Inside

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is an extremely high-end combination, and the measured results in Inside reflect that. This combo ranks 81st out of 3716 tested combinations in this game, placing it in the top percentile of all systems in the database. The data shows a machine that is dramatically overqualified for this title, with frame rates that exceed the refresh rates of virtually all displays at every resolution tested. The ranking position is strong, though the sheer performance ceiling of the RTX 4090 means that even the 80 combos ranked ahead of it are likely using similar or more exotic hardware. For practical purposes, this pairing delivers an experience that is limited almost entirely by the display, not the silicon.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 81 out of 3716 tested combinations places it in the top 3% of all systems tested for Inside. This is a strong result, though not the absolute top, which is expected given that the RTX 4090 is listed as end-of-life and has a successor in the GeForce 50 series. The ranking reflects a system that will never be the bottleneck in this game, regardless of how the user configures the graphics settings. The CPU, Intel Core i7-13700K, holds the 89th percentile against all CPUs in the database, while the GPU sits at the 88th percentile against all GPUs. Both components are near the top of their respective charts, which explains why the measured frame rates are so high across the board.

When comparing the CPU to its nearest rivals, the data shows a tight cluster. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900 has an average benchmark score of 46971, which is 0.2% higher than the i7-13700K’s average score of 46881. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 is similarly close, at 47022, a 0.3% advantage. On the other side, the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX and Intel Xeon w3-2535 both score 46654 and 46653 respectively, putting them 0.5% behind the i7-13700K. These deltas are negligible in real-world terms, meaning the i7-13700K is effectively performance-equivalent to these rivals in synthetic benchmarks. For Inside, which is not a heavily threaded title, this CPU will not be the limiting factor.

The GPU’s nearest rivals show a similar story. The Intel Arc Pro A60 has an average score of 60326, essentially identical to the RTX 4090’s 60347, a 0% delta. The AMD Radeon Pro W6600M is 2.5% higher at 61896, while the AMD Radeon PRO V710 is 2.9% lower at 58657. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 is 0.3% behind. These are workstation-class GPUs, which highlights that the RTX 4090’s raw compute performance is in a class of its own among consumer cards, even if its average benchmark score places it near some professional parts. In Inside, the RTX 4090 dominates, and the measured FPS numbers confirm that.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a desktop-class CPU with an unlocked multiplier, supporting both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration. It uses an Intel Socket 1700 and has PCIe Gen 5 support with 20 lanes from the CPU. The integrated UHD Graphics 770 is present, but irrelevant when paired with a discrete GPU like the RTX 4090.

For Inside, a puzzle platformer, the CPU requirements are modest. The game’s release date of 2016 predates this processor by six years, and its genre does not demand extreme multi-core scaling. The i7-13700K’s single-thread performance is strong, with a 3dmark single-thread score of 1136 and a passmark single-thread score of 4333. In Cinebench R23, it scores 2116 in single-core and 30745 in multi-core. These numbers indicate that the CPU has ample headroom for any game logic, physics calculations, or scripting that Inside might throw at it. The boost clock of 5.40 GHz is particularly relevant for frame pacing in a game that relies on consistent frame delivery rather than raw throughput.

The measured FPS data shows no scenario where the CPU becomes a bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 396, which is the highest recorded in the dataset. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect to see diminishing returns when lowering resolution or settings, but the FPS continues to climb as the GPU load decreases. This indicates that the i7-13700K is capable of feeding the RTX 4090 with enough draw calls and game state updates to maintain these frame rates. The L3 cache of 30 MB shared is more than sufficient for a game of this era, and the 24 threads provide redundancy even if the game engine is only using a handful of cores.

The CPU’s benchmark scores relative to its rivals reinforce that it is not a weak link. With a passmark multithread score of 45887 and a geekbench multicore score of 19429, the i7-13700K is a high-end part, but the nearest rivals show that the market has moved on. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900, which is an older generation, is within 0.2% of the i7-13700K’s average score. This means that for Inside, the choice of CPU among top-tier parts will have minimal impact on FPS. The game is simply not demanding enough to differentiate between these processors.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using the AD102 chip fabricated on TSMC’s 5 nm process. It has 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, with a transistor density of 125.3M per mm². The GPU has 16384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 raster operation units. It also features 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores. The base clock is 2235 MHz with a boost clock of 2520 MHz, and the memory runs at 1313 MHz, which translates to 21 Gbps effective. The memory subsystem consists of 24 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The pixel rate is 443.5 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 1,290.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 82.58 TFLOPS, with FP16 at the same 82.58 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio). The TDP is 450 W, requiring a suggested PSU of 850 W, and it uses a single 16-pin power connector. It is a triple-slot card, 304 mm long, 137 mm high, and 61 mm wide.

For Inside, the RTX 4090 is massively over-powered. The game’s visual style is minimalistic and stylized, with a dark, atmospheric aesthetic that does not rely on heavy geometric complexity or advanced shading techniques. The GPU’s 24 GB of VRAM is far beyond what this game can utilize; even at 4K Ultra, the memory footprint would be a fraction of that. The 1.01 TB/s of memory bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and memory access are never a concern. The boost clock of 2520 MHz is high, but the game’s low graphical demands mean that the GPU is likely running at lower power states much of the time, as evidenced by the high FPS at low settings.

The GPU benchmark results show a passmark G3D score of 38194 and a geekbench OpenCL score of 255416, with Vulkan at 271631. These are top-tier scores, though the nearest rivals in the database are workstation cards, which suggests that the RTX 4090’s lead over consumer GPUs is substantial. In Inside, the GPU is the dominant component in determining FPS, but only because the CPU is not a constraint. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 140, which is still very high, but it is the lowest measured in the dataset. This indicates that the GPU is starting to feel some load at the highest settings and resolution, though even then, it is far from maxed out.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). At 1080p, the average FPS ranges from 396 on Low to 300 on Ultra. The Medium preset at 1080p produces an average of 366 FPS, with a minimum of 311 and a maximum of 421. The High preset at 1080p yields 305 FPS average. These numbers are all far above the 144 Hz refresh rate of most gaming monitors, meaning that the user will be limited by their display, not the system.

At 1440p, the averages are slightly lower but still extraordinarily high. The Low preset averages 355 FPS, Medium averages 328 FPS (with min 279 and max 377), High averages 234 FPS, and Ultra averages 222 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra at 1440p is about 37%, which shows that the settings have a measurable impact, but the absolute values remain high. Even the Ultra preset at 1440p exceeds the refresh rate of 240 Hz monitors, which are common among high-end gamers.

At 4K, the numbers start to become more meaningful for the GPU. The Low preset averages 293 FPS, Medium averages 235 FPS (with min 200 and max 270), High averages 147 FPS, and Ultra averages 140 FPS. The range from Low to Ultra at 4K is a 52% drop, which is steeper than at lower resolutions. This suggests that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor at 4K, especially with higher settings. However, even the lowest measured average at 4K Ultra (140 FPS) is well above 120 Hz, and the minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 200, which is still excellent.

The data shows that the RTX 4090 maintains playable frame rates at all settings and resolutions, with no stutter or frame drops below 200 FPS except at 4K High and Ultra, where the averages are 147 and 140 respectively. The minimum FPS values are only provided for the Medium presets: 311 at 1080p, 279 at 1440p, and 200 at 4K. These minimums are all high, indicating consistent frame delivery without significant spikes or hitches.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals how the workload shifts between CPU and GPU. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 396. At 1440p Low, it drops to 355, a 10% decrease. At 4K Low, it drops further to 293, a 26% decrease from 1080p and a 17% decrease from 1440p. This pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, but the small absolute decreases suggest that the CPU is still doing a significant amount of work at 1080p.

Looking at the High preset, 1080p High averages 305 FPS, 1440p High averages 234 FPS (a 23% drop), and 4K High averages 147 FPS (a 52% drop from 1080p and a 37% drop from 1440p). The scaling is more aggressive at High settings, indicating that the GPU is becoming more of a bottleneck as resolution increases. The same trend is visible with Ultra: 1080p Ultra at 300 FPS, 1440p Ultra at 222 FPS (a 26% drop), and 4K Ultra at 140 FPS (a 53% drop from 1080p).

The Medium preset, which has min/max data, shows 1080p Medium at 366 FPS, 1440p Medium at 328 FPS (a 10% drop), and 4K Medium at 235 FPS (a 36% drop from 1080p). The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 200, which is still very high. The resolution scaling indicates that the RTX 4090 is the limiting component at 4K, especially with High and Ultra settings, where the frame rate drops below 200 FPS. At 1080p and 1440p, the CPU and GPU are both capable of delivering extreme frame rates, and the scaling is more moderate.

The fact that 1080p Low and 1440p Low are relatively close (396 vs 355 FPS) suggests that the CPU is starting to become a factor at lower resolutions, but the i7-13700K is powerful enough to keep the gap small. At 4K, the GPU’s rendering load dominates, and the FPS scales predictably with resolution. For a user with a 4K 144 Hz display, the High preset at 147 FPS is just above the refresh rate, while Ultra at 140 FPS is slightly below. For 1440p 240 Hz displays, the Ultra preset at 222 FPS is below 240 Hz, but Medium at 328 FPS and Low at 355 FPS are well above.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data allows for a clear recommendation based on the target display and desired frame rate. For a 1080p display with a 144 Hz or 240 Hz refresh rate, any setting from Low to Ultra will provide a smooth experience. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 300 FPS, which is above 240 Hz, so there is no reason to lower settings unless the user wants to reduce GPU load for other reasons. The High preset at 305 FPS is statistically identical to Ultra at 300 FPS, so the visual quality gain from Ultra is essentially free.

For a 1440p display, the recommendation depends on the refresh rate. At 1440p with a 144 Hz monitor, the Ultra preset at 222 FPS is overkill, but the High preset at 234 FPS is also fine. The Medium preset at 328 FPS is excessive. If the display is 240 Hz, the Ultra preset at 222 FPS falls short of the refresh rate, but the Medium preset at 328 FPS provides headroom. The High preset at 234 FPS is just below 240, so Medium is the better choice for a 240 Hz display if the user wants to maximize frame rate. The minimum FPS at 1440p Medium is 279, which is above 240, ensuring no dips below the refresh rate.

For a 4K display, the choice is more nuanced. At 4K with a 120 Hz display, the Ultra preset at 140 FPS is above 120, and the High preset at 147 FPS is also above. The Medium preset at 235 FPS is far above 120 Hz, but the visual quality drop from Ultra to Medium may not be worth the extra frame rate for a game like Inside, which has a distinct art style. At 4K with a 144 Hz display, the High preset at 147 FPS is just above the refresh rate, but the Ultra preset at 140 FPS is below. The Medium preset at 235 FPS provides a comfortable margin, and the minimum FPS of 200 at 4K Medium ensures no drops below 144 Hz. Therefore, for a 4K 144 Hz display, the Medium preset is the best choice to guarantee a locked frame rate. For a 4K 120 Hz display, Ultra or High both work, with High offering a slight headroom advantage.

The data shows that the best experience per the measured rows depends on the display’s refresh rate. For most users, the Medium preset at 4K is the sweet spot, as it provides the highest frame rate with a minimum above 200 FPS. At 1440p, the Ultra preset is recommended for visual quality, as it still exceeds 220 FPS. At 1080p, the Ultra preset is the clear choice, with an average of 300 FPS that exceeds all but the most extreme refresh rates. The i7-13700K and RTX 4090 combination is so powerful that the user can prioritize visual fidelity without sacrificing frame rate, and the only scenario where a compromise is needed is 4K Ultra with a 144 Hz or higher display. In that case, dropping to Medium preserves the high refresh rate experience while maintaining the game’s atmospheric visuals.