Inside

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 paired with the Intel Arc B370 integrated graphics produces a playable but constrained experience in Inside, with performance heavily dictated by resolution and preset. At 1080p, the combo delivers smooth frame rates across most settings, but 4K pushes the integrated GPU to its limits, making it the primary bottleneck. The data indicates this is a capable entry-level configuration for the game, ranking in the bottom 8% of tested combos, yet still offering a functional experience at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a dramatic performance drop as resolution increases, clearly identifying the Intel Arc B370 as the limiting component. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 141 FPS, which is more than double the 64 FPS recorded at 4K with the same settings. This represents a 54.6% reduction in performance when moving from 1080p to 4K, a scaling pattern typical of a GPU-bound scenario where pixel throughput becomes the dominant constraint.

The scaling trend continues across all presets. With Medium settings, the average frame rate falls from 113 FPS at 1080p to 81 FPS at 1440p, and further down to 51 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 28.3%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 37.0%, showing an accelerating performance penalty as resolution increases. High settings tell a similar story: 70 FPS at 1080p, 51 FPS at 1440p, and 32 FPS at 4K, with the 1440p to 4K transition again causing a steeper decline of 37.3%.

Ultra settings exhibit the most severe resolution scaling. At 1080p, the combo manages 67 FPS, which drops to 48 FPS at 1440p and then plummets to 30 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is 28.4%, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is 37.5%. This consistent pattern across all four presets — where the 1440p-to-4K step always incurs a larger percentage loss than the 1080p-to-1440p step — indicates that the Arc B370's fill rate and memory bandwidth (being system shared) are saturated well before 4K.

The data shows that at 1080p, the CPU still has headroom. The 141 FPS result at Low settings is nearly double the 70 FPS at High, suggesting that even at 1080p, the GPU is the primary limiter. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect smaller differences between presets at the same resolution. However, the wide spread of results at 1080p — from 67 FPS at Ultra to 141 FPS at Low — confirms GPU-bound behavior. At 4K, the situation worsens, with the Ultra preset dipping to just 30 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable gameplay.

For users targeting 4K, the measured data suggests that only the Low preset (64 FPS) provides a consistently smooth experience. The Medium preset at 4K offers 51 FPS with a minimum of 43 FPS, which may be acceptable for a puzzle platformer where precision timing is less critical. High and Ultra at 4K are effectively unplayable, with averages of 32 FPS and 30 FPS respectively. The resolution scaling analysis strongly indicates that the Arc B370's 1280 shading units and 20 ROPs, combined with system-shared memory, cannot sustain the pixel workload at 4K for demanding presets.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution, but the data consistently points to Medium as the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 1080p, Medium delivers 113 FPS with a minimum of 96 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The jump from Low to Medium costs 28 FPS (from 141 to 113), but the visual improvement is substantial, making Medium the recommended preset for 1080p displays.

For 1440p, Medium again proves to be the sweet spot. The 81 FPS average with a 69 FPS minimum ensures fluid motion throughout. High at 1440p drops to 51 FPS, which is still playable but noticeably less smooth. Low at 1440p offers 101 FPS, but the visual compromise may not be worth the 20 FPS gain over Medium. Ultra at 1440p falls to 48 FPS, which is borderline for a game like Inside that relies on atmospheric visuals and subtle animations.

At 4K, the recommendation shifts to Low settings. The 64 FPS average at Low is the only preset that maintains a consistent frame rate above 60 FPS. Medium at 4K averages 51 FPS with a minimum of 43 FPS, which could cause occasional stutter during fast transitions. High and Ultra at 4K are not recommended due to their sub-35 FPS averages. For users prioritizing resolution over detail, Low at 4K is the only viable choice.

The Ultra preset is consistently the worst value across all resolutions. At 1080p, Ultra (67 FPS) offers only a marginal visual improvement over High (70 FPS) while actually performing slightly worse, indicating that the Ultra preset may introduce effects that tax the GPU without proportional visual benefit. At 1440p, Ultra (48 FPS) is 3 FPS slower than High (51 FPS), and at 4K, Ultra (30 FPS) is 2 FPS slower than High (32 FPS). This pattern suggests that Ultra settings include features that the Arc B370 cannot efficiently process, making High the better choice when Ultra is not playable.

The measured frame time data for Medium settings provides additional insight. At all three resolutions, the minimum FPS is roughly 15% lower than the average (96 vs 113 at 1080p, 69 vs 81 at 1440p, 43 vs 51 at 4K). This consistent variance indicates stable performance without severe spikes, which is important for a puzzle platformer where precise movement matters. The Medium preset's minimum frame rates all exceed 40 FPS, ensuring no major hitches.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is the decisive factor in this combo's performance, and its specifications explain the measured results. Built on the Xe3-LPG architecture with a 3 nm process, this integrated GPU operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz. The 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 ROPs provide a peak pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s, which are modest figures that align with its low 25 W TDP.

The most critical limitation is the memory configuration. The Arc B370 uses system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth, meaning it competes with the CPU for the same DDR5 memory pool. This explains the severe performance drop at 4K, where the memory bandwidth requirement increases exponentially. The FP32 performance of 6.144 TFLOPS is adequate for 1080p gaming but insufficient for 4K at high settings, as evidenced by the 32 FPS result at 4K High.

The GPU's benchmark score of 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 places it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs, which is very low. Its nearest rivals include the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, 0.2% faster) and the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, 0.5% faster), both of which are legacy discrete parts from a different era. This comparison underscores that the Arc B370 is not designed for high-end gaming, yet it still manages to run Inside at playable frame rates at lower resolutions.

The 10 ray tracing cores and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) provide modern feature support, but the raw performance is limited. The boost clock of 2400 MHz is relatively high for an integrated GPU, but the 25 W TDP constrains sustained performance. The system-shared memory configuration means that as the CPU utilizes more memory bandwidth, the GPU's effective bandwidth decreases, which could explain why the Ultra preset performs slightly worse than High at the same resolution.

In Inside, the GPU's pixel rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints. The game's dark, atmospheric art style with dynamic lighting effects requires substantial fill rate, which the 20 ROPs struggle to deliver at 4K. The 48.00 GPixel/s pixel rate translates to roughly 48 million pixels per second, while 4K resolution demands 8.3 million pixels per frame. At 30 FPS, the GPU needs to process 249 million pixels per second just for the framebuffer, exceeding the theoretical pixel rate and explaining the sub-30 FPS results at 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and Intel Arc B370 combination ranks 2654 out of 2887 tested combos in Inside, placing it in the 92nd percentile from the bottom. This ranking reflects the GPU's limited capabilities rather than the CPU's performance. The combo sits in the bottom 8% of all configurations, which aligns with the Arc B370's 5th percentile ranking among all GPUs.

This low ranking is consistent with the GPU's benchmark positioning. The Arc B370's nearest rivals in the 3DMark Steel Nomad test are all legacy parts: the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190), AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192), and AMD FirePro M2000 (1168). These are all integrated or low-end discrete GPUs from more than a decade ago, yet they perform within 1.4% of the Arc B370. This comparison clearly demonstrates that the Arc B370 is positioned at the entry level of gaming performance.

The combo's ranking in Inside specifically is influenced by the game's modest system requirements. As a puzzle platformer released in 2016, Inside is not a demanding title by modern standards. The fact that this combo still ranks in the bottom 8% suggests that the Arc B370 is significantly underpowered for even older titles at high settings. However, the measured FPS data shows that the combo is playable at lower settings, meaning the ranking reflects the full range of tested presets including 4K Ultra, which drags the overall score down.

For context, the CPU alone performs much better. The Core Ultra 5 235 has an average benchmark score of 46062, placing it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46030, 0.1% slower), Intel Core i9-13900HX (46098, 0.1% faster), AMD EPYC 4364P (45970, 0.2% slower), and AMD EPYC 7303 (45960, 0.2% slower). This shows that the CPU is highly capable, but the GPU holds the combo back in gaming scenarios.

The disparity between the CPU's 89th percentile ranking and the combo's bottom 8% ranking in Inside highlights the GPU bottleneck. If paired with a discrete graphics card, this CPU could deliver much higher frame rates. As configured, the integrated Arc B370 limits the combo to entry-level performance, which is reflected in the 2654th rank.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 provides ample processing power for Inside, but its role in this combo is secondary to the GPU. With 14 cores and 14 threads, a base clock of 3.40 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, the CPU has substantial capability. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core provide fast access to game data, while the 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth ensures the system-shared GPU memory is fed efficiently.

The CPU's Cinebench R23 scores of 14769 multi-core and 2085 single-core demonstrate strong performance that is more than sufficient for a puzzle platformer. Inside is not a CPU-intensive game, and the measured FPS patterns confirm that the CPU is not the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 141 FPS, which is likely near the game's engine limit given the GPU's capabilities. If the CPU were limiting, we would see similar FPS across different resolutions at the same preset, but the data shows significant variation.

The CPU's 14 cores and 14 threads (with no hyperthreading) are more than adequate for Inside, which likely uses only a few threads for its physics and AI systems. The boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures high single-threaded performance, which is more important for gaming than multi-threaded throughput. The Cinebench R20 single-core score of 875 and R15 single-core score of 210 indicate strong per-core performance.

The CPU's PassMark scores further illustrate its capability. A single-thread score of 4516 and a multi-thread score of 37816 show that the CPU can handle both lightly and heavily threaded workloads. The physics score of 2570 is relevant for game physics calculations, though Inside's physics are relatively simple. The data compression score of 390711 and encryption score of 29293 are not directly relevant to gaming but demonstrate overall computational strength.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s is shared with the Arc B370, which uses system-shared memory. This means that the CPU's memory operations can impact GPU performance and vice versa. However, given that Inside is not a memory-intensive game, this sharing is unlikely to cause significant issues. The CPU's support for DDR5 memory and dual-channel configuration ensures sufficient bandwidth for both CPU and GPU workloads.

In terms of power, the CPU's 65 W TDP is modest, allowing the system to remain cool and quiet. The 3 nm process node from TSMC and 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die contribute to its efficiency. The integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 24EU is not used in this combo, as the Arc B370 is the active GPU, but its presence indicates the CPU's versatility. The CPU's release date of January 2025 and launch MSRP of $257 position it as a mainstream desktop processor, though pricing is not a factor in the performance analysis.

The CPU's nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores are all high-end parts: the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, Intel Core i9-13900HX, and two AMD EPYC server processors. This shows that the Core Ultra 5 235 punches well above its weight class in general compute, but this strength does not translate to gaming performance when paired with the Arc B370. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking reflects its capability, but the combo's gaming performance is entirely dictated by the GPU.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play Inside with this combo?*

A: The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where all presets are playable. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset achieves 67 FPS, while Medium delivers 113 FPS. At 1440p, only Low (101 FPS) and Medium (81 FPS) exceed 60 FPS, and at 4K, only Low (64 FPS) maintains a smooth experience.

*Q: Is the Intel Arc B370 powerful enough for 4K gaming in Inside?*

A: Only at Low settings. The measured 4K results show 64 FPS at Low, 51 FPS at Medium, 32 FPS at High, and 30 FPS at Ultra. The 4K Medium preset has a minimum FPS of 43, which may be acceptable for a puzzle platformer, but High and Ultra are below playable thresholds.

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 46062 is nearly identical to its closest competitors. It is 0.1% slower than the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, 0.1% faster than the Intel Core i9-13900HX, 0.2% faster than the AMD EPYC 4364P, and 0.2% faster than the AMD EPYC 7303.

Q: Why does the Ultra preset perform slightly worse than High at the same resolution?

A: The data shows this pattern at all three resolutions: at 1080p, Ultra is 67 FPS versus High's 70 FPS; at 1440p, 48 FPS versus 51 FPS; and at 4K, 30 FPS versus 32 FPS. This suggests the Ultra preset includes effects that the Arc B370's 1280 shading units and 20 ROPs cannot efficiently process, resulting in a performance penalty without visual benefit.

*Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this combo for Inside?*

A: The GPU is clearly the bottleneck. The CPU ranks in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 5th percentile. The wide FPS spread across presets at the same resolution (e.g., 141 FPS at Low versus 67 FPS at Ultra at 1080p) indicates GPU-bound behavior, as a CPU bottleneck would show smaller differences.

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Inside?*

A: This combo ranks 2654 out of 2887 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 8% of configurations. This low ranking is primarily due to the integrated Arc B370's limited performance, which is comparable to legacy GPUs like the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190 vs 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad).