Inside

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti delivers a remarkable performance envelope in Inside, a game that clearly favors high frame rates over graphical fidelity. The data shows a system that is exceptionally capable at 1080p and 1440p, but begins to show its limitations at 4K. This analysis breaks down the measured results, focusing on where the bottleneck lies and how the hardware responds to different presets.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario, though the severity depends heavily on the selected graphics preset. At the Low setting, the frame rate drops from 396.5 FPS at 1920x1080 to 178.9 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of approximately 55%. This indicates that even at 4K Low, the RTX 3070 Ti is still pushing a massive number of frames, suggesting the CPU is keeping up well but the GPU workload is increasing significantly.

The scaling becomes more linear and pronounced at higher presets. Moving from 1080p to 4K on Medium settings sees the average FPS fall from 317 to 141.5, while the High preset drops from 197.9 to 88.7 FPS. The Ultra preset shows the steepest relative decline, falling from 187.8 FPS at 1080p to 82.9 FPS at 4K. The data pattern is clear: as resolution increases, the pixel fill rate requirement outpaces the CPU's ability to feed the GPU, making the RTX 3070 Ti the definitive limiting component at 4K.

Interestingly, the gap between 1440p and 4K is larger than the gap between 1080p and 1440p for all settings. For instance, on High, the 1440p score of 144.5 FPS drops to 88.7 FPS at 4K, a 39% hit, while moving from 1080p to 1440p only costs 27% of the performance. This non-linear scaling is typical of memory bandwidth and ROP limitations as the GPU approaches its maximum output. The 8 GB VRAM buffer and 256-bit memory interface are sufficient for this title at 1440p, but the 4K data suggests the card is working near its architectural limits.

GPU Role

The RTX 3070 Ti's specifications directly explain its behavior in Inside. With a base clock of 1575 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz, the Ampere architecture chip (GA104) delivers 21.75 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This raw power is why the card can achieve 396.5 FPS at 1080p Low, where the workload is largely compute-bound rather than memory-bound.

The 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 608.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This bandwidth is adequate for 1440p gameplay, as evidenced by the 288.1 FPS at Low settings and 230.1 FPS at Medium. However, the 4K Ultra result of 82.9 FPS suggests that the memory subsystem, while fast, is not sufficient to maintain the same efficiency at higher pixel counts. The pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s become the governing factors at 4K, explaining why the frame rate halves compared to 1440p Ultra.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 74 vs all GPUs places it in the upper mid-range tier. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6700 with an average score of 31112 (a -0.8% delta) and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 at 31142 (a -0.9% delta). The data shows that the RTX 3070 Ti is well-matched to its competition, but it is not a top-tier 4K solution. In Inside, the card's 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores are underutilized, as the game does not appear to leverage ray tracing or DLSS in the measured rows, making the standard ROP and shading units the primary drivers of performance.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. The 230.1 FPS average at 1440p Medium is more than enough for a smooth experience on high-refresh-rate displays, and it represents a 59% performance uplift over the Ultra preset at the same resolution (136.5 FPS) while likely retaining most of the visual impact. The High preset at 1440p is also viable at 144.5 FPS, but the drop from Medium to High is substantial (a 37% reduction), suggesting that the Medium preset is the sweet spot for this GPU's architecture.

At 1080p, the Ultra preset is the clear recommendation. The 187.8 FPS average is still exceptionally high, and this resolution allows the RTX 3070 Ti to flex its full compute power without hitting the memory bandwidth wall. The 1080p Medium score of 317 FPS is overkill for most displays, and the difference between Medium and Ultra (a 69% jump in score) is too large to justify the visual trade-off. For 4K users, the Low preset at 178.9 FPS is the only playable option, but the data suggests that 1440p Medium is the intended resolution for this hardware, as the 4K Low preset sacrifices too much visual detail for a marginal gain over 1440p Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset provides a clear picture of the system's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from a low of 187.8 on Ultra to a peak of 396.5 on Low. The Medium setting delivers 317 FPS, while High achieves 197.9. The 1080p results show a 2.1x difference between the lowest and highest presets, indicating that the GPU is the primary bottleneck even at this resolution, though the CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads (with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz) are more than sufficient to feed the GPU.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a more compressed range: 136.5 FPS on Ultra, 144.5 on High, 230.1 on Medium, and 288.1 on Low. The delta between High and Ultra is minimal (just 8 FPS), suggesting that the Ultra preset adds visual effects that are not heavily taxing on the GPU. The 1440p Low score of 288.1 FPS is 73% higher than the 4K Low score, highlighting the resolution's impact on the memory bandwidth.

At 3840x2160, the data reveals the card's ceiling. The Ultra preset averages 82.9 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for competitive gaming. High drops slightly to 88.7 FPS, Medium hits 141.5, and Low reaches 178.9. The 4K results show a 2.16x range, similar to 1080p, but the absolute numbers are lower across the board. The min and max FPS fields are null in the data, so the analysis relies on average FPS, which is sufficient to show that this combo is best suited for 1440p gaming.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader database of tested combinations for Inside, this specific pairing of the Core i7-14700K and RTX 3070 Ti ranks #522 out of 1671 combos. This places it in the top 31% of all systems tested, which is a respectable position given the GPU's mid-range status. The CPU's percentile of 96 vs all CPUs is significantly higher than the GPU's percentile of 74, confirming that the processor is not the limiting factor in this pairing.

The CPU's nearest rivals show how well-matched this processor is to its competition. The Intel Core i7-14700KF posts an average score of 70104 (a 0% delta), making it essentially identical in performance. The AMD EPYC 9115 scores 69887 (a 0.3% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X scores 70420 (a -0.5% delta). These figures indicate that the i7-14700K is perfectly positioned in the CPU hierarchy, with no significant performance gap to its direct competitors.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals tell a similar story of tight competition. The AMD Radeon RX 590 GME scores 30755 (a 0.3% delta), while the RX 6700 scores 31112 (-0.8% delta). The NVIDIA Quadro M5000 at 31142 shows a -0.9% delta, meaning the RTX 3070 Ti is slightly below these alternatives in raw compute. However, in Inside, the measured FPS suggests that the card's real-world gaming performance is more than adequate, as the #522 rank out of 1671 combos demonstrates that this system sits comfortably above the median for this specific game. The data ultimately shows that while the GPU is the bottleneck at 4K, the overall combo is well-balanced for 1440p gaming, offering a compelling experience for players who prioritize frame rate over absolute visual extremes.