Inside

Inside launched in 2016 as a Puzzle Platformer, and it remains a benchmark favorite precisely because its clean, atmospheric rendering engine is easy to run — which makes it an excellent stress test of how far a modern flagship mobile pairing can push frame rates rather than whether it can merely hold them. The combo under analysis here is the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, a duo that sits near the top of the mobile performance stack. The measured data, collected across three resolutions and four settings presets, shows the pairing clearing every practical frame rate threshold by wide margins, with results ranging from 104 FPS at 4K Ultra up to 357 FPS at 1080p Low.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread Zen 4 processor built on TSMC's 5 nm process under the Dragon Range codename, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. It carries a 55 W TDP, fits AMD Socket FL1, and supports DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus delivering 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Cache allocation is generous: 64 KB of L1 and 1 MB of L2 per core, plus a shared 64 MB L3 pool. PCIe connectivity runs at Gen 5 with 28 lanes from the CPU, which matters for this pairing because it gives the discrete GPU a wide, fast link to the host platform.

For Inside specifically, the CPU's role is largely about headroom rather than raw necessity. A puzzle platformer from 2016 does not demand heavy multi-threaded simulation, but the benchmark data indicates that single-thread responsiveness is what keeps frame rates climbing at lower resolutions. Here the 8945HX is well equipped: its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6030 and R20 single-core score of 2532 sit in the 95th percentile of all CPUs in the database. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42713 and Passmark multithread score of 51405 confirm it can absorb any background load without disturbing in-game frame pacing.

Context from the nearestRivals data shows just how elite this chip is on aggregate. Its average benchmark score of 76212 lands within a fraction of a percent of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76155, a 0.1 percent gap), the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (76492, -0.4 percent), the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX (76513, -0.4 percent), and even the desktop Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75779, 0.6 percent). In other words, the 8945HX trades blows with workstation-class silicon while remaining a mobile part. Inside will never exploit all 16 cores, but the data shows no scenario where the CPU becomes the limiter: at 1080p Low the measured average of 357 FPS implies the processor is feeding frames as fast as the engine and display pipeline can take them.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows make the settings decision unusually simple: run Ultra at every resolution. At 1920x1080, Ultra averages 230 FPS against 357 FPS at Low — a gap, certainly, but both figures are far beyond any refresh rate a typical laptop panel can fully display, and the visual difference in a game like Inside is subtle lighting and post-processing detail rather than fundamental image quality. At 2560x1440, Ultra delivers 165 FPS versus 320 FPS at Low, and at 3840x2160, Ultra still holds 104 FPS against 218 FPS at Low.

The one preset with full frame-time detail is Medium, and it reinforces the stability story. At 4K Medium, the run averaged 175 FPS with a minimum of 148 and a maximum of 201 — a tight spread that indicates consistent frame delivery rather than a flattering average masking stutter. At 1440p Medium, the range was 236 to 319 around a 278 FPS average; at 1080p Medium, 280 to 379 around 330. Those minimums remain comfortably above common high-refresh thresholds.

The practical recommendation from the data: at 4K, Ultra's 104 FPS average is borderline for very high refresh displays, so players chasing maximum smoothness on a 4K panel could drop to Medium for 175 FPS, or High for 109 FPS if the Ultra-to-High delta of just 5 frames at 4K suggests High offers little saving. At 1440p and 1080p, Ultra is the clear choice — 165 FPS and 230 FPS respectively leave nothing on the table.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Inside at 4K on maximum settings?

A: Yes, comfortably. The measured 4K Ultra average is 104 FPS. Even the 4K Medium minimum recorded was 148 FPS, so frame rates stay high across the entire settings range at 3840x2160.

Q: What is the single fastest measured result for Inside on this pairing?

A: 1920x1080 at Low settings, averaging 357 FPS. The slowest measured configuration is 3840x2160 at Ultra with 104 FPS — still above 60 FPS.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 8945HX compare to Intel's flagship mobile chip in this database?

A: The nearestRivals data places it essentially even with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX — an average benchmark score of 76212 versus 76155, a delta of just 0.1 percent. For Inside, that translates to no meaningful CPU-side difference; both are percentile-95 processors.

Q: Does the RTX 5090 Mobile have enough VRAM for Inside at 4K?

A: The card carries 24 GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit bus with 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth — vastly more memory than a 2016 puzzle platformer requires. VRAM is not a factor in any measured row.

Q: Is frame pacing consistent, or do the averages hide dips?

A: The Medium preset rows include min/max data. At 1440p Medium, frames ranged from 236 to 319 against a 278 FPS average, and at 1080p Medium from 280 to 379 against 330. The spread is proportionally small, indicating stable delivery.

Q: Where does this hardware combo rank for Inside among all tested pairings?

A: It ranks 614 out of 3716 tested combinations in this game — inside the top tier, though not the absolute fastest, reflecting that Inside's engine caps gains once CPU and GPU are both this far beyond its requirements.

How This Combo Ranks

A rank of 614 out of 3716 tested combos places this pairing in roughly the top sixth of all configurations measured in Inside. That is a strong standing, but the position deserves interpretation. Inside is a game where enormous numbers of combinations clear 60 FPS at 1080p; differentiation between combos happens at the top of the frame rate scale, and by definition only a small set of flagship pairings can post 4K Ultra averages north of 100 FPS as this one does.

The rank also reflects the balance of the pairing. The RTX 5090 Mobile sits in the 84th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 45152, and the 8945HX sits in the 95th percentile of all CPUs. Neither component bottlenecks the other in this title — the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K (357 FPS down to 218 FPS at Low, 230 down to 104 at Ultra) tracks with resolution-driven GPU load, not CPU saturation. Combinations that outrank this one in Inside likely pair even faster GPUs with the game's modest demands, but the margins at that level are academic. For a mobile platform, 614 of 3716 is an elite result delivered on 5 nm silicon from both vendors.

GPU Role

The GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile is the flagship of NVIDIA's Blackwell 2.0 mobile lineup, built on the GB203 chip at TSMC on a 5 nm process. It packs 45,600 million transistors onto a 378 mm² die — a density of 120.6M transistors per mm² — with 10496 shading units, 328 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 82 RT cores, and 328 tensor cores. Base clock is 990 MHz with a 1515 MHz boost, and the memory subsystem is a major highlight: 24 GB of GDDR7 running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) over a 256-bit bus, for 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Peak throughput figures include 169.7 GPixel/s pixel rate, 496.9 GTexel/s texture rate, and 31.80 TFLOPS of FP32 with FP16 at the same rate. The card runs at a 95 W TDP with no external power connectors, interfaces over PCIe 5.0 x16, and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

Against its nearest rivals in the database, the 5090 Mobile's average score of 45152 puts it within a point of some surprising company: the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (45384, -0.5 percent), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (44795, 0.8 percent), Intel Arc A730M (45592, -1 percent), and NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation (45972, -1.8 percent). Those aggregate scores blend many tests — including its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5871, Geekbench OpenCL at 201834, and Geekbench Vulkan at 198405 — but for Inside the relevant takeaway is simpler: a Blackwell flagship with nearly 900 GB/s of memory bandwidth is rendering a nine-year-old puzzle platformer, and the result is frame rates that scale almost linearly with resolution.

The data makes the GPU's dominance plain. Dropping from 1080p to 4K quadruples the pixel count, and the measured averages fall accordingly — 320 to 218 FPS at Low, 278 to 175 at Medium, 174 to 109 at High, and 165 to 104 at Ultra. That pattern is characteristic of GPU-bound scaling, which is exactly what you want to see: the RTX 5090 Mobile is the limiting factor by design, not because the CPU or platform is holding it back. Even at its slowest measured point, the card never drops below a 104 FPS average.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the pairing is untouchable in this title. Low settings average 357 FPS. Medium averages 330 FPS with a measured range of 280 minimum to 379 maximum. High averages 241 FPS, and Ultra averages 230 FPS. The gap between Ultra and Low at this resolution — 127 frames — is the largest absolute spread in the dataset, showing that even a flagship mobile GPU still pays for top-tier effects at high frame rates.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 320 FPS, Medium averages 278 FPS (ranging from 236 to 319), High averages 174 FPS, and Ultra averages 165 FPS. Note the compression between Medium and High here: 104 frames separate Low from Medium, but only 13 frames separate Medium from High, and just 9 more separate High from Ultra. Once the frame rate falls into this range, the incremental cost of each visual tier shrinks, which is why Ultra is the sensible pick at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 218 FPS, Medium averages 175 FPS (148 minimum, 201 maximum), High averages 109 FPS, and Ultra averages 104 FPS. The High-to-Ultra cost at native 4K is a mere 5 frames on average — the smallest settings penalty in the dataset — while dropping from Ultra to Low recovers 114 frames. The 4K Medium minimum of 148 FPS is the most reassuring single number here: even the worst measured moment at a demanding resolution stays well above 100 FPS.

Across all twelve measured rows, the pattern is consistent. This is measured data, not extrapolated, and every configuration tested — from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra — posts an average above 100 FPS. The Ryzen 9 8945HX contributes percentile-95 CPU performance with 5.40 GHz boost clocks and 16 cores that Inside will never fully occupy; the RTX 5090 Mobile contributes 24 GB of GDDR7 and Blackwell 2.0 throughput that turns a 2016 puzzle platformer into a high-refresh showcase. Rank 614 of 3716 combos in this game confirms the pairing as top-tier, and the frame rate table confirms it empirically: there is no settings combination, at any tested resolution, where this hardware delivers anything less than a smooth experience in Inside.