Inside

# Inside — Intel Core i5-11400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016 with modest graphical demands. Across all measured configurations, this combo produces average frame rates well above 120 FPS, with the lowest recorded result being 126 FPS at 4K Ultra settings. The data indicates that this combination ranks 1007th out of 3716 tested combinations in this game, placing it in the top 27% of all tested systems. The RTX 4080's substantial rendering power — evidenced by its 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth — appears to be the dominant factor, though the six-core, twelve-thread i5-11400F with its 4.40 GHz boost clock provides sufficient processing headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck at most settings levels.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across three resolutions and four quality presets reveals a clear pattern: the Medium preset offers the optimal balance between visual fidelity and frame rate stability. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 252 FPS average with a minimum of 214 FPS and maximum of 290 FPS, while the Low preset reaches 273 FPS average but sacrifices visual quality. The High preset at 1080p produces 210 FPS average, and Ultra drops to 206 FPS — both still exceptionally smooth but with diminishing returns relative to the visual uplift from Medium.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Medium preset maintains 226 FPS average with a minimum of 192 FPS and maximum of 259 FPS, while High and Ultra produce 188 FPS and 185 FPS respectively. At 3840x2160, Medium yields 193 FPS average with a minimum of 164 FPS and maximum of 222 FPS, whereas High drops to 133 FPS and Ultra to 126 FPS. The Medium preset consistently provides the most substantial frame rate headroom over the 60 FPS threshold, ensuring smooth gameplay even during demanding scenes. Given that the minimum FPS values are only recorded for Medium settings, this preset also demonstrates the most predictable frame pacing. For users with high refresh rate displays, Medium at any resolution keeps average frame rates above 190 FPS, which comfortably exceeds the refresh rate of most gaming monitors.

FAQ

Q: Does this combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 126 FPS, which remains well above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. This is the lowest measured average across all configurations in the data.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from Ultra to Low at 1080p?

A: The frame rate increases from 206 FPS at Ultra to 273 FPS at Low, representing a gain of 67 FPS. This is the largest absolute difference between any two settings at the same resolution in the measured data.

Q: Is there a significant frame rate penalty when moving from 1440p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the average drops from 188 FPS at 2560x1440 to 133 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of 55 FPS. At Medium settings, the drop is from 226 FPS to 193 FPS, a reduction of 33 FPS. The penalty is more pronounced at higher quality presets.

Q: What is the best preset for maintaining frame rates above 200 FPS at 1440p?

A: The Low preset achieves 244 FPS average at 2560x1440, and the Medium preset achieves 226 FPS average. Both exceed 200 FPS, but Medium provides better visual quality while still maintaining a 192 FPS minimum.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54247, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER's score of 54209. It trails the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X by 1.1%, the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB by 2.6%, and the Radeon 8060S by 2.7%.

Q: Does the i5-11400F exhibit any signs of bottlenecking in this game?

A: The data shows that frame rates scale consistently with resolution changes, and even at 1080p Low settings the system reaches 273 FPS average. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads, combined with a 4.40 GHz boost clock, appear sufficient for Inside's demands, as no configuration shows an unexpected frame rate plateau.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake architecture, built on Intel's 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.60 GHz boosts to 4.40 GHz, and it carries 12 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-11400F achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14340 and a single-core score of 2024, with a 3DMark max-threads score of 5652. The processor's average benchmark score of 17177 places it at the 71st percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rival being the AMD EPYC 7H12 at a 0.3% higher score.

For Inside, a 2D side-scrolling puzzle platformer, the CPU demands are moderate. The game's physics and logic operations benefit from single-thread performance, where the i5-11400F posts a 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and a PassMark single-thread score of 2981. The measured frame rates show that at 1080p Low settings, the system reaches 273 FPS average, suggesting the CPU can keep pace with the GPU even at low graphical loads. However, the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K indicates that the GPU becomes progressively more influential as resolution increases. At 4K Ultra, the 126 FPS average likely reflects the GPU's rendering limits rather than CPU constraints, given that the same CPU configuration supports 273 FPS at lower graphical settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 achieves a rank of 1007 out of 3716 tested combinations in Inside, placing it in the top 27.1% of all systems. This ranking reflects the substantial GPU horsepower of the RTX 4080, which sits at the 86th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 54247. The CPU, at the 71st percentile, is comparatively less dominant but still well above the median.

The ranking suggests that while this combo delivers very high absolute frame rates, there are 1006 other configurations that perform better in this game. These likely include systems with newer or higher-tier CPUs, as the RTX 4080's performance is already near the top of the GPU hierarchy. The i5-11400F's position among its nearest rivals — within 0.6% of the AMD EPYC 7H12, Intel Core i5-12450H, AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G, and Intel Core Ultra 7 164U — indicates that CPU performance differences in this range have minimal impact on Inside's frame rates. The data suggests that the combo's rank is primarily determined by the RTX 4080's capabilities, with the CPU providing adequate support without becoming a limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 resolutions reveals how the system's performance scales with pixel count. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 210 FPS at 1080p to 188 FPS at 1440p (a 10.5% reduction) and then to 133 FPS at 4K (a 29.3% reduction from 1440p). At Medium settings, the progression is 252 FPS at 1080p, 226 FPS at 1440p (10.3% reduction), and 193 FPS at 4K (14.6% reduction from 1440p). At Low settings, the averages are 273 FPS at 1080p, 244 FPS at 1440p (10.6% reduction), and 209 FPS at 4K (14.3% reduction from 1440p).

The scaling pattern shows that the transition from 1080p to 1440p consistently costs about 10% of performance regardless of settings, while the 1440p to 4K transition costs between 14-29% depending on quality preset. The larger drop at High settings (29.3%) compared to Medium (14.6%) and Low (14.3%) indicates that the GPU's shading and texture throughput become more strained at higher quality levels when pixel count increases. This behavior is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario: the RTX 4080's 9728 shading units and 112 ROPs are being pushed harder at 4K, while the CPU's role diminishes. The fact that frame rates remain above 126 FPS even at the most demanding configuration suggests the system is never critically bottlenecked, but the resolution scaling curve clearly identifies the GPU as the primary performance limiter at higher pixel densities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 273 FPS average, Medium settings produce 252 FPS average with a minimum of 214 FPS and maximum of 290 FPS, High settings produce 210 FPS average, and Ultra settings produce 206 FPS average. The spread between Low and Ultra is 67 FPS, indicating that graphical settings have a moderate impact at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, performance remains strong but slightly reduced. Low settings achieve 244 FPS average, Medium settings achieve 226 FPS average with a minimum of 192 FPS and maximum of 259 FPS, High settings achieve 188 FPS average, and Ultra settings achieve 185 FPS average. The difference between Low and Ultra narrows to 59 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is beginning to feel the increased pixel load.

At 3840x2160, the system still delivers high frame rates. Low settings reach 209 FPS average, Medium settings reach 193 FPS average with a minimum of 164 FPS and maximum of 222 FPS, High settings reach 133 FPS average, and Ultra settings reach 126 FPS average. The gap between Low and Ultra expands to 83 FPS, demonstrating that quality presets have a larger relative impact at 4K. Notably, the minimum FPS values are only recorded for Medium settings, where the system maintains at least 164 FPS at 4K, 192 FPS at 1440p, and 214 FPS at 1080p — all well above the 60 FPS threshold.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this configuration for Inside. Based on the AD103 chip on TSMC's 5 nm process, it contains 45,900 million transistors across a 379 mm² die. The GPU features 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 ROPs, with 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores. Its base clock of 2205 MHz boosts to 2505 MHz, and the 16 GB of GDDR6X memory operates at 22.4 Gbps effective across a 256-bit bus, yielding 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth.

In synthetic testing, the RTX 4080 achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6567, a Geekbench Vulkan score of 263779, and a PassMark G3D score of 34457. Its average benchmark score of 54247 places it at the 86th percentile of all GPUs. The GPU's performance in Inside is consistent with its synthetic results: even at 4K Ultra, it maintains 126 FPS average, and at 1080p Low it reaches 273 FPS average. The measured frame rates across all configurations suggest that the RTX 4080 has ample headroom for this older game title, and its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores only 0.1% higher in average benchmarks — a negligible difference that would not meaningfully alter the frame rates observed here. The GPU's 16 GB VRAM capacity is far more than Inside requires, and its 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 throughput ensures that even the most complex scenes render without difficulty.