's Core i9-14900 is 1.1% faster at 58,115, while the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M leads this group at 58,323, 1.4% above the Ryzen. These deltas are negligible in real-world gaming terms, meaning any of these processors would deliver nearly identical frame rates in Inside.

For the GPU, the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB scores 79,605, just 0.3% above the RTX 5090's 79,842 average. The Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB trails by 0.6% at 79,396. The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT is 1.1% slower at 78,940, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X leads by 1.4% at 80,959. These rival GPUs would produce frame rates within a few percentage points of the RTX 5090, though the data does not include their exact Inside performance.

In practice, a system built with any of these CPU or GPU alternatives would behave nearly identically in Inside, with differences of less than 1.5% in synthetic benchmarks. The 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 for the RTX 5090 reinforces its position, but the game's low system requirements mean even these close rivals would likely saturate the display refresh rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination ranks 23rd out of 3,716 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the top 0.62% of all configurations. This is a remarkable position for a game released in 2016, as it suggests the hardware is overkill for the title's demands. The rank reflects the absolute performance ceiling, but the data shows that even the weakest settings combination (4K Ultra at 145.8 FPS) leaves no room for the ranking to be challenged by typical gaming workloads.

The percentile rankings support this: the CPU sits in the 92nd percentile among all CPUs, and the GPU also sits in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs. This symmetry between component tiers indicates a balanced pairing, though the game's modest requirements mean the ranking is more proof of raw hardware capability than to optimized performance in Inside.

The gap between this combo and the 3,693 other combos below it is substantial, but the data does not reveal how many combos achieve similar frame rates. What is clear is that the 145.8 FPS floor at 4K Ultra is higher than many systems' peak performance in this game, making the 23rd rank a reflection of the hardware's ceiling rather than any game-specific tuning.

The Verdict

This PC can absolutely run Inside, and the data shows it does so with extraordinary headroom. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 321.2 FPS, which is 435% of the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440, Ultra delivers 231.6 FPS, or 386% of the threshold. At 3840x2160, Ultra maintains 145.8 FPS, which is 243% of the threshold.

The verdict by resolution confirms that all four settings presets at all three resolutions are playable, with Ultra being the best setting at each resolution. There is no scenario in the measured data where this combination falls below 60 FPS. The lowest recorded average, 145.8 FPS at 4K Ultra, still provides a 2.4x margin over the playability threshold.

For a game like Inside, which is a 2D puzzle platformer with limited geometric complexity, these frame rates indicate that the system is bottlenecked by the game engine's own frame pacing or API overhead rather than by hardware limits. The 425.8 FPS at 1080p Low suggests the CPU can push frames far faster than the game can render them, making this combination ideal for high-refresh-rate displays.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data reveals distinct scaling patterns that illuminate which component matters more at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the difference between Low (425.8 FPS) and Ultra (321.2 FPS) is 104.6 FPS, a 24.5% reduction. This relatively small drop suggests the CPU's single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 1286) is the primary driver, as the GPU has ample resources to handle the increased settings load.

At 2560x1440, the Low to Ultra drop widens to 148.7 FPS (39.1%), indicating the GPU's pixel throughput begins to matter more. The RTX 5090's 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth and 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance are being utilized more heavily, yet the CPU still keeps pace, as evidenced by the 380.3 FPS Low result.

At 3840x2160, the Low to Ultra gap expands to 157.5 FPS (51.9%), and the High to Ultra difference shrinks to just 2.9%. This pattern strongly suggests the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K, particularly with the High preset, which likely enables resolution-dependent effects that strain the render pipeline. The 150.2 FPS High result versus the 145.8 FPS Ultra result shows that the GPU is approaching its effective limit for this game at 4K, while the CPU remains far from saturated.

The scaling between presets tells a similar story. At 1080p, the Medium to High drop is 16.8%, while at 4K the same transition causes a 38.8% drop. This indicates that the High preset introduces a rendering cost that scales with resolution, making the GPU's role more pronounced as pixel count increases. Conversely, the Low preset results stay relatively high across resolutions (425.8 at 1080p, 380.3 at 1440p, 303.3 at 4K), suggesting that at low settings, the CPU's 24 threads and 64 MB L3 cache are sufficient to feed the GPU even at 4K.

In summary, the CPU dominates performance at 1080p and low presets, while the GPU's influence grows steadily with resolution and settings intensity. The RTX 5090's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 512-bit bus provide ample bandwidth for 4K textures, but the game's age means these resources are rarely taxed. The Ryzen 9 9900X's 12 cores and 24 threads are similarly overprovisioned, with the 3dmark max-threads score of 13,929 indicating strong multi-threaded capability that Inside likely does not exploit fully.