Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer with modest hardware demands, and the measured results for the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 show a configuration that is heavily influenced by the graphics card and the chosen quality preset. The data presents a clear picture of where this combo succeeds and where it struggles, particularly at higher resolutions and quality settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 108 FPS, which is a substantial 58.8% improvement over the High preset’s 68 FPS, while still maintaining a playable frame rate. The frame time consistency at this setting is also solid, with a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 124 FPS, showing minimal variance that contributes to a smooth experience in a game where precise platforming is key.

For users with 2560x1440 displays, Medium remains the recommended choice, producing an average of 78 FPS. This is a drop from the 1080p result but still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for fluid gameplay. The High preset at this resolution falls to 49 FPS, which is noticeably less smooth and could introduce input lag in a genre that requires timing-based jumps. The Low preset at 1440p achieves 97 FPS, which is excellent, but the visual compromise is likely unnecessary given that Medium provides a better balance.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. The Medium preset yields an average of 49 FPS with a minimum of 42 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a platformer where consistent timing is important. The High and Ultra presets at 4K drop to 31 FPS and 29 FPS respectively, making them unsuitable for a responsive experience. The Low preset at 4K reaches 61 FPS, which is the only way to achieve a smooth frame rate at this resolution, but it requires significant visual sacrifices. For the best overall experience, the Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p is the clear winner, offering a high frame rate without the need to drop to the lowest visual quality.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and the AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 3523 out of 3716 tested combos in Inside. This places it in the bottom 5.2% of all configurations, indicating that this pairing is not well-suited for maximizing performance in this specific game. The low ranking is primarily attributable to the GPU, which is an older Polaris architecture card that struggles with the game’s rendering demands at higher settings.

The CPU component of this combo is quite capable, with the Ryzen 7 5800X scoring in the 81st percentile among all CPUs. Its average benchmark score of 29123 places it just 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT, while it trails the Intel Core i5-13500HX by 0.5% and the Intel Xeon Phi 7210 by 0.4%. This shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this pairing. However, the GPU’s performance is the limiting factor, as the Radeon RX 570’s average benchmark score of 28766 puts it in the 74th percentile, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 470, which is 0.8% faster, and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, which is 1.2% slower)Skip this comparison for now; the core issue is that the GPU cannot keep up with the CPU’s potential in this title, resulting in the poor overall ranking.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the primary determinant of the frame rates observed in Inside. It features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. Its clock speeds are set at a base of 1168 MHz and a boost of 1244 MHz, with memory operating at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective). These specifications are modest by modern standards, and the benchmark data reflects this. The GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 880 is low, and its Geekbench Vulkan score of 42752 is its highest among the listed tests, but none of these indicate strong gaming performance.

In practice, the GPU’s limitations are evident in the FPS scaling. At 1080p, the jump from Low to Ultra settings shows a clear performance cost, with the Ultra preset delivering 64 FPS compared to the Low preset’s 135 FPS. This suggests that the GPU is working harder to process the increased visual fidelity, but it cannot maintain high frame rates at the highest quality levels. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is also a concern at higher resolutions, but the data does not show a catastrophic drop, indicating that the game’s memory usage is within the card’s limits. The GPU’s role is to render the game’s atmospheric environments, and while it can handle the task at lower settings, it falls short of providing a consistently high frame rate at higher presets, particularly at 1440p and 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a clear hierarchy across settings. The Low preset yields an average of 135 FPS, which is the highest frame rate achieved in any configuration. The Medium preset follows at 108 FPS, with a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 124 FPS, indicating a stable performance window. The High preset drops to 68 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls further to 64 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium is 27 FPS, while the difference between High and Ultra is only 4 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset offers little additional visual benefit for a noticeable performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease proportionally. The Low preset averages 97 FPS, which is a 28.1% drop from the 1080p result. The Medium preset averages 78 FPS, with a minimum of 66 FPS and a maximum of 89 FPS, maintaining playability. The High preset averages 49 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 46 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 29 FPS, which is significant, and it highlights the GPU’s struggle to handle the increased pixel count. The data shows that at 1440p, only the Low and Medium presets provide a smooth experience, with High and Ultra falling below the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the performance is further constrained. The Low preset averages 61 FPS, just above the 60 FPS target, while the Medium preset averages 49 FPS with a minimum of 42 FPS, which can lead to noticeable stutters in a platformer. The High preset drops to 31 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 29 FPS, making these settings unplayable for a responsive experience. The data indicates that 4K gaming is only viable with the Low preset, and even then, the frame rate is marginal)Skip this detail; the key takeaway is that the GPU’s capabilities are stretched to their limits at this resolution, and the settings must be reduced significantly to maintain acceptable performance.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a significant dependence on the GPU. At the Medium preset, the average frame rate falls from 108 FPS at 1920x1080 to 78 FPS at 2560x1440, a 27.8% decrease, and then to 49 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 37.2% decrease from the 1440p result. This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the increase in pixel count directly impacts the rendering workload. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, is not the limiting factor here, as its performance remains constant regardless of resolution.

The Low preset shows a similar trend, with FPS dropping from 135 at 1080p to 97 at 1440p (a 28.1% decrease) and then to 61 at 4K (a 37.1% decrease from 1440p). This consistent percentage drop across settings indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The High and Ultra presets exhibit even steeper declines, with the High preset falling from 68 FPS at 1080p to 49 FPS at 1440p (a 27.9% decrease) and then to 31 FPS at 4K (a 36.7% decrease from 1440p). This data shows that the limiting component is the Radeon RX 570, as the frame rate scales inversely with the resolution at a rate that aligns with the GPU’s rendering capabilities, not the CPU’s processing power.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved with this CPU and GPU combo?

A: The highest average frame rate is 135 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

Q: Is it possible to play Inside at 4K with this hardware?

A: Yes, but only at the Low preset, which yields an average of 61 FPS. Higher presets at 4K result in averages below 50 FPS, which are not ideal for a platformer.

Q: How does the Medium preset at 2560x1440 compare to the High preset at 1920x1080?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 averages 78 FPS, which is 10 FPS higher than the High preset at 1920x1080, which averages 68 FPS. This suggests that the Medium preset at a higher resolution provides a better balance of visual quality and performance.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded at the Medium preset across all resolutions?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 42, which occurs at the Medium preset at 3840x2160. At 2560x1440, the minimum is 66, and at 1920x1080, it is 92.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No, the data indicates the CPU is not the limiting factor. The Ryzen 7 5800X scores in the 81st percentile among CPUs, and the FPS scaling with resolution is consistent with GPU-bound performance.

Q: How much faster is the Low preset compared to the Ultra preset at 1080p?

A: The Low preset averages 135 FPS, which is 111% faster than the Ultra preset’s 64 FPS at the same resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X plays a supporting role in this configuration, as the benchmark data shows it has ample processing power for Inside. With 8 cores and 16 threads, the CPU is well-equipped for modern gaming, and its Zen 3 architecture provides strong single-thread performance, which is crucial for a game’s main logic loop. The CPU’s base clock is 3.80 GHz with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, and it has a 32 MB L3 cache, which helps with data access patterns. Its benchmark scores reflect this capability, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15476 and a single-core score of 1574.5, alongside a Geekbench multi-core score of 11036 and a single-core score of 2032.

In the context of Inside, the CPU’s performance is more than sufficient. The measured FPS data shows no indication of CPU-related stuttering or frame rate drops that would suggest a bottleneck. The frame rates scale consistently with resolution and settings, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound rendering. The CPU’s percentile rank of 81% among all CPUs further confirms that it is not a weak point in this pairing. The nearest rivals in terms of average benchmark score, such as the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT, show that the Ryzen 7 5800X is competitive, with a delta of just 0.1% and 0.6% respectively. This means that the CPU is capable of delivering the data needed for the GPU to render frames, but the GPU’s limitations prevent the system from achieving higher frame rates. The CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with instructions, and it does so without becoming a constraint, leaving the Radeon RX 570 as the sole determinant of the gaming experience.