Inside

# Inside: Intel Core i7-12700K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 delivers outstanding performance in Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer that remains remarkably demanding at high resolutions. Across the 12 tested configurations, this combo never drops below 107.2 FPS even at 4K Ultra, and it exceeds 369 FPS at 1080p Low. The data shows a system with massive headroom for any display setup, though the scaling patterns reveal a nuanced balance between CPU and GPU workload allocation.

FAQ

Q: What frame rates does this combo achieve at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, average FPS ranges from 238.8 (Ultra) to 369.7 (Low), with Medium at 338.6 and High at 248. This indicates the system is never CPU-bound at this resolution, as even the most demanding settings exceed 238 FPS.

Q: How does 4K performance compare to 1080p?

A: At 3840x2160, average FPS drops to 107.2 (Ultra) and 110.8 (High), while Low reaches 225.5 and Medium hits 180.8. The 4K Ultra result is 55% lower than 1080p Ultra, showing a significant GPU workload increase at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the RTX 5070 the bottleneck in this pairing?

A: Benchmark results indicate the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K, where frame rates drop sharply compared to 1440p. At 1080p and 1440p, the CPU and GPU work in balance, but the 4K scaling pattern points to GPU-bound performance at that resolution.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Core i7-12700K has an average benchmark score of 35684, sitting within 0.8% of the Intel Core i7-13800H (35416) and 0.6% of the Intel Core i7-13700T (35468). It trails the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 by 0.3% and the Intel Core i5-14500HX by 0.7%.

Q: What is the GPU's standing among all tested graphics cards?

A: The RTX 5070 ranks in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 41687. It performs within 0.6% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (41441) and within 0.2% of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (41610).

Q: Does this combo rank high in the game's benchmark database?

A: The combination ranks 205th out of 1671 total tested combos, placing it in the top 12.3% of all system configurations evaluated in Inside.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K brings substantial processing power to this pairing, leveraging a 12-core, 20-thread design based on the Alder Lake architecture. Built on Intel's 10 nm process, this desktop processor features a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The hybrid architecture combines performance and efficiency cores, though the benchmark data does not differentiate between them.

In Inside, a game with relatively simple physics but complex scene transitions, the CPU's single-threaded performance matters more than raw multi-core throughput. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1043 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4128 indicate strong per-core capability. The multi-threaded results are equally impressive: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29241 and a 3DMark max-threads score of 9979. These numbers place the CPU in the 89th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 35684.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic testing include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (35802, 0.3% faster), the Intel Core i5-14500HX (35940, 0.7% faster), and the Intel Core i7-13700T (35468, 0.6% slower). The Core i7-13800H (35416) trails by 0.8%. In actual gameplay, these differences are negligible; at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 369.7 FPS, which suggests the CPU delivers far more than Inside requires.

The 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache help maintain consistent frame delivery. Memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 across a dual-channel bus provides flexibility, though the game's performance suggests neither memory type becomes a limiting factor. The integrated UHD Graphics 770 remains unused in this configuration, as the discrete RTX 5070 handles all rendering duties.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 serves as the primary rendering engine, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process. This GPU packs 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation processors, along with 48 ray tracing cores and 192 tensor cores. The 12 GB of GDDR7 memory runs across a 192-bit bus, delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth — more than sufficient for Inside's art style.

Clock speeds reach 2325 MHz base and 2512 MHz boost, driving a peak FP32 throughput of 30.87 TFLOPS. The GPU's texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s explain why even 4K Ultra exceeds 107 FPS. The 31,100 million transistors on a 263 mm² die produce a transistor density of 118.3M per mm², among the highest in the database.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5070 scores 29137 in Passmark G3D and 5077 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 41687 sits remarkably close to its nearest rivals: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (41441, 0.6% slower), the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (41610, 0.2% slower), and the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (41897, 0.5% faster). The AMD Radeon Pro 580X (41991) leads by 0.7%.

For Inside, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution rises. At 1080p, frame rates of 238.8 (Ultra) suggest the GPU still has headroom, but the scaling to 4K reveals its limits. The 12 GB VRAM capacity comfortably handles the game's textures, and the GDDR7 memory bandwidth ensures no data starvation even at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 ranks 205th out of 1671 tested combinations in Inside, placing it in the top 12.3% of all configurations. This position reflects a balanced system where neither component severely bottlenecks the other.

The rank is driven by the GPU's strong raw performance (83rd percentile) combined with the CPU's high single-threaded capability (89th percentile). In a game like Inside, which uses moderate CPU workloads but benefits from high GPU fill rates, this synergy produces excellent results. The 205th rank out of 1671 combos suggests that faster configurations exist, but they typically pair higher-end GPUs with similar or better CPUs.

The data shows this combo outperforms systems with more powerful CPUs but weaker GPUs, as well as those with stronger GPUs but slower processors. The balance between the 12-core CPU and the Blackwell GPU creates a system that excels across all tested settings and resolutions. At 1080p Ultra, the 238.8 FPS average represents nearly 4x the refresh rate of standard 60 Hz displays, while 4K Ultra at 107.2 FPS remains comfortably above 100 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal distinct scaling patterns as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 369.7 at 1080p to 326.5 at 1440p (an 11.7% reduction), then to 225.5 at 4K (a 39% reduction from 1080p). This pattern indicates GPU-bound performance at higher resolutions, while the CPU maintains sufficient throughput.

Medium settings show similar trends: 338.6 FPS at 1080p, 286.6 at 1440p (15.4% lower), and 180.8 at 4K (46.6% lower). High settings produce 248 FPS at 1080p, 175.5 at 1440p (29.2% lower), and 110.8 at 4K (55.3% lower). Ultra settings yield 238.8 FPS at 1080p, 171.1 at 1440p (28.4% lower), and 107.2 at 4K (55.1% lower).

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep for High and Ultra settings, with drops of 36.9% and 37.4% respectively. This confirms that at 4K, the RTX 5070 becomes the primary limiting factor. Conversely, the relatively modest drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings (11.7%) suggests the CPU can still feed the GPU adequately at lower resolutions.

The consistency of 4K Ultra (107.2 FPS) and 4K High (110.8 FPS) results indicates the game's Ultra preset adds minimal GPU load compared to High, with the difference likely stemming from minor shadow or effect quality changes. The wide gap between Low (225.5 FPS) and Medium (180.8 FPS) at 4K shows that the Medium preset introduces significant rendering complexity.

These scaling patterns confirm that Inside is primarily GPU-limited at 4K, while at 1080p and 1440p, the system operates within the CPU's capabilities. For owners of high-refresh-rate monitors, the 1440p results (171.1 FPS at Ultra) provide ample headroom, while 4K gaming remains viable at Ultra settings with frame rates above 100 FPS.