Inside

The Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT pairing delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Inside, a game whose modest visual demands mean the bottleneck shifts dramatically depending on your target resolution. At 1080p, the data shows this combo is heavily CPU-limited at lower presets, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the primary constraint. The measured FPS deltas between presets reveal that moving from Low to Ultra at 1080p costs roughly 39% of your frame rate, whereas the same preset jump at 4K costs about 54%, indicating that the Radeon RX 5700 XT's rendering load scales more aggressively with settings at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but predictable, and the shape of that curve tells you exactly where the system’s limits lie. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 219.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 196.9 FPS at 2560x1440, then plunges to 124.1 FPS at 3840x2160. That is a 43.5% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low, which is substantial but still leaves the game very playable. The Medium preset follows a similar trajectory: 208.2 FPS at 1080p, 162.1 FPS at 1440p, and 102 FPS at 4K. The High preset shows 138 FPS at 1080p, 99.6 FPS at 1440p, and 61.5 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, dropping from 133.8 FPS at 1080p to 96.7 FPS at 1440p and finally to 57.7 FPS at 4K.

These numbers indicate that the gap between 1080p and 1440p is relatively modest across all presets—typically a 25-30% reduction—while the jump from 1440p to 4K is far more punishing, often costing another 35-40%. This pattern is classic GPU-bound behavior at higher resolutions: the RX 5700 XT’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth handle 1440p comfortably, but 4K pushes the pixel throughput to its limits. Interestingly, at 1080p Low, the system achieves 219.7 FPS, which is close to the practical ceiling for a 6-core, 6-thread CPU like the i5-9400 in a game with this level of draw calls. The fact that Medium at 1080p (208.2 FPS) is nearly as fast as Low suggests the CPU is the limiting factor there, not the GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

Among the 1671 tested combos in this database, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT ranks 1308th for Inside. That places it in the bottom 22% of all combinations, which might seem surprising given the high frame rates measured, but it reflects the broader context of modern hardware. The CPU itself sits at the 50th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 2305, while the GPU is stronger, landing at the 68th percentile with an average score of 24731.

The ranking disparity makes sense when you consider the CPU’s rivals. The i5-9400’s nearest competitor is the Intel Core i3-10305, which scores 2300—a delta of just 0.2%—meaning the two are effectively identical in raw compute. The Intel Core i7-8809G is only 0.6% faster, while the Intel Xeon E-2134 trails by 0.4%. This tells you the i5-9400 is a solid mid-pack CPU, but not a standout. On the GPU side, the RX 5700 XT is nearly tied with the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (delta -0.1%), slightly ahead of the Intel Arc A350M (delta 0.3%), and 0.9% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000. The GPU is clearly the stronger component in this pairing, which is why the combo rank is dragged down by the CPU’s mediocrity relative to top-tier alternatives.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience at 4K, the data clearly points to Medium settings as the sweet spot. At 3840x2160, Medium delivers 102 FPS on average, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while High drops to 61.5 FPS and Ultra falls to 57.7 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium at 4K is only a 17.8% performance hit (from 124.1 to 102 FPS), but the visual improvement is typically worth it in a puzzle platformer where art direction matters. Ultra at 4K is not worth the 43.5% penalty over Medium, especially since the average frame rate dips below 60.

At 1440p, High is the recommended preset. The measured 99.6 FPS average is excellent for a 1440p display, and it leaves headroom for demanding scenes. Medium at 1440p runs at 162.1 FPS, which is overkill for most monitors, while Ultra at 96.7 FPS is still very playable but offers only marginal visual gains over High. At 1080p, the situation is different—High at 138 FPS is the best balance, as Ultra (133.8 FPS) costs nearly the same performance but the difference between High and Ultra is often negligible in this genre. Low at 1080p (219.7 FPS) is only useful for esports-style competitive play, which is not the target audience for Inside.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings shows the system’s capability. Low produces 219.7 FPS, Medium hits 208.2 FPS, High reaches 138 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 133.8 FPS. The delta between High and Ultra is just 3.1%, meaning Ultra is essentially free at this resolution—the GPU has ample headroom, and the CPU is the limiting factor above 200 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers scale down proportionally. Low delivers 196.9 FPS, Medium 162.1 FPS, High 99.6 FPS, and Ultra 96.7 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to 2.9%, while the drop from Medium to High is a significant 38.6%—this is where the GPU starts to feel the pressure of increased shading and texture work. At 3840x2160, the breakdown is: Low 124.1 FPS, Medium 102 FPS, High 61.5 FPS, and Ultra 57.7 FPS. The step from Medium to High at 4K is a 39.7% reduction, which is the largest single preset jump in the entire dataset, confirming that High and Ultra at 4K are pushing the RX 5700 XT to its limits.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain why the 4K results are as strong as they are. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth—plenty for a game like Inside that does not require massive texture streaming. The boost clock of 1905 MHz and game clock of 1755 MHz, based on the RDNA 1.0 architecture and 7 nm process, deliver 9.754 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. In practice, this translates to the 124.1 FPS at 4K Low, which is a strong result for a GPU that sits at the 68th percentile overall.

The GPU’s 64 ROPs and 160 TMUs handle the pixel and texture throughput efficiently, but the data shows that Ultra settings at 4K (57.7 FPS) dip below the 60 FPS line. This is consistent with the GPU’s transistor count of 10,300 million and die size of 251 mm², which place it as a mid-to-high-range part from the RX 5000 series. The fact that the RX 5700 XT is within 0.1% of the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile in average benchmark score (24731 vs 24763) is notable, as the A5000 is a workstation-class GPU. For this game, the RX 5700 XT’s 8 GB VRAM is never a constraint—even at 4K Ultra, the memory bandwidth is sufficient, and the bottleneck is raw shader throughput.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is the weaker link in this system, and its limitations become apparent at 1080p with lower presets. With 6 cores and 6 threads running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost of 4.10 GHz, the CPU delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and single-core score of 1125. These numbers place it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2305—essentially tied with the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300, delta 0.2%) and Intel Core i7-8809G (2319, delta -0.6%).

The CPU’s impact on Inside is most visible in the 1080p Low and Medium results. At 219.7 FPS (Low) and 208.2 FPS (Medium), the system is likely hitting a CPU ceiling imposed by the 6-thread design. The fact that High at 1080p (138 FPS) is significantly lower than Medium suggests the GPU is now doing more work, but the CPU is still keeping pace. However, at 4K, the CPU’s role diminishes—the frame rates are entirely GPU-bound, as evidenced by the 124.1 FPS at Low versus 102 FPS at Medium. The i5-9400’s 9 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 support with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for this game’s logic and physics, but the lack of hyper-threading means it cannot push beyond roughly 220 FPS in this title. For a 60 Hz 4K display, this CPU is more than sufficient; for 144 Hz 1080p gaming, it is the limiting factor.