Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer. With a measured combo rank of 31 out of 1,671 tested configurations, this pairing sits in the top 2% of all systems tested for this title. The data shows a platform capable of exploiting the game’s low graphical demands to achieve refresh rates far beyond what most displays can output, making the limiting factor almost exclusively the CPU at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a stark contrast in scaling behavior between resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces 427.9 FPS, while at 4K with Low settings, it drops to 265.2 FPS—a 38% reduction in throughput. This pattern is consistent across all settings presets, indicating that the game’s engine is highly sensitive to pixel count even when geometry and shading complexity are minimized.

Looking at the High preset, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a drop from 291.6 FPS to 210.4 FPS, a 27.9% decrease. The subsequent step to 4K High reduces performance further to 131.4 FPS, representing a 37.5% decline from the 1440p figure. The Ultra preset follows a similar trajectory: 279.1 FPS at 1080p, 201.4 FPS at 1440p, and 127.6 FPS at 4K. The proportional drops between resolutions are nearly identical across High and Ultra presets, suggesting that the rendering pipeline is uniformly stressed by resolution increases regardless of quality settings.

The Low preset shows the largest absolute FPS numbers but also the most significant relative scaling loss. From 1080p Low to 4K Low, the system loses 162.7 FPS, which is a 38% reduction. In contrast, the Ultra preset loses 151.5 FPS from 1080p to 4K, a 54.3% reduction. This divergence indicates that at lower settings, the CPU becomes the primary bottleneck at 1080p, allowing the GPU to saturate the frame pipeline—but at 4K, the GPU’s pixel throughput limits performance more severely.

The data suggests that the RTX 4080 SUPER is never fully saturated at 1080p in this game. The difference between 1080p Low (427.9 FPS) and 1440p Low (384.7 FPS) is only 10.1%, while the jump from 1440p to 4K Low incurs a 31.1% penalty. This non-linear scaling implies that the GPU has ample headroom at lower resolutions, and the Ryzen 7 9700X’s Zen 5 architecture, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, can feed frames faster than the GPU can rasterize them at 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1440p with High settings?

A: The system achieves 210.4 FPS at 2560x1440 with the High preset, which is 79 FPS higher than the 4K High result but 81.2 FPS lower than the 1080p High result.

Q: How does the Low preset compare to Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 427.9 FPS, while Ultra produces 279.1 FPS. This represents a 53.3% performance advantage for Low over Ultra at the same resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K?

A: The 38% reduction from 1080p Low to 4K Low, combined with the smaller 10.1% drop from 1080p to 1440p, indicates the GPU becomes the primary constraint at 4K, whereas the CPU has more influence at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the best measured preset for maintaining high frame rates?

A: The High preset offers the most balanced performance across resolutions, with 291.6 FPS at 1080p, 210.4 FPS at 1440p, and 131.4 FPS at 4K—all above 120 FPS thresholds.

Q: Does the game benefit from the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 16 GB of VRAM?

A: The measured data shows no VRAM-related performance anomalies, as frame rates scale consistently with resolution and settings, suggesting the 16 GB capacity is not a bottleneck in this title.

Q: How does the combo rank compare to other tested systems?

A: With a rank of 31 out of 1,671 combos, this pairing outperforms 98.1% of all tested configurations for Inside, placing it in the top percentile of systems.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with an AD103 chip, provides the graphical horsepower for this configuration. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a game with Inside’s modest texture requirements. The GPU’s base clock of 2295 MHz and boost clock of 2550 MHz, combined with 10,240 shading units, yield a peak FP32 throughput of 52.22 TFLOPS—a figure that remains largely underutilized given the game’s simplicity.

The benchmark results for the GPU show a PassMark G3D score of 34,245, placing it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, scores 53,489 on average, a 0.2% difference—statistically negligible. The RTX 4080 SUPER’s performance in this title is therefore representative of its class-leading position, though the game does not stress the GPU’s ray tracing cores (80 RT cores) or tensor cores (320 Tensor Cores), as Inside does not utilize these features.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU’s role becomes more pronounced at 4K resolution. The difference between 4K Low (265.2 FPS) and 4K Ultra (127.6 FPS) is 137.6 FPS, or a 107.8% penalty for enabling Ultra settings. This is the largest absolute gap between presets at any resolution, confirming that the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are the binding constraints at 3840x2160. At 1080p, the same preset gap is 148.8 FPS (427.9 vs 279.1), but the absolute numbers are higher, indicating the GPU is still not the sole bottleneck.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimal settings based on display refresh rate. For 1080p displays, the High preset at 291.6 FPS is the recommended choice, as it delivers over 280 FPS while maintaining visual fidelity. The Ultra preset at 279.1 FPS is only 4.3% slower and may be preferable for users with 240 Hz or 360 Hz monitors, but the difference is marginal. The Low preset at 427.9 FPS offers diminishing returns unless chasing maximum frame rates for competitive play, which is uncommon for a puzzle platformer.

At 1440p, the High preset achieves 210.4 FPS, making it suitable for 144 Hz and 165 Hz displays. The Medium preset at 337.1 FPS is excessively high for most monitors and provides no practical benefit over High. The Ultra preset at 201.4 FPS is still above 200 FPS, so users with 240 Hz displays can enable Ultra without sacrificing frame rate targets. The Low preset at 384.7 FPS is unnecessary given the game’s art style, which does not rely on high-frequency details.

For 4K displays, the High preset at 131.4 FPS is the sweet spot, comfortably exceeding 120 FPS for high-refresh-rate panels. The Ultra preset at 127.6 FPS is within 3% of High, making it a viable option for 120 Hz displays. The Medium preset at 213.4 FPS is overkill for most 4K monitors, which typically cap at 144 Hz. The Low preset at 265.2 FPS offers no visual benefit in a game with Inside’s monochromatic palette and simple geometry. The data suggests that High or Ultra at 4K provides the best balance of visual quality and performance, with Ultra being the preferred choice for users with 120 Hz panels.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination ranks 31st out of 1,671 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the 98th percentile of all systems benchmarked. This ranking is consistent with the hardware’s individual standings: the CPU sits in the 89th percentile of all processors, while the GPU is in the 88th percentile of all graphics cards. The combination’s rank is slightly higher than either component’s individual percentile, indicating that the pairing is particularly well-suited to this game’s workload.

The CPU’s nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14500HX, which scores 35,940 on average benchmarks—a 0.2% difference from the Ryzen 7 9700X’s 36,029. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 is 0.6% slower, while the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is 0.4% faster and the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H is 0.8% faster. These margins are within measurement noise, so the CPU’s performance is effectively tied with its closest competitors. The GPU’s nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, is 0.2% slower on average, while the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M is 0.4% slower and the AMD Radeon RX 7700S is 2.1% slower.

The rank of 31 out of 1,671 combos reflects the high-end nature of both components. The Ryzen 7 9700X’s Zen 5 architecture with 8 cores and 16 threads, boosting to 5.50 GHz, provides ample single-threaded performance for Inside’s physics and logic. The RTX 4080 SUPER’s 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 compute ensures that even at 4K Ultra, the game never drops below 127.6 FPS. This combination outperforms the vast majority of systems tested, making it a top-tier choice for this title. The data confirms that this pairing excels in both CPU-bound and GPU-bound scenarios, with headroom to spare in both directions.