Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle platformer that, on paper, should not stress modern hardware. Yet, the measured frame rates for the Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT reveal a surprisingly steep performance curve, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. The data suggests this combination is more than capable of delivering a fluid experience, but the margins between presets are far from uniform, pointing to specific bottlenecks that shift depending on where you point the camera and how many pixels are being pushed.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about where the workload lands. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces 140.9 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops that to 102.4 FPS, a reduction of roughly 27%. Jumping to 4K at High settings yields 62.6 FPS, which is a further 39% decline from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component, as the frame rate is almost halved when pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K.

The Low preset scaling is even more telling. At 1080p Low, the system hits 275 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's practical limit for this game. At 1440p Low, it drops to 198.6 FPS, a 28% decrease. At 4K Low, the average falls to 127.2 FPS. The fact that 4K Low (127.2 FPS) is still higher than 1080p High (140.9 FPS) is not a surprise, but the sheer magnitude of the Low preset's headroom suggests that the game is heavily GPU-bound at higher settings, while the CPU has plenty of spare capacity at lower ones. The data implies that for a 60 FPS target, 4K is achievable only with careful settings, while 1440p offers a comfortable margin for high refresh rates.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 5700 XT is the clear driver of performance differences across settings. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for a game from 2016. The boost clock of 1905 MHz, with a game clock of 1755 MHz, helps sustain high throughput. The measurable impact is visible when comparing the Ultra and High presets at the same resolution. At 1080p, Ultra yields 135.1 FPS, while High yields 140.9 FPS — a negligible 4% difference. However, at 4K, the gap narrows further: Ultra is 62.3 FPS and High is 62.6 FPS. This near-identical performance suggests that the GPU is hitting a hard architectural limit at 4K, regardless of minor settings tweaks.

The GPU's compute potential, rated at 9.754 TFLOPS FP32, is sufficient to handle the game's lighting and physics, but the data shows diminishing returns as resolution climbs. The fact that the Low preset at 4K (127.2 FPS) is nearly double the High preset at 4K (62.6 FPS) indicates that the memory bandwidth and shading units are not the constraint — rather, it is the fill rate and pixel processing demands of the higher presets. The RX 5700 XT's pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s are being saturated by the 4K Ultra workload, which explains why the FPS plateaus around 62 FPS.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Inside at 4K with a consistent 60 FPS?

A: The data shows 4K High averages 62.6 FPS and 4K Ultra averages 62.3 FPS, so it can technically hit 60 FPS, but the margin is thin. Any demanding scene could push it below that threshold, making 4K a risky choice for locked 60 FPS.

Q: Why is the difference between High and Ultra settings so small?

A: At 1080p, the gap is 140.9 FPS versus 135.1 FPS, and at 4K it is 62.6 FPS versus 62.3 FPS. The Ultra preset appears to add graphical features that the RX 5700 XT cannot fully leverage at these resolutions, resulting in a performance difference of less than 5% across all tested resolutions.

Q: What is the best resolution for high refresh rate monitors?

A: For 144 Hz displays, 1080p Low (275 FPS) or Medium (219.6 FPS) are the only presets that exceed that refresh rate. At 1440p, even High (102.4 FPS) falls short of 144 Hz, so you would need to stick with Low (198.6 FPS) for a high-refresh experience.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any point?

A: The evidence suggests no. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 275 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's limit, but the i5-12600KF's 10 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, are sufficient to feed the GPU at all other settings. The frame rate drops are consistently tied to resolution and settings, not CPU load.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its direct rivals in general benchmarks?

A: The RX 5700 XT scores 24731 on average, which is nearly identical to the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (24763, deltaPct -0.1). It is slightly ahead of the Intel Arc A350M (24647, deltaPct 0.3) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile (24592, deltaPct 0.6). This indicates the GPU is a solid mid-range performer.

Q: Is there a preset that offers a clear performance jump?

A: Yes, dropping from Medium to Low yields massive gains. At 1440p, Medium is 156.6 FPS and Low is 198.6 FPS, a 27% increase. At 4K, the jump is from 103.1 FPS to 127.2 FPS, a 23% gain. The step from Ultra to High is negligible, but the step from Medium to Low is substantial.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to a clear hierarchy: Medium is the sweet spot for balanced performance, while Low is for maximum frame rates and Ultra is for visual fidelity at the cost of speed. At 1080p, Medium (219.6 FPS) provides a massive cushion over High (140.9 FPS) and is only 20% slower than Low (275 FPS). For most users, Medium at 1080p is the best experience because it retains visual quality while staying well above 144 Hz.

At 1440p, Medium (156.6 FPS) is the only preset that keeps you above 144 Hz, making it the ideal choice for high-refresh 1440p monitors. High (102.4 FPS) is still smooth for 60 Hz panels but leaves no headroom for demanding scenes. At 4K, the choice is starker. High (62.6 FPS) and Ultra (62.3 FPS) both hover at the 60 FPS line, but Medium (103.1 FPS) is the only preset that provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. Therefore, for 4K, Medium is the recommended preset, as it offers a 65% performance increase over High with likely minimal visual degradation in a game with this art style.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset is as follows. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 275 FPS on Low, 219.6 FPS on Medium, 140.9 FPS on High, and 135.1 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is 55.4 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 5.8 FPS. This pattern repeats at 2560x1440, where Low hits 198.6 FPS, Medium reaches 156.6 FPS, High drops to 102.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 96.7 FPS. The delta between Medium and High (54.2 FPS) is larger than the delta between High and Ultra (5.7 FPS), suggesting that the High preset introduces a significant rendering cost.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress. Low averages 127.2 FPS, Medium hits 103.1 FPS, High drops to 62.6 FPS, and Ultra is nearly identical at 62.3 FPS. The most striking observation is that the 4K Low figure (127.2 FPS) is nearly double the 4K High figure (62.6 FPS), a 103% increase. This wide spread at 4K indicates that the GPU's fill rate is the limiting factor, and the High/Ultra presets are taxing it far beyond what the Medium or Low presets require.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on Alder Lake architecture. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz, boosting to 4.90 GHz, which gives it strong single-thread performance. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1016 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3309 confirm that it has ample horsepower for a game like Inside, which typically relies on a few well-optimized threads. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache also helps reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for the game's physics calculations.

The benchmark results show that the CPU is never the bottleneck in this pairing. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 275 FPS, which is likely near the game engine's CPU limit, but even then, the GPU is still doing most of the work. The CPU's multi-threaded performance, as indicated by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23444, is far beyond what this 2016 game requires. The data shows that the FPS scales almost entirely with resolution and GPU settings, confirming that the i5-12600KF has significant headroom. The CPU's percentile rank of 84 versus all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 27827, place it in a strong position, but it is effectively overkill for this title.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the i5-12600KF and RX 5700 XT ranks 1225 out of 1671 tested combos for Inside. This places it in the 73rd percentile of all tested configurations, meaning it outperforms roughly 73% of other setups in this game. The ranking is slightly lower than the CPU's individual percentile (84) and the GPU's individual percentile (68), which suggests that the pairing is well-matched but not exceptional. The data implies that while the CPU is a top-tier performer and the GPU is a solid mid-range option, the game's engine does not fully exploit the CPU's potential, leaving the GPU to dictate overall performance.

The combo's rank is more reflective of the GPU's standing than the CPU's. Given that the RX 5700 XT sits near the 68th percentile of all GPUs, a rank of 1225 out of 1671 is consistent with expectations. The fact that the CPU is significantly more powerful than the GPU means that this combo's performance in Inside is primarily a story of GPU limits. For users with this setup, the data suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield far greater gains than upgrading the CPU, as the i5-12600KF is already delivering more than enough frame data to keep the RX 5700 XT fully occupied.