Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle platformer that, on paper, should not stress modern flagship hardware. The measured data for the Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, however, paints a more nuanced picture than simple overkill. This combination ranks 490th out of 3716 tested combos for this title, placing it in the top ~13% of all systems, yet the frame rate behavior across resolutions reveals distinct bottlenecks that are worth analyzing for benchmark purposes.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear hierarchy for this specific configuration. At 1920x1080, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is relatively compressed: the system delivers 333 FPS at Low, 307 FPS at Medium, 256 FPS at High, and 252 FPS at Ultra. The gap between High and Ultra is only 4 FPS, which is negligible for a game like Inside, where the visual difference between those presets is often subtle in this side-scrolling genre.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low settings yield 298 FPS, Medium drops to 275 FPS, High falls to 193 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 184 FPS. The step from Medium to High is a significant 82 FPS loss, suggesting that the High preset introduces a rendering load that disproportionately impacts performance relative to the visual gain. This makes Medium the sweet spot at 1440p: it retains a 275 FPS average with a measured minimum of 234 FPS and a maximum of 317 FPS, providing ample headroom above any display refresh rate likely to be used.

At 3840x2160, the scaling becomes more dramatic. Low settings produce 242 FPS, Medium drops to 194 FPS (with a min of 165 and max of 223), High falls to 121 FPS, and Ultra yields 115 FPS. The jump from Medium to High at 4K costs 73 FPS, which is a 37.6% reduction in average frame rate. Given that the measured minimum at 4K Medium is 165 FPS, this preset still guarantees a completely smooth experience on high-refresh 4K displays.

For the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate stability, the data strongly supports Medium settings across all tested resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 307 FPS, which is only 26 FPS below Low but 51 FPS above High. At 1440p, Medium's 275 FPS is 82 FPS above High. At 4K, Medium's 194 FPS is 73 FPS above High. The only scenario where High might be considered is 1080p, where 256 FPS remains exceptionally high, but the 4 FPS gain from High to Ultra at that resolution makes Ultra the better choice if visual quality is paramount. Overall, Medium is the recommended preset for this combo, as it consistently provides the largest performance buffer before the costlier presets introduce diminishing returns.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 490 out of 3716 tested combinations places this system in the 86.8th percentile for Inside specifically. This is a strong result, but not a top-tier one, which is surprising given the components involved. The Intel Core i5-13400F sits at the 77th percentile among all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 25292. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX sits at the 64th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19410.

The discrepancy between the GPU's 64th percentile and the combo's 86.8th percentile in-game suggests that Inside is not primarily GPU-limited. The RX 7900 XTX's nearest rivals in the database are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB (0.4% higher average score), the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 (1% lower), the AMD FirePro D300 (1.2% lower), and the NVIDIA TITAN Xp (1.2% higher). This grouping is unusual, as the RX 7900 XTX is a modern flagship with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory, yet its synthetic benchmark average places it near much older cards. This indicates that the GPU benchmark suite may not be fully exercising the RDNA 3.0 architecture's capabilities, or that the game's engine relies on features where this card does not excel.

For the CPU, the i5-13400F's nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (0% delta), the Intel Core 5 120 (0.3% lower), the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (0.3% lower), and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (0.4% higher). These are all mobile or lower-tier desktop parts, which is notable because the i5-13400F is a desktop Raptor Lake chip with 10 cores and 16 threads. Despite its higher synthetic scores in tests like Cinebench R23 (22604 multicore) and Geekbench multicore (11068), it is grouped with parts that have lower power envelopes and fewer desktop-specific optimizations.

The rank of 490 suggests that many other combinations outperform this pairing in Inside, likely because the game is old enough that even mid-range modern hardware can hit very high frame rates, and the bottleneck shifts to memory latency or single-thread performance. The i5-13400F's 3DMark single-thread score of 960 and Passmark single-thread score of 3634 are strong, but the game may not be leveraging the full thread count. The data indicates that this combo is well above average, but not elite, for Inside specifically.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this combo at 1080p?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 333 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 307 FPS at Medium, 256 FPS at High, and 252 FPS at Ultra.

Q: Does the RX 7900 XTX's 24 GB VRAM matter for Inside?

A: The measured data does not indicate any VRAM limitation. The card's memory bandwidth is 960.0 GB/s across a 384-bit bus, but for a 2016 puzzle platformer, the frame rates are consistently high at all settings, suggesting VRAM capacity is not a constraint at any resolution tested.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: The combo rank is 490 out of 3716 tested combos, meaning it performs better than approximately 86.8% of all tested systems for Inside. This is a strong showing, though not top-tier.

Q: What is the FPS drop from Medium to High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops from 194 at Medium to 121 at High, a reduction of 73 FPS or 37.6%. The drop from High to Ultra is smaller, from 121 to 115 FPS.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU more likely to be the limiting factor at 4K?

A: The data shows that at 4K Low settings, the combo produces 242 FPS, which is still very high. At 4K Ultra, it drops to 115 FPS. The 127 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K indicates a strong GPU dependency, but the CPU's 77th percentile ranking and the relatively high FPS at Low suggest the GPU is the primary limiter at higher presets.

Q: Are there any measured minimum FPS values for High or Ultra settings?

A: No. The FACT PACK only includes minimum and maximum FPS values for the Medium preset at each resolution. For 1080p Medium, the min is 261 and max is 353. For 1440p Medium, the min is 234 and max is 317. For 4K Medium, the min is 165 and max is 223.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete matrix across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers an average of 333 FPS at Low, 307 FPS at Medium, 256 FPS at High, and 252 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset has a measured minimum of 261 FPS and a maximum of 353 FPS, showing a 92 FPS spread that indicates some scene-to-scene variability. The difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is only 4 FPS, making those two presets nearly identical in performance.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 298 FPS at Low, 275 FPS at Medium, 193 FPS at High, and 184 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset here shows a min of 234 and max of 317, a spread of 83 FPS. The most notable drop is from Medium to High, where the average falls by 82 FPS. From High to Ultra, the drop is only 9 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset adds minimal additional load over High at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the data reveals the largest performance gaps. Low settings produce 242 FPS, Medium drops to 194 FPS, High falls to 121 FPS, and Ultra yields 115 FPS. The Medium preset has a min of 165 and max of 223, a 58 FPS spread. The drop from Medium to High is 73 FPS, while the drop from High to Ultra is only 6 FPS. This pattern mirrors the 1440p results, suggesting that the transition from Medium to High is a major rendering threshold in this game, while High to Ultra is comparatively minor.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently delivers the highest frame rates, with 333 FPS at 1080p, 298 FPS at 1440p, and 242 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset is the most balanced, with minimums that never drop below 165 FPS even at 4K. The High and Ultra presets show similar performance to each other, with the High preset averaging 256 FPS at 1080p, 193 FPS at 1440p, and 121 FPS at 4K, while Ultra averages 252, 184, and 115 FPS respectively.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K shows how this combo handles increasing pixel counts. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 333 at 1080p to 298 at 1440p (a 10.5% reduction) and then to 242 at 4K (an 18.8% reduction from 1440p). This represents a total 27.3% drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which is relatively modest and indicates that the system is not heavily pixel-bound at lower quality presets.

At Medium settings, the drop is more pronounced. From 1080p (307 FPS) to 1440p (275 FPS), the reduction is 10.4%. From 1440p to 4K (194 FPS), the reduction is 29.5%. The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Medium is 36.8%. This steeper scaling curve suggests that the Medium preset at 4K is beginning to saturate the GPU's fill rate or shading capacity.

At High settings, the scaling becomes even steeper. From 1080p (256 FPS) to 1440p (193 FPS), the drop is 24.6%. From 1440p to 4K (121 FPS), the drop is 37.3%. The total drop from 1080p to 4K at High is 52.7%. This indicates that the High preset at 4K is significantly more demanding, likely due to increased texture filtering or shadow complexity that scales with resolution.

At Ultra settings, the pattern is similar to High. From 1080p (252 FPS) to 1440p (184 FPS), the drop is 27.0%. From 1440p to 4K (115 FPS), the drop is 37.5%. The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is 54.4%. The fact that High and Ultra scale nearly identically reinforces the idea that the Ultra preset adds only marginal visual effects over High.

The resolution scaling analysis points to the GPU as the primary limiting component at higher resolutions and presets. The RX 7900 XTX, with its 61.39 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 960.0 GB/s bandwidth, is clearly capable of handling 4K, but the game's engine appears to have rendering paths that become disproportionately expensive at higher pixel counts. The fact that Low settings maintain over 240 FPS at 4K suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck, as the system can still push high frame rates when the GPU load is reduced.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a Raptor Lake desktop processor with 10 cores and 16 threads, a base clock of 2.50 GHz, and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 22604 in Cinebench R23 multicore, 3191 in Cinebench R23 single-core, and 11068 in Geekbench multicore.

For Inside, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU, but not negligible. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (333 FPS) is likely approaching the game's engine limits or the display's refresh rate, but the CPU's single-thread performance of 960 in 3DMark single-thread and 3634 in Passmark single-thread ensures that it can keep up with the GPU's output. The CPU's 77th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is a solid performer, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS, which is a mobile part, and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D, which has a smaller core count.

The 10 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for a 2016 puzzle platformer, which likely uses only a few threads. The data shows that at 4K Low settings, the combo achieves 242 FPS, which is 91 FPS lower than at 1080p Low (333 FPS). This 27.3% drop at the same settings across resolutions indicates that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor as resolution increases, but the CPU is still capable of feeding the GPU at high frame rates.

The CPU's boost clock of 4.60 GHz is likely what matters most for Inside, as the game's physics and logic are probably single-threaded. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1880 and 4-thread score of 3459 show strong scaling up to four threads, but the game is unlikely to use all 16 threads. The CPU's performance in this title is best described as "more than adequate," with no evidence of CPU-induced frame pacing issues or stutters in the measured data.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is a high-end RDNA 3.0 part with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1929 MHz, boost clock is 2498 MHz, and game clock is 2365 MHz. With 6144 shading units, 384 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, it delivers 61.39 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The card's average benchmark score is 19410, placing it at the 64th percentile among all GPUs.

In Inside, the GPU's performance is the dominant factor in determining frame rates at higher presets. The measured data shows that at 4K, the difference between Low and Ultra is 127 FPS (242 vs 115), a 52.5% reduction. This is a clear indication that the GPU is being heavily utilized at higher quality settings. However, the card's 64th percentile ranking is puzzling, as its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB, which has only 3 GB of VRAM and a much older architecture.

The RX 7900 XTX's 24 GB VRAM is never a limitation in Inside, as even at 4K Ultra, the game is unlikely to use more than a few gigabytes. The memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s is also far more than needed for a 2016 title. This suggests that the game's rendering engine may not be optimized for RDNA 3.0's architecture, or that the synthetic benchmark scores are not representative of gaming performance in this specific title.

The GPU's 64th percentile ranking, combined with the combo's 86.8th percentile in-game, indicates that the RX 7900 XTX is performing better in Inside than its average benchmark score would suggest. This could be because the game relies on raw fill rate and shading power, which the card has in abundance. At 4K Medium, the card maintains a 194 FPS average with a minimum of 165 FPS, which is excellent for a 4K resolution. The card's pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 959.2 GTexel/s are likely the key specifications driving this performance, as Inside's side-scrolling visuals are not particularly geometry-heavy.