Inside

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a remarkably smooth experience in Inside, where the measured frame rates reveal that the game is far more dependent on the graphics card than the processor. At 4K with Ultra settings, the combo produces 72 FPS average, which drops only slightly to 75 FPS on High settings, indicating that the visual load is saturating the GPU’s capabilities before the CPU becomes a limiting factor. Moving down to 1440p, the same settings show a substantial jump: 114 FPS on Ultra and 120 FPS on High, while 1080p pushes those numbers to 159 FPS and 167 FPS respectively. This scaling pattern—where each resolution step down yields a clear FPS increase—confirms that the RTX 4060 is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the i7-14700KF’s 20 cores and 28 threads provide ample headroom to feed frames at lower resolutions without constraint.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the performance ceiling lies. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 333 FPS average, which drops to 239 FPS at 1440p and then to 150 FPS at 4K—a 55% reduction from 1080p to 4K that highlights the GPU’s workload scaling with pixel count. On Ultra settings, the same pattern holds: 159 FPS at 1080p, 114 FPS at 1440p, and 72 FPS at 4K, representing a 55% drop from the lowest to highest resolution tested. This consistent ~55% decrease across settings indicates that the RTX 4060’s shading units and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors, not the CPU’s processing power.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings at each resolution further reinforces the GPU-bound nature of the game. At 1080p, Low yields 333 FPS while Ultra yields 159 FPS—a 2.09x difference—whereas at 4K, the same settings gap produces 150 FPS versus 72 FPS, a 2.08x difference. This near-identical ratio suggests that the game’s visual effects scale uniformly with resolution, and the RTX 4060’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus width handle the texture data without hitting a capacity wall that would cause stuttering or min FPS drops. Notably, the Medium settings provide the only min/max FPS readings in the data: 226-306 FPS at 1080p, 163-220 FPS at 1440p, and 102-138 FPS at 4K, showing that even at the lowest recorded points, the combo stays well above playable thresholds.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 holds a rank of 1863 out of 3716 total combos for Inside, placing it in the 50th percentile of all tested systems. This mid-pack ranking is somewhat surprising given the high CPU performance—the i7-14700KF sits at the 94th percentile among all CPUs—but it reflects the GPU’s more modest standing at the 61st percentile among all graphics cards. The data suggests that for this puzzle platformer, the GPU’s performance ceiling caps the overall combo ranking, as the CPU’s raw compute power (evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167 and single-core score of 6235) far exceeds what the game can utilize.

The ranking becomes more meaningful when compared to the CPU’s nearest rivals. The i7-14700KF’s average benchmark score of 70163 is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996) and 0.4% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875), while the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K leads by 1.0% with a score of 70879. However, these differences in synthetic benchmarks do not translate into measurable FPS advantages in Inside, because the game’s frame rates are dictated by the GPU’s rendering capability rather than the CPU’s arithmetic throughput. At 4K Ultra, the 72 FPS average is consistent with what the RTX 4060’s Passmark G3D score of 19545 would predict, regardless of which high-end CPU is paired alongside it.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, built on the 5 nm Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD107 chip, delivers the frame rates observed through its 3072 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The GPU’s boost clock of 2460 MHz and base clock of 1830 MHz allow it to sustain the throughput needed for Inside’s side-scrolling 2.5D visuals, while its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth—sufficient for the game’s textures at 4K, as evidenced by the smooth 75 FPS average on High settings without min FPS drops. The memory clock runs at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective), which combined with the pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s, explains why the GPU can push 333 FPS at 1080p Low without breaking a sweat.

The RTX 4060’s standing among its peers shows a tight cluster: its average benchmark score of 17639 is 0.2% below the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666), 0.3% above the AMD Radeon 780M (17588), and 0.5-0.7% above the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551) and Radeon Pro 460 (17509). This grouping indicates that the RTX 4060’s raw compute performance is competitive with older and integrated solutions, but its 15.11 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 24 RT cores (which are not particularly stressed by this puzzle platformer) provide the headroom seen in the measured FPS. The GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2302 and Passmark DirectX 12 score of 76 align with the observed 4K performance, suggesting that the card is neither over- nor under-performing relative to its synthetic benchmarks in this specific game.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo at 1080p?

A: The highest recorded average is 333 FPS at 1080p with Low settings, while Ultra settings yield 159 FPS, Medium yields 266 FPS, and High yields 167 FPS.

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K on all settings?

A: Yes, the lowest average is 72 FPS at 4K Ultra, with Low at 150 FPS, Medium at 120 FPS, and High at 75 FPS—all above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered playable.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4060’s average benchmark score of 17639 is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666) but 0.3% higher than the AMD Radeon 780M (17588) and 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551).

Q: Which resolution shows the largest FPS drop from Low to Ultra settings?

A: The drop is proportionally consistent across resolutions—roughly 2.09x at 1080p (333 to 159 FPS), 2.10x at 1440p (239 to 114 FPS), and 2.08x at 4K (150 to 72 FPS)—so no single resolution penalizes Ultra settings disproportionately.

Q: What is the combo’s ranking among all tested systems for this game?

A: The combo ranks 1863 out of 3716 total combinations, placing it at the 50th percentile of tested systems for Inside.

Q: Are there any min FPS data points that indicate potential stuttering?

A: Only Medium settings provide min FPS readings: 226 FPS at 1080p, 163 FPS at 1440p, and 102 FPS at 4K—all well above stutter thresholds, suggesting smooth frame pacing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF, with its 20 cores (8 performance and 12 efficiency cores) and 28 threads, provides far more processing power than Inside can utilize, as evidenced by the frame rates staying high even when the GPU is heavily loaded. The CPU’s base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz, combined with 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 per core, ensure that single-threaded game logic runs without bottlenecking the GPU. Its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6235 and multi-core score of 44167 place it at the 94th percentile among all CPUs, yet the measured FPS at 1080p (333 FPS Low) does not increase beyond what the GPU can render, confirming that the CPU is never the limiting component.

The CPU’s memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 across a dual-channel bus, along with PCIe Gen 5 support for 16 lanes, provides ample bandwidth for the RTX 4060’s PCIe 4.0 x8 interface. At 4K, where the GPU is most stressed, the CPU’s Passmark single-thread score of 4480 and multithread score of 52425 indicate that even the most demanding frame pacing scenarios would not strain the processor. The data shows a consistent relationship: when resolution drops from 4K to 1080p, FPS increases by 2.22x on Low settings (150 to 333 FPS) and 2.21x on Ultra settings (72 to 159 FPS), which aligns with the pixel count difference (4K has 4x the pixels of 1080p) but is mitigated by the GPU’s efficiency at lower resolutions—a pattern that would not hold if the CPU were the bottleneck.

Settings Recommendations

For players seeking the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, the Medium preset at 1440p emerges as the optimal choice from the measured data. At 1440p Medium, the combo delivers 192 FPS average with a minimum of 163 FPS and maximum of 220 FPS, providing a comfortable margin above any display refresh rate while maintaining the game’s atmospheric lighting and shadow effects. At 1080p, Medium hits 266 FPS (min 226, max 306), which exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end monitors, making it the best option for competitive or high-refresh-rate displays, while at 4K, Medium produces 120 FPS (min 102, max 138), which remains smooth on 120 Hz displays.

The Ultra preset, while visually superior, offers diminishing returns at higher resolutions: 159 FPS at 1080p, 114 FPS at 1440p, and 72 FPS at 4K. For 4K users, High settings at 75 FPS provide a better experience than Ultra’s 72 FPS—the 3 FPS difference is negligible, and High likely reduces some taxing effects that cause frame dips. At 1440p, Ultra’s 114 FPS is still excellent, so players with 144 Hz monitors could justify the visual upgrade over Medium’s 192 FPS, which exceeds the display’s capability. Ultimately, the recommended config is Medium at 1440p for the best combination of smoothness and fidelity, with 1080p Medium (266 FPS) serving as the high-refresh-rate alternative and 4K High (75 FPS) as the resolution-focused choice.