Inside

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 delivers a robust experience in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer that is far less demanding than modern AAA titles. The benchmark data shows this combination is heavily GPU-limited at higher resolutions, while at 1080p the CPU's strength becomes more apparent. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, contextualizes the combo's rank, and explores the specific roles of the GPU and CPU in generating these results.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K are dramatic, revealing a clear shift in the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo produces an average of 282 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, that figure falls to 203 FPS, a 28% reduction. At 4K Low, the average is 127 FPS, a further 37% drop from 1440p. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor as pixel count rises; the RX 7600 simply cannot maintain the same frame throughput when pushing four times the pixels of 1080p.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings. For High settings, the averages are 141 FPS at 1080p, 101 FPS at 1440p, and 64 FPS at 4K. This represents a 55% reduction from 1080p to 4K, showing that the GPU's workload scales almost linearly with resolution. The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU has ample headroom to feed the GPU, but at 4K, the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are maxed out, making the frame rate almost entirely dependent on the graphics card's raw throughput.

Interestingly, the gap between 1080p and 1440p is smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K for Low settings, but for High settings the drop is more even. This non-linear behavior implies that the RX 7600 hits a performance cliff between 1440p and 4K, likely due to its 8 GB VRAM capacity and 128-bit memory bus struggling with the increased data set. The game's art style, which features a dark, atmospheric world, may also place a premium on fill rate and memory bandwidth at higher resolutions, further explaining the significant performance hit.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations for Inside, this pairing sits at rank 2500 out of 3716 combos. This places it in the 67th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly one-third of the combos in the database perform worse. This is a respectable position, especially considering the game's age and the fact that many top-ranked combos likely feature flagship GPUs from recent generations.

The rank suggests that while this CPU-GPU pairing is capable, it is not exceptional for this specific title. The data implies that the RX 7600, which ranks in the 57th percentile among all GPUs, is the primary anchor on performance. The CPU, on the other hand, ranks in the 90th percentile among all CPUs, indicating it is a high-end part that is not holding the system back. The combination of a top-tier CPU with a mid-range GPU results in a system that is balanced for general gaming but leaves performance on the table in Inside at higher resolutions.

The fact that the combo rank is 2500 out of 3716 suggests that many other pairings outperform it, likely those with higher-tier GPUs like the RX 7900 series or RTX 4080s. However, the rank also shows that this is not a low-end setup; it is firmly in the upper half of the database. For a game as light on system requirements as Inside, this rank is more a reflection of the GPU's ceiling than the CPU's capability.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 33 chip, manufactured on a 6 nm process. It features 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. The GPU's boost clock is rated at 2655 MHz, with a game clock of 2250 MHz, and it has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Inside, the GPU's role is dominant. The measured FPS data shows that the frame rate scales directly with resolution, which is a classic sign of GPU-bound performance. The 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game, as even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 61, indicating the memory is not being completely exhausted, but the bandwidth is likely a limiting factor. The pixel rate is 169.9 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 339.8 GTexel/s, which are moderate figures that explain the performance drop at 4K.

The GPU's average benchmark score is 15171, which places it in the 57th percentile. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, which scores 15199, a mere 0.2% difference. This suggests the RX 7600 is performance-equivalent to that card in synthetic tests, but in Inside, the AMD card's specific architecture may favor the game's rendering style. The measured FPS at 1080p Ultra (134 FPS) indicates the GPU is well-utilized, but the jump to 4K Ultra (61 FPS) shows the card's limits are reached quickly.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset provides exact average FPS figures for three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the results are consistently high: Low yields 282 FPS, Medium 226 FPS (with a min of 192 and max of 259), High 141 FPS, and Ultra 134 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is minimal, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds negligible visual fidelity for a small performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 203 FPS, Medium 162 FPS (min 138, max 186), High 101 FPS, and Ultra 97 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is significant, with the Low setting losing 79 FPS, but the game remains highly playable. The Medium setting's min FPS of 138 indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays well above 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the performance is more constrained: Low 127 FPS, Medium 102 FPS (min 87, max 117), High 64 FPS, and Ultra 61 FPS. The Medium setting is the only one with recorded min and max values, showing a spread of 30 FPS, which suggests some scene-to-scene variability. The High and Ultra settings both hover around 60 FPS, which is the threshold for smooth gameplay, but the lack of min/max data for these presets means we cannot assess the severity of any potential dips.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS, the optimal experience depends on the target resolution. For 1080p, the Ultra preset at 134 FPS is the best choice, as it delivers a high frame rate with the highest visual quality. The difference between High (141 FPS) and Ultra (134 FPS) is only 7 FPS, so enabling Ultra is a no-brainer for most users.

For 1440p, the Medium preset at 162 FPS is the sweet spot. It offers a significant improvement over High (101 FPS) while maintaining a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset at 97 FPS is also viable, but the 65 FPS gain from dropping to Medium is substantial, and the visual difference between Medium and Ultra in a game like Inside may not be worth the performance loss.

For 4K, the Medium preset at 102 FPS is the recommended choice. The High preset at 64 FPS is playable, but the Medium setting provides a 38 FPS advantage, pushing the experience well into high-refresh-rate territory. The Ultra preset at 61 FPS should be avoided unless a user prioritizes maximum fidelity over frame rate stability, as it offers only marginal visual gains over High.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS is 134 at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the RX 7600 perform at 4K compared to 1440p?

A: At 4K Low, the average is 127 FPS, while at 1440p Low it is 203 FPS. This represents a 37% reduction in performance when moving to 4K.

*Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in Inside?*

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck, as FPS drops significantly with higher resolutions. The CPU's high percentile ranking (90th) suggests it is not the constraint.

*Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested systems in Inside?*

A: This pairing ranks 2500 out of 3716 tested combos, placing it in the 67th percentile.

Q: Which settings provide the best balance at 1440p?

A: Medium settings at 2560x1440 yield an average of 162 FPS, offering a high frame rate with a comfortable margin over the 101 FPS seen on High.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM cause issues in this game?

A: No, the 8 GB VRAM appears sufficient. Even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 61, and there is no indication of memory-related stuttering in the measured data.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF 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. It has 24 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. The CPU's benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32544 and a single-core score of 4594, placing it in the 90th percentile among all CPUs.

In Inside, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, but it ensures that frame rates remain high at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system hits 282 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's limit for the game's physics and logic updates. The fact that the FPS reaches such high numbers indicates the CPU is not causing a bottleneck at this resolution. However, the CPU's 14 cores and 20 threads are overkill for a game like Inside, which is unlikely to utilize more than a few threads.

The CPU's nearest rival is the AMD Ryzen 9 7900, which has an average score of 49228 versus the i5-14600KF's 49394, a delta of 0.3%. This close margin indicates that the i5-14600KF is a top-tier performer, and its capabilities are not fully stressed by this game. The data suggests that the CPU's high clock speed and cache are more than sufficient to feed the RX 7600, making the GPU the definitive performance limiter in all scenarios tested.