Inside

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers overwhelming performance in Inside, clearing the 60 FPS playable threshold by a massive margin at every resolution and preset tested. Benchmark data shows the combo achieves a 143 FPS average at 4K Ultra, 228.5 FPS at 1440p Ultra, and 277 FPS at 1080p Ultra, making this system effectively incapable of dropping below playable frame rates in this puzzle platformer. The only meaningful question is not whether this PC can run the game, but how much headroom exists for high-refresh-rate displays or future content.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest preset this CPU and GPU combination can run at 4K?

A: The system runs Inside at 4K Ultra with an average of 143 FPS, which is 83 FPS above the 60 FPS playable threshold. All four tested presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—remain playable at 3840x2160.

Q: How does the frame rate scale between 1080p and 4K at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops from 277 FPS at 1920x1080 to 143 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of 134 FPS. This indicates the GPU becomes increasingly stressed at higher resolutions, though even the 4K result remains far above playable levels.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The data shows the GPU is the primary scaling factor. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 369 FPS, while at 4K Low it produces 282.4 FPS. This 86.6 FPS drop across resolutions suggests the GPU workload increases substantially, whereas the CPU's 3DMark scores (9,976 at max threads) indicate ample processing headroom for this title.

Q: What is the least demanding preset tested, and what frame rate does it produce?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 produces the highest measured average at 369 FPS. Even at 4K Low, the system maintains 282.4 FPS, which is more than four times the 60 FPS playable threshold.

Q: Does the combo's performance ranking change at different resolutions?

A: The verdict data shows Ultra is the best playable setting at every resolution: 143 FPS at 4K, 228.5 FPS at 1440p, and 277 FPS at 1080p. The consistent ability to max out settings across all resolutions confirms this is a top-tier configuration for Inside.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 compare to its nearest rival in benchmark scores?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 79,842 is 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605) and 1.4% behind the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80,959). The RTX 5090 sits in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs tested.

CPU and GPU Roles

For Inside, the GPU is the dominant performance factor, with the RTX 5090's workload scaling noticeably across resolution changes. At 4K, the frame rate drops by 29.3% from Low (282.4 FPS) to High (154.1 FPS), while the jump from High to Ultra (143 FPS) adds another 7.2% reduction. This pattern holds at 1440p, where Low produces 330.1 FPS and Ultra drops to 228.5 FPS, and at 1080p, where the range spans from 369 FPS at Low to 277 FPS at Ultra.

The CPU's role is secondary but not negligible. The Intel Core i7-12700K's 3DMark scores show strong multi-threaded performance (9,976 at max threads) and single-thread capability (1,043 in single-thread test), which prevents it from limiting frame rates even at the lowest resolution. The fact that 1080p Low hits 369 FPS while the same preset at 4K reaches 282.4 FPS demonstrates that the GPU becomes the constraint as pixel count rises, while the CPU maintains consistent throughput.

Resolution scaling reveals the GPU's increasing importance. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings reduces the average from 338.4 FPS to 305.3 FPS (a 9.8% drop), while moving from 1440p to 4K at the same preset drops from 305.3 FPS to 245.4 FPS (a 19.6% drop). This accelerating decline indicates that the RTX 5090's memory bandwidth (1.79 TB/s) and shading throughput (104.8 TFLOPS) are being pushed harder at higher resolutions, while the CPU's 12 cores and 20 threads remain underutilized in this light physics-based puzzle game.

At lower presets, the CPU's headroom becomes more apparent. The difference between 1080p Low (369 FPS) and 4K Low (282.4 FPS) is 86.6 FPS, whereas the difference between 1080p Ultra (277 FPS) and 4K Ultra (143 FPS) is 134 FPS. This larger gap at higher settings confirms that the GPU's rendering load—particularly pixel shading and texture throughput—scales more dramatically with both resolution and quality, while the CPU's role in game logic and draw calls remains relatively constant.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, which produces an average of 277 FPS. This is 217 FPS above the playable threshold, indicating massive headroom. Lower presets yield even higher results: Medium achieves 338.4 FPS, High reaches 281.5 FPS, and Low tops out at 369 FPS.

At 2560x1440, Ultra remains the best playable setting with an average of 228.5 FPS. The frame rate drops from 330.1 FPS at Low to 305.3 FPS at Medium, then to 240.3 FPS at High, before settling at 228.5 FPS for Ultra. Every preset comfortably exceeds 60 FPS, with the lowest average still being 168.5 FPS above the threshold.

At 3840x2160, Ultra delivers 143 FPS on average, which is 83 FPS above the playable threshold. The scaling from Low (282.4 FPS) to Medium (245.4 FPS) to High (154.1 FPS) to Ultra (143 FPS) shows that even the most demanding settings at 4K leave substantial performance in reserve. The system never approaches the 60 FPS floor at any resolution or preset combination tested.

The Verdict

This PC can run Inside flawlessly, with the verdict data listing all four presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—as playable at every resolution from 1080p through 4K. At 3840x2160, the best settings are Ultra with an average of 143 FPS, which is 2.4 times the 60 FPS playable threshold. At 2560x1440, Ultra runs at 228.5 FPS, and at 1920x1080, Ultra achieves 277 FPS.

The combination of the Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is so far beyond the requirements of Inside that the game's frame rates are limited more by the rendering engine's internal caps or vsync than by hardware constraints. The measured data shows no scenario where the system dips near 60 FPS, and the lowest average across all tested configurations (4K Ultra at 143 FPS) is still more than double the playable threshold.

For users with high-refresh-rate monitors, the system provides ample performance to drive 144Hz displays at 4K Ultra (143 FPS average) or 240Hz displays at 1440p Ultra (228.5 FPS average). The 1080p results exceed 275 FPS at all presets, making this configuration suitable for even the fastest esports-style panels, though Inside's slower-paced gameplay rarely demands such extreme frame rates.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the Intel Core i5-13600T, which scores 35,305 on average (0.1% behind the i7-12700K's 35,287), and the Intel Core i7-12700KF at 35,365 (0.2% ahead). The Intel Core i7-13700T scores 35,403 (0.3% ahead), and the Intel Core 5 213PE scores 35,428 (0.4% ahead). These processors would deliver nearly identical performance in Inside, as the game's CPU demands are modest and none of these alternatives would bottleneck the RTX 5090.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5090's nearest rivals show similar average benchmark scores. The NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB scores 79,605 (0.3% behind the RTX 5090's 79,842), while the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB scores 79,396 (0.6% behind). The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT scores 78,940 (1.1% behind), and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X scores 80,959 (1.4% ahead). In Inside, these GPUs would produce frame rates within a few percent of the RTX 5090's results, meaning all would comfortably exceed 60 FPS at 4K Ultra, though the RTX 5090's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth provide future-proofing headroom.

The delta percentages indicate that swapping the CPU to any of these rivals would change frame rates by less than 0.5%, while swapping the GPU to the listed alternatives would change performance by roughly 1% or less. For a game as lightweight as Inside, these differences would be imperceptible, as all configurations would remain far above the 60 FPS threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

Among 3,716 tested CPU and GPU combinations in the benchmark database, this pairing of the Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 140th in Inside. This places it in the top 3.8% of all tested systems, reflecting the extreme performance of the RTX 5090 (92nd percentile among GPUs) combined with the strong showing of the i7-12700K (84th percentile among CPUs).

The rank of 140 suggests that while this configuration is exceptionally fast, there are 139 other combos that produce higher frame rates in Inside. Given that the measured 4K Ultra average is 143 FPS, the systems ranked above this combo likely achieve even higher frame rates, potentially approaching the game's engine limits. The practical implication is that for Inside, the performance ceiling is nearly reached with this hardware—further upgrades would yield diminishing returns since the game's visual complexity and physics demands are modest relative to the RTX 5090's capabilities.

The gap between this combo's rank and its actual performance is notable. With a 92nd percentile GPU and an 84th percentile CPU, one might expect a higher overall rank, but the game's low system requirements mean that even mid-range hardware can achieve high frame rates, compressing the performance spread at the top. The 140th rank out of 3,716 still represents elite-tier performance, and the measured FPS data confirms that no practical display configuration would be bottlenecked by this system in Inside.