Inside

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti delivers overwhelming performance in Inside, a puzzle platformer that is not graphically demanding by modern standards. Measured data shows the combination produces triple-digit average frame rates at every resolution and preset tested, from 100.9 FPS at 4K High to 407.6 FPS at 1080p Low. The hardware never approaches the 60 FPS playability threshold, making this configuration massively overqualified for the game’s requirements.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, frame rates are extraordinarily high across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 407.6 FPS. Medium settings reduce this to 363.4 FPS, a drop of 44.2 FPS from Low. High settings yield 232.1 FPS, which is 131.3 FPS lower than Medium. Ultra settings produce 217.1 FPS, only 15 FPS below High. The scaling from Low to Ultra shows a total reduction of 190.5 FPS, or roughly 46.7% of the Low-settings result. Even at the most demanding 1080p preset, the average frame rate exceeds 200 FPS, indicating the GPU is never the limiting factor at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance remains far above playable thresholds but shows more pronounced differences between presets. Low settings average 327.5 FPS. Medium averages 261.9 FPS, a 65.6 FPS reduction. High drops to 168 FPS, which is 93.9 FPS below Medium. Ultra averages 158.5 FPS, just 9.5 FPS lower than High. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 169 FPS. Notably, the relative cost of enabling Ultra over High is small, while the jump from Medium to High carries a much larger performance penalty.

At 3840x2160, the highest resolution, the RTX 3080 Ti still produces excellent results. Low settings average 204.4 FPS. Medium averages 166.5 FPS, a 37.9 FPS reduction. High averages 100.9 FPS, which is 65.6 FPS below Medium. Ultra averages 100.8 FPS, effectively identical to High with a difference of only 0.1 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a total drop of 103.6 FPS. The near-identical results between High and Ultra at 4K suggest that the Ultra preset at this resolution is constrained by something other than raw pixel throughput, possibly a specific rendering feature or a CPU bottleneck tied to the game’s logic.

Comparing across resolutions, the pattern is consistent: lower settings yield higher frame rates, and the performance gap between presets narrows as resolution increases. The largest absolute differences occur at 1080p, where the CPU and GPU have the most headroom. At 4K, the differences between High and Ultra vanish, while the gap between Low and Medium remains substantial. The data shows no min or max FPS values recorded, so only average frame rates are available for analysis.

Best Settings per Resolution

For each resolution, the best settings are defined as the most demanding preset that maintains an average of at least 60 FPS. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset achieves 217.1 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold. Since all four presets exceed the threshold, Ultra is the best choice, delivering the highest visual quality while still maintaining a frame rate more than 3.6 times the playable minimum.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 158.5 FPS. All presets again clear the 60 FPS threshold, so Ultra is recommended. The margin is substantial, with the average frame rate being 98.5 FPS above the playability floor. There is no reason to sacrifice visual fidelity at this resolution, as even the most demanding settings leave enormous performance headroom.

At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 100.8 FPS. This is the only resolution where the average frame rate drops below 200 FPS for any preset, but it still remains comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. High and Ultra are virtually tied at 100.9 FPS and 100.8 FPS respectively, so Ultra is the best setting because it provides the highest quality with no measurable performance cost. The data indicates that all 12 tested combinations (3 resolutions × 4 presets) are playable, and the best setting at every resolution is Ultra.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: The average frame rate is 100.8 FPS, which is the lowest average across all tested combinations but still far above the 60 FPS playable threshold.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Low to Ultra at 1080p?

A: The average frame rate drops from 407.6 FPS on Low to 217.1 FPS on Ultra, a reduction of 190.5 FPS. This represents a 46.7% decrease in average performance.

Q: Are High and Ultra settings significantly different at 4K?

A: No. High averages 100.9 FPS and Ultra averages 100.8 FPS, a difference of only 0.1 FPS. The two presets are effectively identical in performance at this resolution.

*Q: Does the RTX 3080 Ti struggle with Inside at any resolution?*

A: No. The lowest average frame rate recorded is 100.8 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is 40.8 FPS above the 60 FPS threshold. The GPU never comes close to being a bottleneck.

Q: Which resolution shows the largest performance gap between Low and Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440, Low averages 327.5 FPS and Medium averages 261.9 FPS, a gap of 65.6 FPS. This is the largest absolute difference between these two presets across all resolutions.

Q: Is there any preset that fails to reach 60 FPS?

A: No. Every combination of resolution (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) produces an average frame rate above 100 FPS, far exceeding the playable threshold.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU benchmark data places the Intel Core i7-14700KF in a tight cluster of high-end processors. Its nearest rival is the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F, which scores 0.2% lower on average. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX is 0.4% lower, and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is 0.9% lower. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K scores 1% higher. In practical terms, any of these CPUs would produce nearly identical frame rates in Inside, as the game is not heavily CPU-bound at the tested settings. The 14700KF sits at the 94th percentile of all CPUs, meaning it outperforms the vast majority of tested processors.

On the GPU side, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has an average benchmark score of 41187, placing it at the 83rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro 5300, which scores 0.8% higher, and the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB, which scores 1.2% lower. The NVIDIA Tesla M40 scores 1.7% lower, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 scores 2% higher. For Inside, these differences are negligible because the game’s rendering demands are so low that even a GPU scoring several percent lower would still produce frame rates well above 100 FPS at 4K. The RTX 3080 Ti’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 912.4 GB/s bandwidth are far more than the game requires, and its 34.10 TFLOPS FP32 compute capacity is excessive for this title.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data reveals that the GPU is the primary scaling factor across resolutions, but the CPU still plays a measurable role at lower settings. At 1080p, the difference between Low (407.6 FPS) and Ultra (217.1 FPS) is 190.5 FPS. This large gap indicates that the GPU is heavily loaded by higher presets, while the CPU has enough headroom to feed it at all times. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would cluster more tightly across presets.

At 1440p, the scaling from Low (327.5 FPS) to Ultra (158.5 FPS) shows a 169 FPS difference. The reduction in absolute frame rates compared to 1080p is expected because the GPU must process more pixels. The CPU’s influence remains constant, but the GPU’s workload increases, narrowing the gap between presets.

At 4K, the most telling pattern emerges. Low averages 204.4 FPS, Medium 166.5 FPS, and High/Ultra both sit near 100.8 FPS. The drop from Medium to High is 65.6 FPS, but the drop from High to Ultra is only 0.1 FPS. This suggests that at 4K, the High and Ultra presets are hitting a hard limit, likely a combination of GPU fill-rate and memory bandwidth constraints that the RTX 3080 Ti cannot overcome for this specific game. The CPU is unlikely to be the limiting factor at 4K, as its performance does not vary with resolution. Therefore, the GPU is the dominant component at 4K, while the CPU provides sufficient single-thread performance at all resolutions.

The CPU’s benchmark scores support this interpretation. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167 and single-core score of 6235 indicate extremely high processing capability. The PassMark single-thread score of 4480 confirms that the CPU can handle the game’s logic without becoming a bottleneck. The GPU’s PassMark G3D score of 26896 shows it is a high-end part, but the 4K High/Ultra plateau indicates that even this GPU has limits when pushing 8.3 million pixels.

The Verdict

This PC can run Inside at every resolution and preset combination tested, with massive headroom above the 60 FPS playable threshold. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 217.1 FPS, which is 157.1 FPS above the threshold. At 2560x1440, Ultra averages 158.5 FPS, 98.5 FPS above the threshold. At 3840x2160, Ultra averages 100.8 FPS, 40.8 FPS above the threshold. The verdict by resolution confirms that all four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) are playable at all three resolutions. The best settings at each resolution are Ultra, with average frame rates of 217.1, 158.5, and 100.8 FPS respectively. The RTX 3080 Ti's 12 GB of VRAM and the i7-14700KF's 20 cores and 28 threads are overwhelmingly sufficient for this puzzle platformer. The game’s 2016 release date means it was designed for far less powerful hardware, and this modern combination obliterates its requirements.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ranks 596th out of 3716 tested combos for Inside. This places it in the top 16% of all configurations in the database. The rank reflects the fact that while this is a very powerful pairing, there are 595 other combinations that produce even higher average frame rates in this game. Given that the highest recorded average is 407.6 FPS at 1080p Low, the upper echelon of combos likely includes newer GPUs with higher memory bandwidth or faster clock speeds. The 83rd percentile GPU ranking and 94th percentile CPU ranking suggest that the individual components are strong, but the game’s low requirements mean that diminishing returns set in quickly. A combo ranked higher might achieve 500+ FPS at 1080p, but the visual difference would be imperceptible on standard 60 Hz or 144 Hz displays. The 596th position indicates that this system is firmly in the high-performance tier, with only a small fraction of tested configurations offering any meaningful improvement in Inside.