Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and AMD Radeon RX 7700 combination delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a puzzle platformer where frame rates are already high across the board. The data set shows that this pairing is heavily overqualified for the game's demands, with even the most demanding preset at 4K remaining comfortably playable. The measured results indicate that users can prioritize visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness, though the specific choice of preset depends on the target display's refresh rate and resolution.

Settings Recommendations

For players seeking the optimal balance between visual quality and performance, the High preset emerges as the clear recommendation across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, High produces an average of 177 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any standard display. Moving to 2560x1440, High still delivers 127 FPS, and even at 3840x2160, the average remains at a playable 80 FPS. This preset offers a significant visual upgrade over Medium while maintaining frame rates that are well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

The Ultra preset is viable for users with high-refresh-rate 1080p displays, as it achieves 168 FPS at that resolution. However, at 1440p, Ultra drops to 121 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 76 FPS. While these numbers are still playable, the performance cost relative to High is substantial — approximately 5% lower at 1080p, 5% lower at 1440p, and 5% lower at 4K. Given that High already provides excellent visual quality, the marginal improvement from Ultra may not justify the frame rate reduction for most users.

The Medium preset offers the best option for those targeting very high refresh rates. At 1080p, Medium achieves 282 FPS, which is nearly double the High preset's output. At 1440p, Medium produces 203 FPS, and at 4K, it still manages 128 FPS. The minimum FPS values for Medium are also strong: 240 FPS at 1080p, 173 FPS at 1440p, and 108 FPS at 4K, indicating consistent frame pacing even during demanding scenes.

The Low preset is only necessary for extreme refresh rate chasing, such as 240Hz or 360Hz displays at 1080p, where it achieves 353 FPS. At 1440p, Low reaches 254 FPS, and at 4K, it produces 160 FPS. However, given the game's art style and the relatively modest visual differences between Low and Medium, most users will find Medium or High to be the better trade-off.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is far more than Inside requires, as the game's minimalist aesthetic and 2D side-scrolling perspective do not demand large texture pools or high-resolution assets. The GPU's memory capacity is not a limiting factor in any of the measured scenarios, even at 4K with Ultra settings.

The GPU's clock speeds are notable: a base clock of 1900 MHz, a game clock of 2041 MHz, and a boost clock of 2459 MHz. These clocks, combined with the RDNA 3.0 architecture's 2560 shading units, contribute to the RX 7700's strong performance in this title. The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2865 and PassMark G3D score of 20974 place it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, with its average benchmark score of 15852.

The RX 7700's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the AMD Radeon R9 370X (with a delta of -0.1%), the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (delta of -1%), the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (delta of 1.1%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (delta of -1.7%). These deltas are minimal, indicating that the RX 7700 performs in a tight cluster with these cards in general compute workloads. However, in Inside, the measured FPS results show that the GPU is rarely the bottleneck, as even at 4K Ultra, the frame rate remains above 60 FPS. This suggests that the game is more dependent on CPU performance or is simply not demanding enough to stress the GPU fully.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable at 1080p with this hardware?

A: The highest recorded average at 1920x1080 is 353 FPS with the Low preset. The Medium preset achieves 282 FPS, High delivers 177 FPS, and Ultra produces 168 FPS.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Inside?*

A: Yes, all presets at 3840x2160 are playable. The High preset averages 80 FPS, Medium averages 128 FPS, Low averages 160 FPS, and Ultra averages 76 FPS.

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

A: The RX 7700's average benchmark score of 15852 is 1.7% lower than the RTX 3060 Ti's score of 16129. This is a negligible difference in general performance.

Q: What is the performance difference between High and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset averages 127 FPS, while Ultra averages 121 FPS. This represents a 4.7% reduction in frame rate for the Ultra settings.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9700X a high-performing CPU relative to other processors?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700X has an average benchmark score of 37943, placing it in the 86th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-14901E, scores 37911, a delta of only 0.1%.

Q: Does the Medium preset provide consistent frame times at 4K?

A: Yes, the Medium preset at 3840x2160 has a minimum FPS of 108 and a maximum of 147, with an average of 128 FPS. The minimum value indicates solid frame pacing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance envelope is exceptionally wide. The Low preset leads with an average of 353 FPS, followed by Medium at 282 FPS (with a minimum of 240 FPS and maximum of 325 FPS). High produces 177 FPS, and Ultra trails at 168 FPS. These numbers show that even the most demanding settings at 1080p are far beyond the requirements of standard 60Hz or 144Hz displays.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally but remain high. Low averages 254 FPS, Medium averages 203 FPS (minimum 173 FPS, maximum 234 FPS), High averages 127 FPS, and Ultra averages 121 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows at this resolution, suggesting that the GPU is beginning to become a more significant factor.

At 3840x2160, the results show a more pronounced difference between presets. Low averages 160 FPS, Medium averages 128 FPS (minimum 108 FPS, maximum 147 FPS), High averages 80 FPS, and Ultra averages 76 FPS. The jump from Low to High represents a 50% reduction in frame rate, while the difference between High and Ultra is only 5%. This indicates that Ultra's additional visual features are relatively inexpensive at 4K compared to the step from Low to High.

The data reveals a consistent pattern: Medium and Low presets scale almost linearly with resolution, while High and Ultra show a steeper decline at 4K. This suggests that the higher presets introduce effects that are more taxing at higher pixel counts, likely related to post-processing or shadow quality.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K varies significantly by preset. For the Low preset, performance goes from 353 FPS at 1080p to 160 FPS at 4K, a reduction of 54.7%. The Medium preset drops from 282 FPS to 128 FPS, a 54.6% decrease. High goes from 177 FPS to 80 FPS, a 54.8% reduction, and Ultra goes from 168 FPS to 76 FPS, a 54.8% decrease.

These percentages are remarkably consistent across all presets, indicating that the resolution scaling in Inside is uniform regardless of visual settings. The near-identical percentage drops suggest that the game's rendering workload scales linearly with pixel count, and the limiting component is likely the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth.

Given that the RX 7700 has a pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s, the consistent scaling pattern points to the GPU being the primary constraint at higher resolutions. However, the absolute frame rates remain high even at 4K, with the lowest preset still achieving 76 FPS. This indicates that while the GPU is the scaling factor, it is not overwhelmed by the game's requirements.

The 1440p results reinforce this interpretation. From 1080p to 1440p, the FPS drops by approximately 28% across all presets (e.g., High from 177 to 127, a 28.2% decrease). This is less than the 4K drop, which is expected given the smaller pixel count increase from 1080p to 1440p (2.25x) compared to 1080p to 4K (4x). The linear scaling suggests a well-optimized rendering pipeline that does not introduce unexpected bottlenecks.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, is a high-end desktop processor based on the Zen 5 architecture. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz, combined with 32 MB of shared L3 cache, provide substantial processing power. The CPU's synthetic benchmarks are impressive: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 20485, and Geekbench multicore scores 17906. In PassMark, the multithread score is 37161, and the single-thread score is 4654.

These results place the 9700X in the 86th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37943. Its nearest rivals are clustered closely: the Intel Core i9-14901E (37911, +0.1%), AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (37904, +0.1%), Intel Core 5 211E (37829, +0.3%), and AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P132 (37804, +0.4%). The extremely small deltas indicate that the 9700X is performance-equivalent to these processors in general workloads.

In Inside, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU, as the frame rates are high even at low resolutions where CPU bottlenecks would typically manifest. At 1080p with the Low preset, the system achieves 353 FPS, which is a very high frame rate that would require strong single-thread performance. The 9700X's single-thread scores (3DMark single-thread score of 1280, PassMark single-thread of 4654) are clearly sufficient for this task.

The game's puzzle platformer genre typically involves simple physics and logic, which do not heavily utilize multi-threaded processing. The 9700X's 8-core/16-thread configuration is far more than necessary, and the data shows no evidence of CPU limiting at any resolution or preset. Even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU is most stressed, the average FPS of 76 remains well above playable thresholds, suggesting that the CPU is keeping up with the GPU's demands. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 9824 and max-thread score of 9771 show strong multi-threading capability, but the game likely only uses a fraction of that capacity, leaving plenty of headroom for background tasks or streaming.