Inside

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti combination delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer that is far more demanding on the GPU than the CPU at higher settings. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a system that is capable of smooth 4K gameplay, though the margin between presets narrows significantly as resolution increases. This analysis breaks down the scaling behavior, optimal settings, and the specific roles of the processor and graphics card in producing these results.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear and predictable pattern: frame rates decline as resolution climbs from 1080p to 4K, but the severity of that decline is heavily dependent on the graphics preset. At the Low preset, the system achieves 218 FPS at 1920x1080. Moving to 2560x1440 drops that to 155.6 FPS, a reduction of 62.4 FPS, and then to 101.9 FPS at 3840x2160, another 53.7 FPS drop. This represents a 53% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, indicating that even at Low settings, the GPU is becoming the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The High preset shows a steeper relative drop. The system posts 110.2 FPS at 1080p, which falls to 79.7 FPS at 1440p and then to 49.4 FPS at 4K. The jump from 1440p to 4K alone costs 30.3 FPS, a 38% performance loss. This suggests that the GTX 1660 Ti’s pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are being taxed heavily by the 4K resolution, even with the moderate demands of the High preset.

The Ultra preset exhibits the most constrained scaling. It starts at 102.6 FPS at 1080p, drops to 77.3 FPS at 1440p, and lands at 46.2 FPS at 4K. The difference between 1080p and 1440p is 25.3 FPS, while the difference between 1440p and 4K is 31.1 FPS. The 4K result at Ultra is the lowest measured in the entire dataset, which aligns with the GPU’s position in the 55th percentile of all GPUs. The scaling pattern indicates that while the CPU is more than capable of feeding the GPU at lower resolutions, the GTX 1660 Ti becomes the limiting component at 4K, particularly with the heavier Ultra preset.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for this combination. At this setting, the system delivers 123.9 FPS, which is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay on high-refresh-rate monitors. The jump from Medium to High at 1440p costs 44.2 FPS, bringing the average down to 79.7 FPS — still playable, but a significant drop for a modest increase in graphical quality. For users prioritizing frame rate, Medium at 1080p produces 176.9 FPS, leaving substantial headroom.

At 4K, the Low preset is the only configuration that approaches a locked 60 FPS experience, with an average of 101.9 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K drops to 77 FPS, which is still acceptable for a puzzle platformer, but High (49.4 FPS) and Ultra (46.2 FPS) both fall below the 60 FPS mark. Given the genre’s slower pacing, the Medium preset at 4K is a defensible choice, but the data suggests that Low provides a more comfortable margin. For the best experience per the measured rows, the Medium preset at 1440p is the sweet spot, offering a 123.9 FPS average that comfortably exceeds the performance of the High preset at the same resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, built on the Turing architecture with a 12 nm process, plays the decisive role in this game’s performance ceiling. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s, which is a crucial factor for texture loading and memory-intensive scenes at 4K. The GPU’s boost clock of 1770 MHz and base clock of 1500 MHz are modest by modern standards, but they are sufficient to drive the measured frame rates. The 1536 shading units and 48 ROPs contribute to a pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s, which explains why the 4K Ultra preset, with its increased draw distance and effects, pushes the system to its lowest average of 46.2 FPS.

The GPU’s benchmark scores corroborate the in-game results. Its Passmark G3D score of 12871 places it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 13925 is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon RX 570X, which scores 13871 with a delta of 0.4%. This near-parity in synthetic benchmarks translates to the observed gameplay, where the GTX 1660 Ti handles 1080p and 1440p with ease but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K with the highest presets. The 6 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor in Inside, as the game’s art style is relatively light on high-resolution textures, but the GPU’s raw compute power — 5.437 TFLOPS FP32 — is what ultimately caps performance at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 4K gaming with this combo?

A: The Low preset yields the highest average frame rate at 3840x2160, with 101.9 FPS. The Medium preset also produces a playable 77 FPS, but High (49.4 FPS) and Ultra (46.2 FPS) fall below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 Ti compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti has an average benchmark score of 13925, which is 0.4% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 570X’s score of 13871. It also outperforms the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile, which scores 13821, by a 0.8% margin.

*Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5500 a bottleneck for this GPU in Inside?*

A: The data suggests no. The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, are more than sufficient. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 218 FPS, indicating the GPU is the limiting factor, not the processor, which sits in the 79th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between the High and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers 79.7 FPS, while the Ultra preset delivers 77.3 FPS. The difference is only 2.4 FPS, making the Ultra preset a nearly free visual upgrade at this resolution.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations in this game?

A: The combination ranks 1449th out of 1671 tested combos, placing it in the lower tier of systems tested for Inside. This ranking reflects its performance relative to all other CPU and GPU pairings in the database.

Q: Does the GTX 1660 Ti’s memory bandwidth affect 4K performance?

A: Yes. The 288.0 GB/s bandwidth, paired with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory, is sufficient for the game, but the drop from 77 FPS at Medium to 49.4 FPS at High at 4K shows that the GPU’s ability to process and output pixels is the primary constraint, not memory capacity.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti holds the 1449th position out of 1671 tested combos in Inside, which places it in the lower 14% of all configurations in the database. This ranking is influenced by the GPU’s modest standing — the GTX 1660 Ti is in the 55th percentile of all GPUs — rather than the CPU. The Ryzen 5 5500, by contrast, is a strong performer, ranking in the 79th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 20875, which is nearly identical to the Intel Core i5-12500’s score of 20897 (a delta of -0.1%).

The disparity between the CPU’s and GPU’s standings explains the overall combo rank. The processor is not holding the system back; the measured frame rates of 218 FPS at 1080p Low prove that the CPU can push well beyond 200 FPS. However, the GPU’s 4K performance, particularly at the Ultra preset with 46.2 FPS, drags the combo’s overall ranking down. This is a system that excels at 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it delivers frame rates between 77.3 FPS and 218 FPS depending on the preset, but it is not competitive with higher-tier configurations at 4K. The rank of 1449 out of 1671 reflects a balanced but entry-level setup that prioritizes resolution flexibility over raw 4K performance.