Inside

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a puzzle platformer that proves far more demanding on the GPU than its minimalist aesthetic suggests. This combination ranks in the top 22.5% of all tested configurations (837th out of 3,716), and the data reveals a system that excels at high refresh rates across all resolutions, though the scaling pattern shows a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution increases.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drops from 1080p to 4K are dramatic and reveal a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, while 1080p results hint at CPU limitations. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 308 at 1920x1080 to 224 at 3840x2160 — a 27.3% reduction. This relatively modest drop for a 4x pixel count increase suggests that at 1080p Low, the Ryzen 5 5600X is holding the system back, preventing the RX 7900 XT from fully stretching its legs.

The scaling becomes more pronounced at Medium settings. Here, the 1080p average of 285 FPS drops to 255 at 1440p (a 10.5% decrease), then plummets to 179 at 4K — a further 29.8% reduction from 1440p. This steepening decline as resolution increases confirms that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor at 4K Medium, while the CPU still plays a significant role at 1080p.

High settings show a similar pattern but with a more extreme overall drop. Starting at 237 FPS in 1080p, the average falls to 178 at 1440p (a 24.9% decrease) and then to 112 at 4K (a 37.1% drop from 1440p). The 4K High result of 112 FPS represents a 52.7% reduction from the 1080p High figure — a substantial decline that underscores the GPU's workload at 4K with enhanced visual effects.

Ultra settings follow the expected trajectory: 233 FPS at 1080p, 170 at 1440p (27.0% lower), and 107 at 4K (37.1% lower than 1440p). The gap between High and Ultra at each resolution is relatively small — 4 FPS at 1080p, 8 FPS at 1440p, and 5 FPS at 4K — suggesting that Ultra presets add minimal overhead in Inside but still require the GPU to work noticeably harder at higher resolutions.

The data indicates that at 1080p, even with the powerful RX 7900 XT, frame rates cap around 308 FPS on Low, which appears to be a CPU ceiling given the 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600X's single-thread score of 917 in 3DMark. At 4K, however, the GPU's 20 GB of VRAM and 800.0 GB/s bandwidth become the deciding factors, with the 112 FPS High result showing the graphics card's raw compute capabilities under pixel-heavy loads.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7900 XT, built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 31 chip, is the dominant component in this pairing for Inside. Its 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus provides 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves more than sufficient for this game's needs — even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS never falls below 107, indicating no memory capacity or bandwidth starvation.

The GPU's clock behavior matters more than its raw specifications in this title. With a base clock of 1387 MHz and a boost clock of 2394 MHz, the card demonstrates strong sustained performance across all measured scenarios. The game clock of 2025 MHz represents the typical operating frequency during gaming loads, and the benchmark results show this clock is well-utilized, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU's 5376 shading units and 192 ROPs are fully engaged.

The pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s provide theoretical ceilings that align with the measured 4K results. At 4K Ultra, the 107 FPS average suggests the card is operating near its pixel throughput limits for this workload, while the 224 FPS at 4K Low indicates that when visual complexity is reduced, the GPU has substantial headroom — the limiting factor shifts to the CPU's ability to feed the rendering pipeline.

The GPU's passmark G3D score of 29,009 places it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, and its direct comparison to the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (1.5% lower average score) shows this is a competitive mid-range-to-high-end card. However, in Inside specifically, the RX 7900 XT's performance outstrips what its general benchmark percentile might suggest, thanks to the game's optimization and the card's strong compute capabilities.

Settings Recommendations

For 1080p and 1440p displays, Ultra settings are the clear recommendation. The performance cost is minimal — at 1080p, Ultra delivers 233 FPS compared to High's 237 FPS (a 1.7% difference), and at 1440p, the gap is 170 vs. 178 FPS (4.5%). These differences are imperceptible in actual gameplay, so enabling Ultra provides the best visual quality without sacrificing the high refresh rate experience.

At 4K, the choice becomes more nuanced. Ultra runs at 107 FPS average, while High achieves 112 FPS — a 4.7% improvement. Given that both presets are well above 100 FPS, either works, but High offers a slightly safer margin for maintaining consistent frame times. The Medium preset at 4K delivers 179 FPS, which is over 60% faster than Ultra, but the visual downgrade may not be worth the extra headroom unless using a 144 Hz or higher refresh rate monitor.

The Low preset is only advisable for competitive play at 1080p, where it hits 308 FPS. At 4K, Low's 224 FPS is still excellent, but the visual sacrifices in a puzzle platformer like Inside are unnecessary given that even Ultra maintains 107 FPS. For most users, the sweet spot is Ultra at 1080p or 1440p, and High at 4K — each provides well over 100 FPS with maximum or near-maximum visual fidelity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its highest frame rates across all settings. Low averages 308 FPS, Medium 285 FPS (with a minimum of 242 and maximum of 327), High 237 FPS, and Ultra 233 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 75 FPS, representing a 24.4% reduction. The Medium preset's minimum of 242 FPS and maximum of 327 FPS show a range of 85 FPS, indicating some frame time variance but nothing that would cause perceptible stuttering at these extremely high rates.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages drop but remain exceptionally high. Low produces 276 FPS, Medium 255 FPS (minimum 217, maximum 293), High 178 FPS, and Ultra 170 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 106 FPS (38.4%), a larger relative gap than at 1080p. The Medium preset's minimum of 217 FPS and maximum of 293 FPS show a 76 FPS range, slightly tighter than at 1080p, suggesting more consistent performance as the GPU becomes more engaged.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates remain playable but show the GPU working harder. Low averages 224 FPS, Medium 179 FPS (minimum 152, maximum 206), High 112 FPS, and Ultra 107 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra gap is 117 FPS (52.2%), the largest relative difference across any resolution. The Medium preset's minimum of 152 FPS and maximum of 206 FPS show a 54 FPS range, indicating that even at 4K, the system maintains reasonably stable frame delivery with a 54 FPS swing between lowest and highest observed values.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 837th out of 3,716 tested combos in Inside, placing it in the top 22.5% of all systems measured. This is a strong showing for a CPU that sits in the 75th percentile of all processors and a GPU in the 55th percentile — the pairing clearly exceeds what the individual component percentiles might suggest for this specific game.

The CPU's nearest rivals in general benchmarks — the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (0.1% higher average score), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U (0.5% lower), Intel Core i7-11700 (0.5% lower), and AMD EPYC 9554P (0.6% lower) — all fall within a tight performance band. This indicates the Ryzen 5 5600X is competitively positioned, and in Inside, its 6 cores and 12 threads prove sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the RX 7900 XT at most settings.

The GPU's nearest rivals — AMD Radeon 660M (0.5% lower), NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (0.5% lower), AMD Radeon RX 570X (0.9% lower), and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (1.5% higher) — show that the RX 7900 XT is in a tight performance cluster. Yet in Inside, the measured results show this card delivering frame rates that would satisfy even the most demanding high-refresh-rate displays, suggesting the game is well-optimized for the RDNA 3.0 architecture.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, a Zen 3 Vermeer chip on the 7 nm process, provides the foundation for this system's strong Inside performance. With 6 cores and 12 threads, base clock of 3.70 GHz, and boost clock of 4.60 GHz, this CPU demonstrates that a mid-range processor can adequately support a high-end GPU in this title — but only up to a point.

The CPU's single-thread performance, as measured by its 3DMark single-thread score of 917 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,541, is the critical factor for Inside's frame pacing. The game appears to be heavily dependent on single-threaded rendering calls, evidenced by the 1080p Low result of 308 FPS representing a ceiling that the GPU cannot push beyond, regardless of its capabilities. The CPU's passmark single-thread score of 3,364 reinforces this assessment, showing strong but not exceptional single-core performance.

The multi-threaded capabilities of the 5600X, while not the primary bottleneck in this game, still matter. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 5,582 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11,838 show that the CPU can handle background tasks and game logic without interfering with rendering. However, the data suggests that the 1080p frame rates are limited by the CPU's per-core throughput rather than its aggregate compute power — the fact that 1080p Low (308 FPS) is only 11.6% faster than 4K Low (224 FPS) despite the GPU having far less work at 1080p points directly to CPU limitations.

At higher resolutions, the CPU's role diminishes as the GPU takes over as the primary limiter. The 4K results show only a 5 FPS difference between High (112 FPS) and Ultra (107 FPS), while the 1080p results show a 4 FPS difference between the same settings — the CPU's influence is consistent but the absolute frame rates are dictated by resolution. The Ryzen 5 5600X's 32 MB L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth provide sufficient data throughput for this game, and the 65 W TDP ensures it does so without thermal throttling in most systems.

For Inside, the 5600X proves to be a capable partner for the RX 7900 XT, though users seeking to maximize 1080p performance beyond 308 FPS would need a CPU with higher single-thread performance. At 1440p and 4K, the CPU provides more than enough headroom to keep the GPU fully utilized, making this combination well-balanced for the resolutions where the RX 7900 XT's 20 GB of VRAM and 800.0 GB/s bandwidth can be most effectively deployed.