Inside

Inside is a 2D puzzle-platformer that scales surprisingly hard with rendering resolution, and the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 paired with the AMD Radeon 890M shows a clear, tiered performance curve across settings. The measured data indicates that this iGPU combo is capable of smooth play at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K requires careful settings selection to stay fluid.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark rows for this combo reveal a predictable trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate, with the most balanced experience appearing at Medium settings across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers an average of 111 FPS with a minimum of 94 FPS and a maximum of 127 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for a puzzle platformer where precise timing matters. Low settings at 1080p push the average to 139 FPS, but the jump from Low to Medium only costs 28 FPS on average while providing a substantial visual upgrade in a game that relies on atmospheric lighting and shadow work.

For 2560x1440, Medium again proves to be the sweet spot, producing an average of 80 FPS with a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS. This is the highest resolution where the combo maintains a consistent 60+ FPS floor at Medium settings. High settings at 1440p drop the average to 50 FPS, which is playable but introduces noticeable dips that could affect the game’s timing-based puzzles. Ultra at 1440p falls to 47 FPS average, making it a less desirable choice for responsive gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically. Medium settings yield an average of 50 FPS with a minimum of 43 FPS and a maximum of 58 FPS, which is borderline for a game that rewards smooth motion. Low settings at 4K provide a much safer 63 FPS average, while High and Ultra drop to 31 FPS and 30 FPS respectively, making them unsuitable for any serious playthrough. The data suggests that for 4K displays, Low settings are the only reliable option for maintaining a fluid experience, while Medium could be considered if the user tolerates occasional frame dips below 45 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

In the full database of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Inside, this pairing ranks 2714 out of 2887 total combos. That places it in the bottom 6% of all tested systems, which is expected given that the Radeon 890M is an integrated graphics solution rather than a discrete GPU. The rank reflects that while the combo handles 1080p and 1440p well, it struggles at 4K compared to systems with dedicated graphics cards.

The CPU component, however, is far from a bottleneck. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 sits at the 95th percentile among all CPUs in the database, meaning it outperforms 95% of processors tested. Its average benchmark score of 77740 places it within 1.6% of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX and the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P, and it actually beats the Intel Core i9-14900K by 1.7% in average score. This suggests that the 395 is more than capable of feeding frames to the integrated GPU, and any performance limitations in Inside come from the graphics side.

The Radeon 890M, by contrast, sits at the 45th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 9210. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon Vega 8 (0.1% slower), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (0.7% faster), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 (0.9% faster). This places the 890M in the same performance tier as decade-old discrete GPUs, which explains why it cannot maintain high frame rates at 4K in this title.

GPU Role

The Radeon 890M is an integrated graphics processor based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It features 1024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operation pipelines, along with 16 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 400 MHz and boosts to 2900 MHz, which gives it a pixel rate of 92.80 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 185.6 GTexel/s. Its FP32 performance is rated at 5.939 TFLOPS, with FP16 performance matching at 5.939 TFLOPS (1:1).

Memory is entirely system-shared, with the GPU drawing from the same LPDDR5X pool as the CPU over a quad-channel bus. The memory bandwidth is listed as system dependent, but the CPU’s 256.0 GB/s bandwidth provides a generous ceiling for the iGPU to work with. The Radeon 890M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which means it fully supports the modern rendering paths that Inside can utilize.

In the context of this game, the 890M’s performance follows a clear pattern: at 1080p Low, it achieves 139 FPS average, but this drops to 111 FPS at Medium and 69 FPS at High. The gap between High and Ultra at 1080p is only 3 FPS (69 vs 66), suggesting that Ultra settings introduce minimal additional GPU load over High. At 1440p, the same pattern holds with Low at 100 FPS, Medium at 80 FPS, High at 50 FPS, and Ultra at 47 FPS. The 4K results show the GPU hitting its limits, with Low at 63 FPS, Medium at 50 FPS, and High/Ultra both hovering around 30 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest performance. Low settings produce an average of 139 FPS, which is more than double the 60 FPS target. Medium settings reduce this to 111 FPS average, with a minimum of 94 FPS and a maximum of 127 FPS, providing a smooth experience even during scenes with heavy particle effects. High settings drop to 69 FPS average, still above 60 FPS but with less headroom. Ultra settings yield 66 FPS average, nearly identical to High, indicating that the Ultra preset’s additional effects are not particularly demanding on this GPU.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low settings achieve 100 FPS average, which remains excellent for a 1440p panel. Medium settings deliver 80 FPS average with a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS, keeping the experience above the 60 FPS threshold with minimal dips. High settings fall to 50 FPS average, which is playable but noticeably less smooth. Ultra settings drop further to 47 FPS average, making it the least attractive option at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the 890M begins to show its integrated nature. Low settings produce 63 FPS average, which is just above 60 FPS and acceptable for 4K. Medium settings yield 50 FPS average with a minimum of 43 FPS and a maximum of 58 FPS, meaning the frame rate will dip below 45 FPS during busy scenes. High settings drop to 31 FPS average, and Ultra settings hit 30 FPS average, both of which are too low for a game that requires precise platforming inputs. The measured data shows a clear cliff between Medium and High at 4K, with a 19 FPS drop that cannot be recovered by any CPU-side optimization.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Inside at 4K smoothly?

A: Only at Low settings, where it achieves 63 FPS average. Medium settings drop to 50 FPS average with a 43 FPS minimum, which may cause noticeable stutter during intense scenes. High and Ultra settings are not viable at 4K, producing 31 FPS and 30 FPS averages respectively.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: 1920x1080 at Medium settings provides the best balance, offering 111 FPS average with a 94 FPS minimum. This ensures smooth gameplay while maintaining visual quality. 2560x1440 at Medium is also excellent at 80 FPS average, making it a good choice for users with higher-resolution displays.

Q: How does the Radeon 890M compare to other GPUs in the database?

A: The 890M sits at the 45th percentile among all GPUs. It performs nearly identically to the AMD Radeon Vega 8 (0.1% faster), and is within 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 and GTX 465 in average benchmark scores.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck for this game?

A: No. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 ranks at the 95th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77740. It outperforms the Intel Core i9-14900K by 1.7% in average score, so the CPU is not limiting performance in Inside.

Q: What is the difference between High and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: The difference is minimal. High settings produce 69 FPS average, while Ultra produces 66 FPS average, a gap of only 3 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset adds little GPU load over High in this particular game.

Q: Does the combo support modern graphics APIs for this game?

A: Yes. The Radeon 890M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which covers all rendering paths that Inside can utilize.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Strix Halo. It operates at a base clock of 3.00 GHz and boosts up to 5.10 GHz, with a 55 W TDP. The CPU is built on a 4 nm process at TSMC with a die size of 2x 70.6 mm². Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache, providing ample fast memory for game logic and physics calculations.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 395 achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 35314 and a single-core score of 2044, along with a Geekbench multicore score of 20992 and single-core score of 2464. Its Passmark multithread score is 54934, with a single-thread score of 4147. These results place it at the 95th percentile among all CPUs, firmly in enthusiast territory.

For Inside, a game that is primarily GPU-bound, the CPU’s role is to maintain a stable frame pacing and handle the game’s physics and logic without introducing hitches. The 395’s high single-core performance (2044 in Cinebench R23 single-core) ensures that the main game thread runs efficiently, while its 16 cores provide ample headroom for background tasks and any multi-threaded elements of the game engine. The CPU’s 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth from the quad-channel LPDDR5X support also feeds the integrated GPU effectively, as evidenced by the smooth scaling between Low and Medium settings at 1440p and 1080p.

The measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not a limiting factor at any resolution. Even at 4K Low settings, where the GPU is heavily utilized, the combo maintains 63 FPS average, and the frame times remain consistent enough to avoid stutter. The gap between High and Ultra settings at all resolutions is small (3 FPS at 1080p, 3 FPS at 1440p, 1 FPS at 4K), indicating that the CPU can keep up with the GPU’s rendering demands regardless of the quality preset. This reflects the 395’s robust architecture, which pairs well with the 890M despite the latter’s modest position in the GPU rankings.