Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer from 2016 that remains remarkably light on modern hardware, and the measured data for the Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 reflects a combo that is capable of extreme frame rates across the board. The dataset shows a system that is never truly stressed by this title, with performance scaling that reveals a predictable shift from CPU-bound behavior at lower resolutions to GPU-bound behavior as pixel count increases. The numbers indicate that this pairing is overqualified for the task, delivering playable results even at 4K with maximum settings, though the headroom available suggests that users with high-refresh-rate displays will find the most value at 1440p and below.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression across resolutions tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies in this particular title. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces an average of 258.2 FPS, which is an extraordinarily high figure that illustrates just how little computational work Inside demands from the processor. Moving to 1440p at the same settings, the average drops to 185.1 FPS, a 28.3% reduction that points directly to the GPU beginning to take on more of the workload. At 4K with Low settings, the average falls further to 113.9 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth but represents a 38.5% drop from the 1440p figure.

The pattern holds across all settings presets. With High settings, the averages go from 129 FPS at 1080p, to 90.4 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 58.7 FPS at 4K. This scaling curve is remarkably consistent, with each resolution step costing roughly 30% of the previous frame rate. The data suggests that the RTX 2060 is the limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the CPU is clearly capable of feeding the GPU far more frames than it can render at 1440p and 4K. The gap between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 136 FPS (258.2 vs 122.2), which narrows to 57.6 FPS at 4K (113.9 vs 56.3), further confirming that the GPU becomes the primary constraint as resolution increases. This is a classic signature of a game that is neither CPU- nor GPU-intensive in absolute terms, but where the GPU must work harder to fill the larger frame buffers.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combinations for Inside, this specific pairing of the Core i7-12700K and RTX 2060 achieves a rank of 1354 out of 1671 total combos. This places it in the 81st percentile of all systems tested, which is a strong showing but not a top-tier result. The ranking is likely held back by the GPU rather than the CPU, as the processor itself sits at the 89th percentile among all CPUs in general benchmarks. The RTX 2060, by contrast, is at the 58th percentile among all GPUs, which explains why this combo does not crack the top quartile in a game that is so dependent on raw pixel throughput.

The CPU's nearest rivals in general benchmark performance include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 with a delta of -0.3%, the Intel Core i5-14500HX at -0.7%, and the Intel Core i7-13800H at +0.8%. These deltas are all within a single percentage point, indicating that the i7-12700K is squarely in the middle of a tightly packed performance cluster. The GPU's nearest rivals show a similar pattern, with the AMD Radeon RX 7600S at +0.5%, the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M at -1.7%, and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 at +1.8%. This suggests that swapping to any of these alternatives would produce nearly identical frame rates in Inside, reinforcing that the combo's 1354th place ranking is more a function of the GPU's mid-tier position than any specific weakness in this pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data presents a clear hierarchy of settings presets, and the optimal choice depends entirely on the target resolution. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset delivers an average of 122.2 FPS, which is far above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and well into high-refresh-rate territory. The Medium preset at 202.7 FPS offers nearly double the headroom, while Low at 258.2 FPS is essentially uncapped for 240 Hz displays. For most users at 1080p, the Ultra preset is the sensible recommendation because the frame rate remains high enough to be imperceptible from Medium in terms of smoothness, and the visual fidelity gains are tangible in this atmospheric title.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more nuanced. The Ultra preset drops to 87.9 FPS, which is still perfectly playable on a 60 Hz or 144 Hz monitor, but the High preset at 90.4 FPS offers nearly identical performance with a slightly lower visual load. The Medium preset at 147.1 FPS is the sweet spot for 144 Hz displays, as it clears the refresh rate threshold with room to spare. For 4K, the High preset at 58.7 FPS is the recommended choice, as it stays just below the 60 FPS line but is still smooth in practice; the Ultra preset at 56.3 FPS is only marginally slower and could be used if visual quality is paramount, but the Low preset at 113.9 FPS is the only option that provides a clear 60+ FPS experience at this resolution. The data indicates that High is the best overall balance for 4K, as it sacrifices only 2.4 FPS compared to Ultra while providing a meaningful reduction in rendering load.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete frame rate dataset shows a consistent pattern of performance that scales predictably with both resolution and settings. At 1920x1080, the averages are 258.2 FPS for Low, 202.7 FPS for Medium, 129 FPS for High, and 122.2 FPS for Ultra. The jump from Low to Medium costs 55.5 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High costs another 73.7 FPS, and High to Ultra costs only 6.8 FPS. This last step is particularly revealing, as it shows that the Ultra preset adds very little rendering overhead compared to High, making it a free upgrade in practice for most users.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 185.1 FPS for Low, 147.1 FPS for Medium, 90.4 FPS for High, and 87.9 FPS for Ultra. The relative differences between presets shrink compared to 1080p, with Low to Medium costing 38 FPS, Medium to High costing 56.7 FPS, and High to Ultra costing only 2.5 FPS. At 3840x2160, the averages are 113.9 FPS for Low, 93.6 FPS for Medium, 58.7 FPS for High, and 56.3 FPS for Ultra. The Low to Medium gap is 20.3 FPS, Medium to High is 34.9 FPS, and High to Ultra is again minimal at 2.4 FPS. Across all resolutions, the Ultra preset consistently delivers only a few frames less than High, which suggests that the Ultra settings in Inside are not significantly more demanding than High, or that the GPU is hitting a similar bottleneck in both cases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It features 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units, with a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1680 MHz. The memory configuration consists of 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. These specifications place the card at the 58th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 16074, and its closest rivals are all within a 1.8% delta, indicating that it is a solid mid-range performer.

In the context of Inside, the GPU's role is primarily to handle the rendering load at higher resolutions, and the data shows that it does so effectively but with clear limits. The 4K results at High and Ultra settings hover near the 60 FPS mark, which reflects the card's efficiency in this older title, but the fact that the Low preset at 4K produces 113.9 FPS while the Ultra preset produces 56.3 FPS indicates that the GPU's fill rate and shading capacity are the binding constraints at this resolution. The 6 GB VRAM allocation is not a factor in this game, as Inside's visual complexity is modest, but the card's 336.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient to handle the texture streaming at 4K without any apparent stutter or frame drops. The RTX 2060's 30 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores are largely irrelevant for this title, as Inside does not utilize ray tracing or DLSS, but their presence does not detract from the card's conventional rasterization performance, which is what the measured FPS figures ultimately reflect.