Inside

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer that is far more demanding on frame rates than its minimalist aesthetic suggests. With measured frame rates ranging from 114 FPS at 4K Ultra to 408.1 FPS at 1080p Low, this combination demonstrates that the title’s simple visuals belie a significant computational load, particularly at higher resolutions and quality presets. The data shows a system that is overwhelmingly capable of maxing out high-refresh-rate displays, with the primary bottleneck shifting between the CPU and GPU depending on the resolution and settings selected.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions reveals a classic pattern of GPU-bound behavior at higher pixel counts, with CPU headroom becoming increasingly evident as resolution drops. At 4K with High settings, the combo produces 124.4 FPS, which falls to 114 FPS at 4K Ultra—a modest 9.1% performance penalty for the jump from High to Ultra. This relatively small delta indicates that the RTX 4070 Ti is already nearing its limits at 4K, where pixel throughput dominates the workload.

Moving to 1440p, the same High preset yields 196 FPS, a 57.6% improvement over 4K High. This substantial uplift confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, as reducing pixel count by roughly 56% (from 8.3 million to 3.7 million pixels) produces a nearly proportional frame rate increase. The 1440p Medium result of 310 FPS further reinforces this trend, showing that the graphics card has ample headroom when pixel count decreases.

At 1080p, the frame rates become extraordinary, with High settings hitting 271.3 FPS and Low reaching 408.1 FPS. The jump from 1440p High (196 FPS) to 1080p High (271.3 FPS) represents a 38.4% increase, which is less than the 57.6% gain seen when stepping down from 4K to 1440p. This diminishing return signals that the system is transitioning from a GPU-bound state to a CPU-bound one at 1080p, where the Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s capabilities begin to cap the output. The 1080p Low result of 408.1 FPS—the highest recorded in the entire dataset—suggests that even this flagship processor has an upper ceiling around 400 FPS in this title, regardless of how light the graphical load becomes.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D brings substantial processing power to Inside, with 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture. Clock speeds range from a 4.70 GHz base to a 5.20 GHz boost, which are impressive figures for a desktop processor. However, the benchmark data indicates that this game’s performance is not primarily dictated by raw core counts or thread utilization. The processor’s 3DMark scores—10081 for 16 threads and 1212 for single-thread—show strong scaling, but the single-thread result is particularly relevant for a puzzle platformer like Inside, which typically relies on a limited number of game logic threads.

The CPU’s 96 MB of shared L3 cache is a standout feature that likely contributes to the high frame rates observed at lower resolutions. The passmark data compression score of 468017 and integer math score of 116709 suggest excellent memory-bound and arithmetic performance, which can help maintain consistent frame pacing in physics-heavy scenes. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 34004 places this processor in the top percentile of CPUs, but the game’s results show that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU should theoretically be the sole bottleneck, the frame rate caps at 408.1 FPS—a figure that many displays cannot even refresh.

The 3DMark 2-thread score of 2394 is particularly telling. In a game like Inside, where the main gameplay loop—character movement, puzzle state tracking, and environmental interactions—likely runs on 1-2 threads, this metric suggests the CPU has more than enough headroom. The delta between 1080p High (271.3 FPS) and 1080p Low (408.1 FPS) is 50.4%, meaning the CPU can handle the increased draw calls and game logic of High settings without becoming a limiting factor. The processor’s 90th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37780, places it just 0.6% behind the Intel Core i9-13900HK and 0.7% behind the Intel Core i5-13600KF, indicating it trades blows with the fastest consumer chips available.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory, is the primary driver of frame rates at 4K resolution. The memory configuration—192-bit bus with 504.2 GB/s bandwidth—provides adequate bandwidth for the game’s textures, which are relatively simple given the 2016 release date. The GPU’s 7680 shading units and 80 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s, which becomes the limiting factor at 4K where the 124.4 FPS High result translates to roughly 2.6 billion pixels processed per second—nearly matching the card’s theoretical maximum.

The GPU’s boost clock of 2610 MHz helps maintain high throughput in less demanding scenes, but the data shows that Inside at 4K Ultra (114 FPS) pushes the card to its limits. The small difference between 4K High and 4K Ultra—only 10.4 FPS—indicates that the card’s shading units and texture mapping units (240 TMUs) are saturated, with the Ultra preset adding effects that consume the remaining headroom. In contrast, the 1440p and 1080p results show the GPU operating well below its ceiling, with 1080p Low at 408.1 FPS representing a scenario where the card is barely exerting itself.

The RTX 4070 Ti’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5024 and passmark G3D score of 31624 place it in the 85th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (0.6% higher average score) and the Intel Arc A730M (1.5% higher), though these comparisons are on synthetic benchmarks rather than in-game performance. The GPU’s 40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 626.4 GTexel/s texture rate provide ample headroom for a game like Inside, which does not utilize ray tracing or DLSS—features the card supports but which remain unused in this title.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest frame rate achieved with this combo in Inside?*

A: The highest recorded average FPS is 408.1 at 1080p with Low settings. The lowest is 114 FPS at 4K Ultra.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 Ti compare to its nearest GPU rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 44900, which is 0.6% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (45152) and 1.5% lower than the Intel Arc A730M (45592).

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: Yes, at 1080p the system becomes CPU-bound. The frame rate increase from 1440p High (196 FPS) to 1080p High (271.3 FPS) is only 38.4%, which is less than the proportional pixel reduction, indicating the CPU limits further gains.

Q: What is the performance difference between 4K High and 4K Ultra?

A: The 4K High preset achieves 124.4 FPS, while 4K Ultra achieves 114 FPS, a difference of 10.4 FPS or approximately 9.1%.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 9800X3D rank among all CPUs?

A: It ranks in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37780. Its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6353P, scores 37811, which is 0.1% higher.

Q: What is the RAM bandwidth of the RTX 4070 Ti?

A: The GPU has a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s, using 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested hardware combinations for Inside, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 87th out of 1671 combos. This places it in the top 5.2% of all tested systems, a strong showing that reflects the exceptional performance observed in the measured frame rates. The rank is particularly impressive given that the RTX 4070 Ti is not the absolute fastest GPU available, yet the combination still outperforms the vast majority of systems.

The high ranking is attributable to both components performing near their theoretical peaks in this game. The CPU’s 96 MB of L3 cache and high single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4800) ensure that game logic never becomes a bottleneck, while the GPU’s robust memory subsystem and shading capacity handle the visual workload efficiently. The 87th rank also suggests that systems with faster GPUs—such as those with RTX 4090-class cards—do achieve higher frame rates, but the gap is likely small given that this combo already exceeds 256 FPS at 1080p Ultra.

For context, the CPU’s nearest rivals (Intel Core i9-13900HK and Intel Core i5-13600KF) have nearly identical average scores (38020 and 38028, respectively), yet this AMD processor’s 3D V-cache technology appears to give it an edge in gaming workloads like Inside. The GPU’s nearest rival, the RTX 5090 Mobile, scores 0.6% higher on average, but this does not translate to a meaningful in-game advantage at the resolutions tested. Overall, this combo represents a balanced pairing that excels in this puzzle platformer, delivering frame rates that far exceed the 60 FPS target and comfortably saturate 144Hz and even 240Hz displays at most settings.