Inside

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti occupies the 1475th position out of 1671 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the lower tier of results. This ranking reflects a fundamental mismatch: the GTX 1660 Ti, while a competent Turing-based card, is not positioned to dominate a 2016 puzzle-platformer, and the Ryzen 5 2600, although a capable six-core processor, does not compensate for the GPU's mid-range standing. The data suggests this combo is best suited for high-refresh 1080p play rather than pushing pixel counts, as the measured frames drop sharply when resolution climbs.

How This Combo Ranks

The 1475th rank out of 1671 combos means this pairing sits in the bottom 12th percentile of tested configurations. Benchmark results indicate the GTX 1660 Ti is the primary constraint: its own percentile vs all GPUs is 55, while the Ryzen 5 2600 sits at 77. The CPU is meaningfully stronger relative to its peers than the GPU is against its own field. For Inside, a game with modest visual demands, the GPU's 6 GB of VRAM and 192-bit memory bus are adequate, but the card's 55th percentile placement signals it trails a wide swath of modern hardware. The combo's ranking is not a reflection of CPU weakness; rather, the data shows the Ryzen 5 2600 is being held back by the 1660 Ti.

Comparisons to immediate rivals clarify the positioning. The GTX 1660 Ti's average benchmark score of 13925 is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon RX 570X (13871, deltaPct 0.4) and sits just above the NVIDIA Tesla K10 (14029, deltaPct -0.7). The RTX A2000 Mobile (13821, deltaPct 0.8) and GTX 680 (13812, deltaPct 0.8) are also within a single percentage point. This clustering means the GPU is interchangeable with several older or professional cards in raw compute, which explains why the combo does not climb higher. On the CPU side, the Ryzen 5 2600's average score of 19616 places it within 0.7% of the Intel Core i7-10700F (19485) and 0.6% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (19508). The CPU is punching near its weight class, but the GPU drags the overall rank down.

FAQ

Q: Why does the combo rank so low (1475th) despite having a 6-core CPU?

A: The GPU's percentile (55) is far below the CPU's (77), and the 1660 Ti's average benchmark score (13925) is within 0.8% of older cards like the GTX 680. The CPU cannot overcome the GPU's mid-range compute ceiling.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: At 1920x1080, even Ultra settings hit 102.3 FPS, and Low reaches 207.6 FPS. At 2560x1440, Ultra drops to 73.9 FPS, while 4K Ultra falls to 44.8 FPS, so 1080p is the only resolution where all presets stay above 100 FPS.

Q: How much FPS is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 109.8 (1080p) to 79.9 (1440p) to 49.2 (4K). That is a 55% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating a GPU-bound scenario.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K Ultra?

A: The 44.8 FPS at 4K Ultra versus 102.3 FPS at 1080p Ultra shows a 56% performance drop, which is characteristic of GPU saturation. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are not the bottleneck here.

Q: Does the GTX 1660 Ti's 6 GB VRAM matter for this game?

A: Inside is not VRAM-heavy, as evidenced by the small gap between Low (207.6 FPS) and Medium (175.9 FPS) at 1080p. The 6 GB is sufficient, but the card's 288.0 GB/s bandwidth and 5.437 TFLOPS compute define the ceiling.

Q: How does the combo compare to the CPU's nearest rivals in actual gameplay?

A: The CPU is within 0.7% of the Intel Core i7-10700F and 0.6% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U in average score, but the measured FPS are entirely GPU-limited. Swapping in a stronger CPU would yield little benefit for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS decay from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about component balance. At Low settings, 1080p produces 207.6 FPS, 1440p drops to 159.6 FPS, and 4K falls to 97.3 FPS. That is a 53% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At Ultra settings, the drop is steeper: 102.3 FPS to 73.9 FPS to 44.8 FPS, a 56% reduction. The consistency of this ~55% loss across presets indicates the GPU is the sole bottleneck. If the CPU were limiting, the gap between Low and Ultra would widen disproportionately, as lower settings reduce GPU load and expose CPU limits.

The scaling also shows the GTX 1660 Ti's architectural strengths. The 12 nm Turing chip with a boost clock of 1770 MHz delivers a 79.5 FPS average at 4K Medium, which is respectable for a card with a 55th percentile standing. However, the jump from Medium to Ultra at 4K costs 34.7 FPS (79.5 to 44.8), suggesting that Ultra settings invoke effects that heavily tax the 1536 shading units. The data implies that 1440p is the practical ceiling for smooth play, with High settings yielding 79.9 FPS, while 4K is only viable at Low or Medium.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide spread: Low averages 207.6 FPS, Medium drops to 175.9 FPS, High falls to 109.8 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 102.3 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is just 7.5 FPS, indicating diminishing returns from the highest preset. At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds with a narrower band: Low hits 159.6 FPS, Medium 126.4 FPS, High 79.9 FPS, and Ultra 73.9 FPS. The High-to-Ultra delta shrinks to 6 FPS, reinforcing that Ultra adds little for the cost.

At 3840x2160, the numbers collapse further: Low averages 97.3 FPS, Medium 79.5 FPS, High 49.2 FPS, and Ultra 44.8 FPS. The Low-to-Medium gap is 17.8 FPS, but the Medium-to-High gap is 30.3 FPS, showing a sharp cliff between medium and high quality settings. This suggests that certain high-end effects (likely shadow or post-processing) are disproportionately expensive on this GPU. Across all resolutions, the data shows no min or max FPS values, so the averages represent steady-state performance rather than peak or 1% lows.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows point to a clear optimum: High settings at 1920x1080, delivering 109.8 FPS. This is 7.5 FPS above Ultra (102.3 FPS) and 66.1 FPS below Low (207.6 FPS), but the visual fidelity gain over Low is substantial. For players with 144 Hz monitors, Low at 1440p (159.6 FPS) is the only preset that clears that refresh rate, but the visual compromise is steep. At 4K, Low (97.3 FPS) is the only playable preset, while Medium (79.5 FPS) is borderline and High (49.2 FPS) is not.

The data suggests a "best experience" is High at 1080p, as it balances the 109.8 FPS average with the quality preset's enhanced effects. Ultra adds only 7.5 FPS cost at 1080p but requires more GPU headroom, which could cause stutter on demanding scenes. For 1440p users, Medium (126.4 FPS) is the sweet spot, offering a 46.5 FPS improvement over High (79.9 FPS) with minimal visual degradation. The 4K Ultra setting (44.8 FPS) is not recommended, as it falls below the 60 FPS threshold and the High preset (49.2 FPS) is only marginally better.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 2600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 3.90 GHz. Its benchmark scores are strong for its generation: Cinebench R23 multicore hits 11186, and single-core reaches 1579. The Passmark single-thread score of 2239 and multithread score of 13160 indicate balanced performance. In Inside, a puzzle-platformer with limited concurrent entities, the CPU's 12 threads are likely underutilized. The game's physics and logic are not demanding enough to stress the 2600, as evidenced by the consistent FPS scaling across settings.

The CPU's 77th percentile vs all CPUs and its proximity to the Intel Core i5-11600KF (deltaPct -0.6) suggest it is more than adequate for this title. The L3 cache of 16 MB shared across cores and the 46.9 GB/s memory bandwidth are sufficient for the game's data streaming. The data shows no scenario where the CPU becomes a bottleneck: even at 1080p Low (207.6 FPS), the frame rate is likely GPU-limited, as the 1660 Ti's compute (5.437 TFLOPS) is the constraining factor. If the CPU were the limit, the FPS would plateau across resolutions, but the measured data shows linear scaling with pixel count.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 Ti's Turing architecture, built on 12 nm at TSMC, packs 1536 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. Its boost clock of 1770 MHz and base of 1500 MHz deliver 5.437 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, with memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s via 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus. The 55th percentile ranking puts it just above the AMD Radeon RX 570X (deltaPct 0.4) and just below the NVIDIA Tesla K10 (deltaPct -0.7). This is a mid-range card that excels at 1080p but struggles with 4K.

In Inside, the GPU's role is dominant. The 4K Ultra result of 44.8 FPS is 56% lower than 1080p Ultra (102.3 FPS), and the 4K Medium result (79.5 FPS) is 55% lower than 1080p Medium (175.9 FPS). This scaling is typical of a GPU-bound title, where the pixel fill rate and shading throughput are the limits. The 1660 Ti's pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s and texture rate of 169.9 GTexel/s are adequate for 1440p, but at 4K, the 48 ROPs become a bottleneck. The 6 GB VRAM is not an issue, as Inside's visual complexity is low, but the raw compute power (5.437 TFLOPS) is the ceiling. The GPU's 120 W TDP and 300 W suggested PSU indicate it is a modest card, which aligns with its mid-tier performance profile.