Inside

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers an exceptional experience in Inside, a puzzle platformer that is far more demanding than its minimalist art style suggests. The measured frame rates are consistently high across all resolutions, but the scaling patterns reveal a clear hierarchy in what limits performance. This analysis breaks down the data to explain how the game behaves at different settings and what that means for your hardware configuration.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a dramatic and predictable drop as resolution increases, but the rate of decline is not uniform across all settings. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces 353 FPS. Moving to 1440p at the same Low preset drops the average to 254 FPS, a 28% reduction. Pushing further to 4K at Low yields 160 FPS, which is another 37% drop from the 1440p figure. This steep decline from 1080p to 4K at Low settings suggests the GPU is becoming the primary constraint as pixel count multiplies.

The High preset tells a similar story but with a different starting point. At 1080p High, the average is 177 FPS. At 1440p High, it falls to 127 FPS, a 28% decrease that mirrors the Low preset's scaling. At 4K High, the average is 80 FPS, which is a 37% drop from 1440p. The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and High indicates that the rendering workload scales linearly with resolution, and the RX 7700's 16 GB of VRAM is not a limiting factor even at 4K, as the frame rates remain high.

Ultra settings show the most constrained performance. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 168 FPS. Dropping to 1440p Ultra reduces this to 121 FPS, a 28% reduction. At 4K Ultra, the average falls to 76 FPS, which is a 37% drop from 1440p. The pattern is clear: the GPU's rendering pipeline is the bottleneck at higher resolutions and quality settings, while the CPU's 14 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear picture of which settings deliver the best balance of visual quality and performance. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, producing 168 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p, and 76 FPS at 4K. While these numbers are all playable, the jump from High to Ultra only costs 9 FPS at 1080p, dropping from 177 to 168. At 1440p, the difference is 6 FPS, from 127 to 121. At 4K, the difference is only 4 FPS, from 80 to 76.

The Medium preset offers a substantial performance headroom. At 1080p, Medium yields 282 FPS, which is 105 FPS higher than High. At 1440p, Medium produces 203 FPS, a 76 FPS advantage over High. At 4K, Medium reaches 128 FPS, which is 48 FPS faster than High. The Medium preset also provides the only measured minimum and maximum frame times in the entire dataset, with 1080p ranging from 240 to 325 FPS, 1440p from 173 to 234, and 4K from 108 to 147.

For the smoothest experience, the Low preset is the clear winner. At 1080p, it produces 353 FPS, which is more than double the Ultra setting's output. At 1440p, Low hits 254 FPS, and at 4K, it still maintains 160 FPS. However, the visual fidelity of Inside is part of its appeal, and the game's atmospheric lighting and shadows are likely to suffer at the Low preset. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot: it provides excellent frame rates with a measurable minimum FPS of 108 at 4K, ensuring no noticeable stutter even in the most demanding scenes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its benchmark scores are formidable: it achieves 24,491 points in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,064 in single-core, with a Geekbench single-core score of 2,491. This places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48,618.

In the context of Inside, the CPU's role is to maintain enough frame pacing to avoid bottlenecking the GPU. The data indicates that the 14600K does this effortlessly. At 1080p Low, the system hits 353 FPS, which is likely near the upper limit of what the game's engine can produce. The difference between 1080p and 1440p at the same settings is 99 FPS, which is a significant drop that points to the GPU taking over the workload. However, the fact that the 1440p Low score of 254 FPS is still extremely high suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor at that resolution either.

The CPU's high single-thread performance, evidenced by its 4,270 Passmark single-thread score, is particularly relevant for a puzzle platformer like Inside, which may rely on a single main thread for game logic. The 14600K's boost clock of 5.30 GHz ensures that this thread has ample processing power. Meanwhile, the 24 MB of shared L3 cache helps feed the GPU with data quickly, though the game's relatively simple geometry means cache pressure is likely low. The nearest rival, the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, scores 48,698 on average, a negligible 0.2% difference, confirming that the 14600K is in elite company for this workload.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Inside at 4K with maximum settings?*

A: Yes, the measured average at 4K Ultra is 76 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and while it is the lowest average in the dataset, it is still a playable experience.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: The Medium preset at 1440p produces an average of 203 FPS with a minimum of 173 FPS and a maximum of 234 FPS. This provides a high frame rate with a narrow variance, ensuring consistent performance.

Q: How much performance is lost when switching from Low to Ultra at 1080p?

A: The average FPS drops from 353 at Low to 168 at Ultra, a 185 FPS reduction. This indicates that Ultra settings impose a substantial rendering load on the GPU.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data does not suggest a CPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 353 FPS, and at 1080p Ultra, it still achieves 168 FPS. The CPU's 14 cores and high boost clock are sufficient to keep the GPU fed at these frame rates.

Q: What is the lowest recorded frame time in the dataset?

A: The lowest minimum FPS is 108, measured at 4K with Medium settings. This is the only resolution and preset combination where a minimum FPS below 170 is recorded, indicating that 4K Medium is the most demanding scenario for frame consistency.

Q: How does this system compare to the RTX 3060 Ti in raw GPU benchmarks?

A: The RX 7700 has an average benchmark score of 15,852, while the RTX 3060 Ti scores 16,129. This puts the RX 7700 1.7% behind the RTX 3060 Ti in general compute benchmarks, a small difference that is unlikely to be noticeable in a game like Inside.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a Navi 32 chip, featuring 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation units. It operates at a boost clock of 2459 MHz and a game clock of 2041 MHz. The GPU is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s. This memory configuration is a critical asset for Inside, allowing the GPU to handle high-resolution textures and effects without stuttering.

The GPU's benchmark scores show a mixed profile. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 2,865, and in Passmark G3D, it achieves 20,974. Its Passmark G2D score is 1,206, and its compute score is 10,963. The GPU's percentile ranking is 58th among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15,852. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon R9 370X, scores 15,862, a negligible 0.1% difference. More notably, the RX 7700 is 1% behind the RX 9060 and 1.7% behind the RTX 3060 Ti in average score, indicating that it sits in a competitive mid-range tier.

In Inside, the GPU's role is dominant. The scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent 28% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 37% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings. This pattern is classic GPU-bound behavior. The RX 7700's 16 GB of VRAM is more than adequate for this game, as even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 76, and the VRAM bus width of 256 bits ensures high bandwidth for texture streaming. The GPU's texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s are more than sufficient for the game's art style, which favors stark silhouettes and atmospheric effects over dense geometric detail.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset for the Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 7700 combination in Inside is as follows:

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 353 average FPS
• Medium: 282 average FPS, with a minimum of 240 and a maximum of 325
• High: 177 average FPS
• Ultra: 168 average FPS

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 254 average FPS
• Medium: 203 average FPS, with a minimum of 173 and a maximum of 234
• High: 127 average FPS
• Ultra: 121 average FPS

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 160 average FPS
• Medium: 128 average FPS, with a minimum of 108 and a maximum of 147
• High: 80 average FPS
• Ultra: 76 average FPS

Looking at the full picture, the system delivers a playable experience at every resolution and settings combination. The lowest average FPS recorded is 76 at 4K Ultra, which is still above the standard 60 FPS target. The data shows a clear hierarchy: Low settings are for maximum frame rates, Medium offers the best balance with recorded minimums above 100 FPS at all resolutions, and Ultra provides the highest visual fidelity with a modest performance cost over High. The frame time data for Medium settings is particularly useful, as it shows the game maintains a tight variance, with the 4K minimum of 108 FPS indicating that even the most complex scenes do not cause significant drops.

This system's performance in Inside is characterized by its ability to push extremely high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, while still maintaining smooth gameplay at 4K. The combination of a high-end CPU and a mid-range GPU with ample VRAM proves to be a well-matched pairing for this title. The data confirms that the RX 7700 is the primary driver of performance scaling, while the 14600K provides a solid foundation that does not introduce any measurable bottlenecks.