Inside

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER delivers a decisive experience in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016. Benchmark results place this combo at rank 279 out of 3716 tested combinations, putting it in the top 8% of all systems evaluated. For a game that is not graphically demanding by modern standards, this pairing produces extremely high frame rates across every resolution and setting tier, with the data showing that the GPU becomes the primary scaling factor as resolution increases, while the CPU’s 16 cores and 32 threads provide ample headroom even at lower settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 279 out of 3716 tested combinations places this system firmly in the upper echelon of the benchmark database. This percentile position reflects the raw capability of both components, but context matters: Inside is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer with a release date of 2016, and its rendering demands are modest by contemporary standards. The rank indicates that this combination outperforms roughly 92.5% of all tested pairings, which is expected given the hardware involved. The CPU alone sits in the 95th percentile versus all tested CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 75779. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 at 75738 (0.1% lower), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D at 75716 (0.1% lower), the AMD EPYC 8224P at 75582 (0.3% lower), and the Intel Core Ultra 9 285 at 75488 (0.4% lower). These deltas are negligible, meaning the 9950X3D is statistically tied with those processors in synthetic workloads, but the real-world gaming performance is driven by other factors.

The GPU also contributes to this ranking. The RTX 4070 SUPER holds an 83rd percentile position versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 43223. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB at 43262 (0.1% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile at 43268 (0.1% higher), the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 at 43301 (0.2% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile at 43667 (1% higher). Again, these differences are within noise margins, suggesting that the 4070 SUPER performs at a level comparable to those products in general benchmarks. For Inside, the combination’s rank of 279 reflects not just component strength but also the game’s low requirements, which allow the hardware to run at very high frame rates without bottlenecking.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD104 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It packs 7168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output pipelines, along with 56 ray tracing cores and 224 tensor cores. The GPU’s base clock is 1980 MHz, with a boost clock of 2475 MHz, and memory runs at 1313 MHz, which translates to 21 Gbps effective on GDDR6X. The memory subsystem consists of 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. These specs are more than sufficient for a game like Inside, which does not demand high VRAM or extreme fill rates.

In the measured FPS data, the GPU’s role becomes apparent when comparing settings at a fixed resolution. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 110 at Ultra settings to 231 at Low settings, with Medium at 185 and High at 116. The jump from Low to Medium is substantial (from 231 to 185 FPS, a 19.9% drop), while the drop from Medium to High is steeper (185 to 116 FPS, a 37.3% reduction), and High to Ultra is minimal (116 to 110 FPS, a 5.2% drop). This pattern suggests that the High preset is where the GPU starts to hit a performance wall, likely due to pixel shading and memory bandwidth demands at 4K. The RTX 4070 SUPER’s 12 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor here, as Inside is a 2016 title with modest texture sizes, but the 192-bit bus and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth still matter for frame pacing at higher resolutions.

At 2560x1440, the same settings produce 368 FPS (Low), 294 FPS (Medium), 184 FPS (High), and 175 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Medium and High is 37.4%, and between High and Ultra is 4.9%, mirroring the 4K pattern. At 1920x1080, the numbers climb to 434 FPS (Low), 401 FPS (Medium), 256 FPS (High), and 244 FPS (Ultra). Here, the difference between Low and Medium is only 7.6%, indicating that the GPU is no longer the sole bottleneck; the CPU and memory subsystem start to play a larger role. Across all resolutions, the RTX 4070 SUPER demonstrates that it can push Inside well beyond refresh rate territory, even at 4K Ultra, which is 110 FPS average.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 256 at 1920x1080 to 184 at 2560x1440 (a 28.1% decrease), and then to 116 at 3840x2160 (a 37.0% decrease from 1440p, or 54.7% from 1080p). At Low settings, the drops are 368 to 231 (37.2% from 1440p to 4K) and 434 to 368 (15.2% from 1080p to 1440p), with a total 46.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K. Medium settings show 401 to 294 (26.7% drop) and 294 to 185 (37.1% drop), totaling 53.9% from 1080p to 4K. Ultra settings drop from 244 to 175 (28.3%) and then to 110 (37.1%), a 54.9% total reduction.

These percentages indicate that the GPU is the primary limiting component as resolution increases. The RTX 4070 SUPER’s pixel rate is 198.0 GPixel/s and texture rate is 554.4 GTexel/s, which are fixed hardware limits that get taxed more heavily at higher resolutions. The fact that the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p is smaller (15-28% depending on settings) than the drop from 1440p to 4K (37% across all settings) suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s is sufficient at 1440p but becomes a constraint at 4K, especially with the 192-bit bus. The FP32 performance of 35.48 TFLOPS is not the bottleneck at 1080p, as evidenced by the 434 FPS Low result, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU’s compute and memory subsystems are working closer to their limits.

The scaling also reveals that the CPU is not a limiting factor at any resolution. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has a base clock of 4.30 GHz and a boost clock of 5.70 GHz, with 16 cores and 32 threads. Even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would typically be the bottleneck in less powerful systems, the combo still achieves 434 FPS, indicating that the processor’s single-thread and multi-thread performance is sufficient to feed the GPU at all settings. This is further supported by the CPU’s benchmark scores: 3DMark single-thread score of 1292, Cinebench R23 single-core of 2259, and Geekbench single-core of 3064. These numbers show that the 9950X3D has strong single-core performance, which is crucial for older games like Inside that may not utilize many threads.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the combo produces 434 FPS on Low settings, 401 FPS on Medium (with a minimum of 341 and maximum of 461), 256 FPS on High, and 244 FPS on Ultra. These numbers are all well above 240 Hz, meaning that any high-refresh-rate monitor will be saturated. The difference between Low and Medium is just 33 FPS (7.6%), but the jump to High costs 145 FPS (36.2% reduction from Medium). Ultra is only 12 FPS lower than High (4.7% reduction), suggesting diminishing returns from High to Ultra at this resolution. The minimum FPS of 341 on Medium indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays above 300 FPS, which is exceptional.

Moving to 2560x1440, the data shows 368 FPS on Low, 294 FPS on Medium (minimum 250, maximum 338), 184 FPS on High, and 175 FPS on Ultra. The Low to Medium drop is 74 FPS (20.1%), which is more pronounced than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is starting to feel the resolution increase. The Medium to High drop is 110 FPS (37.4%), and High to Ultra is 9 FPS (4.9%). At this resolution, the combo still delivers above 144 Hz on all settings, which is ideal for 1440p 144Hz monitors. The minimum FPS of 250 on Medium ensures smooth gameplay even in the most complex scenes.

At 3840x2160, the highest resolution, the average FPS drops to 231 on Low, 185 on Medium (minimum 157, maximum 213), 116 on High, and 110 on Ultra. The Low to Medium drop is 46 FPS (19.9%), Medium to High is 69 FPS (37.3%), and High to Ultra is 6 FPS (5.2%). At 4K, the combo still manages above 100 FPS on all settings, which is impressive for a game from 2016 but expected given the hardware. The minimum FPS of 157 on Medium is particularly noteworthy, as it shows that even the lowest frame rate at 4K Medium is above 144 Hz. The pattern across all resolutions is consistent: Medium offers a significant improvement over Low in visual quality with a moderate FPS cost, while High and Ultra provide diminishing returns.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor from the 9000 series, based on the Zen 5 architecture with the Granite Ridge codename. It operates on the AMD Socket AM5 platform, with a TDP of 170 W, and features a 4 nm process node from TSMC. The CPU has 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and a total of 128 MB of L3 cache. Its memory support includes DDR5 with a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. The processor’s boost clock of 5.70 GHz is among the highest available, and its base clock of 4.30 GHz ensures consistent performance under load.

For Inside, the CPU’s role is primarily to maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions and settings, where the GPU is not fully saturated. The benchmark data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 434 FPS, which is likely CPU-bound in many scenarios. The 9950X3D’s single-thread performance, as measured by a 3DMark single-thread score of 1292, a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2259, and a Geekbench single-core score of 3064, is strong enough to handle the game’s logic and physics without bottlenecking. The multi-thread performance is also exceptional, with Cinebench R23 multi-core at 42018 and Geekbench multi-core at 26736, but Inside likely does not utilize more than a few cores, so the single-thread scores are more relevant.

The CPU’s cache configuration, particularly the 128 MB L3 cache, can help with game data access patterns, but for a 2016 puzzle platformer, the impact is minimal. The processor’s PCIe Gen 5 interface with 24 lanes (CPU only) ensures that the GPU has full bandwidth, though the RTX 4070 SUPER uses PCIe 4.0 x16, which is more than sufficient. The memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s is also not a constraint, as the game’s memory footprint is small. In synthetic benchmarks, the 9950X3D’s nearest rivals are all within 0.4% of its average score, indicating that there is no meaningful performance gap between this processor and the next-best options. For Inside, the CPU is effectively overkill, but it ensures that the GPU is never starved for data, even at 1080p Low where frame rates exceed 400 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1920x1080, all settings are playable, but the Medium preset offers the best balance: it delivers 401 FPS average with a minimum of 341 FPS, which is well above any monitor’s refresh rate. The visual improvement from Low to Medium is significant, and the FPS cost is only 33 FPS (7.6%). High and Ultra provide minimal visual gains over Medium (256 and 244 FPS respectively), but the 145 FPS drop from Medium to High is not worth the marginal fidelity increase for a game like Inside. Therefore, Medium is recommended at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again stands out with 294 FPS average and a minimum of 250 FPS. This is above 240 Hz, making it suitable for high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors. High settings drop to 184 FPS, which is still above 144 Hz, but the 37.4% reduction from Medium is substantial. Ultra at 175 FPS is nearly identical to High, so there is no reason to choose Ultra over High unless the user prefers maximum quality. For most users, Medium at 1440p provides the best experience, as the frame rate is high enough to saturate any 1440p display, and the visual difference from High is noticeable but not critical.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes. Low settings produce 231 FPS, which is above 144 Hz, but Medium delivers 185 FPS with a minimum of 157 FPS, still above 144 Hz. High settings drop to 116 FPS, which is below 144 Hz but above 100 Hz, and Ultra is at 110 FPS. For 4K gaming, Medium is the recommended preset because it maintains a frame rate above 144 Hz (185 FPS average, 157 FPS minimum), while High and Ultra dip below that threshold. The visual improvement from Medium to High at 4K is less pronounced than at lower resolutions due to the higher pixel density, so the FPS cost (69 FPS, 37.3%) is not justified for most users. If a user has a 120 Hz 4K monitor, High could be considered, as 116 FPS is close to 120, but Medium provides a safer margin.

Across all resolutions, the data consistently shows that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo in Inside. It offers a significant visual upgrade over Low while maintaining frame rates that are at least 185 FPS at 4K and above 294 FPS at 1440p. High and Ultra provide diminishing returns, with the largest FPS drop occurring between Medium and High at every resolution (37.3% to 37.4%). The minimum FPS values for Medium (341 at 1080p, 250 at 1440p, 157 at 4K) are all above 144 Hz, ensuring smooth gameplay without drops. For users with 240 Hz monitors at 1080p or 1440p, Medium is the only sensible choice, as it delivers the maximum frame rate that the display can show while preserving visual quality. At 4K, Medium is still recommended for 144 Hz displays, but those with 120 Hz panels could opt for High without significant issues.