Inside

Inside is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer that is extremely light on GPU demands, and the benchmark data for the Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti reflects this, showing exceptionally high frame rates across all tested configurations. The dataset provides a clear picture of how this combination scales with resolution and settings, revealing a system that is consistently over-provisioned for the title, with performance often limited by the game engine's frame pacing rather than the hardware's raw capabilities.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K demonstrates a classic pattern for a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, but with a twist due to the game's low overall demand. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the combo delivers an average of 165 FPS. Moving to 1440p, the average drops to 118 FPS, a reduction of roughly 28.5%. The jump to 4K at Ultra yields 74 FPS, which is a further 37.3% decrease from the 1440p result. This scaling curve is steep, indicating that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases, even though absolute numbers remain high.

However, the scaling pattern changes significantly at lower settings. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 346 at 1080p to 249 at 1440p, a 28.0% drop, and then to 156 at 4K, a 37.3% drop from 1440p. The percentage deltas are nearly identical to the Ultra settings across the same resolution steps. This suggests that the relative performance scaling is consistent regardless of the graphics preset, pointing to a uniform resolution cost per pixel. The absolute values are so high that even at 4K Low, the system maintains an average of 156 FPS, which is far beyond what the game's visual style requires for a smooth experience.

The fact that 4K High runs at 78 FPS while 4K Medium runs at 125 FPS illustrates that the transition from Medium to High is a significant step in GPU load. This is not a linear progression; the gap between Medium and High is larger than the gap between Low and Medium at the same resolution. For a title like Inside, which has a minimalist art style, this indicates that the High preset introduces rendering features that disproportionately impact the fill rate and shading load on the RTX 3060 Ti, moving the bottleneck firmly to the GPU's compute and memory subsystems.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, built on the Ampere architecture with an 8 nm process, is a mid-range card that is being pushed to its limits only at the highest resolution and quality settings in this game. Its memory configuration includes 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This bandwidth is more than sufficient for Inside's asset sizes, and the data shows no signs of memory capacity throttling, as even the 4K Ultra preset does not cause a catastrophic frame rate collapse; the game holds an average of 74 FPS.

The core clock speeds are listed as a base of 1410 MHz and a boost of 1665 MHz. The benchmark results suggest that the card is hitting its boost ceiling frequently, as the frame rates at 1080p are high enough to indicate the GPU is not idling but is processing frames as fast as the CPU can feed them. The GPU's raw compute capability, measured at 16.20 TFLOPS for FP32, is the key factor in the 4K High result of 78 FPS. When the preset is lowered to Medium, the reduced shading complexity allows the GPU to reach 125 FPS, showing that the card's shader throughput is the primary determinant of performance at this resolution rather than its ROPs or texture units.

The card's 80 ROPs and 152 TMUs provide adequate pixel and texture processing for the game's 2D side-scrolling perspective, which relies on simple geometry but can still benefit from high-resolution texture sampling. The RTX 3060 Ti's performance percentile of 59 versus all GPUs places it in the middle of the pack, but in this specific title, the measured scores show it performing well above that relative standing due to the game's low absolute requirements. The nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 9060, has a comparable average benchmark score with a delta of 0.7%, yet the frame rates here are so high that any small difference in synthetic benchmarks is irrelevant to the actual gameplay experience.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1080p, the Ultra preset provides an average of 165 FPS, which is suitable for high-refresh-rate monitors. The drop to High yields 173 FPS, a marginal 4.8% increase, while Medium delivers 277 FPS, a substantial 59% jump over Ultra. For a game like Inside, where the visual differences between Medium and Ultra are subtle due to the art direction, the Medium preset at 1080p offers the best balance of frame rate headroom and image quality, ensuring the system never drops below the 235 FPS minimum recorded.

At 1440p, the Ultra preset runs at 118 FPS, which is still very playable on most displays. The High preset at 124 FPS is nearly identical, offering no practical advantage. However, the Medium preset at 199 FPS provides a much larger performance buffer, with a minimum of 169 FPS, making it the recommended choice for 1440p if monitors with refresh rates above 144 Hz are used. The data shows that the step from High to Ultra at this resolution costs only 6 FPS, so players prioritizing visual fidelity over sheer frame rate can safely use Ultra without significant penalty.

For 4K, the recommendation is more nuanced. The Ultra preset at 74 FPS is borderline for a smooth 60 Hz experience, but it holds above that threshold. The High preset at 78 FPS is essentially identical. The Medium preset at 125 FPS is the clear winner for 4K, providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS and ensuring frame times stay consistent. The Low preset at 156 FPS is unnecessary, as the visual downgrade is not worth the extra frames when Medium is already exceeding typical display refresh rates. The data suggests that Medium is the performance sweet spot for all resolutions, with the gap between Medium and High being the largest single step in the settings ladder.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this CPU and GPU combo?

A: The highest recorded average is 346 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low preset.

Q: Does the RTX 3060 Ti maintain a playable frame rate at 4K Ultra in Inside?

A: Yes, the measured average at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 74 FPS, which stays above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from Ultra to Medium settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 118 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 199 FPS, representing a 68.6% increase in average frame rate.

Q: Is the game more CPU-bound or GPU-bound at 1080p with this hardware?

A: Given the extremely high frame rates at 1080p, such as 277 FPS on Medium and 346 FPS on Low, the data indicates the game becomes CPU-bound at this resolution, as the GPU has spare capacity to render more frames.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for any configuration?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 106 FPS, which occurs at 3840x2160 resolution with the Medium preset.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested systems for this game?

A: The combo ranks 1681st out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the top 45% of all systems tested for Inside.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. In a game as lightweight as Inside, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and handle game logic, and this processor has massive headroom for that task. The benchmark data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 346 FPS, a figure that is likely limited by the game engine's single-threaded performance or the frame submission rate rather than the CPU's core count.

The CPU's single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2160, is more relevant to this game than its multi-core capabilities. The boost clock of 5.60 GHz ensures that the primary game thread can execute at the highest possible speed, reducing the time between frames. The L3 cache of 33 MB shared is ample for the game's data footprint, and the dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support provides sufficient bandwidth, though the game's memory demands are low.

The CPU's percentile of 94 versus all CPUs indicates it is a top-tier processor, and its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X with a delta of -0.2%, have nearly identical average benchmark scores. This performance parity is irrelevant in Inside because the game cannot fully utilize the CPU's capabilities. The 1080p Medium result of 277 FPS with a minimum of 235 FPS suggests that the CPU can maintain high frame pacing, but the gap between Low (346 FPS) and Medium (277 FPS) at the same resolution is purely a GPU load increase, confirming that the CPU is not the bottleneck until the frame rate approaches 350 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a full spectrum of settings performance. The Low preset delivers an average of 346 FPS, with no minimum or maximum recorded. Medium drops to 277 FPS on average, with a minimum of 235 FPS and a maximum of 318 FPS. High averages 173 FPS, and Ultra averages 165 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 104 FPS, which is the largest single-setting delta at this resolution, highlighting a significant increase in GPU workload from Medium to High.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 249 FPS. Medium averages 199 FPS, with a minimum of 169 FPS and a maximum of 229 FPS. High averages 124 FPS, and Ultra averages 118 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a reduction of 28% for Low, 28.2% for Medium, 28.3% for High, and 28.5% for Ultra, indicating consistent resolution scaling across all presets.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 156 FPS. Medium averages 125 FPS, with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 144 FPS. High averages 78 FPS, and Ultra averages 74 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K results in a 37.3% reduction for Low, 37.2% for Medium, 37.1% for High, and 37.3% for Ultra. This consistency suggests that the GPU's pixel throughput is the limiting factor at 4K, with the RTX 3060 Ti's 133.2 GPixel/s pixel rate being the primary constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti combination ranks 1681st out of 3716 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the 54.8th percentile of all systems. This ranking is lower than what the hardware's raw benchmark scores might suggest, primarily because Inside is not a demanding title, and many older or lower-end CPUs paired with high-end GPUs can achieve similar frame rates due to the game's low ceiling. The combo's position indicates that while it is a capable system, it does not distinguish itself in this specific game because the frame rates are already so high that the differences between systems become negligible.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 69355 is closely matched by its rivals, with the AMD EPYC 9115 at 69288 (0.1% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X at 69515 (-0.2% delta). These differences are within measurement noise and do not translate to any observable difference in Inside's frame rates. The GPU's average benchmark score of 16129 is similarly close to its rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 9060 at 16014 (0.7% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT at 16361 (-1.4% delta), yet the in-game performance is so high that any of these cards would provide a nearly identical experience. The ranking of 1681 reflects the fact that the data is measured, and in a game with such high absolute frame rates, the ranking is more a function of the specific combination's ability to sustain high minimums rather than its peak averages.