Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle platformer that places almost no sustained stress on modern flagship hardware, and the measured results for the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 confirm this. The data shows a combo that is firmly in the top tier of the database, ranking 8th out of 1,671 tested combinations, with a frame rate ceiling that is rarely challenged by the game’s visual demands. The analysis below breaks down how to configure the game for the best experience, how the CPU and GPU share the workload, and what the raw frame rates reveal about the system's behavior across resolutions and presets.

Settings Recommendations

For the RTX 4090 and Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the optimal settings balance is clearly the High preset at 1440p or 4K, depending on the display. The measured data shows that the High preset at 2560x1440 delivers 232 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any high-refresh-rate monitor, while the jump to 3840x2160 High still holds 145.3 FPS, ensuring a smooth experience on 4K displays. The Ultra preset offers only marginal visual gains over High in this title, but it costs a measurable performance hit: at 4K, Ultra drops to 137.6 FPS, a 5.3% reduction from High's 145.3 FPS. At 1440p, the gap widens slightly, with Ultra at 221.2 FPS versus High's 232 FPS, a 4.7% difference.

The Medium preset provides a middle ground that is rarely necessary given the hardware, but the data shows it is still capable: 236.1 FPS at 4K and 360.9 FPS at 1440p. However, the Low preset reveals the game's CPU-bound nature at lower resolutions, where the RTX 4090 is not the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system hits 435.3 FPS, which is far beyond any practical refresh rate, but the scaling from Low to High at 1080p (435.3 to 323.9 FPS) shows that visual fidelity comes at a cost. The recommendation is to use High as the default preset, as it provides the best compromise between the visual features that matter in a moody, atmospheric platformer and the frame rate headroom needed for consistent performance. For users with 240Hz or 360Hz displays, dropping to Medium at 1440p (360.9 FPS) is the only way to approach those refresh rates, but for the vast majority of setups, High at 4K is the sweet spot.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Inside with this CPU and GPU combo?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 on the High preset delivers 232 FPS, making it the best balance of visual quality and frame rate. For 4K displays, the High preset still achieves 145.3 FPS, which is excellent for a cinematic platformer.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Low to Ultra settings?

A: At 1920x1080, the drop from Low (435.3 FPS) to Ultra (308.3 FPS) represents a 29.2% reduction in average frame rate. At 4K, the same settings comparison shows a more significant drop from 294.7 FPS to 137.6 FPS, a 53.3% reduction, indicating that the GPU becomes a larger factor at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 overkill for Inside?

A: The benchmark results indicate that the RTX 4090 is not fully utilized at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 435.3 FPS, which suggests the CPU is the primary limiter. The GPU's 24 GB of VRAM is far more than the game requires, but the high frame rates ensure the hardware is never a bottleneck.

Q: Does the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's large cache matter for this game?

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has 128 MB of shared L3 cache, and the benchmark data shows it ranks 96th percentile among all CPUs. While Inside is not a cache-sensitive title, the processor's single-thread score of 8,430 in Cinebench R23 indicates strong per-core performance, which helps sustain high frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios like 1080p Low.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 4K with the Ultra preset?

A: The measured data shows an average of 137.6 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This is still well above 60 FPS for smooth gameplay, but it is the lowest result in the measured set, confirming that Ultra is the most demanding configuration.

Q: How does this combo rank against other systems in the database?

A: The combination ranks 8th out of 1,671 tested combos for this game, putting it in the top 0.5% of all systems. The CPU's average benchmark score of 71,660 is 0.9% ahead of the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 and 1.8% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, showing it is among the fastest processors available.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 plays a secondary role in Inside's performance, but its capabilities define the upper limits of what is achievable. The GPU features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, which is far beyond the requirements of a 2016 puzzle platformer. The boost clock of 2520 MHz, combined with 16,384 shading units, allows the card to push massive frame rates, but the measured FPS data suggests that the GPU is often waiting on the CPU. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 435.3 FPS, which is a clear indicator that the CPU is the bottleneck, as the RTX 4090 is capable of far higher output in less demanding titles.

The RTX 4090's benchmark scores reflect its raw power, with a Passmark G3D score of 38,194 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9,223, placing it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs. However, in Inside, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 137.6 FPS, which is a 53.3% reduction from 4K Low (294.7 FPS), showing that the GPU is now the limiting factor. The 24 GB VRAM is never taxed, but the pixel throughput required at 3840x2160 with Ultra effects starts to engage the card's 443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate. The data shows that the RTX 4090 is overbuilt for this game at 1080p and 1440p, but it becomes the primary driver of performance at 4K, where its architecture's strengths are finally visible.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of how the system scales across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 435.3 FPS on Low, 398.5 FPS on Medium, 323.9 FPS on High, and 308.3 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra is 29.2%, which is relatively modest, indicating that the CPU is keeping pace even with the highest settings. The 1080p results are all far above any practical refresh rate, making this resolution almost irrelevant for this hardware unless chasing extreme frame rates.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high: 388.9 FPS on Low, 360.9 FPS on Medium, 232 FPS on High, and 221.2 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is only 7.2%, but the jump from Medium to High is a 35.7% reduction, suggesting that High settings introduce significant GPU workload. At 1440p, even the Ultra preset stays above 220 FPS, which is more than enough for any current display technology. The performance differences between Medium and High at 1440p are the most notable in the dataset, as the game's visual effects start to engage the GPU more heavily.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are 294.7 FPS on Low, 236.1 FPS on Medium, 145.3 FPS on High, and 137.6 FPS on Ultra. The 4K results show the largest scaling penalties, with Ultra delivering 53.3% less performance than Low. The drop from Medium to High at 4K is 38.4%, which is a significant step, while the difference between High and Ultra is only 5.3%. This indicates that Ultra settings at 4K are not worth the additional GPU load, as the visual improvements are likely imperceptible in a game with this art style. The 4K High preset at 145.3 FPS is the standout result, offering a fluid experience on high-refresh-rate 4K monitors.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the changing nature of the bottleneck in this system. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 435.3 FPS, but at 4K Low, it drops to 294.7 FPS, a 32.3% reduction. This is a relatively mild drop for a 4x increase in pixel count, strongly suggesting that the CPU is the primary limiter at lower resolutions. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D's single-thread performance, evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 8,430, is sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p, but the frame rate ceiling is still imposed by the processor.

As settings increase, the GPU becomes more dominant. At High settings, the drop from 1080p (323.9 FPS) to 4K (145.3 FPS) is 55.1%, which is a much steeper decline and indicates that the RTX 4090's workload is now the limiting factor. The Ultra preset shows a similar pattern, with a 55.4% reduction from 1080p (308.3 FPS) to 4K (137.6 FPS). This scaling behavior is typical for a game that is not graphically demanding; the GPU is only fully engaged at 4K with high settings, while lower resolutions are bound by the CPU's ability to process game logic and draw calls.

The data also shows that the scaling from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced than from 1080p to 1440p. For High settings, the drop from 1440p (232 FPS) to 4K (145.3 FPS) is 37.4%, while the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 28.4%. This suggests that the GPU is beginning to hit its limits at 4K, even though the absolute frame rates remain high. The RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 1.01 TB/s of memory bandwidth are more than sufficient for this title, but the pixel fill rate requirements at 3840x2160 with Ultra effects start to show diminishing returns. Overall, the resolution scaling confirms that Inside is a CPU-bound game at 1080p and 1440p, transitioning to a GPU-bound scenario only at 4K with the highest presets.