Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer from 2016 that places demands on both the CPU and GPU, but for this specific combination of an AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, the benchmark data clearly delineates where the performance ceiling lies. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings reveal a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card, yet still capable of delivering a fluid experience at the right configurations. The following analysis breaks down the measured data to provide actionable settings recommendations and a detailed look at how each component contributes to the final frame rate.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo indicates that the priority should be maintaining a stable frame rate above 60 FPS, which is achievable, but requires a conscious choice between resolution and visual fidelity. At the native 1080p resolution, the Low preset delivers an average of 134 FPS, providing a massive performance headroom that is ideal for ensuring perfectly smooth gameplay with no risk of dips below the refresh rate of most monitors. However, this comes at the cost of visual quality. The Medium preset at 1080p still delivers a very strong average of 107 FPS, with a minimum of 91 FPS, ensuring that even in the most demanding scenes, the frame rate remains comfortably above 60. This makes Medium the best overall experience for 1080p, as it offers a significant visual upgrade over Low while maintaining a flawless frame pacing.

For users with 1440p monitors, the data shows that the GTX 1650 begins to struggle to maintain high refresh rates. The Low preset at 2560x1440 averages 97 FPS, which is still excellent and playable, but the Medium preset drops to an average of 77 FPS, with a minimum of 66 FPS. While this is still playable, it is closer to the edge of the 60 FPS threshold. The High and Ultra presets at this resolution fall below 60 FPS, with averages of 48 and 46 FPS, respectively, which is not ideal for a platformer that benefits from responsive controls. Therefore, for 1440p, the Low preset is the recommended choice to ensure the smoothest possible experience, with Medium being a viable option for those who prefer higher visual detail over the absolute highest frame rates.

At 4K resolution, the limitations of the GTX 1650 are fully exposed. The Low preset is the only option that produces a playable frame rate, averaging 61 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 49 FPS (with a minimum of 41 FPS), and the High and Ultra presets fall to 30 and 29 FPS, respectively, which are effectively unplayable for a game that requires precision. The data strongly suggests that 4K gaming with this GPU is not a viable target for a consistent experience, even at the lowest settings. The best experience at this resolution is the Low preset, but it is still borderline.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the primary performance limiter in this configuration. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s, which is a modest figure for modern gaming. The data shows that as resolution increases, the average FPS drops dramatically, which is a classic indicator of a GPU that is running out of memory bandwidth and raw compute power. The GPU's Turing architecture, with 896 shading units, operates at a base clock of 1485 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, resulting in a FP32 performance of 2.984 TFLOPS. This level of compute performance is sufficient for 1080p and, to a lesser extent, 1440p gaming, but it is clearly insufficient for the demands of 4K resolution.

The benchmark results show a clear pattern: the GPU's performance is the deciding factor in the FPS drops from 1080p to 4K. For instance, at the Medium preset, the average FPS falls from 107 at 1080p to 77 at 1440p and then to 49 at 4K. This is a severe drop that is not indicative of a CPU bottleneck, but rather a GPU that is overwhelmed by the increasing pixel count. The GTX 1650's percentile ranking of 40 among all GPUs, and its proximity to rivals like the Intel UHD Graphics 750 and AMD Radeon R7 350 in average benchmark scores, further confirm its position as an entry-level graphics solution. The data suggests that this GPU is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can provide high frame rates at lower settings, and that its role in a system with a high-end CPU is to be the definitive bottleneck for this game.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset to use for a smooth 60 FPS experience at 1080p?

A: The Medium preset at 1920x1080 provides an average of 107 FPS with a minimum of 91 FPS, ensuring a stable experience well above 60 FPS. While the Low preset averages 134 FPS, the Medium preset offers a better balance of visual quality and performance, with the minimum FPS still comfortably high.

Q: Can this combination of CPU and GPU handle 4K gaming?

A: No, the data shows that 4K gaming is not viable for a consistent experience. Only the Low preset at 3840x2160 averages above 60 FPS (61 FPS). The Medium preset drops to 49 FPS, and the High and Ultra presets average 30 and 29 FPS, respectively, which are not suitable for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The GTX 1650 has an average benchmark score of 7472. Its nearest rival, the Intel Arc A310, scores 7550, which is 1% higher (deltaPct -1). Other rivals like the AMD Radeon HD 8850M and Intel UHD Graphics 750 score 7447 and 7441, which are 0.3% and 0.4% lower, respectively. This places the GTX 1650 in a tight performance cluster.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 7600 a bottleneck for the GTX 1650 in this game?

A: No, the FPS data indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor. The FPS drops significantly as resolution increases (e.g., from 107 FPS at 1080p Medium to 49 FPS at 4K Medium), which is a characteristic of a GPU bottleneck. The CPU's high performance allows the GPU to reach its maximum potential, but the GPU cannot maintain frame rates at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The only preset with a recorded minimum FPS is Medium. At 1920x1080, the minimum is 91 FPS; at 2560x1440, it is 66 FPS; and at 3840x2160, it is 41 FPS. For all other presets, the minimum FPS data is not available.

Q: What is the significance of the combo rank of 3575 out of 3716?

A: This rank indicates that, among all tested CPU and GPU combinations on the benchmark database, this specific combo performs in the bottom 4% of all configurations for this game. This is a direct result of the GTX 1650's low performance relative to other GPUs, despite the CPU being a high-end part.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks 3575 out of 3716 tested combos in Inside. This places it in the bottom 4% of all configurations, which is a very low standing. This ranking is overwhelmingly influenced by the GPU's performance, as the GTX 1650 is a low-end part. The CPU, in contrast, is a high-end desktop processor with a percentile ranking of 78 against all CPUs, meaning it performs better than 78% of all CPUs. This creates a massive imbalance in the system's capabilities.

The data shows that while the Ryzen 5 7600 is more than capable of feeding frames to the GPU, the GTX 1650 is unable to transform that data into high frame rates at higher resolutions or settings. The combo's rank is a reflection of the GPU's limitations, not the CPU's. The GTX 1650's nearest rivals in terms of average benchmark score are all low-end or integrated graphics solutions, confirming its position at the bottom of the performance spectrum. This ranking means that the system is heavily GPU-bound, and any upgrade path would require a significantly more powerful graphics card to improve the overall performance in this game.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, and it is built on a 5 nm process. Its performance metrics are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 12735 and a single-core score of 1852. The CPU's percentile ranking of 78 against all CPUs indicates that it is a high-performing processor, far more powerful than what is necessary for this game. Its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX and Intel Core i9-11900KF, have similar average benchmark scores, with deltas of only 0.2% to 0.4%.

In the context of this game, the CPU's role is to provide a stable foundation for the GPU. Since the FPS data shows a clear drop with increasing resolution, it is evident that the CPU is not the limiting factor. The CPU has ample headroom to process game logic and physics, and its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support help to ensure that data is delivered to the GPU efficiently. The benchmark results, such as the 3DMark single-thread score of 999 and the Geekbench single-core score of 2521, indicate that the CPU is more than capable of handling the single-threaded tasks common in puzzle platformers. The data suggests that the CPU is effectively idling relative to the GPU's workload, making the GTX 1650 the sole source of any performance issues.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the system's performance across all combinations of resolution and settings.

At 1920x1080, the system performs admirably. The Low preset yields an average of 134 FPS. The Medium preset averages 107 FPS, with a minimum of 91 FPS and a maximum of 124 FPS. The High preset averages 67 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 64 FPS. This shows that at 1080p, the system can easily handle the game at high frame rates, and even the highest settings maintain a playable 60+ FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly. The Low preset averages 97 FPS, which is still very good. The Medium preset averages 77 FPS, with a minimum of 66 FPS and a maximum of 89 FPS. The High preset falls to 48 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 46 FPS. This shows that at 1440p, the system can only maintain a smooth experience at the Low and Medium settings, with the higher settings dipping below the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the system is clearly overburdened. The Low preset averages 61 FPS, which is on the edge of playability. The Medium preset drops to 49 FPS, with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS. The High preset averages 30 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 29 FPS. This data makes it clear that 4K is not a viable resolution for this GPU, as even the lowest settings cannot guarantee a consistent 60 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a very clear trend in resolution scaling, which is entirely dictated by the GPU. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drops by approximately 28% at the Medium preset (from 107 to 77 FPS). From 1440p to 4K, the drop is even more severe, with the Medium preset falling by approximately 36% (from 77 to 49 FPS). This pattern of increasing performance loss at higher resolutions is a textbook example of a GPU-bound scenario.

The CPU, the Ryzen 5 7600, is not the limiting factor in these scaling tests. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively constant regardless of resolution, as the CPU's workload does not increase with more pixels. Instead, the significant FPS drops indicate that the GTX 1650 is running out of memory bandwidth and shading capacity as the pixel count increases. The GPU's 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth and 2.984 TFLOPS of compute power are simply insufficient to process the data required for 1440p and 4K rendering at high settings. The data shows that the GPU is the definitive bottleneck, and the system's performance scaling from 1080p to 4K is a direct reflection of the GTX 1650's hardware limitations.