Inside

# Inside — AMD Ryzen 9 7900X + AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

The data for Inside with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT shows a puzzle platformer that is remarkably responsive across the board, with the measured frame rates indicating that the combination is far more capable than the game's visual demands. The benchmark results show a clear pattern of the GPU becoming the primary performance driver at higher resolutions, while the 12-core CPU provides ample headroom at lower settings. The following analysis breaks down the measured FPS data into resolution scaling, settings behavior, and component-level interpretation.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial but not uniform across settings, revealing a system that transitions from CPU-bound behavior at low resolution to GPU-bound behavior at 4K. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 387 at 1920x1080 to 207 at 3840x2160, a reduction of approximately 46.5%. This steep decline indicates that even at the lowest settings, the GPU's rendering workload at 4K is significant, although the absolute numbers remain high enough for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset shows a similar scaling pattern: 357 FPS at 1080p drops to 166 FPS at 4K, a 53.5% reduction. This suggests that pixel throughput, not scene complexity, is the limiting factor as resolution climbs.

The High preset exhibits a comparable trend, with average FPS moving from 230 at 1080p to 165 at 1440p and finally to 104 at 4K. The step from 1440p to 4K alone represents a 37% performance loss, which aligns with the four-fold increase in pixel count that the GPU must process. Ultra settings follow the same curve, starting at 219 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 157 FPS at 1440p, and settling at 99 FPS at 4K. Notably, the delta between 1080p and 1440p for Ultra is 28.3%, while the delta between 1440p and 4K is 36.9%, indicating that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become increasingly taxed as resolution grows. The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well beyond the game's needs, but at 4K, the RX 9070 XT's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are the decisive components, with performance scaling closely tied to pixel count.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear view of how each preset balances visual quality and frame rate. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 387 FPS, which is exceptionally high, but the Medium preset offers 357 FPS and includes the only measured min/max values of 304 and 411 FPS respectively. This suggests that Medium at 1080p provides a stable experience with a 30 FPS difference between average and minimum, which is a reasonable margin for frame time consistency. The High preset at 1080p drops to 230 FPS, which is still far beyond the refresh rate of most displays. Ultra at 1080p yields 219 FPS, a mere 4.8% reduction compared to High, implying that the Ultra preset's additional effects are not heavily taxing the GPU at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again stands out as the sweet spot, with an average of 264 FPS and min/max values of 224 and 304 FPS. The High preset at 165 FPS is perfectly playable, while Ultra at 157 FPS only sacrifices 4.8% of performance relative to High. At 4K, the picture changes: Medium averages 166 FPS with a minimum of 141 FPS, which remains above the 120 FPS threshold for high-refresh-rate displays. High at 4K drops to 104 FPS, and Ultra falls to 99 FPS, both of which are still smooth but may not fully saturate a 120 Hz or 144 Hz panel. The data suggests that Medium is the best experience across all resolutions, as it consistently delivers the highest FPS with measured stability metrics, while High and Ultra offer diminishing returns in visual fidelity for a noticeable FPS cost. For players prioritizing frame rate consistency, Medium at 4K provides the best balance of the measured options.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X brings 12 cores and 24 threads to the table, with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The Cinebench R23 scores of 29300 for multicore and 2016.5 for single-core indicate a processor that excels at both heavily threaded and lightly threaded workloads. In Inside, a puzzle platformer with relatively simple geometry, the CPU's role is primarily to maintain high frame rates when the GPU is not the bottleneck. The benchmark data confirms this: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 387 FPS, which is only 17.1% higher than the 330 FPS at 1440p Low, despite the pixel count increase. This relatively small drop suggests that the CPU is still contributing to the frame rate ceiling at lower resolutions, where the GPU can render frames faster than the CPU can issue draw calls.

The Ryzen 9 7900X's single-thread performance, as evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1093 and Geekbench single-core score of 2617, is critical for a game that likely relies on a primary game thread. The PassMark single-thread score of 4238 further supports this, showing strong per-core capability. Compared to its nearest rivals, the Ryzen 9 7900X has an average benchmark score of 53288, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD EPYC 7313P and 0.6% higher than the Intel Xeon 634, while being 0.3% lower than the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 and 0.6% lower than the Intel Core i7-14700F. These marginal deltas indicate that the CPU's raw performance is competitive with these alternatives, but for Inside, the key takeaway is that the 12-core configuration is overkill for the game's demands, as evidenced by the fact that FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is dominated by GPU workload rather than CPU limitations.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT achieves a combo rank of 639 out of 3716 tested combinations in Inside, placing it in the top 17.2% of all tested systems. This percentile position is notable given the game's release date of July 2016, which predates both components by several years. The ranking indicates that while the system is far from the fastest possible configuration for this game, it delivers performance that is well above the median. The GPU's percentile vs all GPUs is 55, meaning it sits slightly above the midpoint of all tested graphics cards, while the CPU's percentile vs all CPUs is 91, placing it in the top 9% of processors. This discrepancy suggests that the CPU is the stronger component in this pairing, yet the measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The combo rank of 639 out of 3716 means there are 638 combinations that deliver higher FPS in Inside, likely including systems with more powerful GPUs or CPUs with higher single-thread performance. However, the measured FPS at 4K Ultra of 99 FPS is still a strong result for a game of this era, and the rank reflects the fact that many modern high-end systems can exceed this. The data indicates that the combo is well-balanced, with neither component drastically bottlenecking the other, but the GPU's lower percentile ranking suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield a larger performance gain than upgrading the CPU for this specific title.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, based on the Navi 48 chip with RDNA 4.0 architecture, features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The boost clock of 2970 MHz and game clock of 2400 MHz contribute to a pixel rate of 380.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 760.3 GTexel/s. These specifications are directly relevant to Inside's rendering, which involves a mix of 2D sprites and 3D environments. The GPU's FP32 performance of 48.66 TFLOPS is more than sufficient for the game's shader complexity, and the 128 ROPs ensure efficient fill rate at high resolutions. The measured FPS at 4K Medium of 166 FPS, with a minimum of 141 FPS, demonstrates that the GPU can sustain high frame rates even with the pixel count of 3840x2160.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 13543 places it at the 55th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon HD 7770M (0.1% higher score), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (0.2% higher), NVIDIA P106-090 (0.5% higher), and AMD Radeon Pro 555 (1% higher). These are all significantly older and less powerful cards, which is an artifact of the benchmark database's scoring methodology rather than an indication of the RX 9070 XT's actual performance in modern titles. In Inside, the GPU's VRAM capacity of 16 GB is not a limiting factor, as the game's textures are modest by contemporary standards, but the memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s helps maintain consistent frame times at 4K, as evidenced by the Medium preset's min FPS of 141 at 4K, which is 84.9% of the average FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS ranges from a low of 219 at Ultra settings to a high of 387 at Low settings. The Medium preset averages 357 FPS with a minimum of 304 and maximum of 411, while High averages 230 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 30 FPS (7.8% difference), while the gap between Medium and High is 127 FPS (35.6% difference), and the gap between High and Ultra is 11 FPS (4.8% difference). This pattern indicates that the Medium to High transition is the most significant in terms of performance cost, while High to Ultra is relatively minor.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are 330 for Low, 264 for Medium, 165 for High, and 157 for Ultra. The Medium preset's minimum is 224 FPS and maximum is 304 FPS, showing a tighter distribution than at 1080p. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows reductions of 14.7% for Low, 26.1% for Medium, 28.3% for High, and 28.3% for Ultra, indicating that the GPU's workload increases are more pronounced at higher settings.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops further: 207 for Low, 166 for Medium, 104 for High, and 99 for Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K has a minimum of 141 FPS and maximum of 191 FPS, representing a 50 FPS spread. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows reductions of 37.3% for Low, 37.1% for Medium, 37.0% for High, and 36.9% for Ultra, which is remarkably consistent across settings. This uniformity suggests that at 4K, the GPU's pixel throughput is the sole limiting factor, and the relative cost of each setting is preserved regardless of resolution. The data shows that the Low preset at 4K (207 FPS) is faster than the Ultra preset at 1440p (157 FPS), indicating that resolution has a larger impact on performance than settings in this game.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS measured for this combo in Inside?*

A: The highest average FPS is 387, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: Which preset provides the most stable frame rate at 4K?

A: Medium at 3840x2160 has the only measured min/max values at that resolution, with an average of 166 FPS, a minimum of 141 FPS, and a maximum of 191 FPS.

*Q: How does the combo rank among all tested systems in Inside?*

A: The combo ranks 639 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the top 17.2% of all systems tested.

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

A: At 2560x1440, High averages 165 FPS and Ultra averages 157 FPS, a difference of 8 FPS or approximately 4.8%.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance at 4K?

A: The data shows that FPS drops consistently by roughly 37% from 1440p to 4K across all settings, indicating the GPU is the limiting component at 4K, while the CPU provides ample headroom.

Q: What is the largest FPS drop between consecutive settings at 1080p?

A: The largest drop at 1920x1080 is between Medium (357 FPS) and High (230 FPS), a reduction of 127 FPS or 35.6%.