Inside

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is an extreme pairing for Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer. The data shows this combination delivers exceptionally high frame rates across all tested settings and resolutions, making the game’s performance ceiling largely irrelevant to the experience. This analysis focuses on how the measured FPS values translate into practical settings choices, what the GPU’s specifications contribute, and how this specific combo ranks within the broader benchmark database.

Settings Recommendations

For a game like Inside, the primary goal is maintaining a locked, smooth frame rate without visual artifacts. The benchmark results clearly indicate that the Ultra preset is the best choice for the vast majority of users, regardless of their display’s resolution.

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 206 FPS, which is only 4 FPS lower than the High preset’s 210 FPS. This negligible difference means there is no reason to compromise on visual fidelity. Moving to Medium increases the average to 252 FPS, but the visual downgrade from Ultra to Medium is significant in a game with such a distinct, moody art style. The Low preset provides 273 FPS, but this is a meaningless gain when the Ultra preset already far exceeds the refresh rate of any standard monitor.

The situation is identical at 2560x1440. The Ultra preset averages 185 FPS, while High is at 188 FPS. Both are well above the 144Hz refresh rate that is common for this resolution. The Medium preset at 226 FPS and Low at 244 FPS offer no practical benefit for the loss in visual quality. The data suggests that even the most demanding settings are trivially easy for this hardware at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset still manages an average of 153 FPS. This is the first point where the settings choice might matter for users with a 120Hz or 144Hz 4K display. While 153 FPS is above 144Hz, it is not a massive margin. However, the High preset at 160 FPS provides a more comfortable buffer. The Medium preset at 193 FPS is another option, but the step down from High to Medium is more impactful than the step up from Ultra to High. For a game like Inside, which has no competitive multiplayer element, the recommendation is to stick with the Ultra preset. The 153 FPS average is still exceptionally high, and the visual benefits of Ultra are worth the small performance cost. The Low preset at 209 FPS is only relevant if the user is chasing the absolute maximum frame rate on a very high refresh rate 4K display, but for most, this is a needless sacrifice of image quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a colossal piece of hardware, and its specifications explain why it dominates a title like Inside. The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a massive 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. For Inside, which is not a texture-heavy game by modern standards, this memory capacity is vastly over-provisioned. The game will never come close to exhausting the 32 GB frame buffer, meaning the GPU’s performance is not limited by memory capacity at any tested resolution or setting.

The clock speeds are also a key factor. The GPU has a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz. These high frequencies, combined with the Blackwell 2.0 architecture’s 21,760 shading units, allow for immense raw compute throughput. The benchmark results show this translates directly to FPS. The GPU is so powerful that even at 4K Ultra, the measured 153 FPS average indicates the rendering pipeline is not being stressed.

The data indicates that the GPU is not the limiting factor in this pairing for Inside. The frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution, but the absolute values are so high that the GPU is effectively idling. The GPU’s role here is to be a "silent" partner, providing enough power that the CPU becomes the only potential bottleneck. However, given the age and simplicity of the game’s rendering, the RTX 5090 D handles it with such ease that it never breaks a sweat. Its 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is overkill, but it ensures that no settings combination or resolution within the test parameters can cause the frame rate to dip below playable levels.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use with this combo for a 1440p 144Hz monitor?

A: The Ultra preset is the clear choice. The data shows an average of 185 FPS at 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, which is well above the 144Hz refresh rate. The High preset is only marginally faster at 188 FPS, so there is no performance reason to drop below Ultra.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, exceptionally well. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset still delivers an average of 153 FPS. For a 4K 120Hz display, this is a perfect match. Even the most demanding preset is playable at high refresh rates.

Q: Is the 32 GB of VRAM necessary for this game?

A: No. Inside is not a VRAM-intensive title. The massive 32 GB GDDR7 frame buffer is not a limiting factor in any of the measured results. The GPU’s raw compute power and clock speeds are what drive the high frame rates, not the memory capacity.

Q: How does the CPU affect performance in this game?

A: The Intel Core i5-11400F has 6 cores and 12 threads with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. For a game like Inside, which is not heavily multithreaded, this CPU is more than sufficient. The benchmark results show no signs of CPU bottlenecking, as even the 1080p Low preset (273 FPS) does not suggest the CPU is holding the GPU back.

Q: Is there a large difference between the High and Ultra presets?

A: The performance difference is minimal. Across all three resolutions, the Ultra preset averages only 6-7 FPS lower than High (e.g., 206 vs 210 FPS at 1080p). The visual upgrade from High to Ultra is typically more noticeable than the small FPS drop, making Ultra the recommended setting.

Q: Does the frame rate vary a lot between the different settings?

A: Yes, but the variation is only significant at the low end of the spectrum. The gap between Low and Ultra is substantial (e.g., 273 vs 206 FPS at 1080p). However, the gap between High and Ultra is small. The data suggests that the game becomes GPU-bound at higher settings, but the GPU is so fast that even the "worst" case (4K Ultra at 153 FPS) is excellent.

How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark database ranks this specific combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D at 683 out of 2887 tested combos for Inside. This places it in the top 24% of all tested systems. While a top-24% rank is respectable, it is important to contextualize this result. The rank is not a reflection of poor performance—the absolute FPS numbers are outstanding. Instead, it indicates that many other tested combos, likely including newer, more powerful CPUs, achieve even higher frame rates.

The rank is likely held back by the CPU. The RTX 5090 D is a top-tier GPU, but the i5-11400F, while capable, is an older mid-range processor. In a game like Inside, which can run at thousands of FPS on some systems, the CPU’s single-thread performance becomes the deciding factor. Looking at the CPU’s benchmark data, its 3DMark single-thread score is 868, and its Cinebench R23 single-core score is 2024. While these are decent numbers, they are far from the top of the charts. The fact that this combo ranks in the top quarter suggests that the CPU is indeed creating a bottleneck for the otherwise overpowered GPU.

The comparison to the GPU’s nearest rivals is telling. The RTX 5090 D’s average benchmark score is 77,712, which is only 1.1% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904). This shows that in general compute tasks, the card is not alone at the top. However, in this specific game, the high frame rates are evidence of the GPU’s architecture and drivers. The combo rank of 683 indicates that while this system is fast, there are 682 other combinations in the database that deliver even higher frame rates in Inside, likely due to newer CPUs with higher single-thread performance.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a clear pattern of frame rate scaling as resolution increases. At 1080p High, the average is 210 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops to 188 FPS, a decrease of about 10.5%. Moving to 4K High, the average falls to 160 FPS, a further 14.9% decrease from 1440p. This scaling is relatively linear and indicates that the system is not severely bottlenecked at any single point.

This pattern suggests that the GPU is the primary driver of performance scaling. As resolution increases, the GPU has to work harder to fill more pixels, and the frame rate drops accordingly. However, the drops are not catastrophic. A 10-15% decrease per resolution step is typical for a well-balanced system. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see very similar frame rates across all resolutions, as the CPU’s workload does not change significantly with resolution. The fact that we see a measurable drop from 1080p to 4K indicates that the GPU is still doing meaningful work.

The gap between Low and Ultra also widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (273 FPS) and Ultra (206 FPS) is 67 FPS. At 4K, the difference is 56 FPS (209 vs 153). This shows that the GPU’s architecture handles the increased load of Ultra settings better at higher resolutions, where the pixel fill rate is the bottleneck, rather than the shader complexity. The data strongly suggests that the RTX 5090 D is the component determining the frame rate ceiling, with the i5-11400F providing enough headroom to avoid becoming the primary constraint until the very high frame rates seen at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers high frame rates across all settings. The Low preset yields an average of 273 FPS. The Medium preset averages 252 FPS, with a minimum of 214 FPS and a maximum of 290 FPS. The High preset averages 210 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 206 FPS. The data shows a clear trend: the difference between Low and Medium is 21 FPS, while the difference between Medium and High is 42 FPS. This suggests that the High preset introduces a significant graphical feature that impacts performance. The gap between High and Ultra is only 4 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset is a modest extension of High.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down. The Low preset averages 244 FPS. The Medium preset averages 226 FPS, with a minimum of 192 FPS and a maximum of 259 FPS. The High preset averages 188 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 185 FPS. The relative differences between settings remain consistent with 1080p. The drop from Low to Medium is 18 FPS, and the drop from Medium to High is 38 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra remains minimal at 3 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the system still performs admirably. The Low preset averages 209 FPS. The Medium preset averages 193 FPS, with a minimum of 164 FPS and a maximum of 222 FPS. The High preset averages 160 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 153 FPS. The scaling pattern holds, with the largest performance hit coming when moving from Medium to High. The frame rate consistency also remains solid, with the Medium preset’s minimum of 164 FPS being well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

The data across all resolutions shows that the Medium preset offers a good balance between performance and visual quality, but the High and Ultra presets are also highly playable. The minimum FPS values recorded for Medium settings are all above 164 FPS, even at 4K, which ensures a stutter-free experience. The system is powerful enough that the settings menu is a matter of preference rather than necessity.