Inside

# Inside: AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT — Benchmark Analysis

This pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer that is far more demanding at high refresh rates than its minimalist art style suggests. The data shows this combo ranks 852nd out of 2,887 tested combinations, placing it firmly in the top 30% of all systems tested for this game. With frame rates ranging from 107 FPS at 4K Ultra to 268 FPS at 1080p Low, this setup is capable of driving high-refresh displays at virtually every resolution and settings preset tested.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for a 144Hz monitor?

A: At 1440p High, the combo delivers 178 FPS average, which exceeds 144Hz. At 4K High, it hits 112 FPS average, which is below 144Hz but still very smooth. For a 144Hz display, 1440p High or Medium (222 FPS) are the sweet spots.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 5 5500X3D scores 37,018 average benchmark points, placing it 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (36,945) and 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 (36,938). It sits 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (37,093) and 0.3% behind the Intel Core i9-12900T (37,112).

Q: Is the RX 7900 XT's 20 GB VRAM enough for this game?

A: Yes, absolutely. Inside is a lightweight title by modern standards, and the 20 GB GDDR6 buffer with 800.0 GB/s bandwidth is far more than the game requires. Even at 4K Ultra, the 107 FPS average shows no VRAM-related bottlenecks.

Q: What is the CPU's single-threaded performance like relative to its multi-threaded score?

A: The CPU achieves a PassMark single-thread score of 2,941 and a multi-thread score of 20,363. This is a strong single-thread result for a 6-core, 12-thread chip, which matters for Inside's physics and logic updates that often rely on fewer threads.

Q: How does the GPU's benchmark percentile compare to its nearest rivals in the database?

A: The RX 7900 XT holds the 55th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13,745. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon 660M, scores 13,812 (0.5% higher), while the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT scores 13,543 (1.5% lower). The NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile is 0.5% ahead at 13,821.

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K with maximum settings?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 107, which is still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. With Medium settings at 4K, it jumps to 179 FPS average, showing significant headroom.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing for Inside. Built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 31 chip (codename Plum Bonito), this GPU operates at a base clock of 1387 MHz and a boost clock of 2394 MHz, with a game clock rated at 2025 MHz. The 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus delivers 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for a game that rarely needs more than a few gigabytes of VRAM.

The GPU's compute capabilities are equally impressive: 5,376 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 192 ROPs produce a pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput of 51.48 TFLOPS means that even at 4K Ultra, the GPU has ample compute headroom. The 84 ray tracing cores are largely irrelevant for Inside, as the game uses traditional rasterization techniques.

Benchmark results illustrate the GPU's real-world positioning. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5,623, Geekbench Vulkan score of 71,068, and PassMark G3D score of 29,009 all point to a high-end part. However, the GPU's average benchmark score of 13,745 places it at only the 55th percentile among all GPUs, which is surprising given its raw specifications. The nearest rival data shows the RX 7900 XT is nearly tied with integrated graphics solutions like the AMD Radeon 660M (13,812) and mobile workstation parts like the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (13,821) in average score, though this likely reflects the database's mix of synthetic workloads rather than gaming performance.

In Inside, the GPU's role is to push frame rates far beyond what the CPU can bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 268 FPS average, which is near the practical ceiling for most displays. The GPU's 300 W TDP and dual-slot cooler with 2x 8-pin power connectors indicate a power-hungry part, but the suggested 700 W PSU is reasonable for this class.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 852 out of 2,887 tested combinations places it in the 70.5th percentile of all systems tested for Inside. This is a strong result, though not elite — the top 30% of combos include systems with newer, higher-end parts that push even higher frame rates. However, the data shows this pairing delivers very high absolute performance: at 1080p Medium, it averages 247 FPS, and at 1440p High, it averages 178 FPS.

The ranking context matters more when considering the CPU's position. The Ryzen 5 5500X3D sits at the 85th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37,018. Its nearest rivals are all within 0.3% of its score, indicating that this CPU is competitively positioned in its class. The GPU, at the 55th percentile, is lower-ranked, but this percentile is based on average benchmark scores that include compute and mixed workloads, not just gaming.

For Inside specifically, the combo's rank suggests that the GPU is not the limiting factor at most resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU's single-threaded performance (2,941 PassMark score) and 96 MB of shared L3 cache help maintain high frame rates. At 4K, the GPU's raw throughput becomes more relevant, and the 107 FPS at Ultra shows that even the most demanding settings are handled well.

The rank of 852 also means that roughly 2,035 combos tested slower, while 852 tested faster. Given the game's age (released in 2016), many modern mid-range systems can run it well, but this combo's ability to exceed 200 FPS at 1080p High (206 FPS) puts it ahead of the majority of tested configurations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. With Low settings, the average FPS is 268, which is the fastest result across all tested settings at any resolution. Medium settings drop the average to 247 FPS, with a minimum of 210 FPS and a maximum of 285 FPS. High settings yield 206 FPS average, while Ultra settings produce 203 FPS average. The small gap between High and Ultra (206 vs. 203 FPS) suggests that the CPU is beginning to limit performance at these high frame rates, as the GPU has headroom to render more frames.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show more differentiation between settings. Low settings average 240 FPS, Medium averages 222 FPS (min 188, max 255), High averages 178 FPS, and Ultra averages 170 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 70 FPS, which is a 29% reduction. This indicates that the GPU is becoming more of a factor, but the CPU still keeps pace well at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the GPU takes over as the primary constraint. Low settings average 206 FPS, Medium averages 179 FPS (min 152, max 206), High averages 112 FPS, and Ultra averages 107 FPS. The jump from Medium to High at 4K is substantial — a 67 FPS drop — which reflects the GPU's workload increasing significantly with higher-quality textures and effects. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 152, which is still above 144Hz, but High and Ultra settings dip below that threshold.

The data shows a clear pattern: at 1080p, the CPU keeps frame rates high across all settings, with only a 65 FPS difference between Low and Ultra. At 4K, the GPU's workload dominates, with a 99 FPS difference between Low and Ultra.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the balance between CPU and GPU load. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 206 at 1080p to 178 at 1440p (a 13.6% reduction) and then to 112 at 4K (a 37.1% reduction from 1440p). This is a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern: the CPU can sustain high frame rates at lower resolutions, but the GPU's rendering workload grows disproportionately as pixel count increases.

At Low settings, the scaling is more linear: 268 FPS at 1080p, 240 FPS at 1440p (a 10.4% drop), and 206 FPS at 4K (a 14.2% drop from 1440p). This suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is still a significant contributor to performance, as the GPU has less work to do. The 62 FPS difference between 1080p and 4K at Low is smaller than the 94 FPS difference at High.

Medium settings show a similar pattern: 247 FPS at 1080p, 222 FPS at 1440p (a 10.1% drop), and 179 FPS at 4K (a 19.4% drop from 1440p). The minimum FPS at Medium also scales proportionally: 210 at 1080p, 188 at 1440p, and 152 at 4K.

Ultra settings show the steepest scaling: 203 FPS at 1080p, 170 FPS at 1440p (a 16.3% drop), and 107 FPS at 4K (a 37.1% drop from 1440p). The 96 FPS difference between 1080p and 4K at Ultra is the largest of any settings preset, indicating that Ultra settings include GPU-intensive effects that scale significantly with resolution.

The limiting component shifts from CPU at 1080p to GPU at 4K. At 1080p Low, the 268 FPS average is likely near the CPU's practical limit for this game, as the Ryzen 5 5500X3D's single-thread score of 2,941 and 6 cores / 12 threads can only push so many draw calls per second. At 4K Ultra, the 107 FPS average reflects the GPU's rendering capacity, and the RX 7900 XT's 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the constraint.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D plays a supporting but critical role in this combo. This 6-core, 12-thread processor runs at a base clock of 3.00 GHz and a boost clock of 4.00 GHz, based on the Zen 3 architecture (codename Vermeer) on a 7 nm TSMC process. The 96 MB of shared L3 cache is the standout feature, providing fast access to frequently used game data.

The CPU's benchmark scores reveal its strengths. The PassMark multi-thread score of 20,363 and single-thread score of 2,941 indicate balanced performance. The integer math score of 60,033 and floating-point math score of 34,511 show solid compute capabilities. More relevant to Inside, the physics score of 2,282 and data compression score of 230,392 suggest the CPU handles game logic and asset loading efficiently.

The CPU's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs puts it well above average, and its nearest rivals are all within 0.3% of its average score. This tight grouping means the 5500X3D is competitively positioned against the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450, Intel Core Ultra 5 225, and Intel Core i9-12900T in synthetic benchmarks.

In Inside, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p, where frame rates exceed 200 FPS. At 1080p High (206 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (203 FPS), the difference is minimal, suggesting the CPU is limiting the GPU's output. The 96 MB L3 cache likely helps with the game's level streaming and entity management, as Inside features complex physics puzzles and environmental interactions.

The CPU's memory support for DDR4 with dual-channel configuration and 51.2 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for this game. The PCIe Gen 4 connection with 20 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the RX 7900 XT. The 105 W TDP and AM4 socket make this a drop-in upgrade for existing systems, though the multiplier is locked, preventing overclocking.

At 4K, the CPU's workload becomes less demanding relative to the GPU, as the frame rate drops to 107-206 FPS depending on settings. The data shows that the CPU can feed the GPU effectively even at 4K Low (206 FPS), but at 4K Ultra (107 FPS), the GPU is clearly the bottleneck. The 5500X3D's combination of high single-thread performance and large cache makes it a capable partner for this GPU in Inside, ensuring that the GPU is rarely starved of data.