Inside

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 produces a wide spread of results in Inside, a Puzzle Platformer from 2016. The data shows that the choice of graphics preset has a more profound impact on frame rates than the resolution, a trait indicative of a title that scales well across hardware tiers. For this specific combination, the measured rows indicate that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience, delivering frame rates that are consistently playable across all three tested resolutions without the significant performance penalty observed at High and Ultra settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy in performance scaling across the four presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 151.9 FPS, while Medium drops to 122.7 FPS, High to 73.9 FPS, and Ultra to 69.3 FPS. The jump from Medium to High represents a 39.8% reduction in frame rate, a substantial cost for visual fidelity in this title. At 2560x1440, the pattern holds: Medium produces 86.9 FPS, which is still well above the 60 FPS threshold, while High and Ultra fall to 53.6 and 51.3 FPS respectively. At 3840x2160, only the Low preset (69.3 FPS) and Medium preset (54 FPS) remain viable for smooth gameplay, with High (31.4 FPS) and Ultra (29.7 FPS) falling below acceptable levels.

Given these figures, the Medium preset is the recommended starting point for this combo. It provides a substantial improvement over Low in visual quality while maintaining frame rates that are generally fluid: 122.7 FPS at 1080p, 86.9 FPS at 1440p, and 54 FPS at 4K. The High preset is difficult to justify when compared to Medium, as the performance cost is steep across all resolutions, and the Ultra preset offers only marginal gains over High in the best case. For users prioritizing a locked 60 FPS experience, Medium at 1440p is the sweet spot, while those with 1080p displays can comfortably push toward the higher frame rates that the Medium preset affords.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Ryzen 9 7900X and Radeon RX 580 ranks 1562 out of 1671 combos for Inside. This places it in the lower 6.5% of all tested configurations, a position that reflects the GPU's age and tier rather than the CPU's capabilities. The Ryzen 9 7900X is a high-end processor, evidenced by its 93rd percentile ranking against all CPUs, but the RX 580 sits at the 53rd percentile against all GPUs. The combination's rank suggests that the graphics card is the limiting factor in this pairing, a conclusion supported by the FPS data that shows significant scaling with resolution and settings changes.

The CPU's benchmark scores are substantial, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 43695 and a single-core score of 6168. These figures place it just 0.1% behind the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 in average benchmark score, with a deltaPct of -0.1, and 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT. The GPU, by contrast, has a Passmark G3D score of 8813, which is statistically tied with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (deltaPct of 0) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 (deltaPct of 0.1). The overall combo rank of 1562 reflects this imbalance, indicating that while the CPU is overqualified for the task, the GPU holds the system back from achieving higher positions in the rankings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is built on the Polaris 20 chip using the GCN 4.0 architecture and a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries. It features 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s. The GPU's clock speeds are relatively modest, with a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz, while the memory operates at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective). These specifications place it in the lower tier of modern GPUs, with a Passmark G3D score of 8813 and a 53rd percentile ranking against all GPUs.

In the context of Inside, the GPU's 8 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor, as the game's relatively simple visual style does not require large memory allocations. The measured FPS data shows that the bottleneck shifts with resolution: at 1080p, the CPU's high single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 1093) allows the GPU to stretch its legs, resulting in high frame rates. However, at 4K, the GPU's raw compute capabilities become the constraint, with the High preset dropping to 31.4 FPS. The GPU's FP32 performance of 6.175 TFLOPS and texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s are the key metrics here, as the game's rendering workload scales with pixel count. The GPU's boost clock of 1340 MHz is the maximum achieved under load, and the data suggests that this clock speed is insufficient to maintain high frame rates at 4K with higher presets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates for this combo in Inside show a consistent pattern across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 151.9 FPS, Medium reaches 122.7 FPS, High drops to 73.9 FPS, and Ultra falls to 69.3 FPS. The 1080p results indicate that this combination is well-suited for high-refresh-rate gaming at lower presets, with the Low preset nearly hitting 152 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally. Low achieves 105.6 FPS, Medium 86.9 FPS, High 53.6 FPS, and Ultra 51.3 FPS. The 1440p data shows that Medium is the only preset that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS, while High and Ultra hover just above 50 FPS, which may be acceptable for some users but not for those seeking smooth motion.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly. Low achieves 69.3 FPS, Medium 54 FPS, High 31.4 FPS, and Ultra 29.7 FPS. The 4K results clearly demonstrate the GPU's limitations, as even the Low preset cannot reach the 70 FPS mark. The data shows that 4K gaming with this combo is only feasible at Low or Medium settings, and even then, the frame rates are marginal for a smooth experience.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals how the system's components interact under increasing load. At the Low preset, moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 results in a drop from 151.9 FPS to 105.6 FPS, a 30.5% reduction. Further scaling to 3840x2160 brings the frame rate down to 69.3 FPS, a 54.4% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern is consistent across all presets, with the percentage drops increasing at higher settings.

The data indicates that at 1080p, the system is likely CPU-limited in certain scenarios, as the RX 580's 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is sufficient to render the frame quickly. However, as the resolution increases, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck. The transition from 1440p to 4K at the Medium preset shows a drop from 86.9 FPS to 54 FPS, a 37.9% reduction, which aligns closely with the increase in pixel count from 3.7 million to 8.3 million (a 124% increase). This suggests that the GPU's fillrate and memory bandwidth (256.0 GB/s) are the limiting factors at higher resolutions.

The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal, as its high single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 1093) ensures that it can keep up with the GPU's rendering demands even at lower resolutions. The bottleneck shifts decisively to the GPU as resolution increases, confirming that the Radeon RX 580 is the constraining component in this pairing. For users of this combo, the data suggests that 1080p is the native resolution for high frame rates, while 1440p requires a compromise on settings, and 4K is only viable at the lowest presets.