Inside

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a Puzzle Platformer where high frame rates are easily achievable. The measured data shows that this combination is heavily GPU-limited at higher resolutions, but even at 4K, the system produces frame rates well above the refresh rates of most displays, making it a top-tier choice for this title.

Settings Recommendations

For Inside, the benchmark data indicates that the High preset at 2560x1440 offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, delivering an average of 211 FPS. This is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay on high-refresh-rate monitors.

At 1920x1080, the High preset reaches 294 FPS, while the Ultra preset still provides a very high 280 FPS. The performance difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is minimal (only a 4.8% drop in average FPS), suggesting that players with 1080p displays can comfortably use Ultra settings without a meaningful performance penalty. The Low preset at 1080p peaks at 425 FPS, but this is unnecessary for a game like Inside, where visual atmosphere contributes heavily to the experience.

The most demanding configuration tested is Ultra at 3840x2160, which averages 126 FPS. While this is still playable, the High preset at 4K provides a significant improvement, averaging 133 FPS. The data shows a clear step-down in performance as settings increase at 4K: Low (265 FPS), Medium (212 FPS), High (133 FPS), and Ultra (126 FPS). The jump from Medium to High at 4K is substantial (a 37.3% decrease in average FPS), indicating that the High preset is the optimal choice for 4K displays to maintain high refresh rates. Given that the game is a 2D puzzle platformer, the visual difference between Medium and High is likely less critical than maintaining a smooth frame rate, making High the recommended preset for 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 112th out of 3716 tested combos in Inside. This places the system in the top 3% of all tested configurations, demonstrating that it is an elite performer for this title. The rank reflects the synergy between the high-end CPU and GPU, which together are able to push frame rates to extremely high levels.

This ranking is particularly impressive given the nature of the game. Inside is not a graphically intensive title, so the performance ceiling is set by the CPU's ability to feed frames to the GPU at lower resolutions, and by the GPU's raw throughput at higher resolutions. The data shows that the combo is so powerful that it is rarely the bottleneck, even at 4K with Ultra settings. The 112th rank out of 3716 combos indicates that only a small fraction of systems (primarily those with even newer or more specialized hardware) can outperform this pairing in this specific game. The high percentile ranking of both components (the CPU is in the 91st percentile, and the GPU is in the 86th percentile) reinforces this position at the top of the performance hierarchy.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the primary driver of performance in Inside at higher resolutions. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth are more than sufficient for this game's moderate texture and geometry demands, ensuring that memory capacity is never a limiting factor. The GPU's boost clock of 2505 MHz and its Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process, provide the raw compute power needed to achieve the high frame rates seen in the data.

At 4K resolution, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. The average FPS drops from 425 at 1080p Low to 265 at 4K Low, a 37.6% reduction. This trend continues across all settings, with the 4K Ultra preset (126 FPS) being 55% slower than the 1080p Ultra preset (280 FPS). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, where the increased pixel count at 4K places a heavier load on the GPU's shading units, texture mapping units, and raster output pipelines.

The RTX 4080's performance in the benchmark data is consistent with its position in the GPU hierarchy. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6567 and PassMark G3D score of 34457 reflect its high-end capabilities. The GPU's nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, scores nearly identically (a 0.1% difference in average benchmark score), indicating that the two cards are effectively interchangeable in performance. The data shows that the RTX 4080 is capable of handling Inside at maximum settings with ease, even at 4K, where it maintains an average of 126 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with High settings?

A: The system achieves an average of 294 FPS at 1920x1080 with the High preset, demonstrating that the CPU and GPU combination is more than capable of driving high-refresh-rate 1080p displays.

*Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this hardware in Inside?*

A: Yes, the data shows that even at 3840x2160 with the Ultra preset, the system maintains an average of 126 FPS. For smoother performance, the High preset at 4K averages 133 FPS, making 4K gaming a very viable option.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER?

A: According to the benchmark data, the RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54247, while the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 54209, a negligible difference of 0.1%. In practical terms, the two graphics cards perform identically in this game.

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded in the test data?

A: The highest average frame rate is 425 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This highlights the CPU's ability to feed frames at low resolutions, where the GPU is not the limiting factor.

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

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 294 at 1920x1080 to 211 at 2560x1440, and finally to 133 at 3840x2160. This represents a 54.8% reduction in average FPS from 1080p to 4K, illustrating the significant load increase on the GPU at higher resolutions.

Q: Does the game have a significant performance difference between Medium and High settings?

A: Yes, the difference is noticeable. At 4K, the Medium preset averages 212 FPS, while the High preset averages 133 FPS, a 37.3% decrease. At 1440p, the difference is smaller but still present, with Medium at 338 FPS and High at 211 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling across resolutions in Inside clearly identifies the GPU as the limiting component at higher resolutions. The data shows a consistent pattern of frame rate reduction as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload.

At the High preset, the average FPS decreases from 294 at 1080p to 211 at 1440p (a 28.2% drop), and then to 133 at 4K (a 54.8% drop from 1080p). This steep decline indicates that the RTX 4080's rendering pipeline is being increasingly taxed by the higher pixel counts. The Ultra preset follows a similar trend, with average FPS dropping from 280 at 1080p to 201 at 1440p (a 28.2% drop) and then to 126 at 4K (a 55% drop from 1080p).

Interestingly, the Low preset shows a less severe scaling pattern, with average FPS dropping from 425 at 1080p to 381 at 1440p (a 10.4% drop) and then to 265 at 4K (a 37.6% drop from 1080p). This suggests that at Low settings, the game's rendering load is significantly reduced, allowing the GPU to maintain higher frame rates at higher resolutions. However, the absolute frame rates at 4K Low (265 FPS) are still far above what is necessary for smooth gameplay.

The scaling data indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at any resolution, as the frame rates continue to scale with resolution. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see frame rates plateau at lower resolutions. Instead, the data shows a continuous decline from 1080p to 4K, confirming that the RTX 4080's GPU is the primary determinant of performance in this title.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D plays a crucial, yet secondary, role in Inside. With 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, this processor provides more than enough computational headroom for a game that is not heavily threaded. The CPU's high boost clock of 5.50 GHz and its large 128 MB L3 cache contribute to its strong single-threaded performance, which is essential for game logic and physics calculations.

The benchmark data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this system. At 1080p, where the GPU load is lower, the average frame rates are extremely high (425 FPS at Low, 294 FPS at High). These numbers indicate that the CPU can feed frames to the GPU at a rate that exceeds what most displays can show. The CPU's 3DMark single-thread score of 1269 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6739 demonstrate its exceptional per-core performance, which is critical for maintaining high frame rates in games that rely on a single main thread.

The CPU's overall performance is also reflected in its average benchmark score of 54762, which places it in the 91st percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF, scores 55093, a negligible 0.6% difference. This indicates that the 9900X3D is at the top of the performance spectrum for gaming workloads. In Inside, the CPU's role is to ensure that the GPU is never starved of data, and the data confirms that this is achieved with ease. The lack of any frame rate plateau at lower resolutions proves that the CPU is not a limiting factor, allowing the RTX 4080 to operate at its full potential.