Inside

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT pairing delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016. The measured data shows that this combination is heavily GPU-bound at higher settings, while the powerful CPU ensures no bottleneck at lower presets. The benchmark results indicate a system capable of maxing out the game at all tested resolutions, with the primary consideration being whether to prioritize visual fidelity or raw frame rate headroom.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal preset depends on the target display refresh rate and resolution. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset produces an average of 235.7 FPS, while High yields 246.2 FPS, a marginal difference of approximately 4.5%. Given the minimal performance gap, Ultra is the recommended choice for 1080p users, as the data shows it delivers a fully playable experience without sacrificing visual quality. The Low preset at 436.8 FPS is only relevant for extreme high-refresh-rate displays exceeding 240 Hz, which is an uncommon scenario.

At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves 176.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 168.3 FPS, a difference of roughly 5%. Both are well above the 144 Hz threshold, making Ultra the preferred setting for 1440p monitors. The Medium preset at 286.2 FPS offers no practical benefit unless targeting a 240 Hz panel. For 4K (3840x2160), the High preset averages 112.8 FPS, while Ultra averages 108.3 FPS, a reduction of about 4%. Both settings exceed 100 FPS, so Ultra is again the recommended choice for immersive visuals, provided the display supports it. The Medium preset at 178.9 FPS and Low at 224.7 FPS are unnecessary for standard 60 Hz or 120 Hz 4K displays, but they do offer headroom for future titles or demanding scenes.

The data suggests that the High preset is the best balance across all resolutions, as it consistently sits within 4-5% of Ultra while providing a small FPS buffer. However, because the absolute frame rates are so high, the visual gains from Ultra likely outweigh the negligible performance cost. For users with variable refresh rate monitors, the Ultra preset is the clear winner at every resolution, as the minimum frame rates are not recorded but the averages indicate no risk of dropping below playable thresholds.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT plays a decisive role in this game’s performance, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. The GPU features 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, delivering 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. For a 2016 puzzle platformer, memory capacity and bandwidth are far beyond requirements, meaning VRAM limitations are nonexistent in this title. The clock speeds—a base of 1387 MHz, game clock of 2025 MHz, and boost up to 2394 MHz—provide ample compute throughput for the game’s simple geometry and lighting.

The benchmark results show a clear pattern: as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K, the FPS drops proportionally across all settings, indicating that the GPU is the limiting component. At 1080p High, the system produces 246.2 FPS, but at 4K High, it drops to 112.8 FPS, a reduction of 54%. This scaling is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the CPU (Ryzen 9 9950X3D) has ample headroom. The RX 7900 XT’s FP32 compute of 51.48 TFLOPS and pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s are more than sufficient for Inside’s 2D-like rendering, but the data shows that the GPU still becomes the bottleneck at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 108.3.

The GPU’s 84 ray accelerators and 5376 shading units are unused in this title, as Inside does not employ ray tracing or heavy shader work. However, the raw rasterization performance is what drives the frame rates. The transition from Low to Ultra at 4K reduces FPS from 224.7 to 108.3, a 52% drop, which highlights how the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are taxed by higher-quality textures and post-processing effects. The 20 GB memory buffer ensures zero stutter from texture swapping, but the data does not indicate any memory-related performance cliffs.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound profile. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 235.7 FPS; at 1440p Ultra, it falls to 168.3 FPS (a 29% drop); and at 4K Ultra, it reaches 108.3 FPS (a further 36% drop from 1440p). This non-linear decline is typical of pixel-rate-limited scenarios, where the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints. The same pattern appears at High settings: 246.2 FPS at 1080p, 176.6 FPS at 1440p (28% lower), and 112.8 FPS at 4K (36% lower from 1440p).

The data suggests that the CPU is never the bottleneck in this configuration. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 436.8 FPS, which is an extremely high frame rate that would stress most CPUs, yet the Ryzen 9 9950X3D with its 16 cores and 32 threads, boosting to 5.70 GHz, handles it without issue. The single-thread performance, as measured by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 8430, is more than adequate for the game’s physics and logic. The 128 MB of shared L3 cache further reduces latency, ensuring that even at 436.8 FPS, the frame pacing remains smooth.

The scaling from Medium to High at 4K is a 58% drop (178.9 to 112.8 FPS), while from High to Ultra it is only a 4% drop. This indicates that the Medium preset is the most efficient in terms of FPS per visual quality, but the High and Ultra presets are close enough that the GPU’s headroom is not a concern. The 4K results show that the system can maintain over 100 FPS at maximum settings, which is exceptional for a game of this era, and the limiting factor is purely the GPU’s rasterization throughput.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 125th out of 1671 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the top 7.5% of all configurations. This high ranking is driven by the CPU’s exceptional multi-threaded performance—its average benchmark score is 71660, which is 0.9% higher than the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 and 1.8% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X. The GPU also contributes, with an average score of 38358, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs.

The ranking is notable because Inside is not a demanding title, and the combo’s position reflects the raw power of both components. The CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6517P, scores 1.9% higher on average, but that difference is negligible in real-world gaming. The GPU’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (0% delta) and the NVIDIA CMP 70HX (0.3% delta), indicating that the RX 7900 XT is on par with these in synthetic benchmarks, though its 20 GB VRAM is unique among them.

The combo’s rank of 125 suggests that only a few other pairings—likely those with even higher-end GPUs or more overclocked CPUs—achieve better frame rates in this game. Given that the measured FPS at 4K Ultra is 108.3, the system is already pushing the limits of what the RX 7900 XT can do at that resolution. The data shows that upgrading to a faster GPU would yield diminishing returns, as the CPU is not the limiting factor. This ranking solidifies the combo as a top-tier choice for high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming and smooth 4K play.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for a 144 Hz 1440p monitor?

A: The Ultra preset at 2560x1440 averages 168.3 FPS, which exceeds the 144 Hz refresh rate. The High preset at 176.6 FPS offers a slight buffer, but Ultra is recommended because the visual quality improvement is minimal in terms of FPS cost (about 5%).

*Q: Does the 20 GB VRAM on the RX 7900 XT matter for Inside?*

A: No. The game’s maximum memory usage is well below 20 GB, and the benchmark data shows no performance differences attributable to VRAM capacity. The 800.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is also more than sufficient for this title.

Q: Why does the FPS drop so much from 1080p to 4K?

A: The data shows a GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, FPS drops from 246.2 at 1080p to 112.8 at 4K, a 54% reduction. This is due to the increased pixel count requiring more fill rate and memory bandwidth from the GPU, while the CPU has ample headroom.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 125th out of 1671 combos, placing it in the top 7.5%. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 71660, which is 1.8% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, and the GPU’s score of 38358 is in the 82nd percentile.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p Low settings?

A: The data suggests neither is heavily bottlenecked. At 1080p Low, the system hits 436.8 FPS, which is extremely high. The CPU’s single-thread score of 8430 in Cinebench R23 indicates it can handle such frame rates without becoming a limiting factor.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between High and Ultra at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, High averages 112.8 FPS, while Ultra averages 108.3 FPS, a difference of 4.5%. Both are above 100 FPS, so the Ultra preset is recommended for the highest visual quality.