Inside

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT delivers a remarkably fluid experience in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016. The measured frame rates across all resolutions and presets suggest that this combination is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher settings, while the CPU’s strong single-thread performance becomes a factor only at the lowest presets. The data reveals a system that can easily max out high-refresh-rate displays, with the only meaningful compromises appearing at 4K Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows for this combo show a clear hierarchy where the jump from High to Ultra is the most costly, while Low to Medium offers a disproportionately large performance gain. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers an average of 207.8 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any modern 144Hz or 240Hz panel. Moving to Ultra drops that figure to 195 FPS, a reduction of roughly 6% relative to High, while the visual difference in a game with Inside's minimalist art style is likely negligible. Therefore, High at 1080p is the sweet spot, as it stays well above the 144 FPS threshold without sacrificing the frame rate for marginal graphical gains.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts slightly. The High preset produces an average of 147.1 FPS, which is still excellent for high-refresh gaming. Medium, at 235.1 FPS, is a massive jump in performance but may introduce visible reductions in shadow quality or post-processing. Given that High maintains a comfortable lead over the 144 FPS marker, it remains the recommended choice for 1440p, offering the best balance of image fidelity and smoothness. The Ultra preset, at 143.7 FPS, just barely misses the 144 FPS target, making High the more sensible option for a locked experience.

For 4K (3840x2160), the situation becomes more nuanced. High settings yield an average of 94.3 FPS, which is playable on a 60Hz display but not ideal for higher refresh rates. Medium, at 146.6 FPS, is surprisingly strong and suggests that the visual downgrade from High to Medium is less punishing at this resolution. In fact, the data indicates that Medium at 4K is the best experience for users with 120Hz+ displays, as it provides a 55% increase over High’s frame rate while likely retaining enough detail for a game that relies heavily on atmosphere and lighting. Low at 4K, at 186.9 FPS, is overkill unless the user is chasing absolute maximum frame rates on a 144Hz 4K panel.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Ryzen 5 7600 and RX 7800 XT holds a combo rank of 491 out of 1671 tested combos. This places it in the top 30% of all systems tested for Inside, which is a strong showing given the game’s age and the focus on GPU throughput. The rank suggests that while this system is not at the absolute top tier—likely occupied by newer flagship GPUs—it outperforms a significant majority of other pairings, including many that feature more expensive processors.

The rank is particularly impressive when considering the CPU's position. The Ryzen 5 7600 sits at the 83rd percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 26617. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which scores nearly identically at 26574 (a delta of 0.2%), and the Intel Core i9-12900HK at 26672 (a delta of -0.2%). This indicates that the 7600’s processing power is not a bottleneck in this game; the combo rank is likely determined almost entirely by the GPU’s capability. The RX 7800 XT, with a percentile of 76 against all GPUs and an average score of 32619, is the primary driver of this system’s standing. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA P104-100, scores 32747, a delta of -0.4%, which shows the 7800 XT is competitive with other high-end cards in raw compute.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the clear workhorse in this pairing. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s, which is more than ample for a game released in 2016, even at 4K with high-resolution textures. The memory clock is listed at 2438 MHz (19.5 Gbps effective), and the boost clock reaches 2430 MHz, with a game clock of 2124 MHz. These clocks translate into a pixel rate of 233.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 583.2 GTexel/s, ensuring that the GPU can handle the side-scrolling environments and lighting effects of Inside without strain.

The data strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the frame rate is 359.3 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for draw calls in this engine. However, at 4K Ultra, the frame rate falls to 88 FPS, a 75% drop, indicating that the GPU’s shader and ROP throughput is being saturated. The FP32 performance of 37.32 TFLOPS and the 3840 shading units are more than enough for this title, but the game’s reliance on fill-rate and memory bandwidth becomes apparent at 4K. The 16 GB VRAM is not a concern; even at 4K Ultra, the game would struggle to use a fraction of that capacity, but the bandwidth and pixel rate dictate the final output.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data shows a consistent scaling pattern across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the averages are: Low at 359.3 FPS, Medium at 328.6 FPS, High at 207.8 FPS, and Ultra at 195 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is only 8.5%, while the jump from Medium to High is a significant 36.8% reduction. This suggests that the High preset enables effects like ambient occlusion or advanced shadows that are particularly taxing on the GPU. At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 296.3 FPS, Medium at 235.1 FPS, High at 147.1 FPS, and Ultra at 143.7 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a drop of roughly 18% at Low, 28% at Medium, 29% at High, and 26% at Ultra, indicating that the GPU is becoming more of a bottleneck as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low at 186.9 FPS, Medium at 146.6 FPS, High at 94.3 FPS, and Ultra at 88 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is severe: 37% at Low, 38% at Medium, 36% at High, and 39% at Ultra. This near-uniform reduction across all presets points to a pure fill-rate limit, as the GPU’s pixel processing capability is being maxed out regardless of the graphical complexity. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 6.3 FPS, which is within the margin of error for a single test run, reinforcing that High is the more efficient choice for 4K gaming.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Inside at 4K with a 60Hz monitor?*

A: Yes, the data shows an average of 94.3 FPS at 4K High and 88 FPS at 4K Ultra, both comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the system hits 359.3 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this engine. However, at Medium and above, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as the frame rate drops significantly with higher presets.

Q: What is the best setting for a 144Hz 1440p monitor?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers 147.1 FPS, which is just above the 144Hz target. Medium at 235.1 FPS is also viable if the user prefers a higher headroom, but High offers the best visual quality without dropping below the refresh rate.

Q: How does the RX 7800 XT compare to its closest rivals in this game?

A: The RX 7800 XT’s average benchmark score is 32619, which is 0.4% lower than the NVIDIA P104-100 (32747) and 0.7% lower than the NVIDIA T600 Mobile (32849). In practice, these differences are negligible and would not affect frame rates in Inside.

Q: Is the 16 GB VRAM necessary for this game?

A: No, Inside is not a VRAM-intensive title. The 16 GB GDDR6 memory is future-proofing, but the game’s performance is dictated by the 624.1 GB/s bandwidth and the 256-bit bus, not capacity.

Q: What is the expected FPS at 4K Medium?

A: The measured average is 146.6 FPS, which is a substantial improvement over High (94.3 FPS) and makes Medium the best choice for 4K high-refresh displays.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. Its single-thread performance, as measured by Cinebench R23, is 3246, which is critical for a game like Inside that relies on a single main thread for physics and game logic. The multi-core score of 22992 in Cinebench R23 is more than sufficient, but the data shows that the CPU is rarely the limiting factor in this title.

At 1080p Low, the frame rate of 359.3 FPS suggests that the CPU is nearing its limit for issuing draw calls, but the 3DMark single-thread score of 999 and the Passmark single-thread score of 3910 indicate strong IPC. The L3 cache of 32 MB (shared) is ample for this game’s assets. In comparison to its rivals, the Ryzen 5 7600’s average benchmark score of 26617 is 0.2% higher than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and 0.3% higher than the Intel Core i9-11900K, showing that it is competitive with older high-end parts. The CPU’s role here is to ensure that frame times are consistent and that the GPU is fed with data; at resolutions above 1080p, the CPU’s workload decreases proportionally, and the GPU takes over as the primary performance driver.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a textbook GPU-bound scenario. At 1080p High, the system achieves 207.8 FPS. At 1440p High, this drops by 29% to 147.1 FPS. At 4K High, it drops another 36% to 94.3 FPS. This compounding reduction is a direct result of the increase in pixel count: 4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p and 4 times the pixels of 1080p. The fact that the frame rate does not scale linearly with pixel count (4x pixels at 4K vs. 1080p yields only a 55% reduction in FPS) suggests that the GPU is not purely fill-rate limited but also benefits from cache efficiency and memory bandwidth at lower resolutions.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all presets, with a roughly 30-35% drop from 1080p to 1440p and another 35-40% drop from 1440p to 4K. This uniformity indicates that neither the CPU nor the memory subsystem is causing a bottleneck; the limiting component is the RX 7800 XT’s raw shader and ROP throughput. At 1080p Low, the 359.3 FPS figure is likely close to the engine’s maximum draw call limit, as the CPU’s single-thread performance caps the output. However, at 4K Low (186.9 FPS), the GPU is still processing a massive number of pixels, and the CPU has ample headroom. The data implies that for users with a 4K display, the Medium preset (146.6 FPS) is the optimal choice, as it provides a frame rate that is 55% higher than High and still within the range of high-refresh gaming, while the CPU remains a non-factor at this resolution.