Inside

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a 2D puzzle-platformer where frame rates are so high they outpace most display refresh rates. This combination is far from a bottleneck at any setting, offering a smooth and responsive experience regardless of the visual preset chosen.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows that Inside is profoundly GPU-bound at lower resolutions, with the CPU proving its mettle as the resolution climbs. The measured FPS drops are substantial but consistent with the game's low rendering complexity, indicating that the Intel Core i7-12700K is more than capable of feeding the GPU at all times.

At 1080p, the average frame rates are astronomical. With Low settings, the combo produces 367 FPS, which is a massive reservoir of performance. Moving to Medium, the average drops to 339 FPS, a 7.6% decline. High settings deliver 268 FPS, and Ultra settings 255 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p is a 30.5% reduction in FPS, but even the lowest figure is far beyond any display's refresh rate capability.

At 1440p, the pattern of high performance continues. The Low preset delivers 329 FPS, which is only 10.4% lower than the 1080p Low result. The Medium preset shows 303 FPS, High 193 FPS, and Ultra 184 FPS. The difference from High to Ultra is a mere 4.7%, suggesting that the game's Ultra preset is not a significant additional load over High.

The most telling drop occurs between 1440p High and 4K High. The FPS falls from 193 to 121 FPS, a substantial 37.3% decrease. This indicates that 4K resolution is where the GPU workload increases notably. The same trend is visible across all presets: 4K Low shows 242 FPS (a 26.5% drop from 1440p Low), 4K Medium 194 FPS (a 36.0% drop), and 4K Ultra 115 FPS (a 37.5% drop). The CPU, with its 12 cores and 20 threads, clearly has abundant headroom; the performance scaling is dictated almost entirely by the GPU's fillrate and pixel throughput at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The best experience per the measured rows is to prioritize the High preset at 1080p or 1440p. The High preset achieves 268 FPS at 1080p, which is already well beyond the refresh rate of any mainstream monitor. At 1440p, the High preset delivers 193 FPS, still a massive margin. The Ultra preset at 1440p yields 184 FPS, a mere 4.7% performance reduction from High, but the visual difference is likely negligible in a game of this style.

The Medium preset is a strong alternative, particularly at 4K. The 4K Medium result of 194 FPS is nearly as fast as the 1440p High result and is 60 FPS higher than the 4K High setting. However, there is no reason to sacrifice visual quality when the High preset is so well within reach. The Low preset is unnecessary on this hardware, as even the 4K Low figure of 242 FPS is far beyond what a monitor can display.

The most balanced experience is the High preset at 2560x1440. It provides the fidelity of the High settings while maintaining a 193 FPS average. If a user is targeting a 4K display, the Medium preset at 4K is the sensible choice, offering 194 FPS, whereas the High and Ultra presets at 4K show 121 and 115 FPS respectively. The difference between Medium and High at 4K is 57 FPS, a 37.6% drop, making Medium the clear winner for 4K play.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the primary performance driver in this configuration. Its enormous 24 GB of GDDR6 memory is entirely overkill for a game like Inside, which has a simple art style and low texture complexity. The GPU's 384-bit memory bus and 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth are also far beyond what is necessary, and the benchmark results confirm this, as the card is never bandwidth-limited at any resolution tested.

The GPU's clock speeds are a strong indicator of its capability. The base clock is 1929 MHz, with a boost clock of 2498 MHz and a game clock of 2365 MHz. These high clocks, combined with 6144 shading units and 192 ROPs, explain why the card is able to push 367 FPS at 1080p Low. At 4K, the pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s is the primary limiter, but even so, the card manages 242 FPS at Low and 121 FPS at High. The GPU's raw compute of 61.39 TFLOPS is not the bottleneck in this title; instead, it is the pixel fillrate that determines the 4K performance ceiling.

Given that the game is a 2D platformer, the GPU's direct relevance is in the rasterization of the scene. The performance scaling shows a clear pattern: from 1440p High to 4K High, the FPS drops from 193 to 121, and from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra, it drops from 184 to 115. These are large percentage drops that correlate directly with the pixel count increase, confirming that the GPU's fillrate is the limiting factor at high resolutions. The card's 192 ROPs are busy at 4K, but the cartoonish visuals of the game are not demanding, meaning the card is only lightly engaged. The 24 GB memory capacity is not a constraint; a 4 GB card would likely produce identical results in this game.

How This Combo Ranks

This particular combination of the Intel Core i7-12700K and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 354th out of 3716 tested combinations in Inside, putting it in the top 9.5% of all systems. Given the game's low system requirements and the high-end nature of both components, this is an expected outcome. The rank reflects the idea that Inside is not a demanding title, and even high-end hardware doesn't dramatically distinguish itself, as the limit is often the refresh rate of the display.

The CPU's average benchmark score is 35287, which places it in the 84th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Core i5-13600T with an average score of 35305, the Intel Core i7-12700KF at 35365, the Intel Core i7-13700T at 35403, and the Intel Core 5 213PE at 35428. The i7-12700K is nearly identical in performance to these chips, with delta percentages of -0.1, -0.2, -0.3, and -0.4 respectively. This indicates the CPU's performance is on par with its generation and slightly below these newer or similar parts, but the difference is negligible in a game like Inside.

The GPU has an average benchmark score of 19410, which places it in the 64th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB with 19334 points, the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 with 19602, the AMD FirePro D300 with 19637, and the NVIDIA TITAN Xp with 19177. The RX 7900 XTX is 0.4% faster than the GTX 1060, 1.0% slower than the Quadro K5200, 1.2% slower than the FirePro D300, and 1.2% faster than the TITAN Xp. These deltas are all within about 1%, showing the RX 7900 XTX is a mid-pack performer on average, but this is a measure of raw compute, not gaming FPS.

The combination's rank of 354 is not a true reflection of the GPU's gaming power because Inside is a CPU-light, GPU-light title. The rank is low because the game is so easy to run that most systems, even older ones, can achieve high FPS. The top of the list likely consists of high-end GPUs that can brute-force 4K, but the i7-12700K and RX 7900 XTX are already beyond that threshold.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K is the strong foundation of this combination, but its role in Inside is minimal. The game is a 2D platformer with simple logic, so the CPU's 12 cores and 20 threads are far more than needed. The 3.60 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost clock provide extremely high single-thread performance, which is the primary CPU metric for this title. The benchmark results confirm the single-thread strength: the 3DMark single-thread score is 1043, and the best single-core score in Geekbench is 2308.

The multi-core capability is equally high, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 19784 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 15790. However, Inside likely uses only one or two threads. The 16-thread 3DMark score of 9276 and the max-threads score of 9979 show that the CPU can scale, but the game will not leverage this. The data shows that the FPS is constant regardless of resolution, which indicates the CPU is not being taxed. The FPS at 1080p Low is 367, and the 4K Low is 242, a drop that is purely GPU-bound. The CPU is hardly breaking a sweat; its Passmark multithread score is 34404, but the game is not using a fraction of that.

The CPU's performance percentile is 84, meaning it is faster than 84% of all CPUs. This is an excellent result, but it is not what limits the FPS in Inside. The game's engine is not demanding, and the CPU's high single-thread performance ensures that it will never be a bottleneck. The i7-12700K has a TDP of 125 W, but its power draw is irrelevant in this context given the low load. The Alder Lake architecture with 10nm process node is mature and efficient, but again, the game does not stress it.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra settings with this combo?

A: The average FPS at 4Kp Ultra is 115 FPS.

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

A: The GPU is the bottleneck at 4K. The FPS drops significantly from 1440p to 4K (e.g., from 193 to 121 FPS on High), while the CPU has a high core count and clock speed that is not fully utilized by the game.

Q: How does the RX 7900 XTX compare to the NVIDIA TITAN Xp in average benchmark score?

A: The RX 7900 XTX has an average score of 19410, which is 1.2% higher than the TITAN Xp's score of 19177.

Q: What is the CPU's 3DMark 16-thread score?

A: The CPU's 3DMark 16-thread score is 9276.

Q: Which resolution and preset provides the highest FPS?

A: The 1920x1080 Low preset provides the highest FPS at 367 FPS.

Q: What is the CPU's rank among all CPUs?

A: The CPU is in the 84th percentile, meaning it performs better than 84% of all CPUs.

Q: What is the deltaPct of the Intel Core i5-13600T compared to the i7-12700K?

A: The Intel Core i5-13600T has a deltaPct of -0.1%, indicating its average score is 0.1% lower than the i7-12700K's.