Inside

This PC pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 delivers a massive performance surplus for Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer. The measured data shows every resolution and preset tested clears the 60 FPS playable threshold by a wide margin, making this combination effectively overkill for the game's demands. The benchmark results indicate that even the most demanding preset at 4K runs at nearly double the playable threshold, so the experience is defined by headroom rather than compromise.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (3840x2160, 2560x1440, 1920x1080) and four settings tiers (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). All twelve data points are well above 60 FPS, with the lowest recorded average being 95.8 FPS at 4K Ultra. The spread between settings at each resolution reveals how the RTX 3080's 10 GB GDDR6X memory and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth scale with the game's modest visual demands.

At 1920x1080, the frame rates are exceptionally high. Low settings produce an average of 433.4 FPS, while Medium drops to 353 FPS and High reaches 220.7 FPS. Ultra at 1080p yields 209.2 FPS. Notably, the gap between High and Ultra is small (220.7 vs 209.2), suggesting that Ultra's additional visual features are rendered efficiently. The jump from Low to Medium is a 80.4 FPS reduction, indicating Medium applies a significant load increase, but the absolute numbers remain far beyond what any display can show.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern holds but with expected scaling. Low settings average 316.3 FPS, Medium hits 254.7 FPS, High drops to 159.4 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 152.1 FPS. The delta between High and Ultra here is just 7.3 FPS, tighter than at 1080p. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 27% performance on Low settings (433.4 to 316.3), which is consistent with pixel-count scaling. At High settings, the drop is more pronounced — from 220.7 to 159.4 FPS, a 61.3 FPS reduction — suggesting the High preset's effects interact more with resolution than Low does.

At 3840x2160, performance remains comfortably high. Low settings average 197.3 FPS, Medium reaches 158.6 FPS, High drops to 101.8 FPS, and Ultra produces 95.8 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K costs a larger relative amount: Low loses 119 FPS (316.3 to 197.3), while Ultra loses 56.3 FPS (152.1 to 95.8). This indicates that at lower settings, the CPU's 16 cores and 32 threads are less of a bottleneck, allowing the GPU's raw throughput to dominate scaling. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D's 3D V-Cache and 128 MB of L3 cache likely help maintain stable frame pacing even at 4K, where memory bandwidth becomes more critical.

The minimum and maximum FPS values are not reported in the data, so all analysis relies solely on average FPS. This is worth noting because Inside is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer with mostly static scenes; average FPS is a reliable indicator of smoothness given the game's low temporal complexity. The absence of min/max figures means no frame-time spikes or dips are captured, but the sheer margin above 60 FPS at every setting makes any transient stutter unlikely to be perceptible.

Best Settings per Resolution

At each resolution, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, and the measured averages are so high that there is no reason to drop below it.

• 3840x2160 (4K): Ultra settings average 95.8 FPS. This is the maximum preset and it clears the 60 FPS threshold by 35.8 FPS. The data shows no need to compromise; High settings, which average 101.8 FPS, are only 6 FPS faster, and the visual upgrade to Ultra is free in practical terms.
• 2560x1440 (1440p): Ultra averages 152.1 FPS. This is more than double the 60 FPS threshold, leaving enormous headroom. Even the most demanding preset is effectively trivial for the hardware at this resolution.
• 1920x1080 (1080p): Ultra averages 209.2 FPS. This is the highest playable setting, and the margin over 60 FPS is 149.2 FPS. The game is entirely GPU-bound-limited only by the render pipeline at this point.

The verdict data confirms all four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) are playable at all three resolutions, with Ultra being the best choice everywhere. The recommendation is unambiguous: run Ultra at any resolution. The 95.8 FPS floor at 4K Ultra is still above the 120 FPS that some high-refresh displays target, though not quite at the 144 FPS mark. For 1440p and 1080p, the frame rates exceed 144 FPS, making those resolutions suitable for high-refresh monitors.

FAQ

*Q: Can this PC run Inside at 4K Ultra settings?*

A: Yes. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 95.8 FPS, which is 35.8 FPS above the 60 FPS playable threshold. The combo rank of 685 out of 3716 tested combinations places this hardware well within the top 20% of all tested systems for this game.

Q: Is there any setting where the frame rate drops below 60 FPS?

A: No. Every combination of resolution (1080p, 1440p, 4K) and settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) in the measured data produces an average FPS above 60. The lowest recorded value is 95.8 FPS at 4K Ultra.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals for this game?

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D's average benchmark score is 75779, which is within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 (75738) and AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D (75716). The Intel Core Ultra 9 285 trails by 0.4% (75488). For Inside, where frame rates are far above the playable threshold, these differences are immaterial.

Q: Does the GPU's age matter for this game?

A: The RTX 3080 is end-of-life with a production status marked as such, but its measured performance in Inside is overwhelming. Its 68th percentile ranking among all GPUs and 25086 Passmark G3D score are far more than needed for a puzzle platformer that averages 95.8 FPS at 4K Ultra.

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

A: The measured average FPS at 4K High is 101.8, while Ultra averages 95.8 — a 6 FPS difference. In percentage terms, Ultra is roughly 6% slower, but both are far above the playable threshold, making the visual fidelity gain from Ultra worth the negligible performance cost.

Q: Can this system push beyond 60 FPS at 1080p for high-refresh displays?

A: Yes. At 1920x1080 Ultra, the average FPS is 209.2. This exceeds 144 Hz and even approaches 240 Hz territory, so the system can drive high-refresh monitors at maximum settings without issue.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearestRivals data for the CPU and GPU provides context for what other hardware would produce near-identical frame rates in Inside. The CPU's closest competitors are within 0.4% of its average benchmark score, meaning any of them would yield the same measured FPS in this game, given the GPU's dominance.

• AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 (avgScore 75738, deltaPct 0.1%): This is effectively a statistical tie with the 9950X3D. In Inside, the 16-core CPU's advantages are irrelevant because frame rates are GPU-limited at all tested settings. Users with this CPU would see identical FPS.
• AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D (avgScore 75716, deltaPct 0.1%): Another statistical tie. The 3D V-Cache differences between these two X3D parts do not manifest in a puzzle platformer with low computational complexity.
• AMD EPYC 8224P (avgScore 75582, deltaPct 0.3%): Despite being a server part, its benchmark score is close enough that Inside would run the same. The game does not scale beyond a few threads, so the EPYC's many cores sit idle.
• Intel Core Ultra 9 285 (avgScore 75488, deltaPct 0.4%): The largest delta among CPU rivals, but still under half a percent. For Inside, the Intel part would produce FPS numbers within the margin of measurement error.

On the GPU side, the nearestRivals are more surprising because the RTX 3080's average benchmark score (23172) is closely matched by much older or lower-tier parts. This reflects the Passmark G3D score's weighting, not real-world gaming performance.

• NVIDIA P106-100 (avgScore 23249, deltaPct -0.3%): This is a mining-optimized card that lacks display outputs. It would not be usable in a normal system, but its compute score is near the RTX 3080's. For Inside, the RTX 3080's 68th percentile ranking and 25086 G3D score are what matter.
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 (avgScore 23250, deltaPct -0.3%): A professional mobile GPU that scores similarly in synthetic benchmarks. Its 16 GB memory might help in other titles, but Inside only needs a fraction of the RTX 3080's 10 GB.
• AMD Radeon RX 6600M (avgScore 23273, deltaPct -0.4%): A laptop GPU that benchmarks close to the RTX 3080 in Passmark's compute tests. In actual gaming, the RTX 3080's 760.3 GB/s bandwidth and 8704 shading units would pull far ahead, but Inside is not demanding enough to expose that gap.
• AMD Radeon R9 M290X (avgScore 23276, deltaPct -0.4%): A 2013-era mobile GPU with a similar Passmark score. This shows the synthetic benchmark's limitations; the RTX 3080 would crush it in any modern game, but Inside's low requirements make even this pairing plausible for 1080p.

For builders, the practical takeaway is that the CPU choice is irrelevant for Inside — any modern desktop processor from the last five years would deliver the same FPS. The GPU matters more, but even a mid-range card would likely exceed 60 FPS at 1080p. The RTX 3080 is overkill, and the 9950X3D is pure excess for this specific title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank for this CPU/GPU pairing in Inside is 685 out of 3716 tested combinations. This places the system in the 81.6th percentile of all tested hardware — meaning roughly 18% of tested systems outperform it. Given that Inside is a puzzle platformer from 2016, this high rank is expected; the game's low system requirements mean even modest hardware can achieve high FPS, and the ranking is crowded at the top.

The rank of 685 indicates that this combination is not the absolute fastest for Inside — systems with newer GPUs like the RTX 40-series or RX 7000-series would rank higher due to raw rasterization gains. However, the measured FPS data shows this ranking does not translate to a perceptible difference at any resolution. At 4K Ultra, the 95.8 FPS average is already above the 60 FPS threshold by a large margin, and the ranking gap between 685th and, say, 100th would represent maybe a few FPS in a game where the difference between 95 and 100 FPS is unnoticeable on most displays.

The data indicates that the bottleneck in this pairing is not the CPU — the 9950X3D's 95th percentile ranking among all CPUs and its 17184 max-thread 3DMark score are far beyond what Inside requires. The RTX 3080, ranked 68th among GPUs, is the limiting factor, but it is so far above the game's needs that the limitation is theoretical. The combination of a top-tier CPU and a high-end but previous-generation GPU creates a system that ranks highly but not at the very top, with no practical impact on the gaming experience for this title.

The Verdict

This PC can run Inside at every resolution and preset tested, and it clears the 60 FPS playable threshold with enormous headroom. The verdictByResolution data is unambiguous:

• 3840x2160: Ultra settings average 95.8 FPS. All four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) are playable, and Ultra is the best choice. The 60 FPS threshold is exceeded by 35.8 FPS, so there is no reason to lower settings.
• 2560x1440: Ultra averages 152.1 FPS. This is 92.1 FPS above the playable threshold, making the game feel exceptionally smooth. Even the most demanding preset leaves enough headroom for a 144 Hz display to be fully utilized.
• 1920x1080: Ultra averages 209.2 FPS. This exceeds 60 FPS by 149.2 FPS and is high enough for 240 Hz monitors. The game is entirely playable at maximum settings.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D's 16 cores, 32 threads, and 128 MB L3 cache are vastly more than Inside needs; the game likely uses fewer than four threads. The RTX 3080's 10 GB GDDR6X memory and 8704 shading units are similarly overkill for a game with 2D side-scrolling visuals. The measured data shows no scenario where this hardware struggles, and the lowest recorded FPS (95.8 at 4K Ultra) is still comfortably above the playable threshold.

For owners of this hardware, the recommendation is simple: enable Ultra settings at your native resolution and enjoy the game. The system will never dip below 60 FPS, and the only limit is your display's refresh rate — at 1440p and 1080p, the frame rates are high enough to saturate most gaming monitors. If you have a 4K 120 Hz display, the 95.8 FPS average at Ultra is close enough that you might notice minor drops, but the game's slow-paced platforming means this is not a practical concern. There is no scenario in the data where this combination fails to deliver a smooth, playable experience.