Inside

The Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 delivers a robust performance profile in Inside, a game that scales dramatically with resolution and settings. The data indicates that while the CPU is more than capable of feeding the GPU at lower resolutions, the graphics card becomes the primary constraint as resolution and image quality settings increase. The following analysis breaks down the measured performance metrics to illustrate where the bottleneck resides.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K in Inside reveals a clear transition from a CPU-bound state at lower resolutions to a GPU-bound state at higher ones. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 309 FPS. This high frame rate, nearly doubling the 4K Low result of 140 FPS, suggests that the CPU is doing the heavy lifting at this resolution, as the GPU has ample headroom to render frames quickly.

Moving to 1440p, the average FPS at Low settings drops to 222, a reduction of 87 FPS (or roughly 28 percent) compared to 1080p. At 4K Low, the average FPS falls further to 140, representing a 36.9 percent decrease from the 1440p result. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is becoming more involved, but the CPU still has significant influence at these lower settings.

When examining the High preset, the scaling is more pronounced. At 1080p High, the average FPS is 155. At 1440p High, it drops to 111, a 28.4 percent reduction. At 4K High, the average FPS is 70, which is a 36.9 percent drop from the 1440p figure. The steeper decline at higher resolutions and settings confirms that the Radeon RX 9060 is the limiting factor here, as the demand on the GPU's rendering pipeline increases exponentially with pixel count.

The Ultra preset shows the most significant scaling. The 1080p Ultra average is 147 FPS, while 1440p Ultra drops to 106 FPS (a 27.9 percent reduction), and 4K Ultra falls to 66 FPS (a 37.7 percent reduction from 1440p). The data suggests that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is working near its maximum capacity, as the frame rate dips below the 70 FPS threshold that might be considered optimal for smooth gameplay.

The scaling pattern across all settings shows that the gap between 1440p and 4K is consistently larger than the gap between 1080p and 1440p. This is expected, as the pixel count increases by 2.25 times from 1080p to 1440p, but only by 2.25 times from 1440p to 4K (3840x2160 vs 2560x1440). The data indicates that the GPU's performance ceiling is being approached at 4K, particularly at higher settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060, based on the Navi 44 chip with RDNA 4.0 architecture, is the primary driver of the frame rate differences between settings. The GPU has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is sufficient for Inside at all tested resolutions, as the game is not particularly memory-intensive, but the bandwidth does play a role in maintaining consistent frame times.

The GPU's clock speeds are noteworthy: a base clock of 1700 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost clock of 2990 MHz. The boost clock is significantly higher than the base clock, allowing the GPU to dynamically scale its performance under load. The measured FPS data suggests that the GPU is hitting these higher clock speeds during gameplay, as the frame rates at 1080p Low (309 FPS) are roughly 2.2 times higher than at 4K Ultra (66 FPS), which is close to the ratio of pixel counts.

The RX 9060's compute capabilities are defined by 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. The pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s indicate that the GPU can handle the pixel and texture processing required by Inside at 1080p and 1440p with ease, but at 4K, the fill rate becomes a constraint, as evidenced by the 70 FPS average at 4K High.

The GPU's benchmark scores provide context for its performance class. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3322 and the PassMark G3D score of 17631 place it in the 59th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, has an average score of 16129, which is 0.7 percent higher. This suggests the RX 9060 is a mid-range performer, which aligns with the measured FPS in Inside being playable but not exceptional at 4K Ultra.

The GPU's FP32 performance of 21.43 TFLOPS indicates a solid compute capability, but the game's rendering workload is more dependent on the pixel and texture pipelines. The measured FPS at 4K Medium (112 FPS) versus 4K High (70 FPS) shows a 37.5 percent performance drop, which is likely due to increased shading and texture detail requirements rather than memory bandwidth limitations, as the 8 GB VRAM is not exceeded at these settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a high-end desktop processor with 20 cores and 28 threads, based on the Raptor Lake architecture. Its base clock of 2.10 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, which is critical for a game like Inside that relies on a single primary game logic thread. The CPU's benchmark scores are impressive: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35122 and single-core score of 4958, placing it in the 91st percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's role in Inside becomes apparent when examining the FPS at 1080p Low (309 FPS). This high frame rate is only achievable if the CPU can process game logic and issue draw calls quickly enough. The i7-14700F's high boost clock of 5.40 GHz ensures that the main game thread is not a bottleneck at this resolution. The PassMark single-thread score of 4257 confirms the CPU's strong single-core performance.

However, the CPU's influence diminishes as resolution increases. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 66, which is roughly 4.7 times lower than at 1080p Low. This disparity is almost entirely due to the GPU's rendering workload, as the CPU has plenty of headroom to continue feeding the GPU at these higher resolutions. The CPU's 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help maintain low latency for game data, which is beneficial for maintaining consistent frame times.

The CPU's memory support for DDR4 and DDR5, with a dual-channel memory bus, allows for adequate memory bandwidth to keep the GPU fed with data. The CPU's PCIe Gen 5 support with 16 lanes ensures that the GPU has a high-bandwidth connection to the rest of the system, which is particularly relevant at higher resolutions where more data is transferred per frame.

The i7-14700F's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, which has an average benchmark score of 53288, just 0.6 percent lower than the i7-14700F's 53620. This indicates that the CPU is competitive with top-tier processors, and its performance in Inside is more than sufficient to avoid being a limiting factor at any tested resolution or setting.

FAQ

*Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this combo in Inside?*

A: The highest measured average FPS is 309, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This indicates the CPU-GPU pair has substantial headroom at lower resolutions.

Q: Is the combo more limited by the CPU or GPU at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 66, which is significantly lower than the 1080p Low result of 309 FPS. This large drop indicates the GPU is the limiting component at this resolution and settings, as the CPU has more than enough power to handle the game logic.

Q: How does the RX 9060's performance compare to its nearest rival?

A: The RX 9060 has an average benchmark score of 16014, while its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, has an average score of 16129. The delta is -0.7 percent, meaning the RTX 3060 Ti is slightly ahead in synthetic benchmarks.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset achieves an average of 178 FPS, while the High preset achieves an average of 111 FPS. This represents a 37.6 percent reduction in performance when moving from Medium to High.

*Q: Does the CPU's 20-core configuration provide any benefit in Inside?*

A: Inside is not a heavily multi-threaded game, so the CPU's 20 cores are not fully utilized. However, the high boost clock of 5.40 GHz and strong single-core performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4958) are more relevant, as they ensure the main game thread is not a bottleneck.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 1615 out of 2887 tested combinations, placing it in the 56th percentile of all tested combos for Inside.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700F and AMD Radeon RX 9060 combination ranks 1615 out of 2887 tested combos in Inside, placing it roughly in the top 56 percent of all tested configurations. This ranking indicates that while the combo is not at the top tier for this game, it is far from the bottom, offering a solid mid-range experience.

The ranking is likely influenced by the GPU's performance ceiling, as the CPU is exceptionally powerful. The i7-14700F is in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, while the RX 9060 is in the 59th percentile of all GPUs. This disparity suggests that the combo's rank in Inside is held back by the GPU, as the CPU could support higher frame rates if the GPU were faster.

In terms of overall synthetic benchmarks, the combo's average score of 16014 for the GPU and 53620 for the CPU demonstrates that the CPU is significantly stronger relative to its peers. However, in Inside, the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (66 FPS) is just above the threshold for smooth gameplay, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiter. If the combo were paired with a stronger GPU, its rank in Inside would likely improve substantially, as the CPU has ample headroom to drive higher frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo in Inside is consistent across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 309 at Low to 147 at Ultra. The Medium setting achieves 247 FPS with a minimum of 210 and maximum of 284 FPS, while High achieves 155 FPS. The frame time consistency at Medium, as indicated by the min/max range, is relatively tight, suggesting stable performance.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS ranges from 222 at Low to 106 at Ultra. The Medium setting achieves 178 FPS with a minimum of 151 and maximum of 204 FPS. The High setting achieves 111 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across settings, with an average reduction of roughly 28 percent, indicating that the GPU is scaling as expected with pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 140 at Low to 66 at Ultra. The Medium setting achieves 112 FPS with a minimum of 95 and maximum of 128 FPS. The High setting achieves 70 FPS. The 4K results show a more pronounced drop from 1440p, with an average reduction of roughly 37 percent, which is higher than the 1080p to 1440p reduction. This suggests that the GPU is approaching its limits at 4K, particularly at Ultra settings where the average FPS dips to 66.

The data shows that the Medium setting offers the best balance of performance and visual quality across all resolutions, with average FPS of 247 at 1080p, 178 at 1440p, and 112 at 4K. The High setting is also viable, but the FPS drops below 100 at 4K, which might not be ideal for all users. The Ultra setting is only recommended at 1080p, where it achieves 147 FPS, as at 1440p and 4K, the frame rates of 106 and 66 respectively are on the lower end.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset provides the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves an average of 247 FPS, which is more than enough for any display refresh rate. At 1440p Medium, the average FPS of 178 is still very high, offering smooth gameplay on high-refresh-rate monitors. Even at 4K Medium, the average FPS of 112 is well above the 60 FPS threshold, providing a smooth experience with good visual fidelity.

The Low preset is only recommended for users who prioritize frame rate above all else, as it achieves 309 FPS at 1080p and 222 FPS at 1440p. However, the visual quality reduction may not be worth the FPS increase for most users, especially since the Medium preset already delivers high frame rates.

The High preset is a viable alternative to Medium, offering 155 FPS at 1080p and 111 FPS at 1440p. However, at 4K, the High preset drops to 70 FPS, which is a significant reduction from Medium's 112 FPS. This suggests that High is not ideal for 4K gaming with this combo, as the GPU's performance is heavily taxed.

The Ultra preset is the most demanding, and the data shows it is only suitable for 1080p gaming, where it achieves 147 FPS. At 1440p, the Ultra preset drops to 106 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 66 FPS. These lower frame rates, particularly at 4K, may result in less responsive gameplay, so users with higher refresh rate displays should stick to Medium or High at 1440p or 4K.

In summary, the Medium preset offers the best overall experience, with high frame rates at all resolutions and a good balance of visual quality. Users with 4K displays should choose Medium for a smooth experience, while those at 1080p or 1440p can comfortably use High if they prefer better visuals, as the frame rates remain well above 100 FPS.