Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer with a deliberately restrained visual style, but that doesn't mean it's free from hardware demands. The data for the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER shows a configuration that is heavily weighted toward the CPU, with the GPU acting as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates, settings scaling, and component roles to give a practical picture of what this combo delivers.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about where the performance ceiling lives. At 1080p High settings, the system averages 108 FPS. Moving to 1440p High drops that to 78 FPS, a reduction of 30 FPS, and then 4K High falls further to 49 FPS. The scaling is not linear; the jump from 1440p to 4K costs 29 FPS, which is nearly identical to the 30 FPS lost from 1080p to 1440p. This suggests the GPU is being saturated progressively as pixel count rises.

The Low settings preset illustrates the same trend even more dramatically. At 1080p Low, the system hits 216 FPS, a number that indicates the CPU is capable of feeding frames far beyond what the GPU can handle at higher loads. At 1440p Low, it drops to 156 FPS, and at 4K Low, it settles at 98 FPS. The 4K Low result is still above 60 FPS, but the halving of performance from 1080p to 4K points directly at the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB memory and 192-bit bus being pushed to their limits.

The limiting component is unambiguous when comparing the Ultra preset results. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 103 FPS, which is only 5 FPS lower than High. At 1440p Ultra, it falls to 74 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it bottoms out at 47 FPS. The pattern shows that the CPU, with its 16 cores and 32 threads, is not the constraint here. The Ryzen 9 5950X can maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions, but the GTX 1660 SUPER simply runs out of pixel throughput as resolution climbs. The data indicates a classic GPU-bound scenario at 1440p and 4K, while 1080p remains a balanced zone where the CPU still has headroom.

Settings Recommendations

For a smooth experience, the Medium preset is the sweet spot in this dataset. At 1080p Medium, the average is 173 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS and a maximum of 199 FPS. That minimum frame rate is crucial — it shows the game stays well above the 144 Hz refresh rate territory even during demanding scenes. The margin between minimum and average is 26 FPS, which is tight enough to suggest consistent pacing without severe stutters.

At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 125 FPS, with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 143 FPS. The minimum is still above 100 FPS, making this a viable option for high-refresh 1440p monitors, though the average is now below the 144 FPS threshold. For 4K, Medium produces 78 FPS average with a minimum of 66 FPS. That 66 FPS floor is just above the 60 FPS standard, so it works for 60 Hz displays, but the headroom is minimal.

The High preset is a step down in consistency. At 1080p High, the average is 108 FPS, which is fine, but the lack of a reported minimum makes it harder to judge stability. At 1440p High, the 78 FPS average is still playable, but it’s a 47 FPS drop from Medium, which is a significant sacrifice for visual fidelity that Inside’s art style may not fully justify. The Ultra preset is the hardest to recommend. At 1080p Ultra, it averages 103 FPS, barely better than High, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 47 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. The performance cost of Ultra is disproportionately high relative to the gains, so Medium or High is the practical choice for most users.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 SUPER is a Turing-architecture card with 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. Its memory configuration is 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, delivering 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1530 MHz with a boost of 1785 MHz. These specs are modest by modern standards, and the benchmark data reflects that. The card’s PassMark G3D score is 12699, and its percentile rank against all GPUs is 53, meaning it sits just above the median. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile with a score of 12940 and a deltaPct of 0.4, and the AMD Radeon RX 580 at 12928 with a deltaPct of 0.4. The margins are razor-thin, indicating that the GTX 1660 SUPER is performing exactly where expected for its class.

The VRAM is a notable factor in this game. Inside is not a texture-heavy title, but the 6 GB frame buffer is enough to handle the 4K Ultra preset, which averages 47 FPS. The fact that 4K Medium improves to 78 FPS suggests that the memory bandwidth is not the primary limiter; rather, it is the raw compute power. The FP32 performance is 5.027 TFLOPS, which is adequate for a 2016 puzzle platformer but not for pushing high pixel counts. The card’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1278 is a low number that aligns with its mid-range positioning.

The GPU’s role here is to cap the frame rate at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the card can push over 200 FPS on Low, but at 4K, even Low settings only reach 98 FPS. The pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s are the physical limits that the game’s rendering engine must respect. The data shows that the GTX 1660 SUPER is a capable 1080p card that can handle 1440p with settings tuning, but 4K is a compromise.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete grid of performance across three resolutions and four settings levels. Starting at 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 216 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. Medium drops to 173 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS and a maximum of 199 FPS. High comes in at 108 FPS, and Ultra is 103 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 43 FPS, which is substantial, but the gap between High and Ultra is only 5 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns at the top end.

At 2560x1440, the numbers scale down proportionally. Low averages 156 FPS, Medium averages 125 FPS with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 143 FPS, High averages 78 FPS, and Ultra averages 74 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 106 FPS is the standout figure here, as it indicates that even the slowest frames stay well above the 60 FPS floor. The difference between High and Ultra at 1440p is 4 FPS, reinforcing the pattern seen at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops become more pronounced. Low averages 98 FPS, Medium averages 78 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS and a maximum of 90 FPS, High averages 49 FPS, and Ultra averages 47 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 66 FPS is barely above the 60 FPS threshold, which is a tight margin. The drop from Medium to High is 29 FPS, which is the largest single-settings jump in the entire dataset. This indicates that the High preset at 4K is where the GPU starts to struggle significantly.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU/GPU combo?

A: The data shows 1080p is the most balanced resolution. At Medium settings, it averages 173 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS, which is smooth on high-refresh displays. 1440p is also playable, with Medium averaging 125 FPS and a minimum of 106 FPS, but 4K requires dropping to Medium to stay above the 60 FPS floor.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 SUPER compare to its nearest rivals in this game’s context?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has a PassMark G3D score of 12699. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, scores 12940, which is a deltaPct of 0.4 higher. The AMD Radeon RX 580 scores 12928, also 0.4 higher. The performance is effectively identical, so the choice between them would not change the FPS results in this title.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 5950X holding back the GTX 1660 SUPER?

A: No. The Ryzen 9 5950X has a PassMark multithread score of 45424 and a single-thread score of 3470. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 216 FPS, which shows the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU far beyond what it can render. The bottleneck is the GPU, especially at 1440p and 4K.

Q: What settings preset should I use for a 60 FPS target at 4K?

A: The Medium preset at 4K averages 78 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS, which meets the 60 FPS target. The High preset averages 49 FPS, which fails the target. Low averages 98 FPS but sacrifices visual quality. Medium is the only viable option for a consistent 60 FPS at 4K.

Q: How much performance is lost when going from 1080p to 4K on High settings?

A: At 1080p High, the average is 108 FPS. At 4K High, the average is 49 FPS. This is a drop of 59 FPS, or a reduction to roughly 45% of the original frame rate. The scaling is steep and confirms the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: Does the Ultra preset offer any meaningful advantage over High?

A: At all three resolutions, the difference is minimal. At 1080p, Ultra is 103 FPS versus High’s 108 FPS, a 5 FPS difference. At 1440p, it is 74 FPS versus 78 FPS, a 4 FPS difference. At 4K, it is 47 FPS versus 49 FPS, a 2 FPS difference. The visual gains are not worth the performance cost.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with a 64 MB L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 26017, and its single-core score is 1614. The Geekbench multicore score is 15233, and the single-core score is 2083. These numbers place it in the 91st percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 51947. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-13900F, scores 51730, which is a deltaPct of 0.4 lower, meaning the Ryzen is slightly ahead.

In Inside, the CPU’s role is to maintain high frame rates without becoming a bottleneck. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 216 FPS, which reflects the processor’s single-thread performance. The boost clock of 4.90 GHz is key here, as puzzle platformers like this one often rely on a few heavily loaded threads. The 3DMark single-thread score of 944 and the 2-thread score of 1856 indicate strong per-core performance that scales well with the game’s demands.

The 16-core configuration is overkill for this title, but it does not hurt. The PassMark physics score of 1878 and the floating-point math score of 100280 show that the CPU has plenty of headroom for any background tasks. The memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s on a dual-channel DDR4 setup is sufficient for the game’s data streaming needs. The benchmark results indicate that the Ryzen 9 5950X will not be the reason for any frame rate drops in Inside; the GTX 1660 SUPER is the component that determines the final FPS numbers, especially at higher resolutions. The CPU’s percentile rank and rival comparisons confirm it is a top-tier processor that pairs well with a mid-range GPU for this specific game.