Inside

# Inside: Intel Core i5-12400 + AMD Radeon RX 7700 — Benchmark Analysis

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers a robust performance profile in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer that scales impressively across resolutions and settings. With measured frame rates ranging from 76 FPS at 4K Ultra to 317 FPS at 1080p Low, this combination demonstrates headroom for high-refresh displays at lower resolutions while maintaining playable performance at 4K. The data shows a system that is GPU-bound at higher resolutions but transitions toward CPU influence at 1080p Low, where frame rates exceed 300 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals a predictable yet steep performance curve. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 177 at 1920x1080 to 127 at 2560x1440, then further to 80 at 3840x2160. This represents a 28% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 37% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The total scaling from 1080p to 4K at High settings shows a 55% performance decrease, indicating the GPU becomes the primary limiting component as pixel count increases.

Low settings exhibit even more dramatic scaling, with 317 FPS at 1080p falling to 254 FPS at 1440p (a 20% drop) and then to 160 FPS at 4K (a 37% drop from 1440p). The absolute reduction of 157 FPS from 1080p Low to 4K Low demonstrates that at lower graphical loads, the system's frame ceiling is still far above display requirements, but the GPU workload still scales significantly with resolution.

Medium settings provide the most complete data set with min and max FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the average is 282 FPS with a range from 240 to 325 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 203 FPS with a range of 173 to 234 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average reaches 128 FPS with a range of 108 to 147 FPS. The consistent ratio between min and max values across resolutions suggests stable frame pacing without sudden spikes or drops.

Ultra settings show the smallest absolute differences between resolutions, moving from 168 FPS at 1080p to 121 FPS at 1440p to 76 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 76 FPS represents the only measured configuration that falls below 100 FPS average, indicating that maximum graphical fidelity at 4K requires accepting sub-100 FPS performance. The scaling pattern across all settings confirms that Inside is primarily GPU-limited at higher resolutions, with the RX 7700's rendering throughput determining the frame ceiling.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700's specifications directly explain the observed performance scaling. With 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth, the card has ample memory resources for Inside's relatively modest visual demands. The GPU's 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units deliver a pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s, which are more than sufficient for this puzzle platformer's art style.

The clock behavior shows a base clock of 1900 MHz with a boost of 2459 MHz and a game clock of 2041 MHz. The boost clock represents a 29% increase over base, and the game clock sits between these values at 2041 MHz, suggesting sustained boost behavior during gaming workloads. The 25.18 TFLOPS FP32 performance places the RX 7700 in a competitive position for this title, though the game's release in 2016 means it was never designed to stress modern GPUs heavily.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its capability. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2865 and PassMark G3D score of 20974 indicate solid DirectX 12 performance, while the Geekbench OpenCL score of 106028 shows strong compute capability. The PassMark DirectX 9 score of 261 and DirectX 10 score of 92 reveal that legacy API performance is less optimized, though Inside primarily uses modern rendering paths.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the RX 7700's average benchmark score of 15852 positions it within 1.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti's 16129, and 1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 9060's 16014. The RX 7700's percentile ranking of 58 places it above the median of all tested GPUs, meaning the card outperforms 58% of the database's GPU population. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is particularly relevant for Inside's high and ultra settings, which can consume significant memory at 4K resolution without causing frame drops due to memory swapping.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 provides the processing foundation for this combination, featuring 6 cores and 12 threads across its Alder Lake architecture. The base clock of 2.50 GHz with a boost of 4.40 GHz offers a 76% frequency increase under load, which is critical for maintaining high frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios. The 18 MB shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide sufficient data locality for game logic and physics calculations.

The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15989 and a PassMark multi-thread score of 18747. Single-thread performance is equally solid, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2257 and a PassMark single-thread score of 3456. These scores indicate that the i5-12400 can handle both heavily threaded workloads and latency-sensitive single-thread tasks that games like Inside may present.

The 3DMark thread scaling results are particularly informative. The single-thread score of 910 and 2-thread score of 1692 show near-linear scaling, while the 4-thread score of 3012 and 8-thread score of 4745 demonstrate continued gains. The 16-thread score of 5873 and max-thread score of 5890 reveal diminishing returns beyond 8 threads, suggesting that the CPU's 12 threads provide adequate parallelism for game workloads without being a bottleneck.

At 1080p Low settings, the measured 317 FPS approaches the range where CPU frame submission limits could become relevant. The CPU's percentile ranking of 72 places it above 72% of all tested CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 18683 is within 0.9% of the Intel Core i3-14100F's 18519, and within 0.7% of the AMD Ryzen AI 5 330's 18811. This positioning suggests the i5-12400 is a balanced mid-range processor that complements the RX 7700 without creating significant bottlenecks, though at extreme frame rates above 300 FPS, CPU overhead may become visible.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of 2887 tested combinations, this Intel Core i5-12400 + AMD Radeon RX 7700 pairing holds the 1259th position in Inside, placing it in the 56th percentile of all combos. This mid-pack ranking reflects the fact that many higher-end CPUs and GPUs can achieve even higher frame rates in this undemanding title, but the combination still delivers excellent absolute performance.

The rank of 1259 out of 2887 means that 1628 combinations perform better, while 1258 perform worse. Given the game's 2016 release date and puzzle platformer genre, the absolute performance is far beyond what the game requires for smooth gameplay, with even the lowest measured configuration (4K Ultra at 76 FPS) exceeding standard 60 FPS display refresh rates.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 58 and CPU's percentile of 72 combine to produce a combo that ranks slightly above the median of all tested systems. The GPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon R9 370X with a delta of -0.1%, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 with -1%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with -1.7%. These close benchmark scores indicate that the RX 7700 sits in a dense performance cluster where small differences in synthetic benchmarks translate to negligible real-world differences in Inside.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings in Inside?*

A: Yes. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 76, which exceeds the 60 FPS threshold with 27% headroom. The min FPS data is not provided for Ultra settings, but the average suggests consistent playability.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from Ultra to High at 4K?

A: Moving from Ultra to High at 3840x2160 increases the average FPS from 76 to 80, a modest 5.3% improvement. This suggests that Ultra and High settings impose similar GPU loads at 4K resolution.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate this combination can achieve?

A: The highest measured average is 317 FPS at 1920x1080 Low settings. This is the only configuration exceeding 300 FPS, with 1080p Medium reaching 282 FPS and 1080p High achieving 177 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the system achieves 317 FPS, which is likely approaching CPU frame submission limits. However, the CPU's 3DMark single-thread score of 910 and PassMark single-thread score of 3456 indicate sufficient processing power to avoid major bottlenecks at lower resolutions.

Q: How does the RX 7700 compare to the RTX 3060 Ti in this game?

A: The RX 7700's average benchmark score of 15852 is 1.7% lower than the RTX 3060 Ti's 16129. In Inside's measured results, this small synthetic difference would translate to less than a 3 FPS variation at most settings, making the two GPUs effectively equivalent in this title.

Q: What is the performance difference between Medium and High settings?

A: At 1080p, Medium averages 282 FPS versus High's 177 FPS, a 59% improvement. At 1440p, the gap is 203 FPS versus 127 FPS, a 60% improvement. At 4K, Medium achieves 128 FPS versus High's 80 FPS, a 60% improvement. The consistent 60% delta indicates that Medium reduces rendering workload uniformly across resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the system delivers 282 FPS average with a minimum of 240 FPS, ensuring smooth performance on any high-refresh display. The 1440p Medium result of 203 FPS average with a 173 FPS minimum provides excellent headroom for 144Hz monitors, while 4K Medium's 128 FPS average with a 108 FPS minimum comfortably exceeds 60 FPS requirements.

For players prioritizing maximum frame rates, Low settings at 1080p yields 317 FPS, which is beneficial for competitive play or esports scenarios, though Inside's puzzle platformer nature rarely demands such responsiveness. The Ultra preset only makes sense for users with 4K displays who prioritize visual fidelity over absolute smoothness, as the 76 FPS average still maintains playability.

High settings represent a reasonable middle ground where the visual upgrade over Medium is noticeable but the FPS cost is substantial. The 59-60% performance penalty from Medium to High persists across all resolutions, suggesting that High's additional rendering features impose a consistent workload increase regardless of pixel count. For most users, Medium provides the most compelling experience because it maintains frame rates well above display refresh rates while retaining sufficient visual detail for a stylized puzzle platformer.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the settings ladder shows a clear progression. Low settings produce 317 FPS average, Medium produces 282 FPS with a 240-325 FPS range, High produces 177 FPS, and Ultra produces 168 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is only 9 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns from High to Ultra.

At 2560x1440, performance scales down proportionally. Low settings average 254 FPS, Medium averages 203 FPS with a 173-234 FPS range, High averages 127 FPS, and Ultra averages 121 FPS. The High-to-Ultra gap narrows to 6 FPS at this resolution, indicating that Ultra's additional effects have less impact at higher pixel counts.

At 3840x2160, the measurements show the greatest performance demands. Low settings average 160 FPS, Medium averages 128 FPS with a 108-147 FPS range, High averages 80 FPS, and Ultra averages 76 FPS. The Ultra-to-High difference shrinks to just 4 FPS at 4K, suggesting that resolution is the dominant factor at this pixel count rather than quality settings.

The min FPS data for Medium settings provides insight into frame consistency. At 1080p, the minimum of 240 FPS represents 85% of the average, while at 1440p the minimum of 173 FPS is also 85% of average, and at 4K the minimum of 108 FPS equals 84% of average. This consistency indicates that the RX 7700 maintains stable frame delivery without significant drops during complex scenes, regardless of resolution.