Inside

# Inside — Intel Core i5-9400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D produces a benchmark profile that is far more GPU-limited than CPU-limited in Inside, a puzzle platformer from 2016. The measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings remain comfortably in the triple digits, yet the scaling patterns reveal that the six-core Coffee Lake processor imposes a ceiling at lower resolutions while the Blackwell 2.0 GPU dominates at higher ones. The data shows a system that delivers 129–222 FPS depending on resolution and preset, with the widest margins appearing between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is pronounced but not catastrophic, indicating that the RTX 5090 D is doing the heavy lifting while the i5-9400 begins to matter more as pixel count decreases. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 171 FPS at 1920x1080 to 153 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 18 FPS, and then to 131 FPS at 3840x2160, another 22 FPS drop. This progression shows a 23.4% decline from 1080p to 4K at High, which is a substantial but expected result for a game that is not particularly demanding by modern standards.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more revealing. The average at 1080p is 222 FPS, dropping to 199 FPS at 1440p and then to 170 FPS at 4K. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 52 FPS, or 23.4%, which mirrors the High preset percentage almost exactly. This consistency suggests that the game's rendering load scales uniformly with pixel count, and that neither the CPU nor the GPU is hitting a hard wall at any resolution in this range.

The Medium preset shows a similar pattern: 205 FPS at 1080p, 183 FPS at 1440p, and 157 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset delivers 168 FPS at 1080p, 150 FPS at 1440p, and 129 FPS at 4K. Across all settings, the 4K-to-1080p ratio hovers around 76–78%, meaning that moving to 4K costs roughly a quarter of the frame rate regardless of quality level.

What this scaling says about the limiting component is clear: at 1080p, the i5-9400's six threads and 2.90 GHz base clock (4.10 GHz boost) are likely constraining the RTX 5090 D from reaching even higher numbers, especially at Low where the GPU has less work to do. At 4K, the GPU's fill rate and shading power become the primary factor, and the CPU's influence diminishes. The fact that Low at 1080p reaches only 222 FPS, while Ultra at 1080p hits 168 FPS, indicates a 54 FPS spread that is primarily GPU-driven, but the relatively modest absolute numbers at Low suggest the CPU is preventing the GPU from fully stretching its legs.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1354 out of 2887 tested combinations in Inside, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all systems benchmarked. This is a middling rank for a pairing that includes a top-tier GPU, and the data explains why: the RTX 5090 D's raw power is being partially held back by the older i5-9400, which sits at the 47th percentile among all CPUs. The GPU, by contrast, is at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, so the bottleneck is clearly on the processor side.

The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce this assessment. In Cinebench R23, the i5-9400 scores 6629 multi-core and 935 single-core. The single-core score is particularly relevant for gaming, and 935 is modest compared to modern processors. The Geekbench results show 5141 multi-core and 1389 single-core, which are similarly unremarkable for a 2018-era chip. The average benchmark score of 2254 places it just above the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (2246, 0.4% delta) and just below the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (2259, −0.2% delta). These rival comparisons show that the i5-9400 is essentially neck-and-neck with a quad-core Tiger Lake laptop chip and a first-gen Ryzen, which is not a flattering position for a desktop part.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5090 D is a different story. Its Passmark G3D score of 44065 is massive, and its Geekbench Vulkan score of 376915 shows enormous compute capability. The nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76904 avg, 1.1% higher delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78940 avg, −1.6% delta), which are mobile GPUs, further emphasizing the 5090 D's desktop-class dominance. The combination's rank of 1354 out of 2887 suggests that many other combos, likely with newer CPUs, achieve better frame rates in Inside despite having weaker GPUs.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data supports a clear recommendation for High settings as the best balance between visual quality and performance. At 4K High, the combo delivers 131 FPS average, which is only 2 FPS lower than Ultra (129 FPS) but 26 FPS higher than Ultra's ceiling when compared to Medium's 157 FPS. The jump from Medium to High costs 26 FPS at 4K (157 to 131), while the jump from High to Ultra costs only 2 FPS (131 to 129). This means that Ultra provides virtually no additional frame rate benefit over High, but the visual quality difference is typically negligible in a puzzle platformer with minimal dynamic effects.

At 1440p, High delivers 153 FPS, which is 3 FPS more than Ultra's 150 FPS but 30 FPS less than Medium's 183 FPS. The trade-off favors High because the 30 FPS difference between Medium and High is more noticeable than the 3 FPS difference between High and Ultra. At 1080p, High hits 171 FPS, which is 3 FPS above Ultra's 168 FPS and 34 FPS below Medium's 205 FPS. The pattern is consistent: High is the sweet spot because it offers near-Ultra quality with a small but measurable FPS advantage over Ultra, while Medium's higher frame rates come at a visible quality cost.

For competitive play or high-refresh-rate displays, Low at 1080p (222 FPS) or 1440p (199 FPS) would be the choice, but the game's slow-paced puzzle nature does not demand such extremes. The Medium preset with its recorded minimums (174 FPS at 1080p, 156 FPS at 1440p, 133 FPS at 4K) provides a safety margin, but High's unrecorded minimums may dip lower. The data suggests that High at 1440p or 4K is the recommended configuration for most users, as it stays well above 120 FPS at both resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured averages are as follows: Low delivers 170 FPS, Medium delivers 157 FPS with a minimum of 133 FPS and a maximum of 181 FPS, High delivers 131 FPS, and Ultra delivers 129 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 41 FPS, with Medium's 157 FPS sitting closer to Low than to High. The gap between High and Ultra is just 2 FPS, making Ultra effectively indistinguishable from High in terms of performance.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 199 FPS, Medium averages 183 FPS with a range of 156 to 211 FPS, High averages 153 FPS, and Ultra averages 150 FPS. The spread narrows slightly to 49 FPS from Low to Ultra. Medium's minimum of 156 FPS is still above High's average of 153 FPS, which is an interesting data point: the worst-case Medium frame rate is better than the average High frame rate, suggesting that Medium offers more consistent performance than High at this resolution.

At 1920x1080, Low averages 222 FPS, Medium averages 205 FPS with a range of 174 to 235 FPS, High averages 171 FPS, and Ultra averages 168 FPS. The spread widens to 54 FPS from Low to Ultra. The Medium minimum of 174 FPS is higher than both High's and Ultra's averages, reinforcing the idea that Medium is a more stable preset. The maximum of 235 FPS at Medium is the highest recorded value across all resolutions and settings, indicating that the system can push well beyond 200 FPS when conditions are favorable.

The data also shows that the i5-9400's 4.10 GHz boost clock is likely the reason for the relatively small differences between High and Ultra at every resolution. The game's CPU load is probably not high enough to saturate all six cores, but the single-thread performance (935 in Cinebench R23 single-core) may limit how fast the game logic can run, capping maximum frame rates regardless of GPU headroom.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 D is a 5 nm Blackwell 2.0 part with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a game like Inside that does not require large texture assets. The base clock of 2017 MHz and boost clock of 2407 MHz are high, and the 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is immense. In Inside, these specifications translate to frame rates that are consistently above 129 FPS even at 4K Ultra, which is far beyond what the game's 2016 release date would have required.

The GPU's benchmarks show a Passmark G3D score of 44065 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 310674, both of which place it in the top tier of graphics cards. Its percentile ranking of 92 means it outperforms 92% of all GPUs in the database, yet the combo rank of 1354 out of 2887 suggests that the CPU is holding it back. The nearest GPU rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (1.6% higher avg score) and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (2.4% higher avg score), but these are workstation or mobile parts, not direct desktop competitors.

The 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are not particularly relevant for Inside, which does not use ray tracing or DLSS, but they contribute to the GPU's overall compute headroom. The 32 GB VRAM is also overkill for this game, as even 4K textures in a puzzle platformer would fit comfortably in a fraction of that capacity. The GPU's role here is to provide a massive performance buffer, which it does, but the measured frame rates are not as high as the GPU's raw power suggests they could be, had a newer, faster CPU been paired with it.

FAQ

Q: Why does the combo only rank 1354 out of 2887 when the GPU is so powerful?

A: The rank reflects the entire system's performance in Inside, and the i5-9400's 47th percentile CPU ranking (avg score 2254) limits the combo. The GPU alone is at the 92nd percentile, but the CPU's single-core performance (935 in Cinebench R23) caps frame rates, especially at lower resolutions where CPU overhead is more significant.

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

A: Based on the data, 1440p High (153 FPS) or 4K High (131 FPS) are both excellent choices, as they stay above 120 FPS while offering near-maximal visual quality. At 1080p, High (171 FPS) provides the highest FPS for a quality preset, but the CPU bottleneck becomes more apparent at Low (222 FPS).

Q: Is the RTX 5090 D overkill for this game?

A: Yes, the 32 GB GDDR7 memory and 104.8 TFLOPS of compute are far beyond what Inside requires, evidenced by the fact that even 4K Ultra delivers 129 FPS. The game is from 2016 and has modest graphics demands, so the GPU is never the limiting factor at any resolution.

Q: How does the i5-9400 compare to its closest CPU rivals?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2254, which is 0.2% below the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (2259) and 0.4% above the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (2246). It is effectively tied with these parts, showing that its six cores and six threads (2.90 GHz base, 4.10 GHz boost) are competitive with newer quad-core laptop chips but not with modern desktop processors.

Q: Does the Medium preset offer better consistency than High?

A: Yes, at every resolution the Medium preset's minimum FPS (e.g., 174 at 1080p, 156 at 1440p, 133 at 4K) is higher than High's average FPS at that resolution. This indicates that Medium provides more stable frame pacing, which may be preferable for a game with precise timing mechanics.

Q: What is the maximum measured FPS with this combo?

A: The highest recorded frame rate is 235 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Medium settings. The maximum at 1440p Medium is 211 FPS, and at 4K Medium it is 181 FPS. These are the only settings where max FPS was recorded, but they show the system's capability to exceed 200 FPS at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with 9 MB of shared L3 cache and 256 KB L2 per core. Its memory bandwidth is 42.7 GB/s via dual-channel DDR4, which is modest by modern standards. The CPU's benchmarks show a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6629 and a single-core score of 935, placing it at the 47th percentile of all CPUs.

In Inside, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates. The game's puzzle platformer nature means it does not have massive numbers of on-screen entities, so the CPU load is moderate. However, the i5-9400's single-thread performance is the key constraint: the 935 score in Cinebench R23 single-core is low compared to newer CPUs, and this shows in the frame rate scaling. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 222 FPS, but this is far below what the RTX 5090 D could deliver with a more capable CPU — the GPU's Passmark G3D score of 44065 suggests it could push well over 300 FPS in a lighter game if unconstrained.

The CPU's six threads are adequate for a game from 2016, which would have been designed for quad-core processors. The 4.10 GHz boost clock helps in single-threaded workloads, but the 14 nm process and older architecture limit its efficiency compared to the 5 nm RTX 5090 D. The combination of an end-of-life CPU (released 2018-10-18) with an active GPU (released 2025-01-29) creates a generational mismatch that is visible in the data: the CPU's 47th percentile ranking versus the GPU's 92nd percentile ranking.

The nearest CPU rivals — the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (2259 avg, −0.2% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (2246 avg, 0.4% delta) — are all within 1% of the i5-9400's average score of 2254. This clustering shows that the i5-9400 is not an outlier but rather a representative mid-range processor of its era. For Inside, this means the CPU is sufficient to maintain playable frame rates but not sufficient to unlock the RTX 5090 D's full potential. The data indicates that a newer CPU with higher single-core performance would likely push the 1080p frame rates significantly higher, while the 4K results would remain largely unchanged due to GPU dominance.