Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer with a deliberately restrained visual style, yet the measured performance of the Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 reveals a wide range of frame rates depending on how aggressively you push the settings. The data shows that this combination is far from uniform, swinging from well over 200 FPS at lower presets to just over 50 FPS at the most demanding settings in 4K. This analysis breaks down the specific numbers, how the combo ranks, and what the scaling patterns indicate about the balance between the CPU and GPU.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average FPS is 127.9 at 1920x1080 with High settings.

Q: How much faster is the Low preset at 1080p compared to Ultra?

A: The Low preset achieves an average of 223.8 FPS, while the Ultra preset achieves 124.7 FPS, making the Low preset roughly 99 FPS faster.

Q: Does the combo maintain a 60 FPS average at 4K on any preset?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the average FPS is 94.3, and with Low settings it is 115.9. However, High and Ultra settings fall below 60 FPS, with averages of 57.6 and 56.9 respectively.

Q: What is the performance delta between the Core i5-9400 and its closest rival?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305, has a score of 2300, representing a 0.2% difference.

Q: How does the RX 6600 compare to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti in average benchmark scores?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6600 has an average benchmark score of 25235. The RTX 3060 Ti has a score of 25120, which means the RX 6600 is 0.5% ahead.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 1383 out of 1671 total tested combinations, placing it in the lower percentile of overall performance.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the primary driver for this game's visual output, equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. Its clock speeds are notable, with a base clock of 1626 MHz, a game clock of 2044 MHz, and a boost clock of 2491 MHz. For a game like Inside, which features stark lighting and atmospheric effects, the GPU's 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs are responsible for rendering the final image. The architecture supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, which can influence how the game’s rendering pipeline is executed, though the specific impact is not isolated in the measured FPS data.

The GPU's role becomes more or less critical depending on the resolution and settings. At lower resolutions like 1080p, the frame rates are exceptionally high, suggesting that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to reach its limits. However, the gap between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 99.1 FPS, indicating that the GPU is still heavily taxed by the higher-detail presets. The GPU's performance ceiling is more apparent at higher resolutions, particularly 4K, where the pixel count increases dramatically. The data shows a significant drop-off in performance at 3840x2160 with High and Ultra settings, where the average FPS dips to 57.6 and 56.9, respectively. This indicates that the GPU's 8 GB memory and 128-bit bus, while sufficient for lower settings, become a limiting factor when trying to maintain fluid frame rates at 4K with maximum fidelity.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations for Inside, the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 6600 pair sits at rank 1383 out of 1671 combos. This places it in the bottom 20% of all tested systems, which is a strong indicator that while this setup can run the game, it is far from the top tier of performance. The ranking is likely dragged down by the CPU’s relatively modest standing; the Core i5-9400 sits at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2305. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 and Intel Core i3-1125G4, which are within 0.2% of its score, and the Intel Xeon E-2134, which is 0.4% slower.

The GPU, on the other hand, is a more capable piece of hardware, ranking at the 69th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 25235. It is closely matched with the AMD Radeon 890M (0% difference) and the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (0.2% slower). This disparity between the CPU’s mid-pack standing and the GPU’s higher placement suggests that the combo’s low overall rank in this specific game is not solely due to the GPU’s raw power. Instead, the data indicates that the older 6-core, 6-thread CPU may be holding the system back in certain scenarios, even though the game itself is not typically considered CPU-intensive. The overall rank reflects the synergy of both components, and the measured FPS data shows that this pairing is capable of delivering playable results at many settings, even if it doesn't compete with more modern or balanced configurations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of how this combo behaves across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system is clearly capable of delivering high refresh rate experiences. The Low preset yields an average of 223.8 FPS, which is a massive 95.9 FPS jump over the Medium preset’s 206.9 FPS. The High preset drops to 127.9 FPS, and the Ultra preset settles at 124.7 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is a mere 3.2 FPS, suggesting that the additional quality steps from High to Ultra are not particularly taxing on this hardware at this resolution.

Moving up to 2560x1440, the performance scales down as expected. The Low preset still provides a very smooth 187.4 FPS, and the Medium preset remains above 144 Hz with an average of 147.6 FPS. The High preset drops to 90.1 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 87.8 FPS. This represents a significant reduction from the 1080p numbers, with the Ultra preset losing 36.9 FPS when moving from 1080p to 1440p. The gap between High and Ultra at this resolution is only 2.3 FPS, again indicating that the Ultra preset’s extra effects are not the primary performance hurdle.

At 3840x2160, the GPU’s limitations become clear. The Low preset is the only option that comfortably exceeds 100 FPS, with an average of 115.9 FPS. The Medium preset manages 94.3 FPS, which is still playable. However, the High and Ultra presets dip to 57.6 and 56.9 FPS, respectively. These are the only settings in the entire dataset that fall below the 60 FPS target, showing a hard performance wall at 4K with higher detail levels. The difference between Medium and High at 4K is a substantial 36.7 FPS, highlighting the disproportionate cost of enabling the higher-quality textures and effects at this resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is a clear indicator of the system’s bottleneck. At the Low preset, the frame rate drops from 223.8 FPS at 1080p to 187.4 FPS at 1440p, a decline of 16.3%, and then to 115.9 FPS at 4K, a further 38.1% decline from the 1440p result. This scaling pattern suggests that the CPU is capable of maintaining a high frame rate ceiling even as resolution increases, and the GPU is still able to keep up with the lower graphical load at 4K Low.

However, the scaling at the Ultra preset tells a different story. The frame rate falls from 124.7 FPS at 1080p to 87.8 FPS at 1440p (a 29.6% drop), and then plummets to 56.9 FPS at 4K (a 35.2% drop from 1440p). This severe decline at 4K Ultra indicates that the GPU is becoming the limiting component. The pixel count at 3840x2160 is over four times that of 1920x1080, and the RX 6600’s 128-bit memory bus and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient to feed the rendering pipeline at that resolution with all effects enabled. The data shows that the CPU is not the primary constraint at 4K Ultra, as the frame rate is clearly tied to the GPU’s rendering capacity rather than any CPU-related limitation. The fact that the High and Ultra presets both land in the 57 FPS range at 4K, despite a 36.7 FPS difference at Medium, further reinforces that the system has hit a hard GPU-bound limit at this resolution. Conversely, at 1080p Low, the massive 223.8 FPS result suggests that if the CPU were the bottleneck, we would see a smaller gap between resolutions, which is not the case. The bottleneck shifts from a balanced state at 1080p to a clearly GPU-bound state as resolution and settings increase.