Inside

The Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti combination delivers a remarkably consistent scaling pattern in Inside, with the title proving far more sensitive to preset changes than to resolution. At 1080p High, the combo produces 109.2 FPS, which drops to 76.7 FPS at 1440p and further to 47.1 FPS at 4K. That represents a 57% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K on the High preset, a steep fall that clearly signals the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions. However, the Low preset tells a different story: 218.5 FPS at 1080p, 160.1 FPS at 1440p, and 100.4 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low figure still exceeds the 1080p High result, demonstrating that this game’s settings menu has a far larger impact on performance than resolution alone.

The scaling curve is nearly linear across the board. Moving from Low to Medium at 1080p costs roughly 40 FPS, while Medium to High costs another 69 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra at 1080p is small—just 3.6 FPS—which suggests the Ultra preset introduces effects that are visually subtle but computationally expensive. At 4K, the same pattern holds: Low produces 100.4 FPS, Medium 81.7 FPS, High 47.1 FPS, and Ultra 48.8 FPS. Notably, the High-to-Ultra delta at 4K is actually positive, with Ultra scoring 1.7 FPS higher than High, a statistical anomaly within the margin of measurement error. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily saturated that the difference between High and Ultra settings becomes negligible in practice.

The data shows that 1440p is the sweet spot for this pairing. At that resolution, the Low preset achieves 160.1 FPS, Medium hits 125.9 FPS, and High manages 76.7 FPS. The 1440p High result is within 20% of the 1080p High figure, but the 4K High result falls to less than half of the 1080p number. This suggests that the GTX 1660 Ti’s memory subsystem—6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth—begins to bottleneck beyond 1440p. The card’s 48 ROPs and 1536 shading units are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the pixel throughput requirement at 4K overwhelms the architecture.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate deltas between resolutions reveal a component that is balanced for traditional gaming but stressed by 4K output. From 1080p High to 1440p High, the average FPS drops from 109.2 to 76.7, a 30% reduction. From 1440p High to 4K High, the drop is from 76.7 to 47.1, another 39% reduction. This compounding loss means that 4K High delivers only 43% of the 1080p High frame rate. In contrast, the Low preset scales more gracefully: 218.5 FPS at 1080p, 160.1 at 1440p, and 100.4 at 4K. The 4K Low figure is still 2.1 times higher than the 4K High figure, underscoring that settings adjustments can recover more performance than resolution reductions.

This behavior points to the GPU being the limiting component at 4K, while the CPU’s role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system produces 218.5 FPS, a number that approaches the practical ceiling for many displays. The Intel Core i5-10400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, boosts up to 4.30 GHz and demonstrates sufficient single-thread throughput to feed the GTX 1660 Ti at high frame rates. The 3DMark single-thread score of 688 and the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1453 indicate that the CPU can handle the game’s physics and logic without becoming a bottleneck until frame rates exceed 200 FPS. The 1080p Medium result of 178.1 FPS and the 1080p Low result of 218.5 FPS both suggest that the CPU still has headroom, as the GPU is not fully saturated at these settings.

CPU Role

The Core i5-10400F’s specifications align well with the demands of Inside, a puzzle platformer that relies more on consistent frame pacing than raw multi-threaded muscle. The CPU’s base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz provide a solid frequency range, and its 12 MB of shared L3 cache offers adequate capacity for the game’s asset streaming. In synthetic benchmarks, the processor scores 10297 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 5783 in Geekbench multicore, placing it in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.4% faster), AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.8% slower), and Intel Core i5-8500 (1.1% slower), which shows that the 10400F sits in a tightly contested mid-range segment.

For Inside, the CPU’s 12 threads are more than sufficient. The game’s 2D side-scrolling perspective and limited on-screen entities mean that even the 3DMark 2-thread score of 1350 is likely representative of the workload. The Passmark single-thread score of 2541 reinforces that the processor’s single-core performance is adequate for the game’s logic thread. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 218.5 FPS, which is 2.4 times the 4K High result. This indicates that the CPU is never the primary limiter; even at the lowest settings, the GPU still dictates the frame rate at higher resolutions. The 1440p Low result of 160.1 FPS further confirms that the CPU can maintain high throughput without stuttering, as the game’s frame times remain consistent across the measured rows.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 Ti is the decisive component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the scaling behavior observed. The GPU features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock of 1770 MHz and 1536 shading units deliver a FP32 throughput of 5.437 TFLOPS. These figures place the card in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon RX 570X (0.4% faster) and NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (0.8% faster). The 48 ROPs are the likely culprit for the 4K performance drop, as the pixel fill rate of 84.96 GPixel/s becomes a limiting factor when rendering at 3840x2160.

At 1080p, the GPU’s capabilities shine. The High preset yields 109.2 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset produces 105.6 FPS, showing that the card can handle the game’s maximum visual fidelity at this resolution without significant compromise. At 1440p, the High preset drops to 76.7 FPS, still playable but with less headroom. The 4K High result of 47.1 FPS falls below the 60 FPS target, making it unsuitable for demanding players. The 4K Low result of 100.4 FPS, however, shows that reducing settings can bring 4K into playable territory, though the visual trade-off is substantial. The memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s appears sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 6 GB capacity may cause texture thrashing at 4K with High or Ultra settings, explaining the anomalous High-to-Ultra frame rate inversion at that resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

Among all tested combinations in the database, this pairing ranks 1430 out of 1671 combos, placing it in the 86th percentile from the bottom. This rank reflects the age of both components: the CPU is from the Comet Lake generation, and the GPU is end-of-life, having been succeeded by the GeForce 20 series. The combination’s performance is consistent with its component scores—the CPU’s 73rd percentile and the GPU’s 55th percentile—but the overall rank is pulled down by the GPU’s relative weakness at higher resolutions.

The rank of 1430 out of 1671 means that 241 tested combos perform worse, and 1430 perform better. This places the pairing in the lower-middle tier of the database, which is expected for a mid-range CPU from 2020 paired with a mid-range GPU from 2019. The data indicates that the combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it delivers excellent results across all presets. At 1440p, it remains viable for High settings, but at 4K, it requires Low or Medium settings to maintain playable frame rates. The rank does not account for the game’s genre; as a puzzle platformer, Inside does not demand the same GPU horsepower as a first-person shooter, so the 1080p performance is more than adequate for the intended experience.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the optimal experience for this pairing is the Medium preset at 1080p. This configuration produces 178.1 FPS, which is nearly three times the 60 FPS target and leaves ample headroom for frame pacing variations. The Medium preset at 1440p also performs well, achieving 125.9 FPS, making it the best choice for players with higher-resolution displays. For those who prioritize visual fidelity, the High preset at 1080p delivers 109.2 FPS and at 1440p delivers 76.7 FPS, both of which are playable, but the Ultra preset offers no meaningful advantage—the 1080p Ultra result of 105.6 FPS is only 3.3% lower than High, while 4K Ultra at 48.8 FPS is effectively identical to 4K High at 47.1 FPS.

The Low preset should be avoided at 1080p unless chasing maximum refresh rates, as the 218.5 FPS result approaches the limits of most monitors and the visual downgrade is significant. At 4K, the Low preset is the only viable option, producing 100.4 FPS, but the Medium preset at 81.7 FPS is a better balance if the player can tolerate the drop. The data strongly recommends against 4K High or Ultra for this pairing, as the frame rates fall below 50 FPS. The sweet spot is clearly 1080p Medium or 1440p Medium, both of which provide high frame rates with acceptable visual quality for a puzzle platformer. The GTX 1660 Ti’s 6 GB of VRAM is not a limitation at these settings, and the CPU’s 12 threads ensure smooth operation.