Inside

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 combination delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a puzzle platformer with modest graphical demands. Across the measured settings, this pairing produces frame rates that range from comfortably playable at 4K Ultra to exceptionally high at 1080p Low, indicating a system with substantial headroom. The data shows a configuration that scales predictably with resolution and settings, making it a strong candidate for high-refresh-rate displays.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is significant but follows a clear pattern. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 177.2 FPS at 1920x1080 to 126.2 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 29%, and then further to 77.7 FPS at 3840x2160, which is about 56% lower than the 1080p result. This scaling indicates that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases, although the absolute numbers remain high.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the spread between Low (349.8 FPS) and Ultra (169.8 FPS) is 180 FPS. At 4K, the same comparison shows Low at 158.8 FPS and Ultra at 78 FPS, a difference of 80.8 FPS. This suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU has enough headroom to push very high frame rates, but the GPU workload at 4K compresses the overall performance envelope.

Interestingly, the 4K High and Ultra settings produce nearly identical results, with 77.7 FPS and 78 FPS respectively. This plateau suggests that the game’s Ultra preset at 4K does not introduce a meaningful additional GPU burden beyond High, or that the engine is hitting a bottleneck elsewhere. The Medium preset at 4K, at 126.6 FPS, shows a clear step up, indicating that the transition from Medium to High carries a substantial performance cost.

The 1440p results show a balanced scaling pattern. Medium delivers 201.5 FPS, which is 60% higher than High at 126.2 FPS. This makes 1440p Medium a sweet spot for high refresh rates, as it maintains fluidity while offering better visual fidelity than Low. At 1080p, even Ultra exceeds 169 FPS, meaning the system is rarely constrained by the CPU at this resolution.

GPU Role

The RTX 5060 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a boost clock of 2497 MHz. Its 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for a game like Inside that does not feature heavy texture streaming or large open-world assets. The GPU’s 3840 shading units and 120 tensor cores handle the game’s lighting and post-processing effects without difficulty.

The benchmark results show the RTX 5060 performing near its direct rivals. Its average benchmark score of 30109 places it just 0% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (30097) and 0.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile (29928). The data indicates a tightly contested mid-range segment, with the RTX 5060 offering no meaningful advantage over the RX 7700 XT in raw compute terms.

In Inside, the GPU’s role becomes more pronounced at 4K. The drop from 126.6 FPS at Medium to 77.7 FPS at High represents a 39% performance loss, which aligns with the increased pixel shader workload. The fact that 4K Ultra (78 FPS) matches 4K High suggests the GPU is not the sole bottleneck at these settings, but the overall frame rates remain well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

The RTX 5060’s 73rd percentile ranking among all GPUs underscores its position as a capable mid-range part. With a pixel rate of 119.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 299.6 GTexel/s, it has sufficient throughput for the game’s side-scrolling perspective, which typically renders fewer on-screen elements than 3D shooters or simulators.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), with a base clock of 4.30 GHz and a boost clock of 5.70 GHz. Its 128 MB of shared L3 cache is a defining feature that aids in scenarios with large working sets, though Inside is not particularly cache-sensitive. The CPU’s single-thread performance, as measured by a Passmark single-thread score of 4737, is strong and sufficient for the game’s logic and physics.

Multi-threaded performance is exceptional, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 59712 and a Geekbench multicore score of 22515. This places the CPU in the 96th percentile of all processors. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, scores 70420 on average, which is 1.8% lower than the 9950X3D’s 71660 average benchmark score. The Intel Core i7-14700KF trails by 2.2% with a score of 70104.

In Inside, the CPU is rarely the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 349.8 FPS, which is close to the practical limit for many displays. Even at 4K Ultra, the CPU’s 16 cores and high boost clock ensure that frame pacing remains consistent, with no observed min FPS data to suggest stutters. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1292 and the 3DMark 2-thread score of 2549 indicate strong per-core performance, which is more relevant for this game than raw multi-thread throughput.

The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s over dual-channel DDR5 is not a constraint here, as the game’s asset loading is modest. The 170 W TDP reflects a high-power part, but the data shows no thermal throttling effects in the frame rate measurements.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing the experience. At 4K, the Medium preset (126.6 FPS) offers a significant improvement over High (77.7 FPS) while likely maintaining most visual features. The step from Medium to High costs 48.9 FPS, which is a steep price for the fidelity gain. For users with 4K displays, Medium is the recommended choice to preserve high frame rates.

At 1440p, the High preset (126.2 FPS) is a strong option, but Medium (201.5 FPS) provides a much larger margin for high refresh rates. Given that the game is a puzzle platformer with a slower pace, High at 1440p is acceptable, but Medium ensures headroom for action-heavy sequences. The Ultra preset at 1440p (123.1 FPS) offers only a marginal improvement over High while costing 3.1 FPS, making it a poor trade-off.

For 1080p users, the Ultra preset (169.8 FPS) is the best choice, as it still exceeds 165 Hz refresh rates. The Low preset (349.8 FPS) is unnecessary unless targeting extremely high refresh rates beyond 300 Hz. The data shows that at 1080p, the system is never CPU-bound, so enabling higher settings does not risk frame time spikes.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset should be avoided for general play, as the visual downgrade is not justified by the performance gain, except at 4K where it reaches 158.8 FPS. The Medium preset is the universal recommendation, as it delivers at least 126.6 FPS at 4K and 280.2 FPS at 1080p, demonstrating a balanced trade-off between quality and speed.

FAQ

*Q: Is the RTX 5060 sufficient for 4K gaming in Inside?*

A: Yes. The measured data shows 77.7 FPS at 4K High and 126.6 FPS at 4K Medium, both above the 60 FPS playability threshold, with Medium offering a substantial margin.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9950X3D compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The 9950X3D has an average benchmark score of 71660, which is 1.8% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (70420) and 2.2% higher than the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70104).

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The 1080p Low result of 349.8 FPS indicates the CPU can feed the GPU far beyond typical display refresh rates, and the 16-core processor’s single-thread score of 4737 is ample for the game’s logic.

Q: What is the performance difference between 4K High and 4K Ultra?

A: The difference is negligible, with 77.7 FPS at High and 78 FPS at Ultra, a delta of 0.3 FPS, suggesting the Ultra preset adds minimal GPU load at this resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 5060’s benchmark score compare to the RX 7700 XT?

A: The RTX 5060 scores 30109, which is exactly 0% different from the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT’s 30097, indicating near-identical synthetic performance.

Q: Which preset is best for 1440p high refresh rate displays?

A: Medium at 1440p delivers 201.5 FPS, which is 60% higher than High (126.2 FPS), making it the best option for displays with refresh rates above 144 Hz.