Inside

# Inside — Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti

The benchmark data for Inside with this Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti combination shows a title that scales dramatically with both resolution and quality settings. Across the twelve measured configurations, average frame rates range from a low of 98 FPS at 4K Ultra to a high of 404 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating that this hardware pairing is never bound below 60 FPS even at the most demanding settings. The measured results place this combo at rank 617 out of 3,716 tested configurations, which places it in the top 17 percent of all recorded combos for this game.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K varies significantly depending on the quality preset, and this variation reveals where the performance bottleneck shifts. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 404 at 1080p to 329 at 1440p, then to 206 at 4K — a reduction of 75 FPS (18.6%) going to 1440p and another 123 FPS (37.4%) going to 4K. This steep drop at Low settings indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises, since the CPU is capable of feeding far more frames at lower resolutions.

At Medium settings, the scaling pattern is similar but slightly less severe in absolute terms: 366 FPS at 1080p, 263 FPS at 1440p, and 165 FPS at 4K. The 4K figure represents a 55% reduction from the 1080p baseline, which is a larger proportional drop than what Low settings show (49%). This suggests that Medium settings add enough GPU work that the graphics card's rendering throughput becomes the dominant constraint at higher resolutions.

High settings show a different pattern: 228 FPS at 1080p, 164 FPS at 1440p, and 103 FPS at 4K. The proportional drops are 28% going to 1440p and another 37% going to 4K, which is more consistent than Low settings. This consistency implies that High settings balance CPU and GPU load more evenly, with neither component fully dominating the frame rate at any resolution.

Ultra settings produce the lowest frame rates across the board: 218 FPS at 1080p, 156 FPS at 1440p, and 98 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 28%, and from 1440p to 4K is 37% — nearly identical to High settings. The fact that Ultra and High scale almost identically with resolution suggests that both presets are limited by the same factor, likely the GPU's pixel throughput, while the CPU has enough headroom to keep up.

The data shows that at 4K, the frame rate gap between Low (206 FPS) and Ultra (98 FPS) is 108 FPS, while at 1080p that same gap is 186 FPS (404 vs 218). This narrowing at higher resolutions confirms that the RTX 3080 Ti's rendering capacity is the primary limiter at 4K, whereas at 1080p the CPU's ability to issue draw calls and process game logic becomes relatively more important.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor from the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.90 GHz, combined with 20 MB of shared L3 cache, provide the computational foundation for this game's results. The CPU's benchmark scores show strong single-thread performance with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,655 and a multi-core score of 25,891.

The nearest rival comparisons for this CPU show it sits in a tight cluster with several other processors. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F has an identical average benchmark score with a delta of 0%, while the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D is 0.2% behind, the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 is 0.4% behind, and the Intel Core i9-12900T is 0.5% behind. This grouping places the Core Ultra 5 225 at the 85th percentile among all CPUs, indicating it has ample computational headroom for a game like Inside.

In this puzzle platformer, the CPU's role is primarily to maintain consistent frame pacing and handle game logic, physics, and entity updates. The measured frame rates at 1080p Low (404 FPS) and 1080p Medium (366 FPS) suggest that the CPU is capable of sustaining very high frame rates when the GPU is not heavily loaded. The gap between Low and Medium at 1080p is only 38 FPS, which is small compared to the 196 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at the same resolution, indicating that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at lower quality settings.

The 10-core configuration without hyper-threading (10 threads total) is more than sufficient for this title, which was released in 2016 and does not demand high core counts. The dual-channel DDR5 memory support with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s provides adequate data throughput for the game's assets, and the PCIe Gen 5 interface with 20 lanes ensures the GPU has a high-bandwidth connection. The CPU's 65 W TDP also suggests it maintains sustained boost clocks under load without thermal throttling, which supports the consistently high frame rates observed.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA102 chip, manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process. It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering a memory bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s. The GPU's clocks are rated at 1,365 MHz base and 1,665 MHz boost, with memory running at 19 Gbps effective. Its 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 ROPs provide substantial rasterization throughput, backed by 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores.

The GPU's benchmark results place it at the 83rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 41,187. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (0.8% ahead), the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB (1.2% behind), the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (1.7% behind), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 (2% ahead). This positioning indicates that the RTX 3080 Ti is a high-end graphics card that remains competitive in modern titles.

For Inside, the GPU's role is critical at higher resolutions and quality settings, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 98, which is the lowest measured value across all configurations. The GPU's 12 GB VRAM is ample for this game's textures and effects, and the observed frame rates do not suggest any memory capacity limitations. The pixel rate of 186.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 532.8 GTexel/s are more than sufficient for the visual style of this puzzle platformer, which uses a distinctive monochromatic art style with atmospheric lighting effects.

The GPU's 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 34.10 TFLOPS of FP16 (1:1) provide substantial headroom for any shader complexity in the game. However, the frame rate data shows that even this powerful GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K, where the drop from Low to Ultra settings reduces average FPS by more than half (206 to 98). This indicates that the game's rendering pipeline at higher presets is heavily dependent on GPU fill rate and shading throughput, rather than being constrained by memory bandwidth or CPU overhead.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear picture of how each quality preset affects performance at each resolution. For players targeting a 60 FPS experience, every configuration in the dataset exceeds this threshold, with the lowest measured average being 98 FPS at 4K Ultra. This means that the most demanding settings are still playable on this hardware, though the margin above 60 FPS is thinner at 4K.

At 1080p, the data shows that Ultra settings (218 FPS) deliver only 10 FPS less than High settings (228 FPS), while Medium (366 FPS) and Low (404 FPS) provide substantially higher frame rates. The relatively small gap between High and Ultra at 1080p suggests that Ultra settings are worth enabling at this resolution, as the visual quality improvement comes at a modest performance cost. The gap between Medium and High is larger at 138 FPS, which indicates that High settings represent a significant visual upgrade that costs more performance.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts slightly. Ultra (156 FPS) is 8 FPS behind High (164 FPS), while Medium (263 FPS) is 99 FPS ahead of High. The 1440p resolution is the sweet spot for this combination, as even Ultra settings maintain an average above 150 FPS, which is well above the threshold for high-refresh-rate displays. The gap between Low (329 FPS) and Medium (263 FPS) is 66 FPS, suggesting that the transition from Low to Medium is less costly at this resolution than at 1080p.

At 4K, the data shows that Ultra (98 FPS) and High (103 FPS) produce nearly identical results, with only a 5 FPS difference. Medium (165 FPS) is 62 FPS ahead of High, making it the best balance of visual quality and performance at this resolution. Low (206 FPS) still provides a high frame rate but sacrifices significant visual fidelity. For 4K displays, Medium settings appear to be the recommended preset, as they deliver a 60% improvement over Ultra (165 vs 98 FPS) while still providing enhanced visual effects compared to Low.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti combination ranks 617 out of 3,716 tested configurations for Inside. This places the combo in the top 16.6% of all recorded results, which is a strong showing for a game that is not particularly demanding by modern standards. The rank reflects the fact that this CPU and GPU pairing is well above the median configuration, but not at the very top of the leaderboard.

The CPU's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs and the GPU's 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs suggest that this combo is balanced, with neither component dramatically outperforming the other. The combo's rank of 617 is consistent with what one would expect from two components that are both in the upper tier of their respective categories. The data indicates that the limiting factor for pushing higher in the rankings is primarily the GPU at higher resolutions, since the CPU has demonstrated its ability to sustain very high frame rates at 1080p.

The measured FPS values show that this combo can deliver frame rates that are competitive with much more expensive hardware, particularly at 1080p and 1440p where the average FPS exceeds 150 at all settings. At 4K, the combo still maintains an average above 98 FPS at Ultra settings, which is a strong result for a title that was released in 2016. The combo's ranking could likely be improved by focusing on the 1440p Medium preset, which delivers 263 FPS and represents the best balance of performance and visual fidelity.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo achieves in Inside?*

A: The highest measured average FPS is 404 at 1080p with Low settings. The next highest is 366 FPS at 1080p with Medium settings.

*Q: Is this combo capable of running Inside at 4K with playable frame rates?*

A: Yes, the lowest measured average at 4K is 98 FPS with Ultra settings. The highest at 4K is 206 FPS with Low settings, and Medium settings deliver 165 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in overall benchmark performance?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 has an average benchmark score of 36,938, which is essentially identical to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (36,945, 0% delta). It is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D, 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450, and 0.5% ahead of the Intel Core i9-12900T.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between High and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, High settings average 228 FPS while Ultra settings average 218 FPS, a difference of only 10 FPS. This suggests Ultra is a reasonable choice at this resolution.

Q: Which resolution offers the best balance of frame rate and visual quality?

A: The data shows that 1440p with Medium settings delivers 263 FPS, while 1440p with Ultra settings delivers 156 FPS. This gives players a wide range of options, with Medium providing high frame rates and Ultra still exceeding 150 FPS.

Q: How does the GPU compare to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti has an average benchmark score of 41,187, which is 2% behind the RTX 5070's score of 40,377. The RTX 3080 Ti is 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 and 1.2% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are: 404 FPS at Low settings, 366 FPS at Medium settings (with a minimum of 311 FPS and maximum of 420 FPS), 228 FPS at High settings, and 218 FPS at Ultra settings. The Medium settings row is the only one at this resolution that includes min/max data, showing a range of 109 FPS between the minimum and maximum recorded frames.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are: 329 FPS at Low settings, 263 FPS at Medium settings (with a minimum of 223 FPS and maximum of 302 FPS), 164 FPS at High settings, and 156 FPS at Ultra settings. The Medium settings range at 1440p is 79 FPS, which is narrower than at 1080p, indicating more consistent frame pacing at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are: 206 FPS at Low settings, 165 FPS at Medium settings (with a minimum of 140 FPS and maximum of 190 FPS), 103 FPS at High settings, and 98 FPS at Ultra settings. The Medium settings range at 4K is 50 FPS, which is the tightest of all three resolutions, suggesting that the GPU's consistent performance at this resolution reduces frame time variance.

The complete dataset shows that the Medium settings preset is the only one where min/max values were recorded for all three resolutions, providing insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the minimum of 311 FPS and maximum of 420 FPS represent a 35% variation from the average of 366 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the minimum of 223 FPS and maximum of 302 FPS show a similar proportional spread around the 263 FPS average. At 4K Medium, the 140 FPS minimum and 190 FPS maximum bracket the 165 FPS average with a 15% deviation on either side.