Inside

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti delivers a highly capable experience in Inside, a Puzzle Platformer from 2016. The benchmark data shows this combination is strongly CPU-bound at lower resolutions, with the GPU becoming the primary limiter only at 4K. For most users, the Medium preset at 1440p offers the optimal balance of fluidity and visual fidelity, while the High preset at 1080p provides the best overall experience for standard monitors.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the Medium preset provides the most efficient performance curve across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 176.5 FPS, which is 61% higher than the High preset’s 109.7 FPS while presumably retaining most visual quality. The jump from Medium to High costs 66.8 FPS (a 38% drop), whereas the jump from Low to Medium only costs 41 FPS (a 19% drop). This suggests Medium is the sweet spot for maintaining high refresh rates without sacrificing significant graphical detail.

At 1440p, the Medium preset produces 126.2 FPS, which remains well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The High preset at this resolution drops to 80.8 FPS, still playable but with less headroom for demanding scenes. For users with 144Hz monitors at 1440p, the Low preset’s 156.3 FPS is the only option that fully saturates the refresh rate, though the visual compromise may not be worth it for a puzzle platformer where reaction time is less critical.

At 4K, the Medium preset’s 76.6 FPS is the recommended choice, as it stays comfortably above 60 FPS while the High preset’s 51.5 FPS dips below that threshold. The Ultra preset at any resolution offers diminishing returns: at 1080p it scores 106.6 FPS (only 3% below High), but at 1440p it drops to 77.9 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 47.5 FPS. For this game, Ultra appears to add minimal visual benefit over High while costing substantial performance.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 Ti features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process, contains 1536 shading units and 48 ROPs. The GPU’s boost clock of 1770 MHz (up from a 1500 MHz base) enables a pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 169.9 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 5.437 TFLOPS.

The GPU’s benchmark percentile of 55 places it just above the median of all tested GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 570X, scores only 0.4% higher on average, while the NVIDIA Tesla K10 trails by 0.7%. This mid-range positioning is reflected in the measured FPS data: the GPU becomes the bottleneck at 4K, where even the Low preset only achieves 101.8 FPS, a 53% drop from the 1080p Low result of 217.5 FPS. The 6 GB VRAM is sufficient for this title, as no settings combination appears to cause memory-related stuttering or frame drops.

The GPU’s 55th percentile ranking suggests it handles modern games adequately but not exceptionally. In Inside, the GPU’s limitations are most evident at 4K Ultra, where the 47.5 FPS result indicates the hardware is struggling to maintain fluid motion. The card’s end-of-life production status and 2019 release date mean it lacks modern features like ray tracing cores, but the game’s stylized visuals do not appear to require such capabilities.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play Inside with this CPU-GPU combo?*

A: The data shows 1440p Medium as the sweet spot, delivering 126.2 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining solid visual quality. At 1080p, even the High preset achieves 109.7 FPS, making it viable for high-refresh displays.

*Q: Does this combo support 4K gaming in Inside?*

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 4K Low, the system achieves 101.8 FPS, while Medium drops to 76.6 FPS. The High preset’s 51.5 FPS and Ultra’s 47.5 FPS fall below the 60 FPS standard, so 4K playable settings are limited to Low or Medium.

Q: How does the CPU’s performance compare to its direct rivals?

A: The i7-12700K has an average benchmark score of 35684, placing it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, scores 35802, a negligible 0.3% difference. The Intel Core i7-13700T trails by 0.6%, while the Intel Core i5-14500HX is 0.7% ahead.

Q: How does the GPU’s performance compare to its direct rivals?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti’s average benchmark score of 13925 places it in the 55th percentile. Its closest competitor, the AMD Radeon RX 570X, scores 13871, just 0.4% lower. The NVIDIA Tesla K10 scores 14029 (0.7% higher), while the RTX A2000 Mobile and GTX 680 score 0.8% lower and 0.8% higher, respectively.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth the performance cost?

A: The data suggests no. At 1080p, Ultra (106.6 FPS) is only 2.8% slower than High (109.7 FPS), but at 1440p the gap widens to 3.6% (77.9 vs 80.8 FPS), and at 4K it reaches 7.8% (47.5 vs 51.5 FPS). The moderate FPS loss yields minimal visual gains for a puzzle platformer.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1080p with this setup?

A: The measured results show 217.5 FPS on Low, 176.5 FPS on Medium, 109.7 FPS on High, and 106.6 FPS on Ultra. All settings exceed 100 FPS, making 1080p fully playable regardless of preset choice.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1428 out of 1671 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 15% of all systems in the database. This low ranking is primarily driven by the GPU’s modest 55th percentile performance, which drags down the overall result despite the CPU’s strong 89th percentile standing. The combination of a high-end 12-core processor with a mid-range 2019 GPU creates an imbalance where the CPU often waits on the GPU to deliver frames, particularly at higher resolutions.

This ranking does not tell the full story for Inside specifically. The game’s 2016 release date and puzzle platformer genre mean it is far less demanding than modern AAA titles. The measured FPS data confirms this: even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains 47.5 FPS, which is playable for this genre. The combo’s low rank relative to other tested systems reflects its limited headroom for future, more demanding games, but for Inside, the performance is more than adequate.

The CPU’s nearest rivals (Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, Core i7-13700T, Core i5-14500HX) all score within 1% of the i7-12700K, indicating that any of these processors would produce nearly identical results in this game. Similarly, the GPU’s rivals (RX 570X, Tesla K10, RTX A2000 Mobile, GTX 680) are all within 1% performance, so swapping to any of them would yield comparable frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the system’s bottleneck characteristics. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 217.5 FPS at 1080p to 156.3 FPS at 1440p (a 28% reduction) and then to 101.8 FPS at 4K (a 35% further reduction). This pattern indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is the primary limiter at 1080p, with the GPU only becoming fully engaged at 4K.

At High settings, the scaling is more dramatic: 109.7 FPS at 1080p drops to 80.8 FPS at 1440p (26% reduction) and then to 51.5 FPS at 4K (36% further reduction). The total 53% drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings suggests the GPU is increasingly the bottleneck as resolution increases. The Ultra preset shows the steepest scaling curve, falling from 106.6 FPS at 1080p to 77.9 FPS at 1440p to 47.5 FPS at 4K, a total 55% reduction.

The Medium preset demonstrates the most linear scaling: 176.5 FPS to 126.2 FPS to 76.6 FPS, with reductions of 28% and 39% respectively. This suggests that Medium settings create a balanced load between CPU and GPU, where neither component is severely underutilized at any resolution. For 4K gaming, the Low preset’s 101.8 FPS is the only option that maintains triple-digit frame rates, confirming that the GTX 1660 Ti is the limiting factor at this resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the system achieves 217.5 FPS on Low, 176.5 FPS on Medium, 109.7 FPS on High, and 106.6 FPS on Ultra. The difference between High and Ultra is minimal (3.1 FPS), while the gap between Medium and High is substantial (66.8 FPS). The Low preset’s 217.5 FPS is the only result that exceeds 200 FPS, making it suitable for 240Hz displays.

At 1440p, the results are 156.3 FPS on Low, 126.2 FPS on Medium, 80.8 FPS on High, and 77.9 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset’s 126.2 FPS provides excellent headroom for 120Hz monitors, while the High preset’s 80.8 FPS remains above 60 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 30.1 FPS, while Medium to High costs 45.4 FPS.

At 4K, the system produces 101.8 FPS on Low, 76.6 FPS on Medium, 51.5 FPS on High, and 47.5 FPS on Ultra. The Low preset is the only option that exceeds 100 FPS, while Medium stays comfortably above 60 FPS. The High preset’s 51.5 FPS and Ultra’s 47.5 FPS fall below the 60 FPS standard, making them less suitable for smooth gameplay. Across all resolutions, the scaling pattern is consistent: Low to Medium costs roughly 20-25% performance, Medium to High costs 35-45%, and High to Ultra costs only 2-8%.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K, based on the Alder Lake architecture, features 12 cores and 20 threads with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its 25 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 and DDR5) contribute to strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4128 and Geekbench single-core score of 2561.

In Inside, the CPU’s role is most apparent at 1080p Low settings, where the 217.5 FPS result indicates the processor can feed frames faster than the GPU can render them. The CPU’s 89th percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 35684 (only 0.3% below the Ryzen 7 PRO 5845) show it is a top-tier processor. However, this power is largely underutilized in this game, as the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher resolutions and settings.

The CPU’s 12 cores and 20 threads far exceed the requirements of a 2016 puzzle platformer, meaning thermal throttling is unlikely to occur. The 125W TDP and 10 nm process node allow for sustained boost clocks without excessive heat generation. The measured data confirms this: the frame rates remain consistent across all settings at each resolution, with no signs of CPU-induced stuttering or frame drops. For this game, the CPU provides massive headroom, ensuring that the GTX 1660 Ti is always the limiting factor unless the user specifically selects low settings at 1080p to push frame rates beyond 200 FPS.