Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle platformer with modest system demands, and the Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers a remarkably fluid experience. The data shows this combination ranks 1406th out of 2887 tested combos in this specific title, placing it comfortably in the upper half of all configurations. Across all tested resolutions and settings, the average frame rates never drop below 76 FPS, and at 1080p with low settings, the system achieves a staggering 273 FPS average. This pairing is clearly overqualified for the game's visual and physical complexity, resulting in headroom that allows for maximum graphical fidelity without sacrificing smoothness.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a six-core, twelve-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, built on Intel's 14 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The processor features a three-tier cache hierarchy: 80 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a shared 12 MB L3 cache. Memory support is limited to dual-channel DDR4, providing a theoretical bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded capability with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14340 and a single-core score of 2024.

In the context of Inside's measured performance, the CPU's role is largely one of enabling high frame rates rather than being a bottleneck. At 1080p with Low settings, the system reaches 273 FPS average, which indicates that the processor can feed the GPU with enough data to saturate its rendering pipeline. The 3DMark scores highlight the CPU's scaling characteristics: it achieves 5619 in the 16-thread test and 5652 in the max-threads test, showing near-linear scaling from 12 to 16 threads. However, the single-thread score of 868 in 3DMark and 2981 in Passmark's single-thread test are more relevant for a game like Inside, which relies heavily on a few primary threads for game logic and physics.

The CPU's percentile ranking versus all CPUs is 71, and its average benchmark score of 17177 places it in close competition with several notable rivals. The data shows it is 0.3% faster than the AMD EPYC 7H12, which scores 17120, and 0.6% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U at 17074. Conversely, it trails the Intel Core i5-12450H by 0.4% (17239) and the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G by 0.6% (17278). These margins are negligible, suggesting the i5-11400F provides consistent mid-range performance that is entirely sufficient for Inside's requirements. Benchmark results indicate that at 1440p and 4K, the frame rate drops are primarily due to GPU load, not CPU limitations, as the processor's multi-threaded headroom remains largely untapped by the game engine.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 32 chip, fabricated on TSMC's 5 nm process with 28,100 million transistors. It features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s. The GPU's clock speeds are substantial: a base clock of 1900 MHz, a boost clock of 2459 MHz, and a game clock of 2041 MHz. The memory operates at 2438 MHz, which translates to 19.5 Gbps effective. The card has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation units, along with 40 ray tracing cores. Its compute capabilities include 25.18 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s.

For Inside, the GPU is the primary driver of performance at higher resolutions. The data shows a clear correlation between resolution and frame rate, which is classic GPU-bound behavior. At 1080p with High settings, the GPU produces 177 FPS average, but at 4K with the same settings, it drops to 80 FPS. This scaling indicates that the RX 7700 has ample raw power for lower resolutions but is increasingly taxed as pixel count rises. The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 20974 places it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15852. Its nearest rivals show a tight cluster: it is 0.1% faster than the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862), 1.1% faster than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679), but 1% slower than the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (16014) and 1.7% slower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129).

The 16 GB VRAM allocation is far beyond what Inside requires, even at 4K Ultra settings. This means there is no memory bandwidth or capacity bottleneck in the measured data. Instead, the frame rate differences between settings at a given resolution are driven by the GPU's shading and rasterization workload. The fact that the RX 7700 can maintain 76 FPS average at 4K Ultra, the most demanding configuration tested, speaks to its high fill rate and compute throughput. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support ensures full compatibility with the game's rendering pipeline, though Inside is not a graphically intensive title by modern standards.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 177 FPS at 1920x1080 to 127 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 50 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper, falling to 80 FPS at 3840x2160, which is a further reduction of 47 FPS. This non-linear scaling is typical of GPU-bound workloads, where the number of pixels quadruples from 1080p to 4K, but the frame rate does not halve proportionally, indicating that the RX 7700's memory bandwidth and compute units are not fully saturated until the higher resolutions.

At Medium settings, the pattern is similar but with higher absolute values. The system achieves 252 FPS at 1080p, 203 FPS at 1440p, and 128 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is approximately 49%, which is slightly less severe than the High settings drop of 55%. This suggests that at Medium settings, the CPU is more involved at lower resolutions, allowing the GPU to stretch its legs further at 4K. The Low settings data reinforces this: 273 FPS at 1080p, 244 FPS at 1440p, and 160 FPS at 4K, representing a 41% drop from 1080p to 4K. The diminishing percentage drops at lower settings indicate that the CPU becomes a more significant factor at 1080p, while the GPU dominates at 4K.

The Ultra settings show the highest absolute performance cost, with 168 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p, and 76 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 55%, mirroring the High settings scaling. This consistency across the higher quality presets suggests that the GPU's workload scales uniformly with pixel count when the rendering features are fully enabled. The limiting component at 4K is clearly the GPU, as evidenced by the fact that the frame rate at 4K Ultra (76 FPS) is less than half of the 1080p Low result (273 FPS), while the CPU's performance headroom remains constant across all resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Inside with this hardware for a 60 FPS experience?

A: All tested resolutions achieve well above 60 FPS on average. The lowest recorded average is 76 FPS at 4K Ultra settings, so even the most demanding configuration exceeds the 60 FPS threshold comfortably.

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-11400F compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-11400F has an average benchmark score of 17177, which is 0.3% higher than the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17120) and 0.6% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (17074). It trails the Intel Core i5-12450H (17239) by 0.4% and the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G (17278) by 0.6%.

Q: Does the AMD Radeon RX 7700 have enough VRAM for 4K gaming in Inside?

A: Yes, the GPU is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. The data shows no memory-related performance degradation, as the 4K Ultra preset still achieves 76 FPS average, indicating the VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for this game.

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

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 244 FPS average, while the Ultra preset achieves 121 FPS average. This represents a 123 FPS difference, showing that the Ultra settings nearly halve the frame rate compared to Low.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p with Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the system reaches 252 FPS average. The high frame rate suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU sufficiently, but the fact that the Low preset only improves to 273 FPS (a 21 FPS gain) indicates the CPU is approaching its limit at these very high frame rates.

Q: How does the RX 7700's Passmark G3D score compare to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti?

A: The RX 7700 scores 20974 in Passmark G3D, which is 1.7% lower than the RTX 3060 Ti's score of 16129 in the nearest rivals list. However, the RX 7700's average benchmark score of 15852 is higher than the RTX 3060 Ti's 16129 when considering the deltaPct of -1.7%.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience balancing visual fidelity and frame rate, the Medium preset at 1440p is the recommended choice. At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the system delivers 203 FPS average with minimum frame rates of 173 FPS and maximums of 234 FPS. This provides a smooth, consistent experience with no risk of dropping below high refresh rate monitors' thresholds. The Medium preset at 1440p offers a 60% performance improvement over Ultra settings at the same resolution (203 FPS vs 121 FPS) while still providing enhanced visual quality over Low.

For users with 4K displays, the Medium preset at 3840x2160 is the optimal choice, achieving 128 FPS average with minimums of 108 FPS. This is a 68% improvement over Ultra at 4K (76 FPS) and maintains a frame rate that is well above the 60 FPS standard for console-like smoothness. The High preset at 4K drops to 80 FPS, which is still acceptable, but Medium provides a more comfortable margin for demanding scenes. At 1080p, players can freely select Ultra settings, as the 168 FPS average is more than sufficient for any display, though the Medium preset at 252 FPS offers extra headroom for competitive play.

The data suggests avoiding the Low preset at any resolution, as the visual downgrade is unnecessary given the hardware's capability. Even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains 76 FPS, so there is no scenario where Low settings are required for playability. The Ultra preset is viable at 1080p and 1440p, with 168 FPS and 121 FPS respectively, but the Medium preset offers a better balance of quality and performance headroom, particularly for maintaining frame times during fast-moving puzzle sequences.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its peak performance across all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 273 FPS, the highest recorded in the entire dataset. The Medium preset delivers 252 FPS average, with a minimum of 214 FPS and a maximum of 290 FPS. The High preset achieves 177 FPS average, while the Ultra preset produces 168 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra is 105 FPS, indicating a significant but manageable performance cost for maximum visual quality at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, frame rates remain exceptionally high. The Low preset reaches 244 FPS average, followed by the Medium preset at 203 FPS with a minimum of 173 FPS and maximum of 234 FPS. The High preset achieves 127 FPS average, while the Ultra preset delivers 121 FPS average. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 123 FPS, showing that resolution scaling affects the higher presets more substantially. The Medium preset's minimum of 173 FPS ensures no frame rate drops below the 144 Hz refresh rate threshold.

At 3840x2160, the GPU begins to show its limits at higher settings. The Low preset still achieves 160 FPS average, demonstrating the GPU's raw power. The Medium preset delivers 128 FPS average with a minimum of 108 FPS and maximum of 147 FPS, providing a solid 4K experience. The High preset drops to 80 FPS average, while the Ultra preset falls to 76 FPS average. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 84 FPS, which is the smallest absolute gap across all resolutions, indicating that the GPU's workload is more uniformly distributed at higher pixel counts. The Medium preset at 4K is the only configuration with recorded minimum and maximum values, suggesting it is the most stable setting for this resolution.