Inside

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread desktop processor from the Core 14th Gen series, based on the Raptor Lake architecture and built on Intel's 10 nm process node. It carries a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with 33 MB of shared L3 cache and a 125 W TDP. These specifications place the CPU in the 96th percentile among all processors tested, with a multi-core Cinebench R23 score of 44557 and a single-core score of 6290.

For a puzzle platformer like Inside, the CPU's role is typically modest. The game's release date of 2016-07-06 predates the processor's 2023-10-16 release by over seven years, meaning the i7-14700KF is heavily overprovisioned for this title's logical thread demands. The measured FPS data confirms this: even at 1080p Low settings, where CPU overhead is most likely to surface, the combo achieves 310.5 FPS average. That frame rate is far beyond the refresh rate of virtually any display, indicating the CPU is not a limiting factor at any tested configuration.

The processor's 20 cores and 28 threads are largely idle headroom in this context. Inside is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer with a limited number of concurrent entities and physics interactions; it does not scale meaningfully across 20 cores. The relevant CPU metrics here are the single-core performance — a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6290 — because the game's main thread likely determines any CPU-bound behavior. That single-core score places the i7-14700KF well ahead of typical 2016-era processors, which is why the data shows no CPU bottleneck even at 4K Ultra where the GPU is most strained.

The nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database reinforce this positioning. The Intel Core i7-14700K scores 70074 average, a deltaPct of 0 relative to the i7-14700KF's 70104 average. The AMD EPYC 9115 sits 0.3% higher, while the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is 0.4% lower and the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 is 1.3% lower. These are marginal differences that do not translate into meaningful FPS variation in Inside — the game simply is not sensitive to the multi-threaded throughput where these processors differentiate themselves.

FAQ

Q: Why does the i7-14700KF achieve 310.5 FPS at 1080p Low but only 65.6 FPS at 4K Ultra?

A: The FPS drop from 310.5 to 65.6 represents a 79% reduction, which aligns with the GPU becoming the limiting factor as resolution increases. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are increasingly strained at higher resolutions and settings, while the CPU's single-core performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6290) remains sufficient to avoid bottlenecking.

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations for Inside?*

A: The combo ranks 980 out of 1671 total tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. This rank reflects the GPU's age relative to the CPU — the RTX 2070 SUPER is in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU is in the 96th percentile.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more responsible for the performance at 1440p High?

A: At 2560x1440 High, the combo achieves 112.4 FPS. Given that the same settings at 1080p yield 153 FPS and at 4K yield 70.2 FPS, the scaling pattern indicates the GPU is the primary driver of performance differences. The CPU's headroom is demonstrated by the fact that 1080p Low produces 310.5 FPS, suggesting no CPU ceiling below that point.

Q: What is the performance difference between the lowest and highest settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 310.5 FPS, Medium 249.7 FPS, High 153 FPS, and Ultra 144.9 FPS. The Ultra preset is 53% slower than Low, indicating that the GPU's shading units (2560) and texture units (160) are progressively more loaded as settings increase.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER compare to its nearest GPU rivals in terms of score?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER's average benchmark score is 22206. The NVIDIA RTX A400 scores 22307 (0.5% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z scores 22006 (0.9% lower), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile scores 22729 (2.3% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 scores 21670 (2.5% lower). These small deltas suggest the GPU is closely matched with its immediate peers in raw compute.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM capacity limit performance at 4K?

A: The data shows 4K Ultra at 65.6 FPS and 4K High at 70.2 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 6.6%, while the difference between Medium (114.6 FPS) and High (70.2 FPS) is 39%. This nonlinear scaling pattern suggests that settings beyond Medium at 4K impose significant GPU load, consistent with the 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer being stressed by high-resolution textures.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across three resolutions reveals a clear GPU-bound scaling pattern. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 310.5 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 224.2 FPS, and 4K Low yields 139.6 FPS. The percentage drops are 28% from 1080p to 1440p and 38% from 1440p to 4K. This scaling is consistent with a GPU that has a fixed pixel throughput — the RTX 2070 SUPER's pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s determine how fast it can fill frames at increasing pixel counts.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is more severe in absolute terms but similar in percentage. 1080p Ultra averages 144.9 FPS, 1440p Ultra drops to 105.6 FPS, and 4K Ultra falls to 65.6 FPS. The percentage reductions are 27% and 38% respectively, nearly identical to the Low setting pattern. This parallel scaling indicates that resolution is the dominant variable, not the quality preset — the GPU's compute resources (9.062 TFLOPS FP32) are exhausted proportionally to pixel count regardless of how the shading load is configured.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU. Evidence for this comes from the CPU's benchmark profile: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44557 and single-core score of 6290 place it far above what any 2016-era game can utilize. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect FPS to remain constant across resolutions at a given setting. Instead, every resolution change produces a consistent 27-38% FPS shift, mirroring the pixel count change (1440p has 1.78x the pixels of 1080p, 4K has 2.25x the pixels of 1440p). The game's modest thread requirements and the CPU's 28 threads mean the i7-14700KF's role is to stay out of the way, which it does decisively.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160 (4K), the frame rates range from 65.6 FPS at Ultra to 139.6 FPS at Low. The Medium preset achieves 114.6 FPS, and High averages 70.2 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is substantial at 44.4 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 4.6 FPS. This suggests that the High preset is already close to the Ultra's visual ceiling in terms of GPU load.

At 2560x1440 (1440p), the results are: Low 224.2 FPS, Medium 176.6 FPS, High 112.4 FPS, and Ultra 105.6 FPS. The Medium to High drop is 64.2 FPS, the largest single-setting transition at this resolution. Ultra is only 6.8 FPS slower than High, indicating diminishing returns for the extra settings beyond High.

At 1920x1080 (1080p), the frame rates are: Low 310.5 FPS, Medium 249.7 FPS, High 153 FPS, and Ultra 144.9 FPS. The jump from Medium to High costs 96.7 FPS, which is the steepest penalty across any resolution/setting combination in the dataset. This pattern — where High and Ultra cluster together while Low and Medium cluster separately — repeats at every resolution, suggesting the High preset enables graphical features that disproportionately load the GPU.

Across all resolutions, the Ultra preset is consistently within 5-8% of the High preset's FPS, while the Medium preset is 40-60% faster than High. This nonlinear relationship between settings tiers informs the recommendations below.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 980 out of 1671 tested combinations places it in the 41st percentile of all combos tested for Inside. This is a notable divergence from the CPU's individual ranking (96th percentile among all CPUs) and the GPU's individual ranking (65th percentile among all GPUs). The combo's aggregate rank is dragged down by the GPU, which is the performance-limiting component in this title.

Relative to other combos in the database, this pairing represents a high-end 2023 CPU combined with a 2019 mid-range GPU. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but become insufficient for consistent 4K high-refresh gameplay, which the measured data confirms. The GPU's nearest rivals — the RTX A400, GTX TITAN Z, RTX 4060 Mobile, and RX 5700 — all score within 2.5% of the RTX 2070 SUPER's average, meaning this combo's performance would be nearly identical with any of those GPUs installed alongside the i7-14700KF.

The rank of 980 suggests that 690 combos outperform this pairing in Inside, and 981 combos perform worse. Given that the CPU is not a limiting factor (as evidenced by the 310.5 FPS at 1080p Low), the combos that rank higher almost certainly do so because they pair a stronger GPU with a comparable or weaker CPU. The data does not show a single measured configuration where this CPU's 20 cores meaningfully improve FPS over what a lesser CPU would achieve.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data supports a clear recommendation for each resolution tier. At 1080p, the Ultra preset delivers 144.9 FPS, which is already beyond the refresh rate of most standard monitors. There is no practical reason to select High (153 FPS) or Medium (249.7 FPS) at this resolution unless the user has a 240 Hz or higher display — in which case Low at 310.5 FPS becomes the only preset that can fully saturate such a display. For the vast majority of users, Ultra at 1080p is the optimal choice because the 144.9 FPS average exceeds typical 120 Hz and 144 Hz monitor refresh rates.

At 1440p, the Ultra preset averages 105.6 FPS, which is suitable for 100 Hz displays but falls short of 144 Hz. The High preset at 112.4 FPS offers a small 6.5% improvement over Ultra while still exceeding 100 Hz. Users with 144 Hz 1440p monitors would need to drop to Medium (176.6 FPS) to fully utilize the refresh rate, but the visual trade-off may not be justified given that High and Ultra already provide smooth gameplay above 100 FPS. The data suggests High is the balanced choice at 1440p: it avoids the 44% FPS penalty of moving from Medium to High while still delivering a better visual experience than Medium.

At 4K, the situation is more constrained. Ultra averages 65.6 FPS and High 70.2 FPS — both are playable but below the 60 FPS threshold only marginally exceeded. Medium at 114.6 FPS is the only preset that comfortably exceeds 60 FPS with substantial headroom. For users with 60 Hz 4K displays, High is the best experience because it delivers 70.2 FPS (17% above 60 FPS) and likely includes most visual features that matter in Inside. Users with 120 Hz 4K displays should use Medium, as no higher preset reaches 100 FPS.

The best overall experience across the dataset is 1440p High at 112.4 FPS — it balances visual fidelity with a frame rate that exceeds 100 Hz, offers a smooth side-scrolling experience, and does not require the severe setting compromises needed at 4K. The 1080p Ultra preset at 144.9 FPS is the second-best choice, offering higher FPS with the same visual quality at a lower resolution. In all cases, the i7-14700KF's performance headroom means the user's choice of preset is purely a GPU-side decision — the CPU will not interfere at any measured configuration.