Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer that is far more forgiving on hardware than most modern titles, and the benchmark data for the Intel Core i5-9400 + AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT combo reflects that. This pairing delivers exceptionally high frame rates across all tested resolutions, but the scaling pattern reveals an interesting dynamic: this game is so lightweight that the CPU becomes a significant factor even at 4K. The data shows a system that is massively overqualified for the task, yet still subject to the architectural limitations of a six-core, six-thread processor from the Coffee Lake generation.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is the clearest indicator of where the bottleneck lies in this combo. At 1080p with High settings, the system produces 171.7 FPS. Moving to 1440p High drops that to 152.4 FPS, a modest decline of roughly 11%. Jumping to 4K High yields 93.6 FPS, which is a 45% reduction from the 1080p result. This scaling curve is notably shallow for a GPU as powerful as the RX 6800 XT, which suggests the CPU is holding back performance at lower resolutions.

The Low settings data reinforces this conclusion. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 220.3 FPS, while 1440p Low manages 201.8 FPS (only an 8% drop), and 4K Low still maintains 168.3 FPS. The gap between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings is just 18.5 FPS, which is far smaller than what a GPU-bound scenario would produce. This indicates that the i5-9400’s six cores are saturating the engine’s draw-call throughput before the GPU can flex its full muscle. The RX 6800 XT, with its 4608 shading units, is effectively idle-waiting for the CPU to feed it geometry at these lower resolutions.

At Ultra settings, the pattern shifts slightly. The 4K Ultra result of 90.4 FPS is only 3.2 FPS lower than 4K High, showing that the game’s Ultra preset adds minimal GPU load compared to High. Conversely, 1080p Ultra (170.1 FPS) is nearly identical to 1080p High (171.7 FPS), confirming that Inside’s visual presets have a limited impact on the GPU. The limiting component at 1080p and 1440p is clearly the CPU’s single-thread performance, as the 4.10 GHz boost clock on the i5-9400 is the ceiling for this engine’s physics and logic updates.

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT wasted in this combo for Inside?

A: At 4K Ultra, the GPU is still the primary driver, producing 90.4 FPS. However, at 1080p Low, the frame rate caps at 220.3 FPS, which is more indicative of CPU limits than GPU potential, given the RX 6800 XT’s 87th percentile ranking among all GPUs.

Q: How does the i5-9400 hold up in a game released in 2016?

A: The chip’s six cores and six threads are sufficient for Inside’s single-threaded logic, but the 2.90 GHz base clock and 4.10 GHz boost clock create a ceiling around 220 FPS at 1080p Low. The CPU’s 50th percentile ranking among all CPUs shows it is mid-pack, yet it still delivers playable results.

Q: What is the best resolution to play Inside with this setup?

A: 1440p High offers a strong balance at 152.4 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors. 4K High at 93.6 FPS is also viable for 60 Hz displays, and 4K Low pushes 168.3 FPS for high-refresh 4K panels.

Q: Does the RX 6800 XT’s 16 GB of VRAM matter for Inside?

A: Not practically. The game’s simple geometry and textures are unlikely to exceed even a fraction of that capacity. The 512.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 256-bit bus are far more relevant to raw throughput, but the measured FPS shows the GPU is rarely the constraint.

Q: How much performance is lost going from Low to Ultra at 4K?

A: The drop from 168.3 FPS at 4K Low to 90.4 FPS at 4K Ultra is a loss of 77.9 FPS, or roughly 46%. This shows that Ultra settings do impose a real GPU load, unlike at 1080p where the CPU masks the difference.

Q: Is this combo future-proof for similar puzzle platformers?

A: The RX 6800 XT’s 87th GPU percentile and 26,800 million transistors suggest it will handle future titles, but the i5-9400’s 50th CPU percentile will likely bottleneck more demanding games. For Inside specifically, the data shows no practical limitation.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 917th out of 1671 tested combinations in Inside, placing it in the 55th percentile of all systems. This ranking is surprisingly low for such a powerful GPU, and it directly reflects the CPU’s constraints. The RX 6800 XT alone sits in the 87th percentile versus all GPUs, while the i5-9400 sits in the 50th percentile versus all CPUs. The gap between these two percentile rankings explains why the combo underperforms its hardware potential.

The measured FPS data supports this interpretation. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 90.4 FPS, which is respectable but not exceptional for a GPU of this class. The nearest GPU rivals, such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (which scores 2.6% higher in average benchmarks), would likely push higher frame rates with a more capable CPU. However, the data does not include rival CPU-GPU pairings, so direct comparisons are speculative. The rank of 917 suggests that many other combos in the database achieve higher FPS in Inside, likely because they pair stronger CPUs with similar or slightly weaker GPUs.

The deltaPct values for the i5-9400’s CPU rivals show it is closely matched with the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.2% higher average score) and the Intel Xeon E-2134 (0.4% higher). This means that swapping to a newer or higher-clocked CPU would yield marginal gains in Inside’s CPU-bound scenarios, potentially pushing the combo rank higher. The GPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Arc A550M, scores 0.5% higher on average, but the RX 6800 XT’s superior memory bandwidth and pixel rate give it an edge in pixel-heavy scenes.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the frame rates are uniformly high, with Low settings producing 220.3 FPS, Medium at 208.1 FPS, High at 171.7 FPS, and Ultra at 170.1 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is only 1.6 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset adds negligible GPU work. The gap between Low and Ultra is 50.2 FPS, but the CPU is the limiting factor here, as the GPU has ample headroom.

Moving to 1440p, the results show a similar pattern but with slightly lower ceilings. Low settings hit 201.8 FPS, Medium drops to 181.7 FPS, High settles at 152.4 FPS, and Ultra manages 146.7 FPS. The drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is 18.5 FPS, which is a smaller percentage decline than expected for a GPU-bound workload, again pointing to CPU limitations. High to Ultra at 1440p shows a 5.7 FPS gap, slightly larger than at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is starting to take on more load.

At 4K, the GPU finally becomes the dominant factor. Low settings produce 168.3 FPS, Medium 153.1 FPS, High 93.6 FPS, and Ultra 90.4 FPS. The massive drop between Medium and High (59.5 FPS) indicates that the High preset introduces a significant rendering cost, likely related to shadow resolution or post-processing effects. The Ultra preset adds only 3.2 FPS over High, so players can run Ultra at 4K without a meaningful penalty. The 4K Low result of 168.3 FPS is still higher than 1080p High, showing that the game scales well with resolution when settings are reduced.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is a high-end card with 4608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than enough for Inside’s modest texture requirements. The base clock of 1825 MHz and boost clock of 2250 MHz are high, and the game clock of 2015 MHz suggests the card sustains performance well under load. The pixel rate of 288.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 648.0 GTexel/s are massive for a 2D platformer, yet the data shows the GPU is not fully utilized until 4K.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its raw power: it scores 24980 in Passmark G3D and 199366 in Geekbench Metal, placing it in the 87th percentile. Its nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA RTX A1000 (1.7% higher average score) and the NVIDIA CMP 50HX (1.9% lower), are all within a tight performance band. However, Inside’s rendering pipeline does not stress the GPU’s ray tracing cores (72) or its FP32 throughput of 20.74 TFLOPS, as the game uses simple lighting and textures. The GPU’s role is primarily to handle resolution scaling, which it does efficiently at 4K where the CPU bottleneck is alleviated.

The launch MSRP of 649 USD reflects its high-end positioning, but the measured data shows that at 1080p and 1440p, the GPU is often waiting for the CPU. This is not a criticism of the GPU, but rather a signal of how lightweight Inside is. The 4K Ultra result of 90.4 FPS is the only scenario where the GPU’s capabilities are truly tested, and it passes comfortably.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It has 9 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory on a dual-channel bus with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 7969 and single-core score is 1125, placing it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i3-10305 and Intel Xeon E-2134, score within 0.4% of its average, indicating that this CPU is firmly mid-range.

In Inside, the CPU’s role is critical because the game’s physics and logic updates are largely single-threaded. The 4.10 GHz boost clock is the primary driver of performance at 1080p and 1440p, where the frame rates plateau around 220 FPS and 202 FPS respectively. The six cores are more than sufficient for the game’s parallel tasks, but the lack of hyper-threading means that any background process could interfere with frame pacing. The 65 W TDP is modest, and the socket 1151 compatibility with Coffee Lake architecture is well-established.

The data shows that the CPU is the bottleneck in most scenarios, as evidenced by the small frame rate differences between 1080p and 1440p at the same settings. For example, High settings yield 171.7 FPS at 1080p and 152.4 FPS at 1440p, a drop of 19.3 FPS. This is a 11% reduction for a 78% increase in pixel count, which clearly indicates CPU limitations. The CPU’s 50th percentile ranking means that many other processors would outperform it in this game, but the measured results are still excellent for a playable experience. The combo rank of 917 out of 1671 is a direct consequence of this CPU bottleneck, and users seeking higher frame rates would benefit more from a CPU upgrade than a GPU upgrade.