Inside

Inside pairs an AMD Ryzen 7 9700F with an AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT for a puzzle-platformer that proves surprisingly demanding at its upper limits. The measured data shows a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound, yet the CPU’s Zen 5 architecture ensures headroom that keeps even the most extreme frame rates from collapsing. This analysis breaks down how the combo behaves across resolutions and settings, where it stands among 2,887 tested configurations, and what the component specifications reveal about the bottlenecks at play.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about the limiting component. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 281 FPS at 1920x1080 to 202 FPS at 2560x1440, a 28% reduction, and then to 127 FPS at 3840x2160, a 55% drop from 1080p. This pattern is classic GPU saturation—the RX 6600 XT’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed harder as pixel count rises, while the Ryzen 7 9700F’s 16 threads sit comparatively idle.

At Medium settings, the scaling is slightly gentler in percentage terms but still pronounced. The average goes from 225 FPS at 1080p to 161 FPS at 1440p (a 28% decline), then to 101 FPS at 4K (a 55% decline from 1080p). The consistency of these ratios—28% and 55% at both Low and Medium—indicates that the frame rate is scaling almost entirely with pixel throughput, not with any CPU-side variable. If the processor were the constraint, we would expect the gap between 1440p and 4K to narrow, as the CPU workload per frame stays constant while GPU time per frame grows. The data does not show that.

High settings amplify the same trend. At 1080p, the average is 140 FPS; at 1440p, it drops to 101 FPS (a 28% reduction); at 4K, it falls to 63 FPS (a 55% reduction from 1080p). Ultra settings follow the pattern: 134 FPS at 1080p, 96 FPS at 1440p (28% lower), and 60 FPS at 4K (55% lower). The near-identical percentage drops across all four presets are striking. It suggests that the game’s rendering pipeline is scaling linearly with resolution for this GPU, and that the RX 6600 XT is the sole bottleneck in every configuration measured.

What the data implies is that the CPU is not a factor in resolution scaling at all. The Ryzen 7 9700F, with its 5.50 GHz boost clock and 32 MB shared L3 cache, is delivering frame times that are short enough to never impose a ceiling. The evidence is in the Low preset at 1080p: 281 FPS average is far beyond what most displays can show, and yet the CPU still manages it without dropping below the GPU’s pace. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect to see a plateau at higher resolutions, not a consistent 55% drop from 1080p to 4K.

FAQ

Q: Does the Ryzen 7 9700F bottleneck the RX 6600 XT in Inside?

A: No. The measured FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent 55% drop at Low, Medium, High, and Ultra settings, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload. The CPU’s 16 threads and 5.50 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom, as evidenced by the 281 FPS average at 1080p Low, which is far beyond typical display refresh rates.

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

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 101 FPS average, which is below 144 Hz. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 161 FPS, comfortably exceeding 144 Hz. For a 1080p 144Hz display, the High preset at 140 FPS is borderline, while Medium at 225 FPS provides significant margin.

Q: How does the RX 6600 XT’s VRAM affect performance at 4K?

A: The GPU has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 60 FPS and High averages 63 FPS, indicating that memory bandwidth is sufficient for these settings, but the frame rates are low enough to suggest the GPU’s compute resources—10.60 TFLOPS FP32—are the primary constraint.

Q: Is the Ultra preset playable at 4K?

A: The measured average is 60 FPS exactly at 3840x2160 Ultra. This is technically playable for a puzzle-platformer, but the High preset at 63 FPS offers a similar experience with potentially lower rendering loads. The data shows no min FPS recorded for Ultra at 4K, so consistency is unverified.

Q: What does the combo rank tell us about this pairing?

A: The combo ranks 1,998 out of 2,887 tested combinations in Inside. This places it in the lower-middle tier of all configs, which is expected given the RX 6600 XT’s 70th percentile standing among all GPUs and the game’s 2016 release date, which means newer hardware dominates the upper ranks.

Q: Can the CPU’s PassMark scores predict in-game performance?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F scores 4,691 in PassMark single-thread and 36,470 in multithread tests. These numbers are high enough to handle the game’s logic, but the measured FPS data shows the GPU is the limiting factor across all resolutions, so CPU benchmark scores are not predictive of frame rate differences in this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo, particularly at higher resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium averages 225 FPS with a recorded min of 191 FPS and max of 258 FPS. This is a 61% improvement over High’s 140 FPS average and a 68% improvement over Ultra’s 134 FPS, while still maintaining a minimum above 190 FPS. The frame time consistency, evidenced by the narrow min-max range, makes Medium the most reliable choice for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 2560x1440, Medium averages 161 FPS with min/max of 137/186. This is the only preset at 1440p that clears the 144 Hz threshold comfortably. High at 101 FPS and Ultra at 96 FPS are both below 120 Hz, making them less ideal for smooth motion. Low at 202 FPS is faster but sacrifices visual quality in a game where atmospheric lighting and shadow detail are likely part of the experience.

For 4K, the choice is more nuanced. Medium averages 101 FPS with a min of 86 FPS, which is the only preset at 3840x2160 that exceeds 100 FPS on average. High averages 63 FPS and Ultra 60 FPS, both of which are just at the edge of 60 Hz playability. Low at 127 FPS is the fastest but may look noticeably degraded. Given that the game is a puzzle-platformer with a slower pace, the extra visual fidelity of High or Ultra might be worth the frame rate drop, but for those prioritizing smoothness, Medium is the clear winner.

The data suggests that Medium is the best balance of performance and quality across all three resolutions. It offers the highest frame rate that still maintains a wide margin above the min FPS, and the gap between Medium and High—85 FPS at 1080p, 60 FPS at 1440p, and 38 FPS at 4K—is substantial enough to justify the visual compromise. Low is only recommended for extreme refresh rates, as the jump from Low to Medium costs 56 FPS at 1080p but likely adds significant graphical detail.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings shows a clear hierarchy. Low averages 281 FPS, Medium averages 225 FPS with a min of 191 and max of 258, High averages 140 FPS, and Ultra averages 134 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 56 FPS (20%), from Medium to High is 85 FPS (38%), and from High to Ultra is just 6 FPS (4%). The minimal difference between High and Ultra suggests that Ultra adds little over High in terms of rendering cost, while Medium offers a significant step up in frame rate from High.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats with lower absolute numbers. Low averages 202 FPS, Medium averages 161 FPS with min/max of 137/186, High averages 101 FPS, and Ultra averages 96 FPS. The percentage deltas are consistent: Medium is 20% slower than Low, High is 37% slower than Medium, and Ultra is 5% slower than High. This consistency across resolutions confirms that the GPU’s compute units are scaling predictably with pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress further. Low averages 127 FPS, Medium averages 101 FPS with min/max of 86/117, High averages 63 FPS, and Ultra averages 60 FPS. Medium is 20% slower than Low, High is 38% slower than Medium, and Ultra is 5% slower than High. The min FPS of 86 at 4K Medium is noteworthy—it shows that even at 4K, the frame rate does not dip below 86 FPS, which is above the 60 Hz baseline. High and Ultra at 4K both hover at 60-63 FPS, indicating that these presets are pushing the GPU to its limits.

The data shows no min or max FPS values for Low, High, or Ultra at any resolution, only for Medium. This suggests that Medium’s frame time variance was measured and found reasonable (e.g., 191-258 at 1080p), while other presets may have had wider swings that were not recorded. The absence of min/max for Ultra at 1080p is notable, as the 134 FPS average could mask occasional dips below 120 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1,998 out of 2,887 tested combinations in Inside. This places it in the 69th percentile of all configs, meaning roughly 31% of tested combos perform worse. Given that the RX 6600 XT itself sits at the 70th percentile among all GPUs, the combo’s ranking is slightly below what the GPU’s standalone position might suggest. This could be due to the CPU pairing, but the measured FPS data shows no CPU bottleneck, so it is more likely that the game’s benchmark pool includes many high-end CPUs from later years.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in PassMark include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (0.2% higher average score), Intel Core i7-14700KF (0.2% lower), AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (0.7% higher), and Intel Core i7-14700K (0.9% higher). These deltas are tiny, indicating that the 9700F is performance-competitive with much more expensive processors. The GPU’s nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (0.7% higher), Intel Arc A350M (0.8% lower), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (0.8% higher), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (1.1% higher). The fact that the RTX 2080 SUPER, a much higher-tier card, is only 1.1% ahead in average benchmark score suggests that the RX 6600 XT is well-optimized for its class.

In the context of Inside specifically, the 1,998th rank out of 2,887 means this combo is not a top performer, but it is far from the bottom. The measured FPS at 1080p Medium (225 FPS) is higher than many older combos would achieve, and the 4K Medium result of 101 FPS is respectable for a card in the 70th percentile. The rank reflects the game’s age—newer GPUs with higher VRAM and bandwidth will naturally score better—but for a 2021 GPU paired with a 2025 CPU, the performance is solid.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 9700F is built on Zen 5 architecture with 8 cores and 16 threads, running at a 3.80 GHz base clock and 5.50 GHz boost clock. Its PassMark single-thread score of 4,691 and multithread score of 36,470 place it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, meaning it is faster than 94% of processors tested. In Inside, this headroom is mostly unused—the game’s puzzle-platformer logic does not appear to stress the CPU, as evidenced by the consistent FPS scaling that points to GPU limits.

The CPU’s 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 80 KB per-core L1 cache are likely sufficient for the game’s data sets. The lack of integrated graphics means the 9700F relies entirely on the discrete GPU, which is appropriate for this pairing. The 65 W TDP and 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth over DDR5 dual-channel are more than enough for a game that runs at 281 FPS on Low without taxing the CPU.

The nearest rival data shows the 9700F trading blows with the Ryzen 9 7940HX and Intel Core i7-14700KF, both of which have higher core counts or different architectures. That the 9700F matches them within 0.2-0.9% on average benchmark score indicates that its Zen 5 IPC is strong. For Inside, the CPU role is to avoid being a bottleneck, and the data confirms it does—the only scenario where CPU could matter is at 1080p Low with 281 FPS, and even then, the CPU keeps up.

GPU Role

The RX 6600 XT is the defining component in this combo. With 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth, it delivers 10.60 TFLOPS FP32 performance from its 2,048 shading units. The 7 nm Navi 23 chip runs at a 1968 MHz base clock and 2589 MHz boost clock, with a game clock of 2359 MHz. These specs place it in the 70th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the GTX 1630 and RTX 2080 SUPER, with the latter being only 1.1% faster in average benchmark scores.

In Inside, the GPU is the limiting factor at every resolution and preset. The 55% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K across all settings is directly attributable to the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth being saturated. The pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s and texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s are the specs that matter here, as the game’s rendering workload scales with pixel count. At 4K Ultra, the 60 FPS average suggests the GPU is running at near-maximum utilization.

The 8 GB VRAM is adequate for this game at 4K, as the memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s appears to be the constraint rather than capacity. The Medium preset at 4K shows a min FPS of 86, which is well above the average of 101, indicating that memory access is not causing stutter. The GPU’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support and Vulkan 1.4 API compatibility are relevant for the game’s rendering path, though the measured results show that raw throughput, not API features, is the deciding factor.

The RX 6600 XT’s end-of-life production status and 160 W TDP are worth noting for longevity, but within this benchmark, it performs as expected for a mid-range card. The 4K results are playable but not exceptional, and the 1080p results are excellent for high-refresh displays. The GPU’s role is to be the workhorse, and the data shows it does so consistently, albeit with the expected limitations at higher resolutions.