Inside

The Intel Core i9-14900K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is an extreme overmatch for Inside, a 2016 Puzzle Platformer. Measured data shows this combination delivers frame rates that are not merely playable but overwhelmingly excessive, with average FPS figures at 4K Ultra exceeding 150. The bottleneck in this configuration is almost entirely the game engine's frame pacing at high refresh rates, not the hardware's compute capability. The following analysis breaks down the measured performance across resolutions and presets, contextualizes the CPU and GPU roles, and provides a clear verdict based on the benchmark data.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160 (4K), the data shows a clear progression of average frame rates across presets. The Low preset delivers an average of 321 FPS, which is the highest 4K score recorded. Medium yields an average of 256 FPS, with a minimum of 218 FPS and a maximum of 295 FPS, indicating some frame variance but still far above any playability threshold. High produces 160 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 153 FPS average. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is substantial — a 168 FPS difference — showing that the GPU is still responsive to settings changes even at this resolution.

At 2560x1440 (1440p), the performance scales predictably upward. The Low preset achieves 385 FPS average. Medium reaches 355 FPS average, with a minimum of 302 FPS and a maximum of 409 FPS. High yields 255 FPS average, and Ultra produces 243 FPS average. The delta between Low and Ultra here is 142 FPS, slightly smaller than at 4K, suggesting the CPU begins to play a more significant role at lower resolutions.

At 1920x1080 (1080p), the figures are the highest overall. The Low preset tops out at 430 FPS average. Medium follows closely with 397 FPS average, showing a minimum of 337 FPS and a maximum of 456 FPS. High delivers 331 FPS average, and Ultra yields 325 FPS average. Notably, the gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is only 105 FPS, which is the smallest relative difference across all resolutions. This compression indicates that at 1080p, the CPU and game engine's threading limits are increasingly the constraining factor, as the GPU has ample headroom to render frames faster than the engine can feed it.

For the Medium preset at all three resolutions, the min/max data provides insight into frame consistency. At 1080p, the range is 337-456 FPS (a 119 FPS spread). At 1440p, the range is 302-409 FPS (a 107 FPS spread). At 4K, the range is 218-295 FPS (a 77 FPS spread). The absolute variance shrinks as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario; the RTX 5090 D's rendering workload at 4K smooths out the frame delivery relative to the faster lower-resolution runs.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data reveals a distinct shift in component dominance across resolutions. At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the primary driver. The RTX 5090 D's raw throughput — evidenced by its 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth — is fully utilized. The performance drop from Low (321 FPS) to Ultra (153 FPS) at 4K is a 52.3% reduction, demonstrating that the GPU's shading units, texture units, and ROPs are heavily taxed by the higher pixel count and settings complexity.

At 2560x1440, the balance shifts slightly. The CPU's role becomes more prominent, as evidenced by the smaller percentage drop from Low to Ultra (36.9% reduction, from 385 FPS to 243 FPS). The i9-14900K's 24 cores and 32 threads with a 6.00 GHz boost clock are sufficient to keep the GPU fed, but the engine's single-threaded game logic limits how much further the frame rate can climb. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2262.5 and Geekbench single-core score of 2655 indicate strong per-core performance, yet the game's architecture still imposes a ceiling.

At 1920x1080, the CPU becomes the limiting factor almost entirely. The difference between Low (430 FPS) and Ultra (325 FPS) is only 24.4%, which is the smallest relative drop. This suggests that at 1080p, the RTX 5090 D is waiting on the CPU to issue draw calls and update game state. The i9-14900K's PassMark single-thread score of 4697 is high, but the game's rendering pipeline cannot extract more performance from the GPU at this resolution. The Ultra preset at 1080p (325 FPS) is actually lower than the Low preset at 1440p (385 FPS), further confirming that the CPU is the ceiling at lower resolutions.

The scaling between resolutions at the same preset reinforces this conclusion. For the Ultra preset, moving from 1080p (325 FPS) to 1440p (243 FPS) is a 25.2% drop, and from 1440p to 4K (153 FPS) is a 37.0% drop. For the Low preset, the drops are 10.5% (1080p to 1440p) and 16.6% (1440p to 4K). The larger percentage drops for Ultra at higher resolutions confirm that the GPU's workload scales more steeply with resolution when more visual features are enabled.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, with an average of 153 FPS. This is far above the playable threshold of 60 FPS, and the data shows that all four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) are playable at 4K. The best settings for visual quality are therefore Ultra, as it provides the maximum graphical fidelity while still maintaining a 153 FPS average, leaving a 93 FPS margin above the threshold.

At 2560x1440, the answer is again Ultra, with an average of 243 FPS. All presets are playable, and the Ultra preset's average is 183 FPS above the 60 FPS threshold. The minimum recorded frame rate for Medium at this resolution is 302 FPS, which is also well above the threshold, but Ultra offers the highest visual quality without any playability risk.

At 1920x1080, the best settings are Ultra, delivering 325 FPS average. This is 265 FPS above the playable threshold. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 337 FPS, which is still far above 60 FPS, but the Ultra preset's average of 325 FPS is the highest quality option while remaining massively playable. There is no scenario in the measured data where any preset at any resolution drops below the 60 FPS threshold.

Similar Performance Alternatives

For the CPU, the Intel Core i9-14900K's nearest rivals in benchmark scores are all within a narrow band. The Intel Core i9-14900KF has an average score of 79371, which is 0.3% lower than the i9-14900K's 79097. This is effectively identical performance, and the KF variant (without integrated graphics) would behave the same in Inside since the game does not rely on the iGPU. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus scores 79574 (0.6% higher), and the AMD EPYC 7413 scores 80041 (1.2% higher). The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 scores 77740, which is 1.7% lower. All of these CPUs are within a 2.9% performance band, meaning any of them would produce nearly identical frame rates in this game, likely varying by only a few FPS at 1080p where the CPU is the limiting factor.

For the GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D's nearest rivals are surprising given its high end position. The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT has an average score of 76904, which is 1.1% lower than the RTX 5090 D's 77712. The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT scores 78940 (1.6% higher), the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB scores 79396 (2.1% higher), and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB scores 79605 (2.4% higher). These delta values are all within 3.5%, meaning that in Inside, the RTX 5090 D and these rivals would produce nearly indistinguishable frame rates. The Tesla P100 cards, despite being datacenter-oriented, score slightly higher on the aggregate benchmark, but in this game's measured FPS, the differences would be negligible — likely less than 5 FPS at any resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combination ranks 10th out of 3716 tested combos in the database for Inside. This places it in the top 0.27% of all configurations tested. The benchmark data confirms this ranking is justified: the combo achieves 153 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is 2.55x the playable threshold of 60 FPS. The rank of 10 is notable because there are only 9 other combos that outperform it, and given the game's age (released 2016-07-06), it is likely that those higher-ranked configurations consist of even more exotic hardware or specialized overclocking setups. For practical purposes, this combo is at the absolute ceiling of what can be achieved in this game, with no meaningful headroom left for improvement.

FAQ

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

A: Yes. Measured data shows an average of 153 FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra, which is 93 FPS above the 60 FPS playable threshold.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The highest average is 430 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

Q: How much faster is the Low preset compared to Ultra at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Low averages 321 FPS versus 153 FPS for Ultra, making Low 109.8% faster in terms of frame rate.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance at 1080p?

A: The CPU is the limiting factor at 1920x1080. The frame rate difference between Low and Ultra is only 24.4% (430 FPS vs 325 FPS), indicating the GPU has headroom but the game engine cannot feed it faster.

Q: What is the minimum recorded frame rate for this combo?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 218 FPS, which occurs at 3840x2160 with the Medium preset. This is still 158 FPS above the playable threshold.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested systems?

A: It ranks 10th out of 3716 combos, placing it in the top 0.27% of all tested configurations for Inside.

The Verdict

This PC can run Inside at maximum settings across all tested resolutions. The verdict by resolution is unambiguous: at 3840x2160, the best playable settings are Ultra with 153 FPS average; at 2560x1440, Ultra delivers 243 FPS average; at 1920x1080, Ultra achieves 325 FPS average. Every preset at every resolution clears the 60 FPS playable threshold by a wide margin. The lowest recorded average FPS is 153 FPS (4K Ultra), which is still 2.55x the threshold. The data indicates that this configuration is not merely capable of running Inside — it is drastically overqualified. The game's release date of 2016-07-06 means it predates both the CPU (released 2023-10-16) and the GPU (released 2025-01-29) by several years, and the hardware's performance is far beyond what the game engine can fully utilize. For users with high-refresh-rate displays, this combo will deliver consistently smooth frame rates at any settings combination, with the only practical limitation being the engine's frame pacing at extreme FPS values. The RTX 5090 D with its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and the i9-14900K with its 36 MB of L3 cache are both overkill for this title, but the measured data confirms they work together to provide an exceptionally smooth experience.