Inside

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT delivers a remarkably fluid experience in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016. Across all measured settings and resolutions, the combination never drops below 83 frames per second, indicating that the hardware is far ahead of the game’s demands. The data shows a system that is heavily GPU-limited at 4K but increasingly CPU-bound at lower resolutions, where frame rates approach the physical limits of the processor’s single-thread performance.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic scaling curve, with the most significant drops occurring at the highest resolution. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 193 FPS at 1920x1080 to 139 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 54 FPS, and then further to 87 FPS at 3840x2160, another 52 FPS loss. This pattern indicates that the rendering load at 4K is substantially heavier, pushing the RX 7700 XT closer to its limits.

The scaling behavior changes notably when examining Low settings. Here, the 1080p result is 273 FPS, which drops to 244 FPS at 1440p and 175 FPS at 4K. The relative drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper than from 1080p to 1440p, suggesting that the pixel throughput requirement at 4K begins to dominate. At Medium settings, the measured minimum frame rates also illustrate this pressure: the 4K run shows a minimum of 119 FPS with a maximum of 161 FPS, while the 1440p run has a minimum of 189 FPS and a maximum of 256 FPS. The spread between minimum and maximum widens as resolution increases, a sign that frame times become less consistent under heavier load.

The Ultra preset shows the smallest absolute differences between resolutions: 184 FPS at 1080p, 132 FPS at 1440p, and 83 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest of the entire dataset, representing a 55% reduction from the 1080p Ultra figure. This suggests that the GPU’s computational resources, including its 96 ROPs and 216 TMUs, are fully engaged at 4K Ultra, leaving little headroom. In contrast, the 1080p Low and Medium results exceed 250 FPS, indicating that the CPU’s 12 threads are the primary limiting factor at those settings, as the GPU finishes its work quickly and waits on the processor to issue new frames.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7700 XT, built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 32 chip, provides the graphical horsepower for these results. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a game of Inside’s visual complexity. The memory clock runs at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed, and the GPU’s base clock is 1435 MHz, boosting to 2544 MHz, with a game clock rated at 2171 MHz.

The GPU’s compute capabilities are substantial: 3456 shading units, 54 ray accelerators, and 96 ROPs, yielding a pixel rate of 244.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 549.5 GTexel/s. These specifications explain why the card can maintain 175 FPS at 4K Low settings — the game’s minimalist art style does not heavily tax the texture units or pixel fill rate. The FP32 performance of 35.17 TFLOPS is ample for the physics and lighting computations in Inside, which was released in 2016 and does not utilize modern demanding features like full ray tracing.

The VRAM capacity of 12 GB is never a constraint in this benchmark data, as even the 4K Ultra preset, which would typically use more memory, still achieves 83 FPS. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 22549 places it at the 67th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile, which scores 22435 (0.5% lower), and the RTX 4060 Mobile at 22729 (0.8% higher). This positioning confirms that the RX 7700 XT is a mid-high tier card that excels at older titles like Inside, where its raw throughput is not bottlenecked by advanced rendering features.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT ranks 1590th out of 3716 tested combos for Inside. This places it in the 57th percentile of all combinations, meaning that roughly 57% of tested systems perform worse, while 43% perform better. Given the game’s age and low system requirements, this ranking is expected — many newer high-end CPUs and GPUs can exceed 300 FPS in this title, pushing the i5-11400F’s 1080p Low result of 273 FPS down the list.

The ranking relative to other combos is more meaningful when considering the CPU’s position. The i5-11400F has an average benchmark score of 17177, placing it at the 71st percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD EPYC 7H12 (0.3% higher) and the Intel Core i5-12450H (0.4% lower). The GPU’s 67th percentile ranking is similar, so the combo’s 57th percentile result in Inside is slightly below what either component’s standalone percentile would suggest. This indicates that the game’s single-threaded nature and modest graphics demands do not fully utilize the GPU’s capabilities, particularly at 1080p where the CPU becomes the limiting factor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset provides twelve distinct measurements across four presets and three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 273 FPS, Medium 252 FPS (min 214, max 290), High 193 FPS, and Ultra 184 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is 21 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra is only 9 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds minimal visual improvements over High for a relatively small performance cost. The Medium preset’s minimum of 214 FPS is still far above any display refresh rate, making it a safe choice for competitive play.

At 2560x1440, the figures are: Low 244 FPS, Medium 222 FPS (min 189, max 256), High 139 FPS, and Ultra 132 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium narrows to 22 FPS, but the drop from Medium to High is a substantial 83 FPS. This suggests that the High preset introduces effects that significantly increase the GPU’s workload, such as higher resolution shadows or more complex lighting calculations. The Ultra preset’s 132 FPS is only 7 FPS below High, indicating diminishing returns from the highest settings.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 175 FPS, Medium 140 FPS (min 119, max 161), High 87 FPS, and Ultra 83 FPS. The trend continues, with the Medium to High drop being 53 FPS, the largest single-step reduction in the dataset. The 4K Ultra result of 83 FPS is the only measurement below 100 FPS, but it remains well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The minimum frame rate at 4K Medium is 119 FPS, indicating that even the heaviest scenes in the game stay comfortably fluid at this resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 14 nm process. Its base clock is 2.60 GHz, boosting to 4.40 GHz, with a 12 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU’s single-thread performance is highlighted by its 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2024, which are critical for Inside’s gameplay logic and physics calculations.

The CPU’s multi-threaded capabilities are also robust, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14340 and Geekbench multi-core score of 7737. However, the benchmark data suggests that Inside does not heavily utilize multiple threads, as the frame rate differences between 1080p Low (273 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (184 FPS) are driven more by GPU load than CPU load. At 1080p Low, the GPU is underutilized, and the frame rate is likely capped by the CPU’s ability to process draw calls and update game state. The fact that 1080p Low (273 FPS) is only 29 FPS higher than 1440p Low (244 FPS) supports this theory, as the resolution increase does not proportionally reduce the frame rate, indicating a CPU bottleneck at 1080p.

The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s over a dual-channel DDR4 interface is sufficient for this game, as Inside does not have massive data streaming requirements. The processor’s 14 nm process node and 65 W TDP mean it runs efficiently, though the 4.40 GHz boost clock is essential for maintaining high frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G (0.6% higher average score) and Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (0.6% lower), show that the i5-11400F is competitive in synthetic benchmarks, but its age means it trails newer architectures in instructions per clock, which matters for a game that relies on single-thread performance.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play Inside with this hardware?*

A: Based on the measured data, 2560x1440 at Medium settings provides an excellent balance, with an average of 222 FPS and a minimum of 189 FPS. This resolution offers higher visual clarity than 1080p while maintaining frame rates far above any display’s refresh rate, and the 4K results, while playable, show a significant drop to 140 FPS at Medium.

Q: Can this system handle 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the 4K Ultra preset achieves an average of 83 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. However, the minimum frame rate is not recorded for this setting, and the 4K Medium preset shows a minimum of 119 FPS, suggesting that Ultra may have occasional dips below 83 FPS in demanding scenes.

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

A: The data indicates a CPU bottleneck at 1080p. The frame rate only increases from 184 FPS at Ultra to 273 FPS at Low, a 48% improvement, whereas at 4K the same settings change yields a 111% improvement (83 to 175 FPS). This suggests that at 1080p, the GPU can render frames quickly enough that the CPU’s single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor.

Q: How does the RX 7700 XT compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 7700 XT has an average benchmark score of 22549, which is 0.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile (22435) and 1.5% higher than the RTX 2080 (22895, which is actually 1.5% higher than the RX 7700 XT, indicating the RX 7700 XT trails the RTX 2080). The AMD Radeon RX 5700 scores 22170, putting it 1.7% lower than the RX 7700 XT.

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

A: The benchmark results suggest limited multi-thread usage. The CPU’s 12 threads provide a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14340, but the frame rate differences across resolutions follow a GPU-scaling pattern. If the game were heavily multi-threaded, the 1080p Low result of 273 FPS would likely be higher, as the CPU’s multi-thread performance is more than adequate for the game’s logic.

Q: What is the lowest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset?

A: The lowest average frame rate is 83 FPS, recorded at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. The lowest minimum frame rate is 119 FPS, recorded at 3840x2160 with Medium settings. No measurement drops below 83 FPS, indicating that the system never falls below playable thresholds in this game.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience, the data suggests prioritizing Medium settings at 1440p. This combination yields 222 FPS average with a minimum of 189 FPS, ensuring no perceptible stutter even in complex scenes. The step up to High settings at 1440p costs 83 FPS (down to 139 FPS), which is a significant reduction for visual improvements that may be difficult to notice given Inside’s dark, atmospheric art style. At 4K, Medium settings (140 FPS) are the clear choice, as they provide a 53 FPS advantage over High (87 FPS) while maintaining a minimum of 119 FPS.

At 1080p, the choice depends on preference. Low settings (273 FPS) offer the highest frame rates, but Medium (252 FPS) provides a better visual experience with only a 21 FPS penalty. The Ultra preset at 1080p (184 FPS) is not warranted, as it only delivers 9 FPS more than High (193 FPS) while likely adding subtle effects. For users with high-refresh-rate displays, 1080p Medium is the optimal spot, as it stays above 250 FPS and provides a smooth experience without the diminishing returns of Ultra settings. The 4K Ultra preset, while technically playable at 83 FPS, is not recommended, as the 57 FPS gain from dropping to Medium is substantial, and the visual difference in a puzzle platformer is unlikely to justify the performance loss.