Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a robust experience in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer that is far more forgiving on hardware than its minimalist aesthetic suggests. The data shows a combination that scales predictably across resolutions and settings, with the CPU’s substantial cache and high boost clocks ensuring that the RTX 4060 remains the primary bottleneck only at higher graphical loads. Benchmark results indicate a system capable of triple-digit frame rates in most scenarios, with the 9800X3D’s 96 MB of shared L3 cache proving particularly effective for this title’s frame pacing.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and consistent trend: performance degrades smoothly as resolution increases, but the magnitude of that drop is heavily influenced by the graphics preset. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 334.8 FPS, which falls to 239.5 FPS at 1440p Low (a 28.5% reduction) and then to 148.3 FPS at 4K Low (a 55.7% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is beginning to feel the load at higher pixel counts, though the CPU is clearly capable of feeding it well beyond 300 FPS at 1080p.

The story changes dramatically when comparing Low to Ultra settings. At 1080p Ultra, the average FPS drops to 156.5, which is only 53.2% of the 1080p Low result. This suggests that the RTX 4060’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus become limiting factors at Ultra, as the added shading complexity and memory pressure outweigh the CPU’s ability to push frames. The gap between resolutions narrows at Ultra: 4K Ultra (74.4 FPS) is only 52.5% of 1080p Ultra, whereas the same resolution comparison at Low yields a 55.7% retention. This indicates that at Ultra, the GPU is saturated regardless of resolution, making the CPU’s role less pronounced.

The data points to the RTX 4060 as the primary limiting component at 4K High and Ultra, where frame rates hover in the mid-70s. Conversely, at 1080p Low, the system is clearly CPU-bound, as evidenced by the 334.8 FPS result that far exceeds what the GPU’s raw compute (15.11 TFLOPS) would typically sustain in a modern title. The 9800X3D’s 5.20 GHz boost clock and 8-core/16-thread configuration ensure that Inside’s physics and logic never stall frame generation, even at lower resolutions where the GPU has spare capacity.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this combo?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 334.8, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 239.5 at 2560x1440 Low and 148.3 at 3840x2160 Low.

Q: How does the RTX 4060’s 8 GB memory affect performance at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 148.3 (Low) down to 74.4 (Ultra). The 8 GB GDDR6 buffer with 272.0 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient for Low settings, but the Ultra preset’s 74.4 FPS result suggests memory capacity or bandwidth constraints at that extreme.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9800X3D bottlenecking the RTX 4060 in this game?

A: Benchmark results indicate the CPU is not a bottleneck at higher resolutions; at 1080p Low, the combo hits 334.8 FPS, showing the CPU can push far beyond what the GPU can render. The GPU becomes the limiter at 4K High (74.6 FPS) and Ultra (74.4 FPS).

Q: What is the performance difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings yield 193.1 FPS, while High settings produce 118.6 FPS. This represents a 38.6% reduction in frame rate when moving from Medium to High.

Q: How does the combo’s 1080p Ultra performance compare to its 4K Low performance?

A: The system achieves 156.5 FPS at 1080p Ultra, which is actually higher than the 148.3 FPS at 4K Low. This indicates that resolution scaling has a more significant impact than preset changes at these extremes.

Q: What is the combo’s overall rank among tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 866th out of 1,671 tested combinations in Inside, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all tested setups.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 866 out of 1,671 tested combinations places it just above the median for Inside, which is notable given the game’s relatively low system demands. This ranking reflects the RTX 4060’s position in the GPU hierarchy; it holds a 66th percentile ranking against all GPUs, while the 9800X3D sits at the 90th percentile among all CPUs. The disparity between these two percentiles explains why the combo does not rank higher: the CPU is elite, but the GPU is merely average-to-good, and Inside’s visual style benefits more from raw pixel throughput than from multi-threaded CPU grunt.

Looking at the nearest rivals, the RTX 4060’s average benchmark score of 23,181 is just 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23,321) and 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (23,338). It edges out the Intel Arc B580 by 0.7% and the AMD Radeon 760M by 0.8%. This clustering suggests that the GPU’s performance is well-understood and that minor architectural differences do not translate into meaningful frame rate swings in a title like Inside. The 9800X3D, by contrast, sits within 0.7% of its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i5-13600KF and Intel Core i9-13900HK, indicating that CPU choice matters little for this game’s frame rates beyond a certain threshold.

The rank of 866 suggests that many higher-ranked combos likely pair the 9800X3D with faster GPUs, as the CPU’s 90th percentile standing would not be the limiting factor. The data implies that upgrading the RTX 4060 to a higher-tier card would push this combo significantly higher in the rankings, given that the CPU headroom exists to support more frames. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (334.8) versus 4K Ultra (74.4) quantifies this headroom: the GPU’s performance ceiling is roughly 22% of what the CPU can theoretically feed at that resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results across all presets. Low settings produce 334.8 FPS, Medium yields 267.5 FPS, High achieves 164.5 FPS, and Ultra maxes out at 156.5 FPS. The step from High to Ultra is modest (a 4.9% drop), while the jump from Medium to High is substantial (a 38.5% reduction). This indicates that High and Ultra presets impose similar GPU loads, likely due to a shared rendering path that saturates the RTX 4060’s 3,072 shading units.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain competitive but show clearer GPU scaling. Low settings hit 239.5 FPS, Medium drops to 193.1 FPS, High falls to 118.6 FPS, and Ultra reaches 116.8 FPS. The High-to-Ultra gap narrows further to just 1.5%, reinforcing that the GPU is fully utilized at these settings. The 1440p Low result (239.5 FPS) is still above the 1080p High result (164.5 FPS), which demonstrates that resolution scaling is less punishing than preset scaling for this particular GPU, at least up to 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 4060’s limits become evident. Low settings produce 148.3 FPS, Medium manages 120.4 FPS, High drops to 74.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 74.4 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is negligible (0.3%), suggesting that both presets are bound by the same constraint—likely memory bandwidth or ROP throughput. The 4K Low result (148.3 FPS) is still playable, but the 4K Ultra result (74.4 FPS) shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming if high refresh rates are the goal. The data shows a clear 4.4x range in FPS from the best case (1080p Low) to the worst (4K Ultra), which illustrates the GPU’s scaling behavior across the full spectrum of settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a Zen 5 architecture processor built on TSMC’s 4 nm process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. Its base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.20 GHz provide substantial single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Geekbench single-core score of 3,341 and 3DMark single-thread score of 1,212. The processor’s 96 MB of shared L3 cache is its defining feature, and in Inside, this cache capacity likely helps maintain consistent frame times by reducing memory latency for frequently accessed game data.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9800X3D posts strong multithreaded results, including a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 34,004 and a Geekbench multicore score of 18,413. However, Inside is not a heavily threaded title, so these scores are less relevant than the single-thread results. The CPU’s 3DMark 2-thread score of 2,394 and 4-thread score of 4,669 show that it scales well with modest thread counts, which aligns with the game’s likely engine behavior. The 9800X3D’s 90th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates that it outperforms the vast majority of processors, yet in this game, the measured FPS at 1080p Low (334.8) versus the GPU’s capabilities suggests that the CPU is never the limiting factor.

The RTX 4060’s PCIe 4.0 x8 interface and the 9800X3D’s PCIe Gen 5 support (24 lanes) mean that data transfer between CPU and GPU is not a bottleneck. The CPU’s 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, paired with dual-channel DDR5 support, ensures that game assets stream efficiently. Given that the combo ranks 866th out of 1,671, and the CPU is in the 90th percentile, the data strongly suggests that the GPU is what holds this pairing back in Inside. A more powerful GPU would likely push the rank much higher, as the CPU’s headroom is apparent from the 334.8 FPS result at 1080p Low, which far exceeds what the RTX 4060’s 15.11 TFLOPS would typically produce in a GPU-bound scenario.