Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016, with measured frame rates that are consistently high across all tested resolutions and settings. The data shows this combination is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay in virtually every scenario, making it a powerful choice for this title, with the most demanding 4K Ultra configuration still averaging 76 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination across various settings presets reveals a clear hierarchy of performance, with all options providing playable frame rates. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 355 FPS, which is the highest recorded figure in the entire dataset. The Medium preset at this resolution averages 284 FPS, with a minimum of 242 FPS and a maximum of 327 FPS, indicating a very stable experience. High settings at 1080p yield 178 FPS, while Ultra drops to 169 FPS. Given that even the Ultra preset at 1080p exceeds 165 FPS, users with high-refresh-rate monitors can comfortably select this preset for maximum visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales predictably, with Low averaging 255 FPS, Medium at 204 FPS, High at 128 FPS, and Ultra at 122 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p shows a minimum of 174 FPS and a maximum of 235 FPS, demonstrating that it is an excellent choice for balancing quality and speed. The High and Ultra presets at this resolution still deliver well above 120 FPS, making them viable for gamers prioritizing image quality. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 161 FPS, which is remarkably high for 4K. Medium follows with 128 FPS, and its minimum of 109 FPS ensures consistent frame delivery. High at 4K averages 80 FPS, while Ultra averages 76 FPS.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the user's display and preference for visual quality. For 1080p and 1440p displays, the Ultra preset is recommended because it remains above 120 FPS at both resolutions, providing the full graphical experience of the game without any perceptible compromise in fluidity. For 4K displays, the Medium preset is the optimal choice, as it delivers a 128 FPS average with a minimum of 109 FPS, which is superior to the High and Ultra presets that dip to 80 and 76 FPS respectively. The Low preset at 4K offers 161 FPS, but the visual downgrade is unnecessary given that Medium maintains such high frame rates. Ultimately, the data suggests that users should prioritize the Medium preset at 4K and the Ultra preset at lower resolutions to achieve the best combination of visual fidelity and performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, with its 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus, provides a memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This configuration proves more than sufficient for Inside, a game that is not graphically demanding by modern standards. The GPU's memory clocks run at 1750 MHz, which translates to 28 Gbps effective, and the base clock is 2280 MHz with a boost clock of 2497 MHz. These clock speeds, combined with the 3840 shading units and 48 ROPs, allow the card to produce the high frame rates observed in the measurements.

The GPU's performance is further contextualized by its benchmark scores. It achieves a Passmark G3D score of 20891 and a Passmark GPU Compute score of 10899. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 3628, while Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores are 112787 and 113321 respectively. The GPU's percentile vs all GPUs is 72, meaning it outperforms 72% of all GPUs in the benchmark database. Its average benchmark score is 26331, placing it in close competition with several rivals. The nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 860M with an average score of 26401 and a deltaPct of -0.3, the NVIDIA GeForce MX550 with a score of 26421 and a deltaPct of -0.3, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary with a score of 26553 and a deltaPct of -0.8, and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT with a score of 26011 and a deltaPct of 1.2. This indicates that the RTX 5060 is slightly behind the Radeon 860M and MX550 but slightly ahead of the RX 6750 XT in synthetic benchmarks, though the differences are minimal.

In the context of Inside, the GPU is rarely the limiting factor. The highest load scenario, 4K Ultra, still holds an average of 76 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU has ample headroom. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is more than adequate for this game's texture and geometry requirements, even at 4K resolution. The GPU's 19.18 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is leveraged effectively, as the game's art style and lighting effects are rendered without any visible performance bottlenecks in the measured data. The RTX 5060's role here is to provide a high baseline of performance that allows the CPU and resolution scaling to dictate the upper limits of frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 ranks 1125 out of 2887 tested combos in Inside, placing it in the top 39% of all configurations. This ranking is notable because it places the combo in the upper half of the database, but not at the very top, which is reserved for more powerful and expensive hardware. The combo's rank of 1125 out of 2887 indicates that there are 1124 other combinations that deliver higher average frame rates in this game, but there are also 1762 combinations that perform worse.

The ranking reflects a balance between the CPU's strength and the GPU's mid-range position. The Ryzen 7 9700F has a Passmark single-thread score of 4691 and a Passmark multithread score of 36470, with an average benchmark score of 69996 and a percentile vs all CPUs of 94. This means the CPU is in the top 6% of all processors. The GPU, on the other hand, has a percentile vs all GPUs of 72, which is lower than the CPU's percentile. The combo's overall rank is thus constrained by the GPU's performance relative to other GPUs in the database. In a game like Inside, which is not heavily threaded, the CPU's strong single-thread performance helps push frame rates high, but the GPU ultimately sets the ceiling for certain high-resolution, high-settings scenarios.

The combo's rank is also influenced by the fact that many other tested combinations feature higher-tier GPUs. The deltaPct values from the GPU's nearest rivals show that the RTX 5060 is very closely matched with other mid-range options, with differences of less than 1.2%. This suggests that the combo's rank is not an outlier but rather a representative result for this class of hardware. For users with this specific CPU-GPU pairing, the data shows that they are getting a performance level that is solidly above the median for all tested combos in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 355 FPS. The Medium preset averages 284 FPS, with a minimum of 242 FPS and a maximum of 327 FPS. The High preset averages 178 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 169 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 186 FPS, which demonstrates the significant impact of settings on frame rate at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 255 FPS. The Medium preset averages 204 FPS, with a minimum of 174 FPS and a maximum of 235 FPS. The High preset averages 128 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 122 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 133 FPS, showing a similar scaling pattern to 1080p but with lower absolute values. The minimum FPS for the Medium preset at 1440p is 174, which is still very high and indicates no frame pacing issues.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 161 FPS. The Medium preset averages 128 FPS, with a minimum of 109 FPS and a maximum of 148 FPS. The High preset averages 80 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 76 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 4K is 85 FPS, which is the smallest absolute difference across resolutions but still a substantial percentage drop. The minimum FPS for the Medium preset at 4K is 109, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, indicating that this preset is the most balanced for 4K.

The data also shows that the scaling from Low to Ultra is not linear. For example, at 1080p, the difference between Low and Medium is 71 FPS, between Medium and High is 106 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 9 FPS. This suggests that the High to Ultra transition has a minimal performance cost, while the Medium to High transition is the most expensive. At 4K, the differences are 33 FPS between Low and Medium, 48 FPS between Medium and High, and 4 FPS between High and Ultra. This pattern indicates that the Ultra preset is only marginally more demanding than High, making it a reasonable choice for users who want the best visuals without a large FPS penalty.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At the Low settings preset, the average FPS drops from 355 at 1920x1080 to 255 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 100 FPS or 28.2%. From 1440p to 4K, the Low preset drops from 255 to 161 FPS, a reduction of 94 FPS or 36.9%. The cumulative drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 194 FPS, which represents a 54.6% decrease in frame rate.

For the Medium preset, the average FPS drops from 284 at 1080p to 204 at 1440p, a reduction of 80 FPS or 28.2%. From 1440p to 4K, the Medium preset drops from 204 to 128 FPS, a reduction of 76 FPS or 37.3%. The cumulative drop from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings is 156 FPS, a 54.9% decrease. The High preset shows a drop from 178 FPS at 1080p to 128 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 50 FPS or 28.1%. From 1440p to 4K, High drops from 128 to 80 FPS, a reduction of 48 FPS or 37.5%. The cumulative drop for High is 98 FPS, a 55.1% decrease.

The Ultra preset drops from 169 FPS at 1080p to 122 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 47 FPS or 27.8%. From 1440p to 4K, Ultra drops from 122 to 76 FPS, a reduction of 46 FPS or 37.7%. The cumulative drop for Ultra is 93 FPS, a 55.0% decrease. The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings presets is striking. The 1080p to 1440p transition consistently results in a 27-28% FPS reduction, while the 1440p to 4K transition results in a 37-38% reduction. This pattern indicates that the limiting component scales its workload in a predictable manner with pixel count.

The data suggests that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions. The percentage drop from 1440p to 4K is larger than the drop from 1080p to 1440p, which is expected because 4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, while 1440p has 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p. The fact that the FPS drops are roughly proportional to the pixel count increases indicates that the GPU is fully utilized across all resolutions. The CPU, with its strong single-thread performance, is likely not a bottleneck even at 1080p, where the frame rates are highest. The 355 FPS at 1080p Low reflects the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with enough data to maintain such high frame rates. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the primary constraint, and the FPS scales accordingly.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a desktop processor from the 9000 series, based on the Zen 5 architecture with the codename Granite Ridge. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The CPU has a TDP of 65 W and is built on a 4 nm process node by TSMC, with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, and it uses the AMD Socket AM5.

In Inside, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls. The game is a puzzle platformer with relatively simple geometry and limited on-screen objects, so the CPU's workload is not particularly heavy. However, the Ryzen 7 9700F's high boost clock of 5.50 GHz and strong single-thread performance ensure that the game's main thread is never a bottleneck. The Passmark single-thread score of 4691 is excellent, and the CPU's percentile vs all CPUs of 94 indicates that it is in the top 6% of all processors for single-threaded tasks.

The CPU's multi-threaded performance is also strong, with a Passmark multithread score of 36470 and a Passmark physics score of 2122. The CPU has an average benchmark score of 69996, which places it in close competition with several rivals. The nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX with an average score of 69875 and a deltaPct of 0.2, the Intel Core i7-14700KF with a score of 70163 and a deltaPct of -0.2, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X with a score of 69515 and a deltaPct of 0.7, and the Intel Core i7-14700K with a score of 69355 and a deltaPct of 0.9. This shows that the 9700F is essentially on par with these high-end processors in synthetic benchmarks, despite having fewer cores than some of them.

For Inside, the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient. The game likely uses only a few threads, so the CPU's high single-thread performance is the key factor. The data supports this, as the frame rates at 1080p Low reach 355 FPS, which is a very high number that requires a CPU capable of processing frames at that rate. The CPU's boost clock of 5.50 GHz is achieved through its unlocked multiplier, allowing it to maintain high frequencies under load. The 32 MB of L3 cache also helps reduce memory latency, which can be beneficial for game logic. Overall, the Ryzen 7 9700F provides a strong foundation for the RTX 5060 in this game, ensuring that the GPU is the primary determinant of performance at higher resolutions, while the CPU enables exceptionally high frame rates at 1080p.