Inside

The Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a 2D puzzle platformer that is far more demanding on raw frame rates than typical titles in its genre. The benchmark data reveals that this combination is heavily overqualified for the game’s visual demands, with every tested configuration exceeding 100 FPS. For the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, the High preset is the clear recommendation across all resolutions. At 1080p, High produces 244.4 FPS, which is a marginal 3.1% reduction from the 252.2 FPS average of Medium and Ultra, yet it offers noticeably better graphical quality. At 1440p, High yields 178.3 FPS, and even at 4K, it maintains a fluid 114.6 FPS. The data indicates that Ultra settings provide no meaningful advantage over High in this title, with the performance cost being disproportionate to any visual gains. Conversely, Low settings unlock higher frame rates but sacrifice the atmospheric lighting and shadow details that define Inside’s aesthetic. Therefore, High is recommended as it stays well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay while preserving the game’s intended visual presentation.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Inside at 4K with high settings?*

A: Yes. The measured data shows an average of 114.6 FPS at 3840x2160 with High settings. This is comfortably above the standard 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay, indicating the GPU has ample headroom at this resolution.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 282.1 FPS, while Ultra averages 173.1 FPS. This represents a 63.0% performance drop when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings, showing that the game’s visual options have a significant impact on frame rates.

*Q: Is the RTX 5070 the limiting factor in this configuration for Inside?*

A: No. The evidence suggests the CPU is the primary constraint at lower resolutions. For instance, at 1080p, the frame rate only increases from 237 FPS on Ultra to 316.2 FPS on Low, a 33.4% gain. If the GPU were the sole bottleneck, the scaling between settings would be more linear. The CPU’s 4 cores and 8 threads are likely reaching their limit in this title.

*Q: How does the combo rank against other tested systems for Inside?*

A: The combination ranks 347th out of 1671 tested combos. This places it in the top 20.8% of all systems tested for this specific game, which is a strong result given the CPU’s modest core count.

Q: What is the frame rate at 4K with Medium settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings is 177.1 FPS. This is significantly higher than the High preset’s 114.6 FPS, suggesting that Medium offers a substantial performance boost at 4K if higher frame rates are prioritized.

Q: Does the game utilize the CPU’s multi-threading capabilities well?

A: The data implies yes. The i3-12100F’s 8 threads produce a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912 and a 3DMark 16-thread score of 4051. The fact that 4K Ultra still achieves 106.2 FPS indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU enough data, but the diminishing returns from Low to Ultra at 1080p highlight that per-core performance is more critical than raw thread count for this title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is more than sufficient for Inside’s relatively simple 2D visuals. The GPU’s base clock of 2325 MHz and boost clock of 2512 MHz are high, but the game’s engine does not appear to be heavily shader-bound. This is evident in the Passmark scores: the DirectX 11 score of 277 is significantly higher than the DirectX 12 score of 108, suggesting the game’s rendering pipeline is more compatible with older APIs. The GPU’s 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power is largely underutilized; the primary role of the RTX 5070 here is to push very high frame rates at high resolutions, which it achieves admirably. At 4K High, the GPU maintains 114.6 FPS, showing that even at the highest resolution tested, the graphics card is not fully stressed. The data suggests that the RTX 5070’s raw power is being held back by the CPU in this specific title, as the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is not as steep as expected for a GPU-bound scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 achieves a rank of 347 out of 1671 tested combos for Inside. This places it in the 79.2nd percentile of all systems tested, which is a strong showing. This ranking is particularly impressive when considering the CPU’s position in the broader market. The i3-12100F has a percentile rank of 72 against all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (with a negligible 0.1% performance difference) and the Intel Core i7-7700K (which it beats by 1.8%). This indicates that the CPU’s performance in synthetic benchmarks is competitive with much more expensive parts. The high combo rank in Inside suggests that game performance is not solely dependent on the CPU’s multi-core might, but rather on its strong single-thread performance (a Geekbench single-core score of 2224) and the GPU’s ability to render frames quickly. The RTX 5070’s own percentile rank of 83 against all GPUs further solidifies that this is a high-end pairing, even if the CPU is a budget-oriented part.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases, which is indicative of a CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions. At High settings, the frame rate drops from 244.4 FPS at 1920x1080 to 178.3 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 27.0% decrease), and then to 114.6 FPS at 3840x2160 (a further 35.7% decrease from 1440p). This scaling suggests that while the GPU is becoming more stressed at 4K, the CPU is still able to provide enough data to maintain a playable frame rate. However, the story is different when looking at Low settings: 1080p Low yields 316.2 FPS, 1440p Low drops to 282.1 FPS (a 10.8% decrease), and 4K Low falls to 224.3 FPS (a 20.5% decrease from 1440p). The relatively small FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings (only 34.1 FPS) compared to the larger drop from 1440p to 4K (57.8 FPS) indicates that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p and 1440p, while the GPU begins to take over as the bottleneck at 4K. The fact that 4K Ultra still achieves 106.2 FPS confirms that the RTX 5070 is powerful enough to handle the game’s highest quality settings at 4K, but the CPU prevents it from reaching the same high frame rates it can achieve at lower resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset for this configuration is as follows. At 1920x1080, the average FPS are: 316.2 (Low), 289.2 (Medium), 244.4 (High), and 237 (Ultra). The performance difference between Low and Ultra is 79.2 FPS, or a 25.0% reduction. At 2560x1440, the averages are: 282.1 (Low), 262.7 (Medium), 178.3 (High), and 173.1 (Ultra). Here, the drop from Low to Ultra is 109 FPS, representing a 38.6% reduction. At 3840x2160, the averages are: 224.3 (Low), 177.1 (Medium), 114.6 (High), and 106.2 (Ultra). The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 118.1 FPS, a 52.7% reduction. This data shows that the cost of Ultra settings becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions, as the GPU is working harder while the CPU’s performance ceiling remains constant. Notably, the gap between High and Ultra settings is small at all resolutions (7.4 FPS at 1080p, 5.2 FPS at 1440p, and 8.4 FPS at 4K), suggesting that Ultra is not well-optimized relative to High for this game. The largest performance jump occurs between Medium and High at 1440p, where the FPS drops from 262.7 to 178.3, a 47.3% decrease, indicating that High settings introduce a significant graphical feature that is computationally expensive.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR5 memory are notable for a budget chip. In Inside, the CPU’s role is to manage the game’s physics and logic, which are not particularly demanding given the title’s 2D nature. However, the benchmark results indicate that the CPU’s single-thread performance is the primary determinant of frame rates at lower resolutions. The processor’s 3DMark single-thread score of 893 and Geekbench single-core score of 2224 are strong, but the 4-core limit becomes apparent when comparing 1080p Low (316.2 FPS) to 1080p Ultra (237 FPS). The fact that the FPS does not scale linearly with resolution at lower settings points to the CPU being the bottleneck. For instance, the CPU’s Passmark multi-thread score of 14015 is significantly lower than its single-thread score of 3444, which indicates that while it can handle multiple threads, it does not have the raw core count to maintain extremely high frame rates when the GPU is not the limiting factor. The data suggests that for a game like Inside, a processor with higher single-core performance would yield better results, but the i3-12100F still provides a playable experience at all settings and resolutions, with the combination ranking well above the median for this title.