Inside

Inside is a light puzzle platformer, and the benchmark data for the Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the Intel Arc B580 reflects that genre perfectly: the frame rates are exceptionally high across the board, making this combination a clear overachiever for the game's visual style. The measured results show that this pairing is not struggling to run the title, but rather delivering headroom that allows for significant scaling in resolution and visual fidelity without sacrificing playability. The data indicates a system that is far more capable than the game demands, shifting the bottleneck analysis from raw performance to the efficiency of the settings and resolution choices.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a classic scaling pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the performance drops is heavily influenced by the chosen settings preset. At 1920x1080, the system is clearly not bound by the GPU, as the Arc B580 is producing frame rates in the hundreds. The jump from Low to Ultra at 1080p results in a drop from 271 FPS to 129 FPS, showing that the settings have a massive impact on the workload, yet even the most demanding preset leaves the GPU with plenty of headroom, as the frame rate remains far above any standard refresh rate.

Moving to 2560x1440 presents a more balanced picture. The Low preset still achieves a very high 195 FPS, but the scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a reduction of about 28% (from 271 FPS to 195 FPS). The High preset at 1440p drops to 98 FPS, which is exactly the same average as the Medium preset at 4K, indicating a specific performance plateau where the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor. The Ultra preset at 1440p yields 93 FPS, a modest drop from its 1080p counterpart, but the scaling here suggests the game is starting to become more dependent on the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth.

At the demanding 3840x2160 resolution, the scaling behavior becomes starkly different depending on the preset. The Low preset still manages a very respectable 123 FPS, which is a 55% reduction from the 1080p Low score but still highly playable. However, the High preset at 4K drops to 61 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 58 FPS. This dramatic shift—where the 4K High and Ultra settings nearly halve the frame rate compared to 1440p—confirms that the Intel Arc B580’s 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth are being heavily taxed at this resolution. The data shows that 1080p and 1440p are entirely CPU-bound or engine-bound scenarios, but 4K with high visual fidelity is firmly GPU-bound, requiring the user to make a trade-off between resolution and details.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Inside?

A: Yes, but with a caveat. The data shows an average of 61 FPS at 4K High and 58 FPS at 4K Ultra. While these are playable figures, they are the lowest in the entire dataset. The 4K Low preset, however, reaches 123 FPS, indicating that the GPU has the raw power for 4K, but the highest detail settings are demanding.

Q: How does the Intel Core i7-12700KF affect performance in this game?

A: The CPU is not a limiting factor. With 12 cores and 20 threads, and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, the processor provides ample headroom. The benchmark results show that at 1080p, the frame rates are incredibly high (up to 271 FPS), which indicates the CPU is feeding the GPU efficiently and is not causing a bottleneck.

Q: Is there a big difference between the Medium and Ultra presets?

A: Yes, the difference is substantial. At 1440p, the Medium preset averages 156 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 93 FPS, a drop of 63 FPS. At 4K, the gap narrows to 40 FPS (98 FPS vs 58 FPS). The Ultra preset clearly imposes a significant rendering cost over Medium.

Q: What is the best resolution to play at for a high refresh rate monitor?

A: For a 144Hz or higher display, the 1920x1080 resolution with High or Ultra settings is ideal, as it yields 136 FPS and 129 FPS respectively. Even the 1440p High preset at 98 FPS is suitable for a 100Hz monitor, but for maximum smoothness, 1080p is the safer choice.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B580 compare to its rivals in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The Arc B580 has an average benchmark score of 23021. This places it within 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (22895) and the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (23061), with deltaPct values of 0.6% and -0.2% respectively. It performs nearly identically to these cards in synthetic tests.

Q: Does the game utilize the CPU's multi-threading capabilities?

A: The CPU's strong multi-threaded performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28838, suggests it has plenty of headroom. However, the high frame rates at 1080p indicate that even single-threaded performance (a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4071) is sufficient to keep up with the GPU's output in this specific title.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data suggests that the optimal experience balances visual fidelity with the high refresh rates this hardware can achieve. For users with a standard 60Hz display, the 4K High preset is the best choice, as it hits an average of 61 FPS, providing a crisp image at a playable frame rate. However, the 4K Ultra preset at 58 FPS is a marginal downgrade in smoothness for what appears to be a minor visual gain, and the data suggests sticking to High to maintain a stable 60 FPS baseline.

For those with 1440p monitors, the Medium preset is the standout recommendation. It delivers an average of 156 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most high-refresh displays, and its minimum FPS of 133 ensures that even the most complex scenes stay within the adaptive sync range. The High preset at 1440p (98 FPS) is also viable, but the Medium preset offers a significantly higher frame rate for what is likely a subtle decrease in visual quality, making it the more practical choice for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset at 1440p (93 FPS) is less compelling, as it offers the lowest frame rate of the 1440p options without the resolution benefit of 4K.

At 1080p, the story is different; the CPU and GPU have so much headroom that the choice comes down to preference. The High preset (136 FPS) is a great all-rounder, but the Ultra preset (129 FPS) is also perfectly playable and offers the maximum visual quality the game has to offer. The Medium preset (217 FPS) is overkill for most displays, but it would be the choice for users with a 240Hz monitor. The Low preset (271 FPS) is unnecessary unless chasing absolute maximum frame rates, and the data shows that it sacrifices too much visual quality for a performance gain that few monitors can display.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured results provide a comprehensive look at the performance scaling. At 1920x1080, the Intel Core i7-12700KF and Intel Arc B580 combination produces the following average frame rates: 271 FPS on Low, 217 FPS on Medium (with a minimum of 185 FPS and a maximum of 250 FPS), 136 FPS on High, and 129 FPS on Ultra. This shows a clear performance hierarchy, with Low being the fastest and Ultra being the slowest.

Stepping up to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show the expected decrease. The Low preset averages 195 FPS. The Medium preset averages 156 FPS (min 133, max 180). The High preset drops to 98 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 93 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a roughly 28% to 30% reduction in performance across the presets, indicating a consistent increase in GPU load.

At the 3840x2160 resolution, the performance takes a more significant hit, particularly on the higher presets. The Low preset still manages an average of 123 FPS. The Medium preset averages 98 FPS (min 83, max 113). However, the High preset falls to 61 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 58 FPS. This data clearly shows that the transition from Medium to High at 4K is a major performance cliff, likely due to specific rendering features being enabled at those quality levels. The minimum FPS data for the Medium preset at this resolution (83 FPS) suggests that even with dips, the experience remains fluid, but the High and Ultra presets lack such data, implying they are more taxing and potentially less stable.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and Intel Arc B580 holds a rank of 2764 out of 3716 combos for Inside. This places it in the 74th percentile of all tested configurations, meaning it outperforms roughly three-quarters of the systems in the database for this specific game. This is a strong showing, especially considering the game's age and the fact that it is not a demanding AAA title.

The ranking suggests that while this combo is strong, there are many other systems that achieve even higher frame rates. However, given the game's nature, the performance difference between rank 2764 and higher ranks is likely to be in the field of high refresh rates (above 144 FPS) that are imperceptible to most users on standard displays. The combo's rank reflects the balanced nature of the components; the i7-12700KF, which sits in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, does not bottleneck the Arc B580, which sits in the 68th percentile of all GPUs. The result is a system that punches above its weight in a title that favors strong single-threaded performance and raw GPU throughput.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture. Its role in Inside is to provide a robust foundation for the Arc B580 to operate without constraints. With a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, the CPU's high single-threaded performance is crucial for a game that likely relies on a primary game thread. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4071 indicates that this CPU excels in tasks that require quick, responsive processing, which helps maintain high frame rates even when the GPU is not fully saturated.

The multi-threaded capabilities of the CPU, while not the primary bottleneck, are also relevant. The 20 threads ensure that any background processes, physics calculations, or game engine tasks are handled efficiently without stealing resources from the main game loop. The high memory bandwidth (DDR4/DDR5 support) ensures that the CPU can feed data to the GPU quickly. In this context, the CPU is not just a passive component; it is the enabler of the extreme frame rates seen at 1080p. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system hits 271 FPS, a figure that would be impossible to achieve if the CPU were struggling to issue draw calls. This pairing demonstrates a well-matched CPU-GPU dynamic where the processor's strength allows the graphics card to flex its capabilities at lower resolutions, while at higher resolutions, the GPU's workload becomes the defining factor for performance.