Inside

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT delivers a remarkably fluid experience in Inside, a game whose minimalist aesthetic belies its technical demands. Benchmark results across three resolutions show that this combination is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher settings, but the data also reveals a CPU that is more than capable of feeding the graphics card at extreme frame rates. The measured FPS figures indicate that players can expect a consistent, tear-free experience even at 4K, though the scaling patterns provide a clear lesson in where the system’s true bottleneck lies.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and expected, but the shape of that curve tells a compelling story about system balance. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 353 FPS at 1920x1080 to 254 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 28%. Moving to 3840x2160 at Low yields 160 FPS, which is 55% below the 1080p figure. This scaling is nearly linear with pixel count, indicating that the GPU is the primary constraint even at the lowest quality preset.

At High settings, the pattern shifts slightly. The average drops from 177 FPS at 1080p to 127 FPS at 1440p (a 28% decline) and then to 80 FPS at 4K (a 55% decline from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and High presets—both showing roughly 28% and 55% reductions at 1440p and 4K respectively—strongly suggests that the RX 6750 XT’s rendering pipeline, rather than the CPU or memory subsystem, is dictating the frame rate ceiling.

The Medium preset offers the only complete data set with min and max FPS values, and it reinforces the GPU-bound conclusion. At 1080p Medium, the average is 283 FPS with a minimum of 240 and a maximum of 325. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 203 FPS with a range of 173 to 234. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 128 FPS, with a minimum of 109 and a maximum of 147. The minimum-to-maximum spread remains proportionally similar across resolutions, which is characteristic of a graphics card operating at its utilization limit rather than a CPU struggling to issue draw calls.

The Ultra preset shows the smallest absolute margins, with 168 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p, and 76 FPS at 4K. Interestingly, the gap between High and Ultra at 4K is only 4 FPS (80 vs. 76), while at 1080p the gap is 9 FPS (177 vs. 168). This narrowing at higher resolutions is a classic sign of pixel-throughput saturation; the GPU is so busy filling 4K pixels that the additional shading work in Ultra becomes nearly free. For a game like Inside, which features large dark areas and volumetric lighting, this suggests the Ultra preset’s extra effects are not heavily taxing the ROPs or texture units at 4K.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 22 chip, fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for a card of this class. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2150 MHz, a game clock of 2495 MHz, and a boost clock of 2600 MHz, with memory running at an effective 18 Gbps. These clocks are high for the RDNA 2 generation, and the benchmark results show that they translate directly into raw throughput.

The card’s 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units give it a pixel rate of 166.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 416.0 GTexel/s. For Inside, which uses a distinctive monochromatic palette with subtle lighting gradients, the fill rate is more relevant than raw compute. The FP32 performance of 13.31 TFLOPS is ample for the game’s shader complexity, but the data suggests that the pixel fill rate is the limiting factor at 4K. The measured 80 FPS at 4K High aligns with a card that is pushing close to its theoretical pixel throughput.

The GPU’s percentile ranking among all GPUs is 71, with an average benchmark score of 26011. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the AMD Radeon R9 M395X (0.5% higher score), AMD FirePro W7100 (0.6% higher), AMD FirePro D700 (0.7% higher), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile (1.1% higher). These deltas are marginal, indicating that the RX 6750 XT sits in a tightly contested performance band. However, in Inside specifically, the 12 GB VRAM is never a concern; the game’s asset sizes are modest, and none of the measured runs show any indication of memory-related stutter or frame drops. The 64 ROPs are the more critical spec, and the scaling data confirms that they are being fully utilized at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 25 MB shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 per core. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory, and its PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the RX 6750 XT. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 28838 and a single-core score of 4071, placing it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 35365.

For Inside, the CPU’s role is to maintain a high minimum frame rate, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU is not saturated. The measured data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches an average of 353 FPS, which is well beyond the refresh rate of most displays. This figure is indicative of a CPU that can issue draw calls and update game logic without becoming a bottleneck. The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the Intel Core i7-13700T (-0.1% delta), Intel Core i5-13600T (0.2% delta), Intel Core 5 213PE (-0.2% delta), and Intel Core i7-12700K (0.2% delta). These near-identical scores suggest that the 12700KF is not leaving performance on the table relative to newer or more power-efficient parts.

The 20 threads are more than sufficient for Inside, which is not a heavily multithreaded title. The game’s physics and AI are simple, and the benchmark results show no sign of CPU limitation. Even at 1080p Ultra, where the CPU has the least work relative to the GPU, the system still delivers 168 FPS. The PassMark single-thread score of 3984 and the 3DMark single-thread score of 1043 confirm that the CPU’s per-core performance is strong enough to avoid becoming the limiting component in this pairing. The data indicates that the i7-12700KF is effectively overkill for this game, providing headroom that would allow for background tasks or a future GPU upgrade without requiring a processor swap.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database’s collection of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Inside, this pairing holds the rank of 1529 out of 3716 combos. This places it in the 41st percentile of all tested systems. The ranking is a composite measure that weighs both CPU and GPU performance, and given that the RX 6750 XT ranks in the 71st percentile among GPUs while the i7-12700KF ranks in the 85th percentile among CPUs, the combo’s overall position is dragged down by the GPU’s relative standing.

The rank suggests that while this system is capable of running Inside at high frame rates, there are many other combinations that achieve higher average FPS. The gap between the combo’s rank and the individual component percentiles indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing. A system with a faster GPU but the same CPU would likely rank significantly higher, while a slower CPU with the same GPU would not see much change in Inside because the game is not CPU-bound at the tested settings.

The combo rank of 1529 out of 3716 means that approximately 59% of tested systems perform better in this game. This is not a poor result—the system delivers playable frame rates at all settings and resolutions—but it reflects the fact that the RX 6750 XT is a mid-range GPU by current standards. The fact that the CPU is in the top 15% of all processors while the GPU is in the top 29% shows an imbalance, but one that favors the CPU. For a game like Inside, this imbalance is benign because the CPU has so much headroom that it never becomes a factor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its full potential. Low settings produce an average of 353 FPS, which is exceptionally high and suggests the game is running at near-CPU-limited speeds. Medium settings yield 283 FPS on average, with a minimum of 240 and a maximum of 325. High settings average 177 FPS, and Ultra averages 168 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 70 FPS (20%), while the drop from High to Ultra is only 9 FPS (5%). This indicates that the incremental cost of Ultra over High is minimal at 1080p, likely because the GPU is still not fully saturated at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 254 FPS at Low, 203 FPS at Medium (with a min of 173 and max of 234), 127 FPS at High, and 121 FPS at Ultra. The scaling from Low to Medium is a 51 FPS drop (20%), and from High to Ultra is a 6 FPS drop (5%). This mirrors the 1080p pattern, showing that the relative cost of each preset tier is consistent across resolutions. The minimum FPS of 173 at Medium 1440p is still well above 60 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the system delivers 160 FPS at Low, 128 FPS at Medium (with a min of 109 and max of 147), 80 FPS at High, and 76 FPS at Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 32 FPS (20%), and from High to Ultra is 4 FPS (5%). The 4K Medium minimum of 109 FPS is notably lower than the 1440p Medium minimum of 173 FPS, but it remains comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. The 4K Ultra average of 76 FPS is the lowest recorded value, but it is still entirely playable for a puzzle platformer.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this system. At 1440p Medium, the system averages 203 FPS with a minimum of 173 FPS, which is far beyond what any display can refresh. Even at 4K Medium, the average of 128 FPS with a minimum of 109 FPS provides a highly responsive experience. The Medium preset is the only one with recorded min and max FPS values, indicating that it represents the most stable configuration in the test set.

For users with a 1080p display, the High preset at 177 FPS is a safe choice, as it offers better visual fidelity than Medium without the marginal 9 FPS cost of Ultra. At 1440p, High at 127 FPS is similarly recommended, as the difference between High and Ultra is only 6 FPS, which is imperceptible in a game like Inside. At 4K, the choice is between High at 80 FPS and Ultra at 76 FPS. Given the negligible 4 FPS difference, Ultra is the better option for those with a 4K display, as the additional visual effects come at virtually no performance cost.

The Low preset, while achieving 353 FPS at 1080p, is not recommended because the visual downgrade is significant and the extra frame rate is wasted on most monitors. The data clearly shows that the system’s performance ceiling is not reached until the GPU is fully loaded, which happens at Medium and above. For the best experience, the Medium preset at 1440p is the sweet spot, offering a 203 FPS average that leaves ample headroom for any future driver optimizations or background processes. At 4K, the Medium preset’s 128 FPS average is the recommended target, as it provides the stability indicated by the min and max FPS readings.