Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer from 2016 that places minimal demands on modern hardware, yet the measured results for the Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 combination reveal a fascinating performance profile that defies typical expectations for a game of its age. The data shows a system that is utterly dominant at lower resolutions but exhibits unusual scaling behavior at 4K, suggesting that the game's engine, rather than the hardware, may be the primary bottleneck in specific scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested systems for Inside?

A: The combo ranks 1494 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the 60th percentile of all systems tested for this game. This is a relatively modest ranking for such a high-end CPU and current-generation GPU, hinting that the game's engine does not fully utilize the available hardware power.

Q: How does the Intel Core i7-14700K compare to its nearest CPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i7-14700K has an average benchmark score of 69355, placing it just 0.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 9115 and 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. It also trails the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX by 0.7% and the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F by 0.9%, indicating that its multi-threaded performance is statistically tied with these top-tier processors.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between the Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 355 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 169 FPS. This represents a 52.4% reduction in average frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings.

Q: Does the RTX 5060 have a significant performance gap compared to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 5060's average benchmark score is 26331, which is nearly identical to its closest rivals. It is only 0.3% behind both the AMD Radeon 860M and NVIDIA GeForce MX550, and 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary. It is 1.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT, showing that these GPUs are all within a 2% performance band.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS recorded at Medium settings across all resolutions?

A: At 1920x1080 Medium, the frame rate ranges from a minimum of 242 FPS to a maximum of 327 FPS. At 2560x1440 Medium, it ranges from 174 FPS to 235 FPS. The 3840x2160 Medium setting shows a spread from 109 FPS to 148 FPS, indicating that frame pacing becomes tighter at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the launch MSRP for the components in this combo?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700K has a launch MSRP of $409, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 has a launch MSRP of 299 USD.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process, brings 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock of 2497 MHz and 3840 shading units provide a theoretical FP32 throughput of 19.18 TFLOPS. For a game like Inside, which has a primarily 2D side-scrolling perspective with limited 3D geometry, these specifications are overwhelmingly powerful. The data confirms this; even at the most demanding tested setting of 4K Ultra, the GPU maintains an average of 76 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay.

The GPU's role in this title appears to be largely underutilized, as the measured frame rates at 1080p reach as high as 355 FPS on Low settings. This suggests that the rendering workload is not the primary constraint. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is ample for the game's textures and effects, which are not demanding by modern standards. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 20891 and its 72nd percentile ranking among all GPUs indicate a solid mid-range performer, but the game's simplicity means it rarely needs to operate at full capacity. The texture rate of 299.6 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 119.9 GPixel/s are far in excess of what a puzzle platformer requires, making the GPU a non-factor in most scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic pattern of increasing GPU load, but with an interesting twist. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 355 FPS at 1920x1080 to 255 FPS at 2560x1440, a 28.2% decrease. Moving further to 3840x2160, the frame rate falls to 161 FPS, which is another 36.9% reduction from the 1440p figure. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is becoming more involved as pixel count rises, but even at 4K Low, the system is nowhere near its limits.

The scaling is more moderate at higher settings. At Ultra, the average FPS goes from 169 at 1080p to 122 at 1440p (a 27.8% drop), and then to 76 at 4K (a 37.7% drop from 1440p). This consistent pattern of roughly 28% and then 37% reductions suggests that the game engine's rendering pipeline scales predictably with resolution. However, the absolute numbers are so high that the limiting component is likely the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls, especially at lower resolutions where the GPU finishes its work quickly. At 4K, the GPU's workload increases, but the fact that it still exceeds 160 FPS on Low indicates that the RTX 5060 is not the bottleneck; rather, the game's engine or driver overhead is capping performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1494 out of 3716 tested combos is surprisingly low for a system with a 94th percentile CPU and a 72nd percentile GPU. This suggests that many other combinations, likely with less powerful hardware, achieve similar or better performance in Inside. The data implies that the game is not sensitive to high-end components, and the ranking is likely influenced by other factors such as memory configuration or driver versions. The CPU's nearest rivals, like the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, which has nearly identical synthetic scores, would likely produce similar results, so the rank is not a reflection of the i7-14700K's capabilities but rather the game's indifference to them.

The RTX 5060's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon 860M and NVIDIA GeForce MX550, are vastly different in terms of raw specifications, yet they achieve nearly identical average benchmark scores. This reinforces the idea that within a certain performance envelope, the game's results are capped. This combo sits in the upper-middle of the pack, but the fact that it is not in the top tier indicates that for a game like Inside, the hardware is far less important than it is for more demanding titles.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the resolution shows the highest frame rates, with the Low preset averaging 355 FPS. The Medium preset averages 284 FPS, with a minimum of 242 and a maximum of 327 FPS, showing a variance of 85 FPS. High settings average 178 FPS, and Ultra drops to 169 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is only 9 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds minimal visual fidelity for a slight performance cost.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 255 FPS, a 100 FPS drop from 1080p. Medium averages 204 FPS, with a range of 174 to 235 FPS. High settings average 128 FPS, and Ultra averages 122 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at this resolution is only 6 FPS, continuing the trend seen at 1080p. The frame rates remain exceptionally high, with even the Ultra preset comfortably exceeding 120 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the performance is still impressive but begins to show the GPU's workload. Low settings average 161 FPS, while Medium averages 128 FPS, with a minimum of 109 and a maximum of 148 FPS. High settings average 80 FPS, and Ultra averages 76 FPS. The drop from High to Ultra is only 4 FPS, which is negligible. The most significant jump is from Low to Medium, which costs 33 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High costs 48 FPS, indicating that the High preset introduces a substantial rendering load.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience, particularly at 4K where it maintains an average of 128 FPS with a minimum of 109 FPS. This ensures smooth gameplay without any noticeable frame drops. At 1440p, Medium averages 204 FPS, which is far beyond what any display can show, making it an ideal choice for maximizing visual quality while maintaining high frame rates. At 1080p, Medium's 284 FPS average is excessive for any current monitor, so players could opt for the High preset (178 FPS) or Ultra (169 FPS) to improve image quality without sacrificing smoothness.

For users with high-refresh-rate 1440p displays (144Hz or 165Hz), the High preset at 128 FPS is a good fit, but the Ultra preset at 122 FPS also meets this threshold. At 4K, the High preset's 80 FPS average is suitable for 60Hz displays, but the Medium preset at 128 FPS provides a more comfortable margin and is the recommended choice to avoid any potential dips. The Low preset is not recommended at any resolution, as the visual degradation is unnecessary given the headroom available.

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. Its 33 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory make it a formidable multi-threaded performer, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33440.5 and Geekbench multi-core score of 20767. However, Inside is a game that relies heavily on single-threaded performance and minimal CPU overhead, and the i7-14700K's single-core scores (2160 in Cinebench R23 and 2569 in Geekbench) are more than sufficient.

The data shows that the CPU is not a limiting factor in this game. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 355 FPS, which is likely near the engine's maximum frame rate cap. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates it is one of the fastest processors available, but the game simply does not require such power. The high frame rates at all resolutions suggest that the CPU can easily handle the game's physics and logic, and the bottleneck shifts to the GPU only at 4K with higher settings. Even then, the CPU's 5.60 GHz boost clock ensures that it can keep up with the GPU's demands, and the measured results show no signs of CPU-induced stuttering or frame pacing issues, particularly since the minimum FPS values at Medium settings are only about 15% lower than the averages.