Inside

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT delivers a decidedly GPU-bound experience in Inside, though the data reveals a nuanced scaling pattern that shifts as resolution increases. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces 172.6 FPS, but dropping to Low settings pushes the average to 219.7 FPS. This 47.1 FPS gap indicates that even at this modest resolution, the graphics card still has headroom that the CPU cannot fully exploit in the highest preset. Moving to 1440p, the High preset yields 149.5 FPS, while Low reaches 201.3 FPS. At 4K, the scaling becomes more pronounced: High delivers 91.8 FPS, Medium 150 FPS, and Low 168.5 FPS. The transition from 1080p High to 4K High represents a 46.8% reduction in frame rate, suggesting that the RX 7800 XT’s rendering workload is the primary constraint at higher resolutions, while the i5-9400 remains a secondary factor.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate deltas across resolutions follow a predictable pattern for a GPU-heavy title, but the magnitude of the drop is telling. From 1080p High at 172.6 FPS to 1440p High at 149.5 FPS, the decrease is a modest 13.4%. However, stepping up to 4K High at 91.8 FPS introduces a 38.6% loss relative to 1440p. This nonlinear scaling strongly indicates that the Radeon RX 7800 XT’s pixel throughput and memory bandwidth—rated at 624.1 GB/s—become the limiting factors as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K. The fact that 4K Medium (150 FPS) outperforms 4K High (91.8 FPS) by 63.4% further underscores that the GPU’s shading units, of which there are 3840, are saturated by the higher preset’s additional effects.

At 1080p, the differences between presets are compressed. Low (219.7 FPS) versus Ultra (168.3 FPS) shows a 30.5% spread, which is relatively narrow compared to the 4K spread where Low (168.5 FPS) versus Ultra (91 FPS) spans 85.2%. This suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU’s six cores and six threads can feed the GPU adequately, but the GPU’s 96 ROPs and 240 TMUs still determine the ceiling. The 4K Ultra result of 91 FPS, nearly identical to 4K High’s 91.8 FPS, implies that diminishing returns set in beyond the High preset, with the extra rendering features taxing the GPU without proportionally increasing visual fidelity in this puzzle platformer.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, operating at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its benchmark scores place it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2305. In Inside, the CPU’s role is largely to maintain a consistent frame pacing, and the data indicates it does so without becoming a bottleneck until the highest frame rates. At 1080p Low, the 219.7 FPS average suggests the CPU can handle the game’s logic and draw calls efficiently, but the fact that 4K Low (168.5 FPS) is lower than 1080p Low (219.7 FPS) by 23.3% shows that the GPU’s workload, not the CPU, is the primary limiter.

The i5-9400’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel Core i3-10305, which scores 2300 (0.2% higher), and the Intel Core i7-8809G, scoring 2319 (0.6% higher). These marginal deltas indicate that the i5-9400’s single-threaded performance, as reflected in its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1125, is sufficient for Inside’s requirements. The game’s genre as a puzzle platformer typically relies on consistent physics and rendering, not heavy multi-threaded AI or simulation. The CPU’s 9 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 42.7 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for feeding the GPU, as evidenced by the 1440p High result of 149.5 FPS, which remains well above playable thresholds. The data shows no sign of CPU-induced stuttering or frame drops, as all measured averages are stable.

Settings Recommendations

For this combination, the measured rows suggest that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the average FPS is 203.4, which is 18.1% higher than High (172.6 FPS) and only 7.4% lower than Low (219.7 FPS). The visual quality improvement from Low to Medium is substantial in a game with atmospheric lighting and shadows, and the frame rate cost is minimal. At 1440p, Medium delivers 180.3 FPS, which is 20.6% higher than High (149.5 FPS) and still 10.4% lower than Low (201.3 FPS). This makes Medium the sweet spot for high refresh rate displays at 1440p.

At 4K, the Medium preset’s 150 FPS is particularly compelling when compared to High’s 91.8 FPS. The 63.4% advantage of Medium over High at 4K suggests that the High preset introduces effects that disproportionately impact the GPU’s 37.32 TFLOPS FP32 throughput. Ultra at 4K (91 FPS) offers no meaningful improvement over High (91.8 FPS), so it should be avoided. For users targeting 60 FPS at 4K, High is technically sufficient, but Medium provides a 63.4% headroom, ensuring consistent frame times. The Low preset, while achieving 168.5 FPS at 4K, likely sacrifices too much visual detail in a game where environmental storytelling is key. Therefore, the data recommends Medium as the default, with High reserved for 1080p or 1440p users who prioritize visuals over raw frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific configuration of the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT ranks 923rd out of 1671 tested combos in Inside, placing it in the 55.2nd percentile of all pairings. This mid-pack ranking is notable given the GPU’s strong individual performance. The RX 7800 XT sits at the 76th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 32619, while the i5-9400 sits at the 50th percentile. The disparity between the GPU’s high percentile and the combo’s middling rank suggests that the CPU’s lower standing drags the overall result down, even though Inside is not a CPU-intensive title.

Compared to the GPU’s nearest rivals, the RX 7800 XT scores 32540 on the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 (0.2% higher) and 32747 on the NVIDIA P104-100 (0.4% lower). These tiny deltas mean that swapping the RX 7800 XT for a comparable GPU would yield negligible changes in Inside’s frame rates. However, the combo’s rank of 923 indicates that many other pairings with faster CPUs achieve better results, likely because the i5-9400’s six threads cap performance in scenarios where the GPU is not fully saturated, such as at 1080p Low where 219.7 FPS is recorded. The data’s 4K results, where the combo still delivers 91.8 FPS on High, prove that the GPU can dominate, but the overall ranking reflects that a stronger CPU would push this combo higher in the standings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, as evidenced by its substantial benchmark scores: 24176 in Passmark G3D and 139381 in Geekbench OpenCL. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for Inside’s high-resolution textures and effects. The GPU’s boost clock of 2430 MHz and game clock of 2124 MHz, based on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with 3840 shading units, drive the frame rates observed in the measured data. At 4K Ultra, the 91 FPS average reflects the GPU’s raw compute power, but the minimal difference from 4K High (91.8 FPS) indicates that the game’s Ultra preset may rely on CPU-side geometry or physics that the i5-9400 cannot accelerate.

The GPU’s 76th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32619, places it well above the CPU’s 50th percentile. This imbalance is clear in the resolution scaling: at 1080p Low, the 219.7 FPS is likely near the CPU’s practical limit, while at 4K Low, the 168.5 FPS shows the GPU still has headroom. The RX 7800 XT’s pixel rate of 233.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 583.2 GTexel/s are more than sufficient for Inside, a game released in 2016 that does not leverage the GPU’s full feature set. The data suggests that the GPU is never the sole bottleneck until 4K High, where its 91.8 FPS result reflects a balanced load. The 60 ray accelerators and DirectX 12 Ultimate support are irrelevant for this title, but the GPU’s raw rasterization performance ensures that even at 4K, the combo remains highly playable, with the CPU’s modest six-thread configuration serving as the ultimate ceiling only at extreme frame rates.