Inside

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER delivers an exceptionally smooth experience in Inside, a 2016 Puzzle Platformer that is far more demanding on the CPU than the GPU at lower resolutions. The benchmark data shows this combination ranks 1973rd out of 2887 tested combos, placing it in the 68th percentile, but this ranking is heavily skewed by the GPU's age; the CPU is clearly the dominant component in this pairing, capable of pushing frame rates well beyond what the RTX 2060 SUPER can handle at higher settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, while the CPU's immense headroom is exposed at 1080p. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops from 134 FPS at 1920x1080 to 96 FPS at 2560x1440, a 28% reduction, and then falls further to 60 FPS at 3840x2160, another 38% drop. This steep decline indicates that the RTX 2060 SUPER is the limiting factor as pixel count increases, with the GPU's rendering workload scaling almost linearly with resolution.

The picture changes dramatically at Low settings, where the CPU's power becomes evident. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo achieves 281 FPS average, which drops to 202 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 28% decrease) and then to 127 FPS at 3840x2160 (a 37% decrease). The fact that 1080p Low produces 281 FPS while 4K Low produces 127 FPS shows that even at the lowest settings, the GPU cannot maintain the frame rates the CPU is capable of feeding it. The gap between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 147 FPS (281 vs 134), while at 4K the gap narrows to just 67 FPS (127 vs 60), confirming that the GPU's limitations become progressively more dominant as resolution rises.

The data suggests that at 1080p, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D is heavily underutilized, with the RTX 2060 SUPER acting as the bottleneck even at Medium settings where the average hits 225 FPS. At 4K, the GPU is so constrained that the gap between Low and Ultra settings compresses significantly, with the GPU's raw throughput dictating performance. For a game like Inside, which is not graphically intensive by modern standards, the RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB of VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient, meaning the resolution scaling is purely a function of the GPU's compute capabilities.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo achieves in Inside?*

A: The highest recorded average is 281 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

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

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 60 FPS, which is exactly at the threshold for smooth gameplay on a 60 Hz display.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor even at 1080p, as the RTX 2060 SUPER cannot maintain the extremely high frame rates the Ryzen 9 9900X3D could theoretically deliver; the 281 FPS at Low settings is likely near the GPU's ceiling.

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

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 202 FPS average, while Ultra settings produce 96 FPS average, a difference of 106 FPS.

*Q: Does the RTX 2060 SUPER have enough VRAM for Inside?*

A: The GPU has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 256-bit bus, which is more than adequate for this game, as even at 4K Ultra the bottleneck is compute performance, not memory capacity.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 1973rd out of 2887 tested combos, placing it in the 68th percentile of all tested systems.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is the clear performance limiter in this pairing for Inside, despite being a capable mid-range GPU from the Turing generation. The card's specifications—8 GB of GDDR6 memory, 2176 shading units, 136 TMUs, and 64 ROPs—are more than sufficient for a 2016 puzzle platformer, but its compute throughput of 7.181 TFLOPS FP32 and memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s dictate the frame rate ceiling at higher resolutions.

The GPU's clock speeds are modest by modern standards, with a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz. These clocks, combined with the 12 nm process node, explain why the card struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is exactly 60, which suggests the GPU is hitting a hard performance wall. At 4K Medium, the average rises to 102 FPS, indicating that the GPU has some headroom when settings are reduced, but the jump from Medium to Ultra at 4K costs 42 FPS (102 to 60), showing the steep cost of the highest quality settings.

The RTX 2060 SUPER's memory configuration is not a limiting factor in Inside. The 8 GB frame buffer is unlikely to be fully utilized at any resolution, and the 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is more than enough for the game's textures and geometry. This is confirmed by the fact that the GPU's nearest rivals, such as the RTX 3060 Mobile (deltaPct -0.4%) and Radeon Pro 5700 (deltaPct -0.5%), show nearly identical average benchmark scores, indicating that the card's performance is well-established in its class. The GPU's 62nd percentile ranking among all GPUs reflects its mid-range positioning, which is consistent with its performance in Inside where it delivers playable but not exceptional frame rates at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rate data provides a comprehensive view of how this combo performs across all resolution and settings combinations. At 1920x1080, the results are consistently high, with Low settings achieving 281 FPS average, Medium at 225 FPS (with a minimum of 191 FPS and maximum of 259 FPS), High at 141 FPS, and Ultra at 134 FPS. The gap between Medium and High at 1080p is substantial (84 FPS), suggesting that High settings introduce a significant increase in rendering complexity that the GPU cannot fully offset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain playable but show the expected decline. Low settings produce 202 FPS average, Medium drops to 162 FPS (with a range of 137 to 186 FPS), High falls to 101 FPS, and Ultra settles at 96 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 1440p is only 5 FPS, indicating that the GPU is becoming the bottleneck and additional settings have diminishing returns.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limitations are most apparent. Low settings achieve 127 FPS average, which is still smooth, but Medium drops to 102 FPS (with a range of 86 to 117 FPS). High settings fall to 63 FPS, and Ultra produces exactly 60 FPS average. The transition from Medium to High at 4K costs 39 FPS, while the transition from High to Ultra costs only 3 FPS, showing that the GPU is nearly saturated at these settings. The minimum FPS of 86 at 4K Medium indicates that even with some headroom, the GPU can experience frame dips, though these remain above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 1973rd out of 2887 tested combos in Inside. This places the pairing in the 68th percentile of all tested configurations, which may seem low given the CPU's flagship status, but it is directly attributable to the GPU's age and performance class. The RTX 2060 SUPER, released in 2019, is an end-of-life product that ranks in the 62nd percentile among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 18093 is within 1.6% of its nearest rivals, the RTX 3060 Mobile (18159, deltaPct -0.4%) and Radeon Pro 5700 (18189, deltaPct -0.5%).

The CPU's ranking is significantly higher, with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D placing in the 91st percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 54762. This score is within 2.1% of its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF (55093, deltaPct -0.6%) and Intel Core i7-14700F (53620, deltaPct 2.1%). The discrepancy between the CPU's high percentile and the combo's lower ranking confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing. In a game like Inside, which is not graphically demanding, the combo's ranking is likely higher than in more GPU-intensive titles, but the data still shows that the RTX 2060 SUPER prevents the combo from reaching the upper echelons of performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D is a formidable processor that provides far more performance than Inside requires, but its capabilities are masked by the GPU bottleneck. The CPU features 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its 128 MB of L3 cache is a standout feature, providing ample capacity for game data. The CPU's benchmark scores are exceptional: Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 47737, singlecore reaches 6739, and Geekbench multicore hits 22884 with a singlecore score of 3041.

The CPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks clearly outclasses its nearest rivals, but in Inside, the frame rates are not CPU-limited at any resolution. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU has the least work to do, the combo achieves 281 FPS, which is likely a GPU ceiling rather than a CPU limit. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar frame rates across different resolutions at the same settings, but the data shows significant drops as resolution increases, confirming that the GPU is the limiting factor.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D's 12 cores and 24 threads are overkill for a game like Inside, which is a puzzle platformer that likely uses only a few threads. The CPU's single-thread performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 singlecore score of 6739, is more than sufficient for the game's logic and physics. The CPU's 120W TDP and support for DDR5 memory indicate it is a modern, high-end part, but its potential is wasted in this pairing because the RTX 2060 SUPER cannot deliver the frame rates the CPU could theoretically support. The data suggests that a much weaker CPU could achieve identical results in Inside when paired with the RTX 2060 SUPER, making the 9900X3D an unnecessary luxury in this specific configuration.