Inside

Inside, a 2D puzzle platformer from 2016, presents an interesting stress test for a top-tier 2025 desktop combination. The benchmark data for the Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 shows a system that is overwhelmingly capable, pushing frame rates far beyond standard display refresh rates. The measured results reveal a title that is almost entirely GPU-bound at higher settings but can shift toward CPU limitations at lower resolutions and presets, offering a clear view of the balance between the 14-core processor and the Blackwell architecture graphics card.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic, but it follows a predictable curve that highlights the RTX 5090's raw power. At the High preset, the average frame rate falls from 299.1 FPS at 1920x1080 to 244.5 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 151.2 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a significant 49.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the rendering load at 4K is substantially more demanding on the GPU's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 104.8 TFLOPS of compute power.

The scaling pattern is not uniform across all presets, which is revealing. The Low preset shows the most extreme drop, going from 392.2 FPS at 1080p down to 299.7 FPS at 4K. This 23.6% decrease suggests that at the lowest settings, the system is less constrained by pixel throughput and more by other bottlenecks, yet the RTX 5090 still maintains nearly 300 FPS. In contrast, the Ultra preset displays the smallest relative drop, from 293.8 FPS at 1080p to 142.3 FPS at 4K, a 51.6% reduction. The fact that even the most demanding preset never falls below 142 FPS at 4K demonstrates that the GPU has ample headroom for this game's visual style.

Analyzing the data further, the gap between 1080p and 1440p is relatively small for most presets. At Medium settings, the difference is only 35.1 FPS (359.0 to 323.9), while the jump from 1440p to 4K is a much steeper 80 FPS drop. This non-linear scaling indicates that the 4K resolution begins to saturate the GPU's memory bandwidth, which is rated at 1.79 TB/s. The 512-bit bus width and 28 Gbps effective memory speed are clearly being exercised heavily at 3840x2160, as the pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s is pushed to its limits in this puzzle platformer's detailed environments.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy of performance that makes selecting a preset straightforward for most users. At 4K, the High preset delivers a stellar 151.2 FPS, which is more than sufficient for a smooth experience on high-refresh-rate displays. The Ultra preset, while only 5.9% slower at 142.3 FPS, offers the best visual quality that the game can provide. Given the proximity of these two scores, choosing between them comes down to whether the user prioritizes the absolute maximum frame rate or the highest fidelity.

For users targeting 1440p, the data shows that the Ultra preset at 232.8 FPS is the optimal choice, as it still far exceeds the refresh rate of most gaming monitors. There is little reason to drop below Ultra at this resolution, as even the most demanding setting maintains a frame time of under 4.3 milliseconds. The Medium preset at 323.9 FPS and High at 244.5 FPS are redundant for this hardware, as they sacrifice visual quality without providing a meaningful performance benefit that the display can utilize.

At 1080p, the situation is similar but with even more headroom. The Ultra preset delivers 293.8 FPS, which is likely beyond the capabilities of most 1080p displays. The Low preset at 392.2 FPS shows that the system is capable of reaching near 400 FPS when all visual effects are minimized, but this is purely an academic exercise for benchmarking. For the best experience per the measured rows, the Ultra preset at any resolution is the recommended choice, as the performance delta to lower presets does not justify the reduction in visual quality for a game of this type. The High preset at 4K offers a good middle ground for those who want a small FPS buffer over the Ultra setting, but the data suggests the GPU can handle the maximum settings without issue.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this configuration for Inside, with its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory proving to be more than adequate for the game's requirements. The 512-bit memory bus and resulting 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are likely the key factors in the high frame rates observed at 4K, as the game's simple geometry and lighting effects still require significant pixel throughput. The GPU's 176 ROPs and 680 TMUs handle the rasterization workload efficiently, as evidenced by the 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate.

The clock speeds of the RTX 5090, with a base of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz, are relatively moderate compared to its massive compute resources. This suggests that the card does not rely on extreme clock frequencies but rather on the sheer scale of its 21,760 shading units to achieve its performance. The FP32 throughput of 104.8 TFLOPS is more than sufficient for a 2D game, and the data indicates that even at 4K Ultra, the GPU is not fully saturated. The performance difference between the High and Ultra presets at 4K is only 8.9 FPS, suggesting that the additional effects in Ultra are not overly taxing on the Blackwell architecture.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 94 against all other graphics cards underscores its position near the top of the performance hierarchy. In the context of this game, the RTX 5090's average benchmark score of 84,306 is far above what the game requires, which is why the measured FPS values are so high. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14,411 further confirms that the card's capabilities are geared toward much more demanding titles than a puzzle platformer, making this combination an extreme overmatch for the workload.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Inside, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 18th out of 1,671 tested combos. This places it in the top 1.1% of all configurations, which is an exceptional result for any game. The rank is likely influenced by the fact that many other high-end GPUs are paired with even more powerful processors, but the data shows that this 14-core CPU does not bottleneck the RTX 5090 to any significant degree.

The rank of 18 is particularly impressive when considering the processor's performance relative to its rivals. The i5-14600K has an average benchmark score of 49,166, which is within 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and only 0.4% behind the Intel Core i5-14600KF. This indicates that the CPU is performing at a level consistent with its peers, and the small deltas in average score (ranging from -0.9% to 1.0% against its nearest rivals) do not translate into meaningful differences in this game's frame rates.

The high combo rank suggests that the system is well-balanced for Inside, despite the GPU being overkill. The fact that it does not achieve the top spot is likely due to other combinations featuring CPUs with higher single-thread performance, which can matter more in a game that may have physics or logic tied to the main thread. However, the 18th position out of 1,671 is a strong indicator that this is a top-tier configuration for the game, and users can expect exceptional performance with no compromises.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K plays a supporting role in this benchmark, but its specifications are still relevant to the results. With 14 cores and 20 threads, the processor offers substantial multi-threaded capability, as shown by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,881. However, for a game like Inside, the single-thread performance is often more critical, and the processor's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,642 and Geekbench single-core score of 2,803 are strong indicators of its ability to handle game logic.

The processor's boost clock of 5.30 GHz is a key factor in maintaining high frame rates at lower resolutions, where the GPU is not the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 392.2 FPS, which is likely approaching the CPU's limit for this game. The fact that the frame rate does not scale linearly with resolution at the Low preset suggests that the CPU is providing a bottleneck at the highest frame rates. The 14th Gen Raptor Lake architecture, built on a 10 nm process, delivers the necessary instruction throughput to feed the RTX 5090's massive processing power.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 93 against all processors places it in the upper echelon of desktop CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 49,166 is competitive with the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. The processor's L3 cache of 24 MB shared across the cores provides ample capacity for the game's data, and the dual-channel DDR5 memory support ensures sufficient bandwidth. While the CPU is not the star of this benchmark, its performance is sufficient to avoid limiting the RTX 5090 in most scenarios, only showing signs of strain at the absolute highest frame rates with the lowest graphical settings.