Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer from 2016 that is remarkably light on hardware demands, and the benchmark data for the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the Intel Arc B390 confirms that the experience hinges almost entirely on the graphics preset chosen. The data shows a configuration that is capable of high refresh rates at 1080p but struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 4K with the highest settings, making the preset selection the single most critical factor for a smooth experience.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the Medium preset provides the optimal balance of visual fidelity and performance for this hardware combination across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 125 FPS with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 144 FPS, which are all well above the standard 60 FPS threshold for a fluid puzzle-platformer experience. This represents a 60% improvement over the High preset's 78 FPS average, while the visual difference between Medium and High in a game with this art style is typically less impactful than the frame rate gain.

For users prioritizing maximum smoothness over visual polish, the Low preset is the clear choice, delivering 156 FPS at 1080p, 112 FPS at 1440p, and 70 FPS at 4K. The data shows that Low at 4K actually outperforms High at 1440p, which is a strong indicator that the game's visual effects are heavily taxing the GPU. However, the Medium preset remains the recommended default because it provides a 125 FPS average at 1080p and a 90 FPS average at 1440p, both of which are excellent for gameplay, while retaining more visual detail than Low.

The High and Ultra presets are difficult to recommend for this specific hardware pairing. At 1080p, High produces 78 FPS and Ultra produces 74 FPS, which are playable but not exceptional. The situation deteriorates significantly at higher resolutions, where High at 1440p drops to 56 FPS and at 4K to 35 FPS. The Ultra preset is the worst performer, yielding only 53 FPS at 1440p and 34 FPS at 4K. Given that the visual upgrade from Medium to Ultra is often subtle in this title, the substantial frame rate penalty makes these higher presets a poor trade-off.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU and GPU combination in Inside?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the best resolution for this pairing, as it allows for high frame rates across all settings, including 156 FPS on Low and 125 FPS on Medium. While 1440p is viable on lower presets, 4K is only playable on the Low preset, which delivers a 70 FPS average.

Q: Can this hardware run Inside at 4K smoothly?

A: Benchmark results indicate that 4K gaming is limited to the Low preset, which achieves a 70 FPS average. The Medium preset at 4K drops to 56 FPS, and the High and Ultra presets fall below 35 FPS, making them unsuitable for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of performance?

A: The performance difference between Ultra and High is minimal but consistent. At 1080p, Ultra is 4 FPS slower than High (74 vs 78 FPS), at 1440p it is 3 FPS slower (53 vs 56 FPS), and at 4K it is 1 FPS slower (34 vs 35 FPS). The data suggests that Ultra offers no meaningful frame rate advantage over High.

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

A: The data strongly suggests the GPU is the limiting factor. The Intel Arc B390 has a very low benchmark percentile score of 9, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1482 places it near the bottom of the performance spectrum. The frame rates scale dramatically with resolution, which is a classic sign of GPU-bound performance.

Q: What frame rate can I expect on the Medium preset at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 delivers an average of 90 FPS, with a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS. This is a very playable frame rate for a puzzle platformer, indicating that Medium is a good choice for 1440p displays.

Q: Does the game show a significant performance jump from High to Low?

A: Yes, the jump is substantial. At 1080p, Low (156 FPS) is exactly double the High preset (78 FPS). At 1440p, Low (112 FPS) is also double High (56 FPS), and at 4K, Low (70 FPS) is exactly double High (35 FPS). This consistent 2x performance scaling indicates that the game's higher presets have a heavy impact on the GPU.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the decisive factor in this configuration's performance in Inside. The benchmark data shows that this GPU, built on the Xe3-LPG architecture and 3 nm process, has a percentile rank of only 9 among all GPUs, indicating it is a very low-performance part. Its average benchmark score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad places it in the same performance tier as much older discrete graphics solutions, with its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, scoring 1463.

The GPU's memory configuration is "System Shared," meaning it relies on the host system's DDR5 memory rather than a dedicated VRAM pool. The memory bandwidth is listed as "System Dependent," which means performance can vary based on the CPU's memory speed. In this case, the Ryzen 7 9700X provides dual-channel DDR5 with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, which is a capable foundation, but the shared nature of the memory is a structural limitation.

The clock speeds of the Arc B390 are modest, with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. The pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s, with a FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS. These specifications, combined with the low benchmark scores, explain why the GPU struggles with the higher presets in Inside. The game's art style, which features dynamic lighting and shadow effects, clearly places a heavy load on the GPU's shading and pixel processing capabilities, as evidenced by the sharp drop from Low to High settings at every resolution.

The fact that the Arc B390 has 24 ROPs and 48 TMUs, with 1536 shading units, suggests that it can handle basic geometry, but the complex pixel shaders used in the High and Ultra presets overwhelm it. The data indicates that at 4K Ultra, the GPU can only produce 34 FPS, which is a poor experience. This GPU is best suited for the Low or Medium presets, where its limited compute resources are sufficient to maintain acceptable frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and Intel Arc B390 combination in Inside provides a clear picture of the hardware's capabilities at each resolution and setting.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves the highest average FPS of 156. The Medium preset follows with 125 FPS average, with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 144 FPS. The High preset drops to 78 FPS average, and the Ultra preset is only slightly lower at 74 FPS average. The data shows a clear two-tier performance split, where Low and Medium are well above 100 FPS, while High and Ultra are below 80 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset maintains a strong 112 FPS average. The Medium preset drops to 90 FPS average, with a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS. The High preset falls to 56 FPS average, and the Ultra preset drops further to 53 FPS average. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a 28% reduction in FPS for Low (from 156 to 112), a 28% reduction for Medium (from 125 to 90), and a 28% reduction for High (from 78 to 56).

At 3840x2160, the Low preset is the only option that remains above 60 FPS, achieving a 70 FPS average. The Medium preset drops to 56 FPS average, with a minimum of 48 FPS and a maximum of 65 FPS. The High preset is at 35 FPS average, and the Ultra preset is at 34 FPS average. The data shows that 4K is only viable with the Low preset, and even then, the frame rate is barely above the 60 FPS target.

The consistency of the performance scaling across resolutions and settings is notable. The Ultra preset is consistently 4-5% slower than High across all resolutions. The Medium preset is consistently 60% faster than High at 1080p and 1440p (125 vs 78 and 90 vs 56), but only 60% faster at 4K (56 vs 35). The Low preset is consistently 100% faster than High at all resolutions, which is a strong indicator of a linear scaling relationship.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K in Inside reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. The data shows that the frame rate at 4K is consistently half of the frame rate at 1080p for every preset. For Low, the FPS drops from 156 at 1080p to 70 at 4K, a 55% reduction. For Medium, it drops from 125 to 56, a 55% reduction. For High, it drops from 78 to 35, a 55% reduction. For Ultra, it drops from 74 to 34, a 54% reduction.

This near-uniform 55% scaling across all presets is a textbook indicator that the GPU is the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would not scale so predictably with resolution, as the CPU workload would remain relatively constant while the GPU workload increases. The fact that the FPS drops by the same proportion regardless of the visual complexity suggests that the GPU is saturated at all settings, and the only way to improve performance is to reduce the rendering resolution.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a similar pattern, with a 28% reduction in FPS across all presets. This is slightly less than the theoretical pixel count reduction of 44% (from 2.07 million to 3.69 million pixels), which indicates that the GPU is not entirely memory-bandwidth limited. The 4K resolution has 8.29 million pixels, which is 4x the 1080p count, but the FPS only drops by 55%, not 75%. This suggests that the game's pixel shaders are not perfectly scaling with resolution, but the overall trend is clear: the GPU is heavily strained at higher resolutions.

The data also shows that the minimum FPS values on the Medium preset scale proportionally. At 1080p, the minimum is 106 FPS; at 1440p, it is 76 FPS; and at 4K, it is 48 FPS. This consistent scaling reinforces the conclusion that the GPU's compute resources, not the CPU, are the primary constraint.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X plays a secondary role in this configuration, as the data indicates that it is far more powerful than the GPU requires for Inside. The CPU, based on the Zen 5 architecture and codenamed Granite Ridge, has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its benchmark scores are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20485 and a single-core score of 2211. The Geekbench multi-core score is 17906, and the single-core score is 3023.

The CPU's percentile rank of 86 among all CPUs places it in the upper echelon of processors, with an average benchmark score of 37943. Its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i9-14901E, are within 0.1% of its score, showing that it is a highly competitive part. In the context of Inside, a puzzle platformer that was released in 2016, the CPU's capabilities are far beyond what the game can utilize. The game's logic, physics, and AI are unlikely to stress even a fraction of the 8 cores and 16 threads available.

The CPU's integrated graphics are listed as "Radeon Graphics," but the system is using a discrete Intel Arc B390 GPU. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 is more than sufficient for the game's data requirements. The L3 cache is 32 MB shared, and the L2 cache is 1 MB per core, which provides ample fast memory for the game's level data.

The data shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this pairing. The frame rates scale perfectly with resolution, which would not happen if the CPU were limiting performance. The CPU's high single-thread performance, as evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 1280 and Passmark single-thread score of 4654, ensures that it can feed the GPU with draw calls without any issues. In fact, the CPU is so powerful that it could likely handle much more demanding games than Inside without breaking a sweat. The benchmark results confirm that the Ryzen 7 9700X is not the limiting factor, and its performance headroom is effectively wasted in this title.