Inside

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D produces a fascinating dataset in Inside, a game whose minimalist aesthetic belies demanding rendering loads. The measured frames per second across resolutions and settings reveal a system that is rarely stressed, yet the scaling patterns expose distinct bottlenecks that shift depending on the workload. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS, contextualizes the combo’s standing among 2,887 tested configurations, and interprets what the numbers imply about the CPU and GPU roles.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear, predictable degradation in average FPS as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, but the magnitude of that drop varies significantly by settings preset. At Low settings, the progression is 298 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 267 FPS at 1440p, and further to 229 FPS at 4K. This represents a 23.2% decline from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the decline is steeper in percentage terms: 229 FPS at 1080p, 205 FPS at 1440p, and 160 FPS at 4K, which is a 30.1% drop. The Medium preset shows a similar trend, with 275 FPS at 1080p, 247 FPS at 1440p, and 211 FPS at 4K, a 23.3% reduction. Ultra settings follow the pattern, starting at 226 FPS at 1080p, falling to 202 FPS at 1440p, and ending at 153 FPS at 4K, a 32.3% drop.

The fact that the percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is larger at High and Ultra settings (30.1% and 32.3%) than at Low and Medium (23.2% and 23.3%) is revealing. At lower presets, the frame rate is so high that the CPU likely becomes a limiting factor, preventing the GPU from fully flexing its muscles even at 1080p. As resolution climbs, the GPU workload increases, but the absolute FPS remains above 150 in every single measured scenario. This indicates that the RTX 5090 D is never saturated by Inside’s engine, even at 4K Ultra. The scaling suggests the GPU is the primary driver of performance differences across resolutions, but the CPU’s influence becomes more apparent at the highest frame rates, where the gap between 1080p and 1440p is relatively small (e.g., 229 to 205 FPS at High, a mere 10.5% difference) compared to the 1440p to 4K jump (205 to 160 FPS, a 22% difference).

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a colossal piece of silicon, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. Its specifications are extreme: 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. The boost clock sits at 2407 MHz, and the chip contains 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units. With a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s, the raw throughput is staggering. The FP32 compute is rated at 104.8 TFLOPS, and the GPU holds the 92nd percentile among all GPUs in the database.

In the context of Inside, these specs translate to an absurd level of headroom. The highest average FPS recorded is 298 at 1080p Low, and the lowest is 153 at 4K Ultra. The GPU’s 32 GB VRAM is far beyond the requirements of a Puzzle Platformer from 2016, and the memory bandwidth is never likely to be a constraint. The measured results show that even at 4K Ultra, the GPU is producing 153 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most displays. The data implies that the RTX 5090 D’s performance is effectively capped by the game’s engine and the CPU’s ability to feed it draw calls, rather than by its own computational limits. The GPU’s nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (with a deltaPct of -1.6%) or the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (-2.4%), are far behind in raw compute, but such comparisons are academic here because the game never pushes the card to its breaking point.

How This Combo Ranks

Among the 2,887 tested CPU and GPU combinations in the database, this pairing of the Ryzen 5 5600 and RTX 5090 D achieves a rank of 453. This placement is intriguing because it is not the top spot, despite the presence of one of the most powerful consumer GPUs available. The rank suggests that the CPU is holding the combo back from the absolute pinnacle of performance in Inside. The Ryzen 5 5600, while a competent desktop processor, is not the fastest on the market. Its average benchmark score is 20,468, placing it in the 74th percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rivals to the CPU include the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (with a deltaPct of 0.1%), the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G (0.2%), and the AMD EPYC 9454P (0.2%). These scores are nearly identical, indicating that the Ryzen 5 5600 is in a crowded field of mid-range performers.

The combo rank of 453 out of 2,887 places it in the top 15.7% of all tested combos. This is a strong showing, but it is not reflective of the GPU’s raw capability. The data suggests that if the RTX 5090 D were paired with a higher-tier CPU, the combo rank would likely improve, as the frame rates at 1080p Low (298 FPS) and even 1440p Low (267 FPS) could be higher if the CPU could keep up. The GPU’s own percentile (92nd) is much higher than the CPU’s (74th), and the combo rank falls between the two, leaning closer to the CPU’s percentile. This is a classic sign of a CPU-bound configuration at lower resolutions and settings, where the GPU is waiting on the processor to deliver instructions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a clear matrix of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 226 at Ultra to 298 at Low. The Medium preset yields an average of 275 FPS, with a minimum of 234 and a maximum of 317 FPS. High settings produce 229 FPS average. At 2560x1440, the averages are 202 FPS at Ultra, 205 FPS at High, 247 FPS at Medium (with a min of 210 and max of 284), and 267 FPS at Low. The 4K resolution (3840x2160) shows averages of 153 FPS at Ultra, 160 FPS at High, 211 FPS at Medium (min 180, max 243), and 229 FPS at Low.

Notably, the Medium preset is the only one with min and max FPS recorded across all resolutions, providing a frame time variance window. At 1080p Medium, the spread is 234 to 317 FPS, a 35.5% variance. At 1440p Medium, it is 210 to 284 FPS (35.2% variance), and at 4K Medium, it is 180 to 243 FPS (35% variance). This consistency in variance suggests that the game’s frame pacing is stable, with the CPU and GPU working in relative harmony at this preset. The data shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings is significant: at 1080p, the difference is 72 FPS (298 vs 226), while at 4K, the difference is 76 FPS (229 vs 153). This indicates that the visual fidelity upgrades from Low to Ultra have a consistent cost, regardless of resolution, which is typical for a game with a fixed rendering pipeline.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS is 298, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How much does the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra settings, the average FPS drops from 226 at 1080p to 153 at 4K, a decrease of 73 FPS or 32.3%.

Q: Is the combo rank of 453 out of 2,887 considered high?

A: Yes, it places the combo in the top 15.7% of all tested combinations, indicating above-average performance, though not top-tier.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU appear to be the limiting factor at 1080p Low?

A: The data suggests the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p Low, as the 298 FPS average is likely constrained by the Ryzen 5 5600’s single-thread performance rather than the GPU’s capacity.

Q: What is the variance in FPS at Medium settings across all resolutions?

A: The variance is consistent, with a min-to-max spread of roughly 35% at each resolution: 234-317 FPS at 1080p, 210-284 FPS at 1440p, and 180-243 FPS at 4K.

Q: How does the GPU’s percentile ranking compare to the CPU’s?

A: The GPU ranks in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU ranks in the 74th percentile of all CPUs, highlighting a mismatch in relative performance tiers.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codename Vermeer), built on a 7 nm process from TSMC. Its base clock is 3.50 GHz, boosting to 4.40 GHz. The CPU has 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a shared 32 MB L3 cache. It supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration, with a theoretical bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. The CPU’s benchmark scores are respectable but not class-leading: its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 18,309, and its single-core score is 2,584. In Passmark, it scores 68,396 in integer math and 38,778 in floating point math.

In Inside, the CPU’s role is to manage the game’s physics and logic, which for a Puzzle Platformer is not extremely demanding. However, the high frame rates recorded in this test mean that the CPU must process many frames per second. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 298 FPS, which is a very high frame rate. The fact that the 4K Low setting also hits 229 FPS suggests that the CPU is not the sole bottleneck, as resolution increases the GPU load. But the combo rank of 453, which is lower than the GPU’s percentile would suggest, implies that the CPU is preventing the system from reaching the very top of the charts. The CPU’s nearest rivals in average benchmark score are within 0.5% of its score, so it is not a standout performer. The 6-core, 12-thread configuration is sufficient for this game, but it lacks the high single-thread clock speeds of more expensive CPUs that could push frame rates beyond 300 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings preset depends on the user’s display refresh rate and resolution preferences. At 1080p, all presets deliver an average FPS above 226, which exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors. The Medium preset offers a balanced experience with an average of 275 FPS and a min of 234 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay even in demanding scenes. Low settings push the average to 298 FPS, but the visual fidelity drop may not be worth the marginal frame rate gain for a game like Inside, which relies on atmospheric lighting and shadows.

At 1440p, the Medium preset is again the sweet spot, with an average of 247 FPS and a minimum of 210 FPS. High and Ultra both hover around 202-205 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth. For 4K gaming, the Medium preset provides an average of 211 FPS and a minimum of 180 FPS, which is far above the 60 FPS standard, making it the best choice for high-refresh-rate 4K displays. Ultra at 4K drops to 153 FPS average, which is still playable but offers no tangible benefit over Medium given the game’s art style. Low settings at 4K (229 FPS) are unnecessary, as Medium provides a significant visual upgrade for only an 18 FPS average reduction. The data indicates that Medium is the recommended preset across all resolutions, as it maintains a minimum FPS above 180 even at 4K, ensuring no perceptible stutter while maximizing visual quality.