Inside

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a puzzle platformer with modest graphical demands relative to modern AAA titles. The benchmark data reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but demonstrates remarkable headroom at 1080p, where frame rates exceed 200 FPS across all tested settings. This analysis breaks down the measured performance metrics, scaling behavior, and the specific roles of the CPU and GPU in achieving these results.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates where the bottleneck lies in this configuration. At 1080p with High settings, the combo achieves 230 FPS, but this drops to 165 FPS at 1440p and further to 104 FPS at 4K—a 55% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling pattern indicates that the RTX 4070 becomes the limiting factor as pixel count increases, which is expected given the game's relatively light CPU workload.

The most telling data point is the Low settings row. At 1080p Low, the system hits 367 FPS, which suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU far beyond typical display refresh rates. However, at 4K Low, the score falls to 208 FPS—a 43% drop. This disproportionate decrease at higher resolutions confirms the GPU's dominance in the performance equation, as the 1920x1080 result likely approaches the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability for this title.

Medium settings provide the clearest view of resolution scaling because they include min/max FPS data. At 1080p Medium, the average is 339 FPS with a minimum of 288 FPS; at 1440p Medium, the average drops to 264 FPS (min 225); at 4K Medium, it falls to 166 FPS (min 141). The consistent ~22% reduction between 1080p and 1440p, followed by a ~37% reduction between 1440p and 4K, aligns with the pixel count increases (2.25x and 2.25x respectively, though the FPS drops are smaller due to diminishing returns from GPU utilization).

The Ultra preset shows the same pattern: 219 FPS at 1080p, 157 FPS at 1440p, and 99 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 99 FPS is just shy of the 100 FPS mark, indicating that even this powerful GPU cannot maintain triple-digit frame rates at maximum settings in 4K for this title. The data strongly suggests that users targeting 4K should consider High settings (104 FPS) rather than Ultra, while 1080p and 1440p users have substantial headroom across all presets.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide clear guidance on optimal settings for different target frame rates. For 4K displays, High settings deliver 104 FPS, which is the best balance between visual quality and performance, as Ultra drops to 99 FPS and Medium falls to 166 FPS but with lower visual fidelity. The 4K Medium result of 166 FPS is actually higher than the 1440p Ultra score of 157 FPS, suggesting that resolution plays a larger role than preset quality in this game's performance scaling.

At 1440p, the choice is between High (165 FPS) and Ultra (157 FPS)—a mere 5% difference that makes Ultra the recommended preset for users with high-refresh-rate monitors, as both comfortably exceed 144 Hz. The Medium preset at 264 FPS is excessive for most displays and offers diminishing returns in visual quality. For 1080p, all presets exceed 219 FPS, meaning users can freely select Ultra without compromising performance, as the GPU maintains over 200 FPS even at maximum settings.

The min/max data for Medium settings provides additional insight. At 1080p Medium, the minimum FPS of 288 and maximum of 389 show a spread of 101 FPS, indicating some scene-to-scene variability. At 1440p Medium, the spread narrows to 79 FPS (225-304), while at 4K Medium, it tightens to 50 FPS (141-191). This narrowing spread at higher resolutions further confirms the GPU-bound nature of the workload—when the GPU is the bottleneck, frame times become more consistent because the CPU has ample headroom to feed it.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combos for Inside, this configuration ranks 691 out of 3716 total combinations, placing it in the top 18.6% of all tested systems. This is a strong result for a mid-to-high-end pairing, though the rank suggests there are many more powerful combinations that achieve higher frame rates in this title. Given that the game is from 2016 and has modest requirements, the ranking reflects both the absolute performance of this hardware and the fact that many higher-end GPUs (like the RTX 4090 or RX 7900 XTX, not listed here) can push even higher frame rates.

The percentile positioning of the individual components provides context for this ranking. The i7-12700K sits at the 84th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35287. The RTX 4070 ranks at the 81st percentile among GPUs, with an average score of 37648. The combo's in-game rank of 691/3716 (81.4th percentile) is remarkably consistent with both components' individual percentiles, suggesting that the pairing is well-balanced for this title without any significant bottleneck from either component.

Comparing to the nearest rivals from the benchmark data, the i7-12700K's closest competitor is the Intel Core i5-13600T, which scores 35305—just 0.1% higher. The i7-12700KF is 0.2% higher at 35365, and the i7-13700T is 0.3% higher at 35403. These margins are negligible and indicate that the 12th-gen i7 performs essentially identically to its closest alternatives in synthetic benchmarks. For the RTX 4070, the nearest rival is the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (0.1% lower), followed by the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (0.4% lower) and the RTX 4080 Mobile (1.3% higher). The GPU's position among these rivals shows it sits at a performance tier where small differences separate it from both workstation and previous-generation parts.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS table reveals a consistent hierarchy across all resolutions and settings. At 1080p, the progression from Low to Ultra is: 367 FPS (Low), 339 FPS (Medium), 230 FPS (High), and 219 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Medium is 28 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 11 FPS, suggesting that the High to Ultra transition is more costly in terms of visual improvements than the Low to Medium step.

At 1440p, the same settings order produces: 329 FPS (Low), 264 FPS (Medium), 165 FPS (High), and 157 FPS (Ultra). The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across settings: 10.4% for Low, 22.1% for Medium, 28.3% for High, and 28.3% for Ultra. The larger percentage drops for High and Ultra compared to Low indicate that higher quality settings amplify the GPU workload more significantly at higher resolutions.

At 4K, the results are: 208 FPS (Low), 166 FPS (Medium), 104 FPS (High), and 99 FPS (Ultra). The drop from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced: 36.8% for Low, 37.1% for Medium, 37.0% for High, and 37.0% for Ultra. This uniformity across settings at the 4K step (approximately 37% reduction) is notable—it suggests that at 4K, the GPU is fully saturated regardless of quality preset, and the frame rate scales primarily with the pixel count rather than the specific settings.

The Medium settings rows provide the only min/max data, which is valuable for understanding frame pacing. At 1080p, the min of 288 FPS and max of 389 FPS around a 339 FPS average shows a broad distribution. At 1440p, the min of 225 FPS and max of 304 FPS around a 264 FPS average shows a similar relative spread. At 4K, the min of 141 FPS and max of 191 FPS around a 166 FPS average shows a narrower absolute spread. The coefficient of variation (spread divided by average) is 0.30 at 1080p, 0.30 at 1440p, and 0.30 at 4K—remarkably consistent, indicating the engine scales uniformly.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is the primary performance driver in this configuration, particularly at higher resolutions. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for Inside's art style and texture requirements. The GPU's 5888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 64 ROPs deliver the raw throughput needed to maintain the high frame rates observed. The boost clock of 2475 MHz (1920 MHz base) enables the card to operate at high frequencies consistently under load.

The Ada Lovelace architecture's 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores are largely irrelevant for this title, as Inside does not utilize ray tracing or DLSS. However, the GPU's FP32 throughput of 29.15 TFLOPS provides ample compute headroom for the game's rendering techniques, which likely rely on traditional rasterization. The 5 nm process from TSMC, with 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, contributes to the card's efficiency, though the 200 W TDP indicates it draws substantial power under load.

The GPU's benchmark scores corroborate its strong performance. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 3854, while in Geekbench Vulkan it achieves 174152 and in OpenCL 154858. The Passmark G3D score of 26927 places it in the 81st percentile among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 37648 is competitive with the Tesla P4 (37628, 0.1% lower) and RX Vega 56 (37507, 0.4% lower). The 1080p results, where the GPU is less stressed, show headroom—the 367 FPS at Low settings suggests the card could handle even higher frame rates if the CPU could deliver them.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K plays a supporting role in this configuration, but its capabilities ensure the GPU is never starved of data. With 12 cores (8 performance and 4 efficiency) and 20 threads, the Alder Lake architecture provides substantial multi-threaded throughput. The 3.60 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost clock deliver strong single-thread performance, which is critical for game logic and draw call submission. The 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency for frequently accessed game data.

The CPU's 3DMark results show excellent scaling: 1043 single-thread, 2065 for 2 threads, 4011 for 4 threads, 7202 for 8 threads, 9276 for 16 threads, and 9979 for max threads. The near-linear scaling from 2 to 16 threads indicates the architecture handles parallel workloads efficiently. In Cinebench R23, the multicore score of 19784 and single-core score of 1850.5 demonstrate its capability for both lightly-threaded and heavily-threaded tasks. Geekbench scores of 2308 single-core and 15790 multi-core further confirm its position as a high-end desktop processor.

The 1080p Low setting result of 367 FPS likely approaches the CPU's frame delivery limit for Inside. The fact that 1080p Ultra (219 FPS) is only 40% lower than 1080p Low suggests that the GPU is still the primary constraint even at the lowest resolution. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 35287, places it slightly above the i5-13600T (35305, -0.1%) and just below the i7-13700T (35403, -0.3%). These rivals are within 0.4% of the i7-12700K, meaning any of these CPUs would produce nearly identical results in Inside.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Inside?*

A: The data shows strong performance at all resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the combo achieves 99 FPS, while 1440p Ultra reaches 157 FPS and 1080p Ultra hits 219 FPS. For 4K displays, High settings (104 FPS) are recommended over Ultra to stay above 100 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when going from 1080p to 4K?

A: The reduction varies by settings: Low drops from 367 to 208 FPS (43% loss), Medium from 339 to 166 FPS (51% loss), High from 230 to 104 FPS (55% loss), and Ultra from 219 to 99 FPS (55% loss). Higher quality settings experience slightly larger percentage losses.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU is the primary bottleneck, especially at 1440p and 4K. The 1080p Low result of 367 FPS suggests CPU headroom, but the consistent ~37% FPS drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates GPU saturation at higher resolutions.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra?

A: Yes, with significant margin. The 4K Ultra result is 99 FPS, which is 65% above the 60 FPS target. Even the minimum FPS at 4K Medium (141 FPS) exceeds 60 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested systems?

A: It ranks 691st out of 3716 tested combos, placing it in the top 18.6%. This aligns with the CPU's 84th percentile and GPU's 81st percentile rankings among their respective components.

Q: What are the FPS ranges at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p, the range is 288-389 FPS (average 339). At 1440p, it's 225-304 FPS (average 264). At 4K, it's 141-191 FPS (average 166). The spread narrows as resolution increases, indicating more consistent frame pacing at higher GPU loads.