Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT pairing delivers a remarkably smooth experience in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016. Benchmark data shows this combination is heavily GPU-limited at lower resolutions, with frame rates that scale dramatically as resolution increases. The measured results reveal a system that crushes 1080p gaming, remains highly capable at 1440p, and only begins to show strain at 4K Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The performance curve across resolutions is steep and revealing. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces an average of 244.3 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 Low drops that to 215.5 FPS, a reduction of roughly 12%. At 3840x2160 Low, the average falls further to 151.9 FPS, which is still exceptionally high but represents a 38% drop from the 1080p figure. This pattern indicates that at Low settings, the system has massive headroom, and the GPU is the primary limiter even at 4K.

The scaling becomes more pronounced at higher settings. For High settings, the progression is 165.9 FPS at 1080p, 121.4 FPS at 1440p, and 79.2 FPS at 4K. The jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 27% of the frame rate, while the jump from 1440p to 4K costs another 35%. This is classic GPU-bound behavior, where pixel throughput dominates. At Ultra settings, the numbers are 160.7 FPS at 1080p, 113.9 FPS at 1440p, and 73.7 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that dips below the 80 FPS mark, suggesting that the RX 6700 XT's 12 GB memory buffer and compute resources are being fully utilized.

The delta between Low and Ultra at each resolution tells the same story. At 1080p, the spread is 83.6 FPS (244.3 vs 160.7). At 1440p, the spread narrows to 101.6 FPS (215.5 vs 113.9). At 4K, the spread is 78.2 FPS (151.9 vs 73.7). The fact that the Low-to-Ultra gap does not collapse at 4K indicates that neither component is completely bottlenecked; rather, the workload scales consistently with resolution.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 3700X is a Zen 2 architecture processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Matisse codename. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz, with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 19087 and a single-core score of 2694. The Geekbench multi-core score is 8083, with a single-core score of 1672. These numbers place the CPU in the 85th percentile of all tested processors.

For Inside, which is a puzzle platformer with modest thread utilization, the CPU's single-thread performance is more relevant than its multi-core muscle. The PassMark single-thread score of 2656 indicates strong per-core capability. The processor's 32 MB L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient for this game's data requirements. The 7 nm process node and 65 W TDP suggest efficient operation, though power draw is not a primary factor in frame rate generation here.

The nearest rivals in CPU benchmark scores include the Intel Core i5-12600 at a delta of -0.1%, and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT at +0.1%. These are effectively performance ties. The data shows that the 3700X is not a bottleneck in this game, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at 1080p Low where CPU overhead is typically highest. The 244.3 FPS result at 1080p Low strongly suggests that the CPU can feed frames faster than the GPU can render them at that resolution.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 6700 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 22 chip, fabricated on a 7 nm process. It features 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with 40 ray accelerators. The boost clock is 2581 MHz, with a game clock of 2424 MHz and a base clock of 2321 MHz. Memory consists of 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, providing 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

In synthetic tests, the GPU scores 19786 in PassMark G3D and 9336 in PassMark GPU Compute. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 2435. These results place the GPU in the 77th percentile of all tested graphics cards. The nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800 at +0.7% and the AMD Radeon HD 7950 at -1%. This indicates the RX 6700 XT sits in a competitive mid-to-high tier.

The GPU's role in Inside is crucial. The benchmark data shows a clear scaling pattern where higher resolutions and settings demand more from the GPU. At 4K Ultra, the 73.7 FPS average suggests the GPU is working near its limits. The 12 GB VRAM is ample for this title, which was released in 2016 and has modest texture requirements. The 384.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures that the memory subsystem does not become a limiting factor even at 4K. The GPU's FP32 throughput of 13.21 TFLOPS provides sufficient compute for the game's lighting and physics effects, which are not particularly demanding but still scale with resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT ranks 975th out of 1671 tested combos for Inside. This places it in the 58th percentile of all combinations, which is slightly below the midpoint. The ranking is influenced by the fact that many competing combos pair newer CPUs with higher-end GPUs.

The CPU's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs is higher than the GPU's 77th percentile ranking among all GPUs. This suggests the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing, which aligns with the observed resolution scaling behavior. The combo's rank is likely dragged down by the GPU's position relative to other cards, as the CPU is well above average.

When compared to the nearest GPU rivals, the RX 6700 XT is nearly identical to the RX 6800 in average benchmark score, yet the RX 6800 would likely rank higher in a GPU-heavy title. The data indicates that this combo is well-balanced for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with the GPU becoming the primary constraint at 4K. The fact that the combo achieves over 160 FPS at 1080p High shows that the pairing is more than capable for this game's typical use case.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are consistently high. Low settings produce 244.3 FPS, Medium 222.1 FPS, High 165.9 FPS, and Ultra 160.7 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 56.2 FPS, which is the largest single-step drop across all resolutions. This suggests that High settings introduce a significant graphical feature that burdens the GPU. The Ultra preset only costs an additional 5.2 FPS over High, indicating diminishing returns for the highest quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain very playable. Low settings yield 215.5 FPS, Medium 195.6 FPS, High 121.4 FPS, and Ultra 113.9 FPS. The Medium-to-High drop is 74.2 FPS, which is proportionally similar to the 1080p drop. The difference between High and Ultra is 7.5 FPS, again showing a small incremental cost. The 1440p results show that this combo can comfortably drive high refresh rate monitors at this resolution, provided settings are kept to Medium or below for maximum frame rates.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops are more noticeable. Low settings produce 151.9 FPS, Medium 123.6 FPS, High 79.2 FPS, and Ultra 73.7 FPS. The Low-to-Medium drop is 28.3 FPS, while the Medium-to-High drop is 44.4 FPS. The High-to-Ultra drop is only 5.5 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 73.7 FPS is the only figure below 75 FPS across the entire dataset. For a game like Inside, which is not a fast-paced competitive title, even this result is perfectly smooth. The data strongly suggests that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K being a viable option at Medium settings or below.