Inside

Inside is a light puzzle platformer from 2016, and on the Intel Core i5-9400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 combo, the data shows that performance is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at high resolutions but surprisingly CPU-limited at the lowest settings. The benchmark results indicate that this pairing delivers excellent frame rates across the board, but the scaling patterns reveal where the bottleneck shifts.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and dramatic drop as resolution increases, which is typical for a game that relies heavily on fill rate rather than complex geometry. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 222 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 Low drops that to 199 FPS, a reduction of roughly 10%. Stepping up to 3840x2160 Low yields 134 FPS, which is another 33% decline from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU that is being pushed harder at each higher resolution.

The High settings preset tells a similar story but with a more compressed range. At 1080p High, the average FPS is 148. At 1440p High, it falls to 106 FPS, a 28% decrease. At 4K High, the average is 67 FPS, which is another 37% drop from the 1440p result. The fact that the percentage drop from 1440p to 4K is larger at High settings (37%) than at Low settings (33%) suggests that the higher preset is adding more shading work per pixel, and the GPU's fixed pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor sooner.

The Medium preset provides the most complete data, as it includes minimum and maximum frame rates. At 1080p Medium, the average is 205 FPS with a minimum of 174 FPS and a maximum of 235 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 170 FPS, with a minimum of 145 FPS and a maximum of 196 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 107 FPS, with a minimum of 91 FPS and a maximum of 123 FPS. The frame time variance, measured by the gap between minimum and maximum, stays relatively consistent at around 30 FPS across these resolutions, indicating that the game's frame pacing is stable even as the average throughput falls.

Ultra settings produce the lowest frame rates at every resolution. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 141 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it is 101 FPS. At 4K Ultra, it falls to 64 FPS. The delta between High and Ultra at the same resolution is modest: 7 FPS at 1080p, 5 FPS at 1440p, and 3 FPS at 4K. This small difference suggests that the Ultra preset adds mostly subtle effects that do not heavily tax the GPU, whereas the jump from Low to Medium is where most of the performance cost lies.

The limiting component changes based on settings. At Low settings across all resolutions, the CPU's six cores and six threads are likely reaching their limit, as evidenced by the relatively small FPS difference between 1080p (222) and 1440p (199) compared to the larger drop to 4K (134). At High and Ultra settings, the GPU is clearly the primary constraint, as the frame rate scales almost linearly with pixel count.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 combination ranks 2099 out of 2887 tested combos in Inside. This places it in the lower third of all possible pairings, which is a surprising result given the high absolute frame rates measured. The rank reflects how this specific CPU-GPU pairing performs relative to every other combo in the database, and it suggests that many other systems achieve even higher frame rates in this game.

The CPU itself sits at the 47th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2254. Its nearest rivals are tightly clustered: the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 scores 2259 (0.2% higher), the Intel Core i7-10710U scores 2248 (0.3% lower), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2246 (0.4% lower), and the Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2264 (0.4% higher). This indicates that the i5-9400 is a mid-pack processor, and its performance in Inside is likely constrained by its six threads in a game that may not scale well beyond that.

The GPU is stronger relative to its peers. The RTX 5050 sits at the 66th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 21035. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (21153, 0.6% higher), the AMD Radeon HD 8970M (21237, 1% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (20713, 1.6% lower), and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile (21379, 1.6% higher). The GPU's percentile ranking is notably higher than the CPU's, which means the CPU is more likely to be the weak link in this pairing.

Given that the combo ranks 2099th out of 2887, the data suggests that many other CPU-GPU pairings deliver better performance in Inside. This is likely because the game is not particularly demanding on modern hardware, and even mid-range CPUs from newer generations can push higher frame rates when paired with a GPU like the RTX 5050. The i5-9400's age and six-thread limit may prevent it from fully exploiting the GPU's capabilities at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved with this combo?

A: The highest measured average is 222 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 205 at 1080p to 107 at 4K, which is a reduction of 98 FPS or roughly 48%.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the main bottleneck at 4K Ultra?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary limiter at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS is 64, since the CPU's six threads are likely not saturated at that resolution.

Q: What is the frame rate range at 1440p Medium?

A: The average is 170 FPS, with a minimum of 145 FPS and a maximum of 196 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested combos?

A: It ranks 2099 out of 2887 tested combos, placing it in the lower third of the database.

Q: Which preset gives the highest minimum frame rate at 1080p?

A: The Medium preset at 1080p has a minimum of 174 FPS, which is higher than the minimums recorded for other settings at that resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete matrix of resolution and settings combinations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 222 FPS. Medium increases the visual load but still produces 205 FPS, with a minimum of 174 FPS and a maximum of 235 FPS. High drops to 148 FPS, and Ultra is the slowest at 141 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 81 FPS, showing that the preset choice has a significant impact on performance.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with lower absolute numbers. Low yields 199 FPS. Medium averages 170 FPS, with a minimum of 145 FPS and a maximum of 196 FPS. High falls to 106 FPS, and Ultra is at 101 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 1440p is only 5 FPS, which is the smallest gap between those two presets at any resolution. The gap between Low and Medium is 29 FPS, and between Medium and High is 64 FPS, indicating that the Medium to High transition is where the most performance is lost.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress further. Low produces 134 FPS. Medium averages 107 FPS, with a minimum of 91 FPS and a maximum of 123 FPS. High drops to 67 FPS, and Ultra is at 64 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is just 3 FPS, and between Low and Medium is 27 FPS. The largest single drop at 4K is from Medium to High, which costs 40 FPS.

The minimum frame rates are only recorded for the Medium preset, which is common for benchmark data. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 174 FPS, which is still well above the refresh rate of most displays. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 145 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it is 91 FPS. These minimums indicate that the game does not have severe frame hitches, as the worst-case frames are still playable.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node. It features 2560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units. The GPU has 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores, though Inside is a 2D side-scroller that likely does not utilize these features. The FP32 performance is rated at 13.17 TFLOPS, and the texture rate is 205.8 GTexel/s.

The GPU's memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 320.0 GB/s. The memory clock is rated at 2500 MHz, which translates to 20 Gbps effective. This bandwidth is more than sufficient for a game like Inside, which uses simple textures and low-resolution assets. The GPU's base clock is 2317 MHz, with a boost clock of 2572 MHz.

In the context of Inside's benchmark results, the GPU's role is primarily to push pixels at high fill rates. The pixel rate is 82.30 GPixel/s, and the data shows that frame rates drop as resolution increases, which is consistent with fill rate being the limiting factor. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 64, which is close to the threshold where a 60 Hz display would be at its limit. The GPU's 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs indicates it is a capable mid-range part, but its 8 GB of VRAM is not a concern for this game, as the memory usage is likely well below that limit.

The GPU's benchmark scores support its mid-range positioning. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 2502. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 90334, and in Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 89381. The Passmark G3D score is 17326, and the Passmark GPU Compute score is 9184. These scores are competitive with its nearest rivals, but the game's performance is more dependent on the CPU at lower settings, as evidenced by the smaller FPS differences between resolutions at Low presets.

Settings Recommendations

The data suggests that the Medium preset at 1440p offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At that setting and resolution, the average FPS is 170, with a minimum of 145 FPS, which ensures smooth gameplay even in demanding scenes. The frame rate is high enough to drive a 144 Hz monitor, and the visual upgrade from Low to Medium is substantial based on the performance cost.

For users with a 1080p display, the Medium preset is also the sweet spot. It delivers 205 FPS average with a minimum of 174 FPS, leaving plenty of headroom for any future driver updates or background processes. The High preset at 1080p drops to 148 FPS, which is still playable but offers diminishing returns for the 57 FPS cost compared to Medium.

At 4K, the Medium preset is the only viable option for high refresh rate gaming. It averages 107 FPS with a minimum of 91 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 4K drops to 67 FPS, and Ultra to 64 FPS, both of which are borderline for a 60 Hz display but may cause stutters on higher refresh rate panels. The Low preset at 4K produces 134 FPS, but the visual quality is likely too degraded for a puzzle platformer where atmosphere is key.

The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution. At 1080p, it only provides 141 FPS compared to Medium's 205 FPS, a 64 FPS loss for what is likely a minor visual improvement. At 1440p, the gap narrows to 69 FPS (101 vs 170), and at 4K, it is 43 FPS (64 vs 107). The data shows that Ultra adds very little over High, with differences of only 3-7 FPS, so the extra cost is not justified. The best overall experience is the Medium preset at 1440p, which balances the GPU's capabilities with the CPU's limits and provides a consistent, high frame rate.