Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers a striking performance profile in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016 that proves remarkably scalable across modern hardware. The measured frame rates reveal a combination that is heavily GPU-bound at 4K, yet capable of extreme refresh rates at 1080p, with the data showing a clear narrative of how resolution and settings interact with this specific CPU-GPU pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data for this combo shows a classic scaling pattern, but with some notable twists that reveal the balance of components. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 177 to 127, a reduction of 50 frames per second or roughly 28%. This is a substantial hit, but the game remains highly playable. The jump from 1440p to 3840x2160 at High settings sees the average FPS fall further from 127 to 80, another 47-frame drop, translating to a 37% reduction. The scaling is not linear; the percentage loss increases as resolution climbs, which is typical for a GPU-limited scenario.

At Low settings, the scaling curve is even more dramatic. The 1080p average of 353 FPS drops to 254 FPS at 1440p, a 99-frame decrease (28%). Then, at 4K Low, the average plummets to 160 FPS, a 94-frame drop from 1440p (37%). The fact that the percentage drops are nearly identical between High and Low settings when moving from 1080p to 4K suggests that the GPU is the primary bottleneck across the board, regardless of the graphical load. The CPU is clearly not limiting performance at these resolutions, as even the 4K Low result of 160 FPS is far beyond what a CPU-bound scenario would produce.

Ultra settings present the most demanding scenario. The average FPS at 1080p Ultra is 168, which is only 9 frames lower than High at the same resolution. This suggests that the jump from High to Ultra has a relatively small impact at 1080p, likely due to the game’s age and the GPU’s headroom. However, at 1440p Ultra, the average drops to 121 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 76 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is a 92-frame drop (55%), which is the largest percentage loss of any settings tier. This indicates that Ultra settings introduce a significant pixel-pushing burden that the RX 7700 can only partially overcome at higher resolutions.

The Medium settings data provides the only min and max FPS readings in the entire dataset. At 1080p Medium, the average is 282 FPS, with a minimum of 240 and a maximum of 325. This 85-frame spread between min and max suggests some frame time variance, but the minimum is still exceptionally high. At 1440p Medium, the average is 203 FPS, with a min of 173 and a max of 234, a 61-frame spread. At 4K Medium, the average is 128 FPS, with a min of 108 and a max of 147, a 39-frame spread. The narrowing of the frame range as resolution increases is a sign that the GPU is becoming more consistently loaded, reducing the influence of CPU-driven spikes or drops.

The overall takeaway from resolution scaling is that this combo is ideal for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can push well past 120 FPS on any settings. At 4K, it remains playable on High and Medium settings, but Ultra settings will push it below the 80 FPS mark. The data strongly suggests the RX 7700 is the limiting factor at 4K, while the Ryzen 7 7700X has ample headroom to feed the GPU at all resolutions tested.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture and utilizes the Navi 32 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. The GPU contains 28,100 million transistors on a 346 mm² die. It features 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output pipelines, along with 40 ray tracing cores. The GPU’s clock speeds are rated with a base clock of 1900 MHz, a game clock of 2041 MHz, and a boost clock of 2459 MHz. The memory subsystem is a substantial part of this card’s profile, with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s. The memory clock is listed at 2438 MHz, or 19.5 Gbps effective.

In Inside, the GPU’s role is clearly dominant, especially at higher resolutions. The 16 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for a game from 2016, as the title’s textures and assets are not demanding by modern standards. This means the memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s is unlikely to be a limiting factor, as the game’s data footprint is relatively small. The GPU’s compute capabilities, rated at 25.18 TFLOPS for FP32, are more than enough to handle the game’s rendering tasks, which include simple geometry and lighting effects.

The benchmark results for the RX 7700 show a Passmark G3D score of 20974 and a Passmark G2D score of 1206. Its performance in DirectX 11 is notable with a score of 186, which is relevant given that Inside is a DirectX 11 title. The GPU’s percentile ranking among all GPUs is 58, placing it in the mid-range tier. Its average benchmark score across all tests is 15852.

Looking at its nearest rivals, the RX 7700’s average score is 0.1% lower than the AMD Radeon R9 370X, which is a much older card, indicating the benchmark suite may not fully reflect modern gaming performance. It is 1% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 9060, 1.1% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500, and 1.7% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. These small deltas in average benchmark scores suggest that in synthetic tests, the RX 7700 sits in a tight competitive band, but the measured FPS in Inside shows it is more than capable of delivering high frame rates.

The GPU’s pixel rate is 236.1 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 393.4 GTexel/s. These figures explain its ability to handle 4K resolutions at playable frame rates. The 96 ROPs are critical for fill-rate-bound scenarios, and the data shows that at 4K Ultra, the card still manages 76 FPS, which is a respectable result for a game that is not visually intensive. The boost clock of 2459 MHz is the highest rated speed, and the GPU likely sustains close to this during lighter loads, such as at 1080p Low, where the 353 FPS result indicates the GPU is not being pushed to its limits.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is a desktop processor from the 7000 series, based on the Zen 4 architecture with the codename Raphael. It is manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC, with 6,570 million transistors on a 71 mm² die. The CPU has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 4.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. It supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus, with a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. The CPU’s cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache.

In Inside, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, but its high single-thread performance is still relevant. The game is not heavily multithreaded, so the 8-core, 16-thread configuration is more than sufficient. The CPU’s single-thread performance, as measured by Cinebench R23, is 1987 points, and its 3DMark single-thread score is 1090. These figures indicate that the CPU can handle the game’s main thread without becoming a bottleneck. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 2112 is also strong, showing that even lightly threaded workloads are processed efficiently.

The CPU’s boost clock of 5.40 GHz is the key factor here. At 1080p Low, the measured FPS of 353 is likely approaching the CPU’s limit for frame generation, but the data does not show a plateau. The fact that the FPS scales down consistently as resolution increases suggests that the CPU is never the limiting factor, even at the highest frame rates. The Ryzen 7 7700X’s performance in Passmark multithread tests (35686) and its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 19088 show that it has plenty of headroom for any background tasks or game logic that might be running.

The CPU’s percentile ranking among all CPUs is 85, which places it in the upper echelon of processors. Its average benchmark score is 35909. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, which scores 0.3% higher, and the Intel Core 7 250H, which scores 0.5% higher. The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is 0.7% higher, and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 is 0.5% higher. These small deltas indicate that the Ryzen 7 7700X is competitive with a range of modern processors, and its performance in Inside is consistent with its strong synthetic scores.

The CPU’s L3 cache of 32 MB is ample for the game’s data, and the DDR5 memory support ensures that memory bandwidth is not a constraint. The 83.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth is more than enough for a game like Inside, which does not have massive streaming requirements. The CPU’s PCIe Gen 5 support (24 lanes) ensures that the GPU is not limited by bus bandwidth, though the RX 7700 uses PCIe 4.0 x16, which is backward compatible.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of this combo’s performance across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 168 at Ultra to 353 at Low. The High setting delivers 177 FPS, and Medium delivers 282 FPS. The Medium setting also has a minimum of 240 FPS and a maximum of 325 FPS, showing a tight frame window. At this resolution, all settings produce frame rates well above 144 Hz, making this combo ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS ranges from 121 at Ultra to 254 at Low. High delivers 127 FPS, and Medium delivers 203 FPS. The Medium setting’s minimum is 173 FPS, and its maximum is 234 FPS. This resolution is still highly playable, with all settings except Ultra exceeding 120 FPS. The 1440p results suggest that this is the sweet spot for balancing visual quality and frame rate, as even Ultra remains above 120 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 76 at Ultra to 160 at Low. High delivers 80 FPS, and Medium delivers 128 FPS. The Medium setting’s minimum is 108 FPS, and its maximum is 147 FPS. This resolution shows the GPU’s limits, as Ultra dips below 80 FPS, but Medium and Low remain smooth. The 4K High result of 80 FPS is on the edge of what many would consider ideal for a smooth experience, but it is still playable.

The specific numbers show a clear hierarchy: Low is always the fastest, followed by Medium, High, and then Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra is substantial at every resolution. At 1080p, the difference is 185 FPS (353 vs 168). At 1440p, it is 133 FPS (254 vs 121). At 4K, it is 84 FPS (160 vs 76). This indicates that the game’s settings have a profound impact on performance, and the Ultra preset is significantly more demanding than the others.

The data also reveals that the jump from High to Ultra is smaller than the jump from Low to Medium. At 1080p, High is 177 FPS, and Ultra is 168 FPS, a 9 FPS difference. At 1440p, High is 127 FPS, and Ultra is 121 FPS, a 6 FPS difference. At 4K, High is 80 FPS, and Ultra is 76 FPS, a 4 FPS difference. This suggests that the Ultra preset adds visual features that are not particularly taxing on the GPU, at least relative to the jump from Low to Medium.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global ranking of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Inside, this pairing holds the 1161st position out of 2887 total combos. This places it in the 60th percentile, which is a solid mid-tier ranking. The rank is determined by the measured FPS across all benchmarks, and given that this combo achieves high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, its position is likely held back by the 4K Ultra result of 76 FPS, which is lower than what top-tier combos would achieve.

The combo’s ranking of 1161 out of 2887 suggests that there are 1726 combos that perform worse, and 1160 that perform better. This is a respectable position, especially considering that the RX 7700 is not a flagship GPU. The Ryzen 7 7700X’s strong CPU performance ensures that it is not the limiting factor, but the GPU’s mid-range position in the benchmark hierarchy (58th percentile) naturally caps the combo’s overall standing.

The data shows that this combo is well-suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can compete with more expensive pairings. The 4K results, while playable, are not competitive with high-end GPUs. The combo’s rank reflects this balance: it is not a top-tier performer, but it is far from being a low-end setup. The fact that the GPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which is a popular mid-range card, reinforces that this combo is aimed at the mainstream market.

The rank also implies that the CPU is doing its job. If the CPU were a bottleneck, the combo would rank lower, as the GPU would be underutilized. The measured FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent GPU-bound pattern, which is the hallmark of a well-balanced system for this game.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 76 FPS. This is the lowest average across all tested configurations, indicating that Ultra settings at 4K are the most demanding for this combo.

Q: How does the combo perform at 1080p Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average FPS is 353. This is the highest average in the dataset, showing that the combo can achieve extremely high frame rates when the graphical load is minimal.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in the entire dataset?

A: The only minimum FPS values are provided for Medium settings. The lowest minimum is 108 FPS at 3840x2160 Medium. This is still a playable frame rate, indicating that the combo does not drop to unplayable levels even at 4K.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor, especially at higher resolutions. The frame rate drops consistently as resolution increases, while the CPU’s strong single-thread performance (as seen in its 3DMark single-thread score of 1090) ensures it is not a bottleneck.

Q: How does the RX 7700 compare to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 7700 has an average benchmark score of 15852, which is 1.7% lower than the RTX 3060 Ti’s average score of 16129. This places the two GPUs in a similar performance tier, though their real-world gaming performance may vary.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested CPU-GPU combinations for Inside?

A: The combo is ranked 1161 out of 2887 total combinations. This places it in the upper half of all tested systems, reflecting its strong performance at 1080p and 1440p, while its 4K Ultra results are less competitive.