Inside

Similar Performance Alternatives

The Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 combination sits in a performance tier where a handful of near-identical alternatives exist. For the CPU, the nearest rival is the Intel Core i9-14900KF, which scores 79371 in the aggregate benchmark versus the i9-14900K's 79097 — a delta of -0.3%, effectively indistinguishable in real-world gaming. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus sits 0.6% behind, while the AMD EPYC 7413 trails by 1.2%. On the AMD side, the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 is 1.7% ahead, making it the only near-rival that outperforms the i9-14900K. These deltas are all within noise for a game like Inside, where frame rates are already far beyond display refresh capabilities.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5080's nearest rivals are more varied. The AMD Radeon 8060S scores 55757 against the RTX 5080's 56083, a 0.6% gap. The AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 0.7% behind, and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X trails by 2.3%. The only competitor ahead is the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE, which leads by 2.2%. For a puzzle platformer with modest graphical demands, any of these GPUs would deliver comparable experience at the resolutions tested, though the RTX 5080 holds a slight aggregate edge over most.

What this means practically: if a system builder swapped the i9-14900K for the i9-14900KF, or the RTX 5080 for a Radeon 8060S, the measured FPS in Inside would shift by less than 1% in most cases. These are not meaningful differences at the frame rates observed — the bottleneck is the game's engine and resolution scaling, not the hardware tier.

CPU and GPU Roles

Inside is a puzzle platformer with a 2016 release date, and the benchmark data reflects that the GPU dominates performance scaling across resolutions. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 431.2 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440 Low drops that to 382.4 FPS, and at 3840x2160 Low it falls further to 281.8 FPS. The CPU's role is largely static across these changes — the i9-14900K's 24 cores and 32 threads provide ample headroom for the game's physics and logic, which are not demanding by modern standards.

The resolution scaling tells a clear story about GPU-bound behavior. From 1080p Low to 4K Low, the FPS drops by 149.4 FPS, a 34.7% reduction. At High settings, the drop is more severe: 310.4 FPS at 1080p falls to 138 FPS at 4K, a 55.6% reduction. This increasing penalty at higher settings indicates that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become the limiting factors as resolution and quality rise.

The preset scaling within a resolution further confirms GPU dominance. At 4K, moving from Low to Ultra costs 147.3 FPS (281.8 down to 134.5), while at 1080p the same preset change costs 137.1 FPS (431.2 down to 294.1). The consistency of this penalty across resolutions — roughly 137-147 FPS — suggests the CPU is not introducing additional bottlenecks; the GPU is handling the incremental load uniformly. The RTX 5080's 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are more than sufficient, and the i9-14900K never appears as a constraint in any configuration tested.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: The lowest resolution tested produces the highest frame rates across all presets. Low settings yield 431.2 FPS average. Medium settings reduce this to 399.4 FPS, a 31.8 FPS drop. High settings come in at 310.4 FPS, and Ultra at 294.1 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is the largest single-preset jump at this resolution (89 FPS), while the High-to-Ultra step is comparatively modest at 16.3 FPS. Every preset clears the 60 FPS playable threshold by a factor of at least 4.9x.

2560x1440: At 1440p, Low settings produce 382.4 FPS. Medium settings deliver 357.8 FPS, nearly matching Low — a difference of only 24.6 FPS. High settings drop to 221.4 FPS, and Ultra to 212.9 FPS. The pattern mirrors 1080p: the largest penalty occurs between Medium and High (136.4 FPS), while High-to-Ultra costs just 8.5 FPS. All presets remain far above 60 FPS, with Ultra still delivering 3.5x the playable threshold.

3840x2160: At 4K, the frame rates compress significantly. Low settings average 281.8 FPS. Medium drops to 227 FPS, a 54.8 FPS penalty. High settings fall to 138 FPS, and Ultra to 134.5 FPS. The Medium-to-High transition is the steepest at 89 FPS, while High-to-Ultra costs only 3.5 FPS. Even the most demanding preset at the highest resolution maintains more than double the 60 FPS threshold. No minimum or maximum FPS values were recorded in the data, so the analysis relies on average FPS only.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings shows a 159.6 FPS reduction (294.1 to 134.5), while at Low settings the same resolution change costs 149.4 FPS (431.2 to 281.8). This relatively uniform penalty across presets indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant factor, not preset complexity.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run Inside at 4K with all settings maxed?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 134.5, which is more than double the 60 FPS playable threshold. The verdict data lists all four presets — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — as playable at 4K.

Q: What is the best preset to use at 1440p?

A: Ultra settings at 2560x1440 produce 212.9 FPS average, making it the best playable preset at that resolution. The verdict confirms Ultra as the best settings choice for 1440p, with all presets clearing the 60 FPS bar.

Q: How much performance is lost between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low averages 431.2 FPS while Ultra averages 294.1 FPS — a difference of 137.1 FPS. This represents a 31.8% reduction in average frame rate when moving from the least to most demanding preset.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary scaling factor. Across all resolutions, the FPS penalty from Low to Ultra remains consistent (137-147 FPS), and resolution scaling produces larger relative drops at higher presets. The i9-14900K's 24-core configuration never appears to constrain frame rates, as even at 1080p Low the system exceeds 400 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 5080's performance close to any AMD rivals in this context?

A: The Radeon 8060S scores 55757 in aggregate benchmarks versus the RTX 5080's 56083, a 0.6% difference. The Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 0.7% behind, and the Radeon RX 9070 GRE is 2.2% ahead. These differences are unlikely to meaningfully alter frame rates in Inside given the already-high FPS levels.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS recorded across all tested configurations?

A: The lowest average FPS is 134.5, measured at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This is still more than double the 60 FPS playable threshold, confirming that this combination never approaches a performance boundary in Inside.

The Verdict

This system runs Inside decisively at every resolution and preset tested. The verdict data lists all four settings — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — as playable at each of the three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the worst-case preset (Ultra) averages 294.1 FPS, nearly five times the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440, Ultra averages 212.9 FPS, over three and a half times playable. At 3840x2160, the most demanding configuration delivers 134.5 FPS, still more than double the threshold.

The playable threshold of 60 FPS is exceeded by every single data point in the measured FPS table. The gap between the lowest recorded average (134.5 FPS at 4K Ultra) and the threshold is 74.5 FPS, which means there is substantial headroom even for future patches or driver overhead. For a game like Inside, this hardware is not merely sufficient — it is operating far beyond the point of diminishing returns, with no configuration coming within 100 FPS of the playable limit at 1080p or 1440p.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that maintains at least 60 FPS is Ultra, which averages 134.5 FPS. This is the highest quality option at the highest resolution, and it still delivers more than double the playable threshold. The verdict confirms Ultra as the best settings choice for 4K.

At 2560x1440, Ultra settings average 212.9 FPS, making it the best settings option at this resolution. All presets are playable, but Ultra provides the maximum visual quality without any meaningful performance compromise — the 8.5 FPS penalty from High to Ultra is negligible at these frame rates.

At 1920x1080, Ultra settings average 294.1 FPS, again the best settings choice. The 16.3 FPS difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is the smallest preset gap among the three resolutions, making Ultra an easy recommendation. In all three resolutions, the best settings are Ultra, and in all three the average FPS at Ultra is more than double the playable threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

Among 3716 tested CPU-GPU combinations in Inside, this pairing ranks 55th. This places it in the top 1.5% of all tested systems, which aligns with the hardware's specifications: the i9-14900K sits at the 95th percentile among all CPUs, and the RTX 5080 at the 87th percentile among all GPUs. The rank of 55 out of 3716 indicates that while there are 54 combinations that perform better, the vast majority of systems tested deliver lower frame rates in this game.

The gap between this combo and the top-ranked systems is unlikely to be perceptible in practice, given that even the 55th-ranked combination produces over 134 FPS at 4K Ultra. For a puzzle platformer with no competitive multiplayer component, the difference between rank 55 and rank 1 would be academic — both would exceed any display's refresh rate at the tested settings. The data shows a system that is firmly in the upper echelon of performance for Inside, with no practical limitation at any resolution or preset combination.