Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with the Intel Arc B390 presents a stark contrast: a top-tier desktop processor with a high-end integrated graphics solution. For a title like Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016, the benchmark data reveals a system that is heavily constrained by its graphics component, yet capable of delivering fluid, playable experiences at lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a classic pattern of GPU-bound scaling. As resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, the frame rate drops dramatically, indicating that the Intel Arc B390's rendering capabilities are the primary limiting factor in this configuration. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is not the bottleneck; its processing power is far beyond what this game demands.

At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 156 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 on Low drops that to 112 FPS, a 28% reduction. The jump to 3840x2160 on Low yields 70 FPS, which is a 55% drop from the 1440p figure and less than half the 1080p performance. This steep decline is characteristic of a graphics solution being pushed well beyond its comfort zone, where the number of pixels to fill quadruples from 1080p to 4K, while the GPU's fill rate and shading power cannot keep pace.

The trend continues across all settings presets. With High settings, the average FPS falls from 78 at 1080p to 56 at 1440p, a 28% decrease, and then to 35 at 4K, a 37.5% decrease from 1440p. The scaling from 1080p to 4K on High shows a 55% performance loss. This consistent pattern across presets confirms that the resolution is the dominant variable affecting performance; the CPU is not a factor in these frame rate drops.

The data indicates that 1080p is the only resolution where the combo can consistently push beyond the 60 FPS threshold on all but the most demanding preset. At 1440p, the system becomes more fragile, dropping below 60 FPS on High and Ultra. At 4K, it falls below 60 FPS on every single preset, even Low. This quantitative analysis shows that users targeting 4K with this setup will need to make significant compromises to visual quality to achieve a playable frame rate. The limiting component is unequivocally the Intel Arc B390, as the frame rate scales inversely with the number of pixels rendered, a hallmark of a GPU-bound scenario.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results provide clear guidance on which settings preset offers the best experience for this hardware combination. The data shows a wide swing in performance between presets, and the optimal choice depends heavily on the user's target resolution and preference for frame rate versus visual fidelity.

For 1920x1080, the Medium preset provides an excellent balance. It delivers an average of 125 FPS, which is 47 FPS higher than the High preset's 78 FPS and 51 FPS higher than Ultra's 74 FPS. The measured minimum FPS for Medium is 106, ensuring that even in the most demanding scenes, the frame rate stays well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. While Low offers a higher 156 FPS, the Medium preset is the best choice for a 1080p display, as it provides a substantial frame rate buffer while likely offering better visual quality than Low. The 125 FPS average is more than sufficient for a smooth experience on a standard 60Hz or even a 144Hz monitor.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again proves to be the sweet spot. It achieves an average of 90 FPS, with a minimum of 76 FPS. This is significantly better than the High preset, which drops to 56 FPS, and the Ultra preset, which falls to 53 FPS. The 90 FPS average on Medium is high enough to take advantage of a 144Hz monitor, and the 76 FPS minimum ensures it never dips below the 60 FPS playability threshold. Choosing High or Ultra at this resolution would mean sacrificing a significant amount of smoothness for a marginal improvement in visual detail, which is not a good trade-off for a puzzle platformer where precise control is not as critical as in a fast-paced action game.

For 3840x2160, the situation is more challenging. The only preset that achieves a playable frame rate is Low, which averages 70 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 56 FPS, and both High and Ultra fall below 40 FPS, making them effectively unplayable. The data suggests that for 4K, users should stick to Low settings. The 70 FPS average is acceptable, though it is not as fluid as the higher frame rates available at lower resolutions. Given the game's genre, a stable 70 FPS on Low at 4K is a more desirable outcome than a stuttering 35 FPS on High. The recommendation is clear: prioritize Low settings at 4K to maintain a consistent and playable experience.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Inside at 4K?*

A: Yes, but with limitations. The measured data shows that at 3840x2160, only the Low preset achieves a playable average frame rate of 70 FPS. The Medium preset averages 56 FPS, while High and Ultra presets drop to 35 and 34 FPS respectively, which are too low for a smooth experience.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 is the recommended choice. It delivers an average of 90 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS playability threshold. The High and Ultra presets at this resolution only manage 56 and 53 FPS, respectively, making Medium the clear winner for performance and quality balance.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D a bottleneck for the Intel Arc B390 in this game?

A: No. The benchmark data shows a massive drop in frame rate as resolution increases, which is indicative of a GPU bottleneck. The CPU's performance, as measured by its high benchmark scores, is more than sufficient for this game. The limiting factor is the integrated graphics' ability to render frames, not the processor's ability to compute game logic.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Arc B390 has an average benchmark score of 1482. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, which scores 1463 (1.3% slower), and the NVIDIA GeForce 800M, which scores 1460 (1.5% slower). This places the Arc B390 at the very bottom of the GPU performance hierarchy, with a percentile ranking of just 9.

Q: What is the expected frame rate at 1080p on the Ultra preset?

A: The measured data shows an average of 74 FPS at 1920x1080 on Ultra settings. While this is playable, it is notably lower than the 125 FPS average achieved on the Medium preset, which also has a higher minimum frame rate.

Q: Does the system's frame rate stay consistent, or are there drops?

A: The data includes minimum FPS figures for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p, the minimum is 106 FPS, at 1440p it is 76 FPS, and at 4K it is 48 FPS. These figures indicate the frame rate stays well within a stable range, with the largest gap between average and minimum being 8 FPS at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2547 out of 2887 tested combos for Inside. This ranking places it in the bottom 12% of all tested systems, which is a direct reflection of the GPU's very low performance ceiling. The ranking is a consequence of the Intel Arc B390's 9th percentile standing among all GPUs; it is an integrated graphics solution designed for low-power mobile devices, not for gaming.

The data shows that the CPU is not the cause of this low rank. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a high-end desktop processor with an 87th percentile ranking among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 7700, have a near-identical average benchmark score, with a delta of -0.8%. This indicates the CPU is performing as expected at a very high level. The system's poor overall rank in this game is almost entirely attributable to the graphics component.

In practical terms, this means that while the CPU is capable of handling anything, the system's gaming performance is capped by the Arc B390. In a game like Inside, which is relatively simple, this combination can still manage playable frame rates due to the low system requirements. However, in any more demanding game, this pairing would likely struggle to maintain acceptable performance at common resolutions. The 2547 rank is a clear warning that this is a severely unbalanced configuration for gaming, with the GPU acting as a significant bottleneck. A user with this processor would see a massive improvement by pairing it with a discrete graphics card, even a modest one, as the current integrated solution is the single point of failure for gaming performance.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 plays the sole role of rendering graphics in this configuration, as it is an integrated graphics processor (IGP) with no dedicated memory. The data indicates that its performance is a major limiting factor for gaming. The GPU has an average benchmark score of just 1482 and sits in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, placing it in competition with decades-old discrete parts like the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710, which is only 2.7% slower in this specific benchmark.

The GPU's specifications reflect its low-power, integrated nature. It has a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, with a TDP of 80 W. Its memory is "System Shared," meaning it uses a portion of the main system RAM instead of dedicated VRAM. This is a critical detail, as the bandwidth and capacity of the memory are "System Dependent," which can vary and often becomes a performance bottleneck in gaming. The GPU has 1536 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 24 ROPs, along with 12 ray tracing cores.

These specifications explain the measured FPS data. The GPU's limited number of ROPs and TMUs, combined with shared system memory, directly contributes to the steep performance drops seen when moving from 1080p to 4K. The system's memory bandwidth is a shared resource, and the demands of filling a 4K framebuffer likely saturate the available bandwidth, causing the frame rate to plummet. The measured performance in Inside shows this clearly: at 1080p Low, the GPU can output 156 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it only manages 34 FPS. This is a 78% reduction in performance, which is a direct consequence of the GPU's limited fill rate and memory subsystem. The GPU is simply not designed for the workload of rendering a game at high resolutions and detail levels. The data confirms that this is a component for basic display output and light workloads, not for gaming at high resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

This section details the exact average, minimum, and maximum frame rates as measured for this specific CPU and GPU combination.

1920x1080

• Low: 156 FPS average.
• Medium: 125 FPS average, with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 144 FPS.
• High: 78 FPS average.
• Ultra: 74 FPS average.

This is the only resolution where the system can consistently deliver high frame rates. The gap between Low and Medium is 31 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 47 FPS. The High and Ultra presets are very close, with a difference of only 4 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects are not heavily taxing the GPU at this resolution.

2560x1440

• Low: 112 FPS average.
• Medium: 90 FPS average, with a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS.
• High: 56 FPS average.
• Ultra: 53 FPS average.

Performance drops significantly from 1080p. The Low preset loses 44 FPS, and the Medium preset loses 35 FPS. The High and Ultra presets both fall below the 60 FPS threshold, making them less desirable. The Medium preset's minimum FPS of 76 is still playable, but there is less headroom than at 1080p.

3840x2160

• Low: 70 FPS average.
• Medium: 56 FPS average, with a minimum of 48 FPS and a maximum of 65 FPS.
• High: 35 FPS average.
• Ultra: 34 FPS average.

At 4K, the system is heavily GPU-bound. Only the Low preset achieves a playable average frame rate. The Medium preset's minimum FPS of 48 indicates that it will dip into the 40s, which can be noticeable. The High and Ultra presets are nearly identical in performance, with 35 and 34 FPS respectively, and are not recommended for a smooth experience.

The data across all resolutions shows a clear and consistent trend: the Intel Arc B390 is the performance bottleneck. The CPU's powerful benchmark scores do not translate into high frame rates in this game because the GPU cannot render frames fast enough. Users should target 1080p for the best experience, with 1440p on Medium being a viable alternative for those with lower refresh rate displays.