Inside

Inside, the 2016 puzzle platformer from Playdead, is not a demanding title by modern standards, and the benchmark data for the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + AMD Radeon RX 7700 combination confirms this. The measured frame rates are exceptionally high across all tested configurations, indicating that this hardware pairing is significantly overqualified for the game's requirements. The data shows a system that delivers a flawless, high-refresh-rate experience even at maximum settings and 4K resolution, with the primary bottleneck shifting from the GPU to the CPU only at the lowest settings and resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this hardware in Inside?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 317 FPS at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is followed closely by 282 FPS at the same resolution with Medium settings and 254 FPS at 2560x1440 with Low settings.

Q: How does the system perform at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the system produces an average of 76 FPS. This is the lowest average frame rate recorded in the entire dataset, yet it remains well above the standard 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 5900X a bottleneck for the RX 7700 in this game?

A: The CPU is likely a limiting factor only at 1080p with Low settings, where the average frame rate reaches 317 FPS. This is evidenced by the fact that upgrading to a faster CPU could potentially push this number higher, whereas at higher resolutions and settings, the GPU becomes the primary constraint.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between Medium and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the average frame rate drops from 203 FPS on Medium settings to 121 FPS on Ultra settings. This represents a significant 82 FPS decrease, showing that the Ultra preset is substantially more demanding on the GPU.

Q: How does the RX 7700's benchmark score compare to its closest rival?

A: The RX 7700 has an average benchmark score of 15852. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon R9 370X, has an average score of 15862, which is a 0.1% difference. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is 1.7% ahead with a score of 16129.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for the Medium preset at 1080p?

A: The minimum FPS recorded for the 1920x1080 Medium preset is 240 FPS. This is the only settings combination across all resolutions that reported a minimum FPS value alongside the average, while other Medium presets at higher resolutions also reported minimums of 173 FPS (1440p) and 108 FPS (4K).

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, operating at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz. With its 64 MB of L3 cache, this CPU is designed for high-throughput workloads. Its benchmark scores reflect this, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16262 and a single-core score of 1527, placing it in the 87th percentile of all CPUs. This level of single-threaded performance is crucial for a game like Inside, which, due to its 2016 release date, relies heavily on a few fast cores rather than many slower ones.

In the context of Inside, the CPU's role is to manage game logic, physics, and draw calls. The data indicates that the Ryzen 9 5900X handles these tasks with immense headroom. For example, at 1080p with Low settings, the system reaches 317 FPS, a figure that is likely constrained by the CPU's ability to issue draw commands rather than the GPU's rendering capacity. This is supported by the CPU's strong PassMark single-thread score of 3469, which demonstrates its capability in lightly-threaded tasks. While the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher settings, its performance ceiling ensures that it can feed the GPU enough data to maintain high frame rates in all but the most extreme low-resolution scenarios.

The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-14650HX, have an average benchmark score of 41576, which is only 0.5% higher than the Ryzen 9 5900X's 41376. This marginal difference suggests that in a CPU-bound scenario like Inside at 1080p Low, the frame rate differences between these processors would be negligible, as the game's engine is unlikely to stress any of these modern chips to their limits. The Ryzen 9 5900X's multi-threaded capability, evidenced by its Geekbench multi-core score of 14118, is not a primary factor for Inside but ensures that the system remains responsive and capable in other tasks.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is a modern graphics card based on the RDNA 3.0 architecture, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a substantial memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s. Its GPU clocks include a base of 1900 MHz, a game clock of 2041 MHz, and a boost clock of 2459 MHz. With 2560 shading units and 96 ROPs, the card is capable of high pixel throughput, as indicated by its pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s. The GPU's benchmark scores, such as a PassMark G3D score of 20974, place it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 15852 is comparable to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which is only 1.7% faster.

For Inside, the GPU's role is to render the game's distinctive 2.5D side-scrolling environments, which feature complex lighting and shadow effects. The benchmark data shows that the RX 7700 is more than capable of handling these tasks at maximum settings. At 4K Ultra, the card maintains an average of 76 FPS, which reflects its raw rendering power. The GPU becomes the clear limiting factor as resolution and settings increase. For instance, moving from 1080p Ultra (168 FPS) to 4K Ultra (76 FPS) results in a 92 FPS drop, directly illustrating the increased load on the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth at higher resolutions.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for Inside, which is a title from 2016 and unlikely to exceed even 4 GB of VRAM usage. This means the RX 7700's memory subsystem is not a constraint, allowing the GPU to focus on compute and shading tasks. The card's high texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s ensures that the game's detailed textures are sampled quickly, contributing to the high frame rates observed. The comparison to the AMD Radeon R9 370X, which is only 0.1% slower in average benchmark score, is interesting, but in real-world Inside performance, the modern architecture of the RX 7700 would likely pull further ahead due to better driver optimization and feature support.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers outstanding performance across all presets. With Low settings, the average frame rate is 317 FPS. Medium settings yield an average of 282 FPS, with a minimum of 240 FPS and a maximum of 325 FPS. High settings produce 177 FPS on average, while Ultra settings bring the average down to 168 FPS. These numbers indicate that even at the most demanding preset, the system is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate territory, ensuring buttery-smooth gameplay.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains exceptional. The Low preset averages 254 FPS, while Medium settings average 203 FPS, with a reported minimum of 173 FPS and maximum of 234 FPS. High settings see a drop to 127 FPS, and Ultra settings average 121 FPS. The step from High to Ultra is relatively small at this resolution, suggesting that the graphical difference is less demanding than the jump from Medium to High.

At 3840x2160, the system continues to deliver high frame rates, though the scaling is more pronounced. The Low preset averages 160 FPS, which is still excellent for 4K. Medium settings average 128 FPS, with a minimum of 108 FPS and a maximum of 147 FPS. High settings average 80 FPS, and Ultra settings bring the average down to 76 FPS. Even the lowest average frame rate recorded in the entire dataset, 76 FPS at 4K Ultra, is comfortably above the 60 FPS standard, making the game fully playable at the highest visual fidelity.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario for most settings. For Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 317 FPS at 1080p to 254 FPS at 1440p and finally to 160 FPS at 4K. This represents a 49.5% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is not perfectly linear, indicating that while the GPU is becoming more stressed, the CPU is still providing some headroom at the lower resolutions.

For Ultra settings, the scaling is more dramatic. The average frame rate falls from 168 FPS at 1080p to 121 FPS at 1440p (a 28% drop) and then to 76 FPS at 4K (a further 37% drop from 1440p). This steeper decline at higher resolutions confirms that the GPU is the primary limiting component when the graphical load is maximized. The pixel count from 1080p to 4K quadruples, and the RX 7700's performance scales accordingly, showing a 54.8% reduction in frame rate from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra.

The data suggests that the limiting component shifts depending on the resolution. At 1080p with Low settings, the CPU is likely the bottleneck, as the 317 FPS figure is high but not as high as the GPU's theoretical maximum. As resolution and settings increase, the GPU's rendering workload becomes the dominant factor, which is why the frame rate drops are more substantial at 4K. This is a typical behavior for a balanced system, where the CPU is strong enough to avoid becoming a bottleneck until the GPU is under extreme load.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rate data, the Ultra preset offers the best overall experience for this hardware configuration, as it delivers an average of 168 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p, and 76 FPS at 4K. These frame rates are all above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the visual enhancements of the Ultra preset are worth the performance cost. For users with high-refresh-rate monitors (144 Hz or higher), the High preset is a better choice at 1440p, as it provides 127 FPS, which is closer to the refresh rate ceiling.

For competitive play or maximum frame rates, the Medium preset is the sweet spot, offering 282 FPS at 1080p and 203 FPS at 1440p. This preset balances visual fidelity with performance, ensuring that the game runs at frame rates that exceed the refresh rates of most gaming monitors. However, the difference between Medium and High at 1080p is significant (a 105 FPS drop), suggesting that the High preset adds a substantial rendering load.

At 4K, the Medium preset is recommended for the best balance of quality and speed, providing 128 FPS on average. The Low preset, while delivering 160 FPS at 4K, is not recommended as it sacrifices too much visual quality for a frame rate that is already beyond the capability of most 4K displays. Ultimately, the High preset at 1440p or the Ultra preset at 1080p provides the most visually impressive experience without compromising on smoothness, as the system's performance headroom allows for maximum settings without dipping below playable frame rates.