Inside

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER pairing delivers a highly playable experience in Inside, a 2016 Puzzle Platformer. Benchmark data shows this combo handles the game’s atmospheric 2.5D world with ease, particularly at mainstream resolutions. The measured results indicate that the primary bottleneck shifts from the CPU to the GPU as resolution increases, with frame rates scaling predictably across the four tested presets.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Inside?*

A: At 1920x1080, all four settings presets produce average frame rates above 100 FPS, with the Low preset hitting 216 FPS. Even the most demanding Ultra preset at 1080p averages 103 FPS, making 1080p the ideal resolution for maximizing smoothness.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Inside?*

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 3840x2160, the High preset averages 49 FPS, and Ultra averages 47 FPS. Dropping to Medium raises the average to 78 FPS, while the Low preset achieves a solid 98 FPS average, indicating that 4K is viable only with reduced graphical settings.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 SUPER compare to its direct rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU’s average benchmark score is 12986. It is effectively tied with the AMD Radeon RX 580, which scores 12928, showing a 0.4% difference. It also performs nearly identically to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (12940) and the AMD Radeon 740M (12870).

Q: What is the CPU’s standing among all tested processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is in the 85th percentile of all CPUs tested. Its average benchmark score is 36938, which places it nearly even with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (36945), and slightly ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D, which trails by 0.2%.

Q: Does the game prefer more CPU cores or higher clock speeds?

A: The data suggests that the game is not heavily multi-threaded. The CPU’s single-thread performance is strong, as evidenced by a Passmark single-thread score of 4412, and the game’s frame rates at lower resolutions are high enough to indicate that the 10-core processor is not a limiting factor.

Q: Is the 6 GB VRAM on the GTX 1660 SUPER a concern for this title?

A: No. The game’s simple visual style and low geometric complexity do not appear to strain memory capacity. The GPU’s 336.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 6 GB GDDR6 frame buffer are more than sufficient, as evidenced by high frame rates even at 4K with reduced settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER serves as the primary determinant of performance in Inside, especially as resolution climbs. The GPU’s Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process, features 1408 shading units and a boost clock of 1785 MHz. Its memory subsystem, consisting of 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, delivers a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s, which is ample for the game’s relatively modest texture and shader demands.

At 1080p, the CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU effectively. The transition from the Low preset to the Ultra preset at 1920x1080 sees the average frame rate drop from 216 FPS to 103 FPS, a reduction that is almost entirely attributable to the GPU’s fill rate and shading throughput. The GPU’s pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s are the specs that govern these settings, and the data shows they scale linearly with the workload.

As the resolution increases to 2560x1440, the GPU’s role becomes more pronounced. The average frame rate at High settings drops from 108 FPS at 1080p to 78 FPS at 1440p, a 27.8% decrease. This pattern confirms that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the limiting component at higher pixel counts. The GPU’s FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS is the theoretical ceiling for the game’s shader complexity, and the measured results indicate that the card is working near its limits at 4K, where even the Low preset yields only 98 FPS.

The GPU’s DirectX 12 support, as indicated by a Passmark DirectX 12 score of 50, is sufficient for Inside, which is not a graphically intensive title. The card’s overall performance percentile of 53 places it in the mid-range of all GPUs, but its specific strengths in this game’s workload are clear from the frame time data. The 1660 SUPER is an end-of-life product, but its legacy performance is still valid for this genre of game.

Resolution Scaling

Resolution scaling in Inside follows a predictable pattern, with frame rates dropping significantly as pixel count increases. The data shows a consistent relationship between the number of pixels rendered and the resulting average FPS across all settings.

At 1920x1080, the combo is capable of high refresh rate gameplay. The Low preset achieves an average of 216 FPS, which is likely above the refresh rate of most monitors, and even the Ultra preset maintains 103 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 introduces a noticeable penalty, with the Low preset dropping to 156 FPS (a 27.8% decrease) and the Ultra preset falling to 74 FPS (a 28.2% decrease). This scaling factor of roughly 0.72 across all presets indicates a uniform GPU-bound workload.

The jump to 3840x2160 is where the GTX 1660 SUPER begins to struggle. The Low preset averages 98 FPS, which is a 37.2% drop from the 1440p figure. The Medium preset, which has min/max data, shows a range of 66 to 90 FPS with an average of 78 FPS. The High and Ultra presets both fall below 50 FPS, at 49 and 47 respectively, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

This scaling behavior reveals that the limiting component changes with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU’s single-thread performance, evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655, is sufficient to drive frame rates above 200 FPS in lighter scenes. However, the GPU’s fixed pixel throughput becomes the hard constraint at higher resolutions. The 4K results, particularly the narrow gap between High (49 FPS) and Ultra (47 FPS), suggest that the GPU’s ROPs and memory bandwidth are saturated, and additional shading work has minimal impact on the final frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER holds a rank of 2464 out of 2887 tested combos in Inside. This places the pairing in the lower 15th percentile of all tested systems, which is reflective of the GPU’s age and mid-range positioning rather than the CPU’s capabilities.

The rank is influenced by the GPU’s overall performance percentile of 53, which is below the median, and the fact that many tested combos pair high-end CPUs with modern GPUs. The CPU itself is a strong performer, sitting in the 85th percentile of all processors, but its contribution to gaming performance in this title is secondary. The bottleneck analysis from the resolution scaling section confirms this, as the GPU is the limiting factor at 1440p and above.

The rank in Inside is not a commentary on the combo’s absolute capability, but rather its standing relative to a large database of other configurations. For a game like Inside, which is not demanding by modern standards, this combo’s rank is adequate. The data shows that the pairing can achieve 60+ FPS at 1080p on High settings (108 FPS average), which is a common target for many gamers. The low rank is more indicative of the fact that faster GPUs exist in the database, not that this combo fails to provide a playable experience.

The delta between the CPU’s high percentile (85) and the GPU’s mid-range percentile (53) highlights the imbalance in this pairing. In CPU-bound scenarios at 1080p, the system can leverage the processor’s strength, but the GPU quickly becomes the ceiling as resolution increases. This is a common trait for older GPUs paired with newer CPUs.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers an average of 173 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on modern monitors. This preset also provides the only complete min/max data across all resolutions, with a 106 FPS minimum at 1440p and a 66 FPS minimum at 4K.

For users with 1080p displays, the High preset is also an excellent choice, averaging 108 FPS. The jump from Medium to High costs roughly 37.5% of the average frame rate (from 173 to 108 FPS), but the visual fidelity improvement is likely worth it for a game with Inside’s atmospheric lighting and shadow work. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 103 FPS, which is only 5 FPS lower than High, indicating diminishing returns for the highest preset.

At 1440p, the Medium preset remains the recommended choice, with an average of 125 FPS and a minimum of 106 FPS. This is sufficient for 100 Hz displays. The High preset at 1440p averages 78 FPS, which is still playable but may show stutter on 144 Hz panels. The Low preset at 1440p, averaging 156 FPS, is viable for competitive play but sacrifices visual quality.

For 4K, the Low preset is the only option that maintains an average above 60 FPS, at 98 FPS. The Medium preset at 78 FPS is also playable, but the minimum of 66 FPS indicates occasional dips. The High and Ultra presets, at 49 and 47 FPS respectively, are not recommended for a smooth experience. Given that Inside is a puzzle platformer with a slower pace, 4K gaming is possible with Low or Medium settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets.

1920x1080: The Low preset delivers an average of 216 FPS. The Medium preset averages 173 FPS, with a minimum of 147 FPS and a maximum of 199 FPS. The High preset averages 108 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 103 FPS. All presets at 1080p are above the 60 FPS threshold, making this resolution the most versatile for high refresh rate displays.

2560x1440: The Low preset averages 156 FPS. The Medium preset averages 125 FPS, with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 143 FPS. The High preset averages 78 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 74 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 106 FPS ensures that even the most demanding scenes remain fluid.

3840x2160: The Low preset averages 98 FPS. The Medium preset averages 78 FPS, with a minimum of 66 FPS and a maximum of 90 FPS. The High preset averages 49 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 47 FPS. The 4K results show a clear division: Low and Medium are playable, while High and Ultra are not.

The data reveals a consistent performance hierarchy across all resolutions: Low > Medium > High > Ultra. The performance delta between Low and Medium is roughly 20-25% depending on resolution, while the delta between High and Ultra is significantly smaller, often only 2-4 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset adds little over High for this GPU, and the Medium preset is the sweet spot for maintaining high frame rates without excessive visual compromise.