Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination delivers a masterclass in overkill for Inside, a 2016 puzzle-platformer whose minimalist aesthetic and controlled lighting engine place it far outside the demanding AAA spectrum. The measured frame rates are so consistently high that the data reads less like a stress test and more like a validation of modern hardware efficiency against a legacy title. This pairing, ranked 764th out of 3,716 tested combos, does not merely play Inside; it obliterates every performance ceiling the game can present, making the analysis less about finding playable settings and more about understanding the sheer headroom available.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling across resolutions reveals a system that is barely taxed even at 4K. At the High preset, the transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 shows a significant drop of 55 FPS (from 239 to 184), but the jump to 3840x2160 incurs a further loss of 68 FPS (from 184 to 116). This progressive decline is the classic signature of a GPU-bound workload emerging as pixel count rises. However, the absolute numbers remain extraordinarily high; even at 4K High, the average of 116 FPS is far beyond the refresh rate of most standard monitors.

The scaling pattern shifts dramatically when examining the Low preset. At 1080p Low, the system pushes 310 FPS, which drops to 278 FPS at 1440p, and then to 231 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is approximately 25%, which is modest compared to the 51% drop seen on the High preset. This discrepancy suggests that at Low settings, the game's visual simplicity means the GPU is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions. Instead, the CPU's single-thread performance and the game engine's frame submission rate become the limiting factors, creating a bottleneck that caps the maximum output even as resolution increases.

What is most telling is the behavior at 4K. The gap between Low (231 FPS) and Ultra (110 FPS) is 121 FPS, a massive spread that indicates the GPU has plenty of headroom to spare. This is not a scenario where the graphics card is struggling; rather, the game's Ultra preset introduces effects and draw calls that are disproportionately expensive relative to the visual fidelity gain in this stylized title. The data shows a system where 1080p is a purely CPU-bound exercise, 4K Ultra is the only setting that begins to engage the RTX 4070 SUPER meaningfully, and even then, it does so without breaking a sweat.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand database of tested hardware combinations, this pairing sits at rank 764 out of 3,716 combos, placing it in the top 21% of all systems tested. This is a strong showing, but the rank is likely suppressed by the fact that Inside is not a demanding title; many lower-tier GPUs paired with high-end CPUs can achieve similar frame rates because the game is so easy to run. The combo's percentile versus all CPUs is 79, and versus all GPUs is 83, indicating that both components are individually in the upper quartile of their respective categories.

The benchmark results for this combo are not about breaking records but about demonstrating consistency. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12600K, has an identical average benchmark score of 27,578 with a 0% delta, while the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 is a mere 0.2% behind. This means the 5700X is performing exactly as expected for its class, with no thermal or power throttling anomalies noted in the data. On the GPU side, the RTX 4070 SUPER's average score of 43,223 is within 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile, showing that desktop-class performance is effectively matched by this card in synthetic tests.

The rank of 764 reflects the system's balance. It is not a top-tier enthusiast build with an RTX 4090, nor is it a budget system. It is a high-midrange pairing that delivers exceptional performance in this specific game, far exceeding the requirements for a smooth experience. The data indicates that this combo is overqualified for Inside, making the rank more a reflection of the game's low demands than any deficiency in the hardware.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is the workhorse in this pairing, and its specifications explain why it handles Inside with such ease. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, the card has ample resources for the game's textures and frame buffers at any resolution. The 4K Ultra preset, which is the most demanding scenario, still only averages 110 FPS, suggesting that memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor here; the game's art style uses simple, flat colors and limited texture detail.

Clock speeds are equally impressive. The base clock of 1980 MHz and boost clock of 2475 MHz are high absolute figures, and the card's Ada Lovelace architecture is designed to sustain these clocks under load. The FP32 compute rating of 35.48 TFLOPS is overkill for a 2D-sidescrolling puzzle game, but it ensures that any shader complexity the game throws at it is processed instantly. The GPU's benchmark scores reflect this raw power: a PassMark G3D score of 29,995 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 172,795 are both strong, but they do not translate into a meaningful advantage in Inside because the game's rendering pipeline is so rudimentary.

What is more relevant is the GPU's role in the scaling analysis. The fact that frame rates drop from 310 FPS at 1080p Low to 231 FPS at 4K Low indicates that even at minimal settings, the GPU is still working harder at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 110 FPS shows that the card can be pushed, but it requires the absolute maximum settings to do so. This suggests the RTX 4070 SUPER is not a bottleneck in this game; it is simply waiting for the CPU or the game engine to feed it enough data.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a system that is utterly unconstrained. The Low preset averages 310 FPS, which is likely near the engine's physics or logic update limit. Medium drops slightly to 286 FPS with a minimum of 243 FPS, and High comes in at 239 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 235 FPS, a mere 4 FPS below High, indicating that the incremental quality settings have almost no performance cost at this resolution. The minimum FPS figures are only recorded for the Medium preset (243 FPS), but the consistency across all presets suggests that frame pacing is flawless.

Moving to 2560x1440, the GPU begins to show its influence. Low still hits a blistering 278 FPS, but Medium falls to 257 FPS (min 218, max 295), and High drops to 184 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p averages 175 FPS, a 60 FPS reduction from the Low setting. This is the first resolution where the gap between Low and Ultra exceeds 100 FPS, but the absolute numbers remain staggeringly high. The data shows that 1440p is still firmly in CPU-bound territory for the Low and Medium presets, while High and Ultra start to engage the GPU's shading units more heavily.

At 3840x2160, the true resolution scaling emerges. Low averages 231 FPS, Medium 185 FPS (min 157, max 213), High 116 FPS, and Ultra 110 FPS. The jump from Medium to High is a steep 69 FPS drop, suggesting that the High preset enables a specific effect, like volumetric lighting or enhanced shadow maps, that is disproportionately expensive at 4K. The Ultra preset is only 6 FPS below High, showing that the final quality tier adds little computational load. For a 60Hz 4K display, even the Ultra preset at 110 FPS is overkill; for a 144Hz 4K panel, the High preset at 116 FPS is just barely insufficient, but the Medium preset at 185 FPS provides ample headroom.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, with its 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, is a formidable processor that is largely idle during Inside gameplay. The game is not heavily multithreaded; it relies on a few primary threads for game logic and rendering calls. The 5700X's single-thread score of 921 in 3DMark and 1,499 in Cinebench R23 are strong, but the game's simple physics and AI routines do not stress even a single core. The PassMark single-thread score of 3,385 confirms that the CPU is capable of high IPC, which is beneficial for the game's main loop.

The CPU's multithreading capabilities are irrelevant here. A score of 13,184 in Cinebench R23 multicore shows the 16 threads are available for rendering or background tasks, but Inside will not use them. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 6,858 and max-thread score of 6,850 are nearly identical, indicating the processor is scaling efficiently, but again, this game does not need that scaling. The data shows that the 5700X is a bottleneck at 1080p Low, where the 310 FPS average is likely limited by the CPU's ability to issue draw calls to the GPU, not by the GPU's rendering speed.

The relationship between the CPU and the frame rate is most evident in the resolution scaling. At 1080p, the frame rates are nearly identical across presets (310 to 235), which is a classic sign of a CPU limit. As resolution increases to 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, and the frame rates drop more dramatically. This indicates that the 5700X has enough single-thread headroom to push Inside to its engine's limits at lower resolutions, but it is not the component that ultimately determines the 4K Ultra performance—that is the GPU. The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are more than sufficient for the game's data streaming needs, eliminating any potential stutter from asset loading.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured data, the optimal settings for this combo depend entirely on the display's refresh rate. For a standard 60Hz display, the Ultra preset at 4K (110 FPS) is the obvious choice, as it delivers the maximum visual quality while still providing nearly double the required frame rate. There is no reason to compromise on settings; the hardware is so overqualified that even the highest preset leaves performance to spare.

For users with a 144Hz or 165Hz monitor at 1440p, the High preset (184 FPS) is the sweet spot. It provides a substantial visual upgrade over Medium (257 FPS) while still exceeding the refresh rate by a healthy margin. The Medium preset at 1440p (257 FPS) is also viable, but the 73 FPS gain over High is not worth the reduction in shadow quality and texture filtering, given that both are far beyond the display's capability.

At 1080p, the data suggests using the High or Ultra preset (239 and 235 FPS, respectively). The difference between them is negligible, and both are well above any consumer refresh rate. The Low preset (310 FPS) is only useful for competitive play, which is irrelevant in a puzzle-platformer. The Medium preset (286 FPS) offers no advantage over High.

For 4K gaming, the Medium preset (185 FPS) is the best balance if the display is 120Hz or 144Hz, as it clears that bar easily. The High preset (116 FPS) will work on a 120Hz panel but will not hit 144Hz. The Ultra preset (110 FPS) is for those who prioritize image quality over refresh rate, but the visual difference between Medium and High in Inside is minimal due to the game's art style. The data points to a simple conclusion: this combo can run Inside at maximum settings on any resolution, and the only question is whether the display can keep up with the frame rates on offer.