Inside

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Inside across three resolutions reveals a classic pattern of GPU-bound scaling, though with some notable plateaus that indicate where the CPU begins to assert itself. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 318.1 FPS, which drops to 283.4 FPS at 1440p and 208.8 FPS at 4K. This represents a 34.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, a substantial but not extreme drop that suggests the GPU is the primary limiter even at the lowest quality preset.

Moving to High settings, the scaling shifts. The 1080p result of 231.5 FPS falls to 167 FPS at 1440p, a 27.9% decrease, and then to 102.8 FPS at 4K, another 38.4% reduction. The larger relative drop between 1440p and 4K compared to 1080p to 1440p indicates that the RTX 3080 Ti's rendering workload grows disproportionately as pixel count increases, which is expected for a game with this visual style. The Ultra preset shows a similar pattern: 221 FPS at 1080p, 159.8 FPS at 1440p, and 97.5 FPS at 4K, with the 4K figure representing a 55.9% decrease from the 1080p baseline.

The Medium preset is where an interesting anomaly appears. At 1080p, Medium yields 291.9 FPS, which is higher than High's 231.5 FPS but lower than Low's 318.1 FPS, as expected. However, at 1440p, Medium produces 262.7 FPS, which is only 7.3% lower than the 1080p Medium result. This unusually small drop suggests that at Medium settings, the CPU becomes a more significant factor at 1080p, effectively capping performance. By 1440p, the GPU workload increases enough to balance the load, resulting in a smaller FPS penalty than the resolution change alone would imply. At 4K Medium, the FPS falls to 162.7, a 38.1% drop from 1440p, which is consistent with GPU-bound behavior.

Overall, the data indicates that the limiting component shifts depending on settings. At Low and Medium presets, particularly at 1080p, the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability appears to be approached, given that the differences between Low and Medium at 1080p are only 26.2 FPS. At High and Ultra, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck across all resolutions, with scaling curves that follow the expected pixel-count relationship.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing for Inside, and its specifications align with the measured performance. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. For a puzzle platformer like Inside, which does not typically demand vast texture pools, this memory configuration is more than sufficient. The 12 GB capacity ensures that even at 4K with Ultra settings, there is no risk of VRAM-related stuttering or texture thrashing, as the game's art style relies on relatively modest texture sizes.

The GPU's clock behavior is also relevant. With a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, the RTX 3080 Ti maintains high sustained frequencies under load. The memory clock of 1188 MHz, translating to 19 Gbps effective, supports the high bandwidth figure quoted above. These clocks, combined with 10,240 shading units and 320 texture mapping units, produce a texture rate of 532.8 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 186.5 GPixel/s. In Inside, which features a distinctive monochromatic silhouette art style with simple geometry but potentially complex lighting, the pixel rate is likely the more critical factor for maintaining high FPS at 4K.

The benchmark data underscores the GPU's capability. The passmark G3D score of 26,896 places it in the 83rd percentile among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 41,224 positions it within 0.5% of the RTX 3090, which scores 41,441. This proximity to a higher-tier card suggests that the RTX 3080 Ti is not artificially limited in this game. The measured FPS figures, particularly the 102.8 FPS at 4K High and 97.5 FPS at 4K Ultra, demonstrate that the GPU has ample headroom for this title, as both results exceed the 60 FPS threshold by a wide margin.

The GPU's architecture, Ampere on Samsung's 8 nm process, with 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die, provides the raw compute necessary for these results. The FP32 performance of 34.10 TFLOPS is more than adequate for a game of this era, and the 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are largely irrelevant for Inside's rendering, which does not rely on ray tracing or DLSS. Instead, the GPU's raw rasterization throughput, driven by its high shader count and clock speeds, is what delivers the observed frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti achieves a rank of 419 out of 1,671 tested combos for Inside. This places the pairing in the top 25.1% of all configurations tested, which is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The rank reflects the balanced nature of this setup for this particular game, where the GPU does most of the heavy lifting but the CPU is sufficient to avoid major bottlenecks.

To contextualize this rank, consider the CPU's position among its peers. The i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 19,850, which is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-9700 at 19,831 (a delta of 0.1%) and the Intel Core i7-8700 at 19,894 (a delta of -0.2%). It also sits close to the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX at 19,928 (-0.4%) and the Intel Core i5-11600K at 19,771 (0.4%). This tight clustering means the CPU is not a differentiator in terms of raw compute, but its six cores and twelve threads are enough to feed the GPU in Inside.

The GPU's ranking is similarly informative. With an average benchmark score of 41,224, the RTX 3080 Ti is within 0.5% of the RTX 3090 (41,441) and only 1.1% behind the RTX 5070 (41,687). These small deltas indicate that the GPU is performing at the expected level for its class. The combo rank of 419, therefore, is not a result of either component underperforming, but rather reflects the overall capability of the pairing.

The fact that this combo ranks in the 419th position while the GPU alone sits in the 83rd percentile suggests that other combos with faster CPUs achieve higher frame rates, particularly at lower resolutions where CPU limitations become more apparent. At 4K, where the GPU is the clear bottleneck, this combo's rank would likely be higher than at 1080p, but the aggregate rank across all settings and resolutions places it at 419.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 318.1 FPS, which is the peak measured result across all configurations. Medium settings yield 291.9 FPS, a 8.2% reduction from Low, while High settings drop to 231.5 FPS, a 20.7% reduction from Medium. Ultra settings produce 221 FPS, which is only 4.5% lower than High. This small gap between High and Ultra at 1080p indicates that the Ultra preset's additional effects are not particularly demanding at this resolution, or that the CPU is starting to limit the frame rate, compressing the differences between the highest settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low settings produce 283.4 FPS, which is 10.9% lower than the 1080p Low result. Medium settings yield 262.7 FPS, a 7.3% reduction from 1080p Medium, which is the smallest relative drop across any settings tier when moving from 1080p to 1440p. High settings produce 167 FPS, a 27.9% reduction from 1080p High, and Ultra settings yield 159.8 FPS, a 27.7% reduction from 1080p Ultra. The High and Ultra results at 1440p are much closer to each other than they are at 1080p, with only a 7.2 FPS difference, suggesting that the GPU is becoming the primary constraint.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is unequivocally the limiting factor. Low settings produce 208.8 FPS, which is 26.3% lower than the 1440p Low result. Medium settings yield 162.7 FPS, a 38.1% reduction from 1440p Medium. High settings drop to 102.8 FPS, a 38.4% reduction from 1440p High, and Ultra settings fall to 97.5 FPS, a 39.0% reduction from 1440p Ultra. The consistent 38-39% reduction from 1440p to 4K for Medium, High, and Ultra indicates that these settings are all GPU-bound, with the frame rate scaling inversely with the pixel count increase from 1440p to 4K, which is approximately 2.25 times the pixels. The fact that FPS does not drop by 55% (the inverse of the pixel increase) indicates that the GPU has spare capacity at 1440p for these settings, and the 4K results are still high enough to suggest the GPU is not fully saturated.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a six-core, twelve-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with 18 MB of shared L3 cache. For Inside, which is a puzzle platformer with relatively simple CPU demands, this processor is more than sufficient. The benchmark data supports this assessment: the Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15,935 and single-core score of 2,249 indicate strong performance, and the 3DMark single-thread score of 910 suggests that the CPU can handle the game's main-thread workload without becoming a bottleneck.

The CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the frame rate data at 1080p with lower settings. The gap between Low (318.1 FPS) and Medium (291.9 FPS) at 1080p is 26.2 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High (231.5 FPS) is 60.4 FPS. This larger gap between Medium and High suggests that the CPU is capable of pushing frame rates well above 300 FPS, but the GPU's workload at High settings begins to limit performance. However, the fact that Ultra settings at 1080p (221 FPS) are only 10.5 FPS lower than High suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor at these higher settings, as the GPU is clearly the constraint.

Across resolutions, the CPU's influence diminishes as the GPU workload increases. At 4K, the difference between Low (208.8 FPS) and Medium (162.7 FPS) is 46.1 FPS, which is larger than the corresponding difference at 1080p (26.2 FPS). This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that even the difference between Low and Medium settings has a pronounced impact on frame rate, and the CPU is not a factor. The CPU's 65 W TDP and dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 further confirm that it is a mainstream part, but its performance in this game is entirely adequate.

The nearest rivals for the CPU, which include the Intel Core i7-9700 and Intel Core i5-11600K, have nearly identical average benchmark scores, with deltas of 0.1% and 0.4% respectively. This means that swapping the i5-12400 for either of these CPUs would likely produce very similar frame rates in Inside, given that the GPU is the dominant component at most settings and resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS measured for this combo in Inside?

A: The highest average FPS is 318.1, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra settings, the frame rate drops from 221 FPS at 1080p to 159.8 FPS at 1440p, and then to 97.5 FPS at 4K, representing a 55.9% total reduction from 1080p to 4K.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: At 4K, the GPU is the clear limiting factor. The consistent 38-39% FPS reduction from 1440p to 4K across Medium, High, and Ultra settings indicates the GPU's rendering workload dominates, with the CPU providing sufficient frame delivery.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: This combo ranks 419th out of 1,671 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the top 25.1% of all configurations.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between High and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, High settings produce 167 FPS while Ultra settings produce 159.8 FPS, a difference of 7.2 FPS or 4.3%.

Q: How does the RTX 3080 Ti's benchmark score compare to the RTX 3090?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti has an average benchmark score of 41,224, which is 0.5% lower than the RTX 3090's score of 41,441.