Inside

# Inside — Intel Core Ultra 5 235 + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

The benchmark data for Inside with this combination shows a puzzle platformer that is remarkably forgiving at lower settings, yet quickly becomes a GPU-bound exercise at higher presets. The measured results reveal a system that can deliver buttery-smooth frame rates at 1080p with Low settings, but one that will require deliberate settings choices to maintain high refresh rates at 4K. This analysis walks through the measured data, comparing the combo's standing against other tested configurations and breaking down exactly what each component contributes to the final experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear picture of which preset delivers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this hardware pairing. At 1920x1080, the Low preset produces an average of 216 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any display refresh rate currently on the market. Medium at 1080p drops to 173 FPS average, still exceptionally smooth, with a minimum of 147 FPS and maximum of 199 FPS. These numbers indicate that the Medium preset at 1080p is the sweet spot for most users, as it maintains a comfortable margin above 144 FPS while offering better visual fidelity than Low.

Moving to High at 1080p, the average falls to 108 FPS, which remains playable but begins to approach the threshold where competitive or high-refresh-rate displays might not be fully utilized. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields 103 FPS average, showing only a marginal 5 FPS drop from High. This suggests diminishing returns between High and Ultra at this resolution, making High the more sensible choice if any performance headroom is desired.

At 2560x1440, the story shifts. Low produces 155 FPS average, which is excellent for 1440p gaming. Medium delivers 124 FPS with a minimum of 106 FPS and maximum of 143 FPS, which is still very smooth and likely the best overall experience at this resolution. High at 1440p drops to 78 FPS, a substantial 46 FPS reduction from Medium, indicating a steep performance cliff when moving from Medium to High. Ultra at 1440p further drops to 74 FPS, barely distinguishable from High.

For 3840x2160, the Medium preset is the only viable option for a consistently smooth experience, yielding 78 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS and maximum of 90 FPS. Low at 4K produces 98 FPS, which is better but sacrifices visual quality significantly. High at 4K averages 49 FPS, and Ultra drops to 46 FPS, both below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider the baseline for comfortable gaming. The recommendation across all resolutions is clear: Medium offers the best experience per the measured rows, providing a substantial performance uplift over High while retaining enough visual quality to be worthwhile.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is the primary determinant of frame rates in Inside once settings climb above Low. The GPU features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 192-bit bus, delivering 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 1500 MHz with a boost of 1770 MHz, and the memory operates at 1500 MHz with 12 Gbps effective throughput. The card's 1536 shading units and 48 ROPs contribute to a pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 169.9 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 5.437 TFLOPS.

The benchmark data shows that the GTX 1660 Ti handles Inside well at Low and Medium settings across all tested resolutions. At 4K Low, the card produces 98 FPS, which is respectable for a GPU that sits at the 41st percentile among all GPUs in the database. However, the transition to High settings reveals the card's limitations: at 4K High, the average drops to 49 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 46 FPS. This pattern indicates that the GTX 1660 Ti's compute and memory resources become saturated quickly as shading complexity increases, particularly at higher resolutions.

The GPU's nearest rivals in terms of average benchmark score include the AMD Radeon 540 (0.7% ahead), AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 (1.9% ahead), AMD Radeon R7 250 (2.2% ahead), and Intel Arc A310 (2.3% ahead). These are all relatively close in overall score, but the GTX 1660 Ti's specific strengths in DirectX 11 (score of 103) and DirectX 10 (score of 66) benchmarks suggest it is well-optimized for older titles like Inside, which relies on less demanding rendering techniques. The PassMark G3D score of 12871 places it firmly in the mid-range tier, and the measured frame rates confirm that it punches above its percentile ranking in this specific game.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K illustrates how the limiting component shifts as pixel count increases. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 216 FPS, while at 1440p Low it drops to 155 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls to 98 FPS. This represents a 55% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and another 37% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is not perfectly linear with pixel count — 4K has 4 times the pixels of 1080p, yet the FPS only drops by 55% from the 1080p figure — which indicates that the CPU is still contributing meaningfully at Low settings, preventing the GPU from being the sole bottleneck.

At Medium settings, the scaling becomes steeper. From 173 FPS at 1080p to 124 FPS at 1440p (a 28% drop) and then to 78 FPS at 4K (a 37% drop from 1440p). This pattern suggests that the GPU is becoming more dominant as the render load increases, but the CPU still provides enough headroom to keep the drop from being fully proportional to pixel count. The minimum FPS at 1440p Medium is 106, while at 4K Medium it is 66, showing that frame time consistency also degrades with resolution.

High settings reveal the most dramatic scaling. From 108 FPS at 1080p to 78 FPS at 1440p (28% drop) and then to 49 FPS at 4K (37% drop from 1440p). The 59 FPS difference between 1080p High and 4K High indicates that the GPU is now the clear limiting factor, as the increased shading load at higher resolutions overwhelms the GTX 1660 Ti's 5.437 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. Ultra settings follow a similar pattern: 103 FPS at 1080p, 74 FPS at 1440p, and 46 FPS at 4K. The fact that High and Ultra produce nearly identical results at 4K (49 vs 46 FPS) suggests that the GPU is saturated, and additional settings increases no longer have a meaningful performance cost because the card is already at its limit.

How This Combo Ranks

The measured data places this combination at rank 2482 out of 2887 tested combos in Inside, putting it in the bottom 14% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the GTX 1660 Ti's mid-range status rather than any deficiency in the CPU, as the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a highly capable processor. The combo rank suggests that most other tested systems pair faster GPUs with CPUs of similar or greater capability, and the GTX 1660 Ti simply cannot compete with higher-end cards in this title's more demanding settings.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 89th among all CPUs indicates that the processor is not the bottleneck in most scenarios. Its average benchmark score of 46062 places it slightly above the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46030, 0.1% behind) and just below the Intel Core i9-13900HX (46098, 0.1% ahead). The AMD EPYC 4364P and AMD EPYC 7303 trail by 0.2% each. This tight clustering shows that the Ultra 5 235 is competitive with top-tier laptop and server processors in synthetic workloads, yet the combo's low rank in Inside is almost entirely attributable to the GPU's performance ceiling.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 41st among all GPUs tells a different story. It sits near the bottom half of all tested graphics cards, and its nearest rivals are all lower-tier options. The fact that this combo still achieves 216 FPS at 1080p Low demonstrates that Inside is not a demanding title for modern hardware, but the 46-49 FPS results at 4K High/Ultra show where the GPU's limits lie. Players seeking 4K60 would need to either drop to Low settings (98 FPS) or upgrade the GPU to a higher-tier card.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm TSMC process node. It operates at a base clock of 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, and has a TDP of 65 W. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 over a dual-channel bus, providing 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Inside, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations, and the measured data suggests it does so with ample headroom. The fact that 1080p Low produces 216 FPS — well above any typical display refresh rate — indicates that the CPU is not limiting performance at lower settings. Even at 4K Low, the 98 FPS result shows that the CPU maintains sufficient throughput to keep the GPU busy, as the frame rate is limited by the GPU's ability to render at that resolution.

The CPU's multi-core performance, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14769 and a PassMark multithread score of 37816, indicates strong parallel processing capability. However, Inside is not a heavily threaded title, so the single-core performance is more relevant. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2085 and the PassMark single-thread score of 4516 demonstrate strong per-core performance that should keep frame pacing consistent. The data shows no signs of CPU-induced stuttering, as the minimum FPS values at Medium settings (147 at 1080p, 106 at 1440p, 66 at 4K) are all reasonably close to their respective averages.

The CPU's 24 MB of L3 cache and 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth provide sufficient data throughput for the game's asset streaming, and the integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 24EU is present but not utilized in this configuration. The processor's 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that it is a high-end part, and the bottleneck in Inside at higher settings is unequivocally the GPU rather than the CPU.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured data, 2560x1440 with Medium settings provides the best balance, delivering 124 FPS average with a minimum of 106 FPS. This maintains high smoothness while offering more visual detail than 1080p.

Q: Can this combo achieve 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, where it averages 98 FPS. At Medium settings, the average drops to 78 FPS, still above 60. High and Ultra settings fall below 60 FPS at 49 and 46 FPS respectively, so those presets are not recommended for 4K.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 Ti compare to its nearest rivals in this game?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score places it 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon 540, 1.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100, 2.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon R7 250, and 2.3% ahead of the Intel Arc A310. In Inside, the measured frame rates confirm it is capable of high FPS at lower settings.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 the bottleneck in this system?

A: No. The CPU ranks in the 89th percentile among all CPUs, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-13900HX, is only 0.1% ahead in average benchmark score. The frame rate drops at higher settings are consistent with GPU limitations, not CPU constraints.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the minimum FPS values are 147 at 1080p, 106 at 1440p, and 66 at 4K, with corresponding averages of 173, 124, and 78 FPS. The gap between average and minimum is 26 FPS at 1080p, 18 FPS at 1440p, and 12 FPS at 4K, indicating good consistency.

Q: Does the Ultra preset offer any benefit over High?

A: At all resolutions, the difference between High and Ultra is minimal. At 1080p, High averages 108 FPS and Ultra averages 103 FPS (5 FPS difference). At 1440p, the difference is 4 FPS (78 vs 74), and at 4K it is 3 FPS (49 vs 46). The visual improvement is not justified by the performance cost.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers the highest average of 216 FPS, with no minimum or maximum values recorded. Medium produces 173 FPS average, with a minimum of 147 FPS and maximum of 199 FPS. High yields 108 FPS average, and Ultra produces 103 FPS average, both without recorded minimum or maximum values. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 113 FPS drop, with the largest single-step reduction occurring between Medium and High at 65 FPS.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 155 FPS, representing a 28% reduction from the 1080p Low result. Medium averages 124 FPS with a minimum of 106 FPS and maximum of 143 FPS, showing a 28% drop from 1080p Medium. High averages 78 FPS, a 28% reduction from 1080p High, and Ultra averages 74 FPS, a 28% reduction from 1080p Ultra. The consistency of the percentage drops across settings at this resolution indicates the GPU is scaling predictably with pixel count.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 98 FPS, which is a 37% drop from 1440p Low. Medium averages 78 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS and maximum of 90 FPS, a 37% drop from 1440p Medium. High averages 49 FPS, a 37% drop from 1440p High, and Ultra averages 46 FPS, a 38% drop from 1440p Ultra. The larger percentage drops at 4K compared to 1440p indicate that the GPU is approaching its memory bandwidth limit of 288.0 GB/s, as the increased pixel count requires more data to be moved through the 192-bit bus. The 6 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is sufficient for Inside's art style, but the bandwidth constraint becomes evident at 4K with higher settings.