Inside

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti delivers a remarkably smooth experience in Inside, a game that is far more forgiving on hardware than its atmospheric presentation suggests. The measured data indicates that this combination is capable of high refresh rates even at demanding resolutions, with the primary caveat being the settings preset chosen. For most users, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, providing an average of 177.9 FPS at 1080p, 126.4 FPS at 1440p, and a still-playable 81.1 FPS at 4K. While the Ultra preset is playable, the frame rate drops are significant enough that the visual gains may not justify the performance hit, especially when compared to the substantial headroom offered by Medium.

Settings Recommendations

The sweet spot for this hardware combination is unambiguously the Medium preset. Benchmark results show that this setting provides a massive performance cushion over High and Ultra without compromising the core experience. At 1080p, the data shows a jump from 110.7 FPS on High to 177.9 FPS on Medium—a 67 FPS increase that is far more valuable than the marginal texture and shadow improvements. The trend holds at higher resolutions: at 1440p, Medium delivers 126.4 FPS compared to 79.1 FPS on High, and at 4K, it achieves 81.1 FPS versus 46.7 FPS on High.

The Low preset is only necessary for those chasing extremely high refresh rates or playing at 4K, where it achieves 98.5 FPS. However, given that Medium already clears the 60 FPS threshold at 4K and exceeds 120 FPS at 1440p, dropping to Low is rarely justified. Ultra is the oddity here: it only marginally improves the average FPS over High in some cases (106.6 vs 110.7 at 1080p, 78.1 vs 79.1 at 1440p) but costs more performance at 4K (48 vs 46.7). The data suggests Ultra is poorly optimized relative to its demands, making Medium the most efficient choice for this GPU. The GTX 1660 Ti's 6 GB VRAM appears sufficient, but the performance delta between Medium and Ultra indicates the card's compute limits are the bottleneck, not memory capacity.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Inside at 4K smoothly?*

A: Yes, but only on Medium settings or lower. The measured data shows 81.1 FPS on Medium and 98.5 FPS on Low at 3840x2160. High and Ultra presets fall below 50 FPS, which is not ideal for a game that relies on precise platforming.

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

A: At 1080p, the Medium preset delivers 177.9 FPS, which is well above 144Hz. Even at 1440p, Medium hits 126.4 FPS, which is close but might not fully saturate a 144Hz panel. For a locked 144Hz experience at 1440p, the Low preset (156.2 FPS) is the safer choice.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 Ti's 6 GB VRAM hold up in this game?

A: The 6 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor in Inside. The game's art style is minimalist, and benchmark results show consistent scaling from Low to Ultra without signs of memory-related stutter. The performance drops are more attributable to the GPU's raw compute power, not its memory capacity.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 9600X overkill for this game?

A: The CPU's capabilities are far beyond what Inside requires. Its single-thread performance is exceptional, but the game's frame rates are dictated by the GPU. The CPU's percentile rank of 85 and its average benchmark score of 28246 indicate it is a high-end part, but the data shows the GTX 1660 Ti is the limiting component in every measured resolution.

Q: What is the difference between High and Ultra settings?

A: The measured FPS data shows that Ultra actually performs similarly to High at 1080p (106.6 vs 110.7 FPS) and 1440p (78.1 vs 79.1 FPS), but it drops slightly at 4K (48 vs 46.7 FPS). The Ultra preset offers no significant performance advantage and appears to have diminishing returns for the additional load.

Q: Should I upgrade my GPU for this game?

A: Only if you must play at 4K on Ultra settings, which averages 48 FPS. For 1080p or 1440p gaming, the current setup is more than adequate, with Medium settings providing over 120 FPS at both resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, with its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, is the primary driver of frame rates in Inside. Its memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s is sufficient for this game's modest textures, and the 12 Gbps effective memory clock ensures data transfers are not a bottleneck. The GPU's boost clock of 1770 MHz and its Turing architecture, despite being from a previous generation, handle the game's rendering efficiently. The FP32 performance of 5.437 TFLOPS is the key metric here; it explains why the Medium preset scales so well compared to Ultra.

The data shows that the GPU's performance ceiling is reached at 4K with High settings (46.7 FPS) and Ultra (48 FPS). This is not a VRAM issue—the game likely uses less than 4 GB at these settings—but rather a compute limitation. The 1536 shading units are simply not enough to process the increased pixel count at 4K without significant frame drops. The GPU's percentile rank of 55 places it in the mid-range, and its average benchmark score of 13925 is close to rivals like the AMD Radeon RX 570X (13871) and NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (13821), confirming its position as a capable 1080p performer.

Interestingly, the GTX 1660 Ti's performance in Inside scales almost linearly with resolution when settings are held constant. For instance, at Medium settings, the FPS drops from 177.9 at 1080p to 126.4 at 1440p (a 29% reduction) and then to 81.1 at 4K (a further 36% reduction). This pattern indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as a CPU-bound scenario would show less dramatic scaling. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are idle in comparison; the Ryzen 5 9600X's single-thread performance is so high that it never becomes a constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti ranks 1427 out of 1671 tested combos in Inside. This places it in the lower 15% of all configurations, which might sound poor, but it must be interpreted with context. The combo's rank reflects the GPU's age, not the CPU's performance. The Ryzen 5 9600X is a top-tier processor; its average benchmark score of 28246 is within 0.3% of the Intel Core i5-13490F (28173) and 0.4% above the AMD Ryzen 5 230 (28164). It even outperforms the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS by 0.4% and the Intel Core i5-14500T by 0.5%.

The low combo rank is entirely due to the GTX 1660 Ti, which sits at the 55th percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 13925 is modest, and it is only 0.4% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 570X (13871) and 0.8% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (13812). This means that in a benchmark database filled with modern GPUs, the GTX 1660 Ti is a mid-range part from a previous generation. However, within the context of Inside specifically, the rank is misleading. The game is not graphically demanding, and the measured FPS data shows that this combo provides excellent playability at 1080p and 1440p. The rank of 1427 is a reflection of the hardware's overall capability, not its specific suitability for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound performance. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 221.3 at 1080p to 156.2 at 1440p (a 29.4% decrease) and then to 98.5 at 4K (a further 36.9% decrease). This almost perfectly matches the pixel count increase: 1440p has 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p, and 4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p. The linear relationship indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck; if it were, the FPS would drop more sharply at lower resolutions where the CPU is more stressed.

At Medium settings, the same trend is visible: 177.9 FPS at 1080p, 126.4 at 1440p, and 81.1 at 4K. The 4K to 1080p ratio is 2.19, which is close to the theoretical 4.44x pixel count difference, suggesting the GPU is handling the load consistently. High settings follow a similar pattern, with 110.7 FPS at 1080p dropping to 79.1 at 1440p and 46.7 at 4K. The 4K figure is below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the GTX 1660 Ti's compute power is insufficient for this resolution at High quality.

The data also shows that the gap between resolutions narrows as settings increase. At Low, the 1080p to 4K drop is 122.8 FPS; at High, it is only 64 FPS. This is because at higher settings, the GPU is already working harder at 1080p, so the additional workload from more pixels has a relatively smaller absolute impact. For users with a 1440p monitor, the Medium preset is the clear choice, as it delivers 126.4 FPS, which is smooth on most displays. For 4K users, Low settings are the only way to hit near-100 FPS, while Medium offers a playable 81.1 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset provides a comprehensive view of performance across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the combo achieves 221.3 FPS on Low, 177.9 FPS on Medium, 110.7 FPS on High, and 106.6 FPS on Ultra. The difference between Low and Medium is 43.4 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High is 67.2 FPS, showing where the graphical feature costs are highest. Ultra is nearly identical to High, with a difference of only 4.1 FPS, confirming that the Ultra preset adds little value.

At 2560x1440, the results are 156.2 FPS on Low, 126.4 FPS on Medium, 79.1 FPS on High, and 78.1 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Medium and High widens to 47.3 FPS, while High and Ultra remain within 1 FPS of each other. This resolution is the sweet spot for this hardware, as even High settings remain playable, though Medium is recommended for its substantial headroom.

At 3840x2160, the highest resolution, the frame rates are 98.5 FPS on Low, 81.1 FPS on Medium, 46.7 FPS on High, and 48 FPS on Ultra. The difference between Low and Medium is 17.4 FPS, which is smaller than at lower resolutions, indicating that the GPU is becoming saturated. High and Ultra both fall below 50 FPS, making them unsuitable for a smooth experience. The data suggests that the GTX 1660 Ti's 6 GB VRAM and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are not the limiting factors; rather, the 1536 shading units and 5.437 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are insufficient for 4K at higher quality settings. For this game, the Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p provides the best experience, with the option to push to 4K at Medium for those who prioritize resolution over extreme smoothness.