Inside

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H is a 16-core, 22-thread mobile processor built on the Meteor Lake architecture. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.80 GHz provide the single-thread headroom that puzzle platformers like Inside typically rely on for game logic, physics updates, and frame pacing. The CPU’s 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 per core help keep frequently accessed game data close at hand, reducing memory latency in scenes with many interactive objects.

Benchmark results place this CPU in the 83rd percentile among all tested processors, with an average benchmark score of 32,697. Its nearest rivals in aggregate performance are the Intel Core i5-14600T (32,707, a 0% delta) and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 (32,662, a 0.1% delta). The Ryzen 5 7400F trails by 0.2% and the Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H by 0.4%. This clustering indicates the 155H sits in a competitive mid-range mobile tier, though for Inside’s relatively light CPU demands, the difference between these chips is negligible.

In multi-core workloads, the Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15,028 and PassMark multi-thread score of 24,873 demonstrate strong parallel throughput. However, Inside is not a heavily threaded game; its puzzle-platformer design means the engine likely uses a handful of threads for the main simulation. The single-core Cinebench R23 score of 1,743 and PassMark single-thread score of 3,468 are more relevant. These figures indicate the CPU can sustain high per-core performance, which translates to consistent frame delivery even when the game’s physics or rendering threads become the bottleneck.

The CPU’s 28 W TDP suggests it operates within a constrained power envelope typical of ultraportable and thin-and-light gaming laptops. This power limit can affect sustained boost clocks under load, but for Inside, which is not a demanding title, the 155H’s 4.80 GHz boost should be sufficient to avoid CPU-induced frame drops. The integrated Arc Xe-LPG 128EU graphics are present, but the system under analysis uses a discrete GPU, so the iGPU’s role is limited to display output or power-saving modes.

Data from PassMark shows a physics score of 1,727, which is modest, but physics in Inside is largely 2D and simple collisions, so this metric is not a limiting factor. The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 is ample for feeding the GPU at high resolutions. Overall, the CPU role in this combo is to provide stable, high-frequency single-thread performance without becoming a constraint at any of the tested settings.

FAQ

*Q: Does the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H bottleneck the RTX 5090 Mobile in Inside?*

A: No. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 314 FPS average, and at 4K Ultra it still manages 104 FPS. The CPU’s single-core score (1,743 in Cinebench R23) is sufficient to feed the GPU; benchmark results show no resolution or settings combination where the CPU’s throughput becomes the limiting factor.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals in general performance?

A: The 155H’s average benchmark score is 32,697, which is statistically tied with the Intel Core i5-14600T (32,707, 0% delta) and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 (32,662, 0.1% delta). It trails the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F by 0.2% and the Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H by 0.4%, differences that are within measurement noise.

Q: What is the CPU’s memory configuration and does it matter for this game?

A: The CPU supports dual-channel DDR5 with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth. Inside is not memory-bandwidth sensitive; the measured FPS at 1080p Medium (290 FPS average) versus 4K Medium (175 FPS average) shows the GPU is the primary consumer of bandwidth, and the CPU’s memory subsystem is not a constraint.

*Q: Is the 155H’s 16-core/22-thread configuration useful for Inside?*

A: Not directly. The game’s puzzle-platformer nature relies on a few threads; the multi-core scores (Cinebench R23 multi: 15,028) are irrelevant at these frame rates. The single-thread performance (PassMark single-thread: 3,468) is what ensures stable frame pacing.

Q: How does the CPU’s 83rd percentile ranking translate to real-world gaming?

A: The 83rd percentile means the 155H outperforms 83% of all tested CPUs. In Inside, this headroom is unnecessary — the game runs at 230 FPS average even at 1080p Ultra, indicating the CPU is far from being a bottleneck.

Q: What does the 0% delta to the Core i5-14600T mean for gameplay?

A: It means the two CPUs deliver identical average benchmark performance. In Inside, swapping between them would produce no measurable FPS difference; the GPU and resolution settings dominate the outcome.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data reveals a clear scaling pattern across resolutions. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 241 FPS at 1080p to 174 FPS at 1440p, and further to 109 FPS at 4K. This represents a 27.8% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 37.4% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The pattern is consistent at other settings: Low settings go from 314 FPS at 1080p to 281 FPS at 1440p and 218 FPS at 4K; Medium from 290 FPS to 259 FPS to 175 FPS; Ultra from 230 FPS to 165 FPS to 104 FPS.

The magnitude of these drops indicates the RTX 5090 Mobile is the dominant bottleneck as resolution increases. At 1080p, the frame rates are so high (over 300 FPS on Low) that the CPU’s frame generation and draw call submission become a secondary consideration, but even then, the GPU is still the limiting factor because the CPU can deliver 314 FPS without issue. As pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, the GPU’s fill rate and shading throughput are taxed proportionally, resulting in the observed 50-65% FPS reductions.

The data shows that Inside is a GPU-bound title across all tested configurations. The CPU’s 16 cores and 4.80 GHz boost are never saturated; the FPS scaling is nearly linear with pixel count, which is the hallmark of a GPU-limited scenario. At 4K Ultra, the combo still produces 104 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The lack of min FPS data for most settings (only Medium rows include min/max) suggests the frame times are stable enough to not warrant tracking minimums.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K at Medium settings (259 FPS to 175 FPS, a 32.4% drop) is slightly less severe than the High settings drop (174 FPS to 109 FPS, a 37.4% drop), which indicates that Medium settings impose less shading load, allowing the GPU to maintain efficiency at higher resolutions. This behavior is typical of a modern GPU where memory bandwidth (896.0 GB/s) and shading units (10,496) are the primary resources consumed by resolution increases.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile achieves a rank of 845 out of 3,716 tested combos in Inside. This places it in the top 22.7% of all systems benchmarked with this game. The ranking is determined by the measured FPS across all settings and resolutions, with higher average frame rates yielding better ranks.

Given the RTX 5090 Mobile is a top-tier GPU (84th percentile among all GPUs), the rank of 845 might seem lower than expected. This is because the combo ranking includes systems with higher-end desktop CPUs paired with similar GPUs, and Inside is an older title (released in 2016) where modern GPUs are not fully utilized. The 155H’s 83rd percentile CPU ranking, while strong for a mobile chip, does not boost the combo above systems with faster desktop processors.

However, the rank of 845 is still respectable when considering the mobile form factor. The data shows that the combo outperforms 2,871 other configurations (3,716 minus 845). The RTX 5090 Mobile’s 24 GB of GDDR7 memory and 31.80 TFLOPS FP32 compute ensure that even at 4K Ultra, the frame rate remains playable at 104 FPS. Compared to the GPU’s nearest rivals — the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (0.5% slower), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (0.8% faster), Intel Arc A730M (1% slower), and NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation (1.8% slower) — the 5090 Mobile’s aggregate score of 45,152 is competitive, though the rivals’ performance in Inside would vary based on their driver optimizations.

The combo’s rank is primarily driven by the GPU’s ability to maintain high frame rates at lower settings. At 1080p Low, the 314 FPS average is among the highest possible in this game, which pulls the combo’s weighted score upward. The rank of 845 out of 3,716 suggests that while many systems can run Inside at high FPS, few can match the 4K performance (109 FPS High, 104 FPS Ultra) that this combo delivers.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It features 10,496 shading units, 328 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units, along with 82 ray tracing cores and 328 tensor cores. The GPU’s base clock is 990 MHz with a boost clock of 1,515 MHz, and it operates at a 95 W TDP. The 24 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for Inside’s modest texture and geometry requirements.

The GPU’s benchmark scores show a PassMark G3D score of 30,034 and a PassMark GPU compute score of 13,401. In 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12), it scores 5,871. These figures place the GPU in the 84th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 45,152. Its nearest rivals in aggregate performance are the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (45,384, 0.5% slower), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (44,795, 0.8% faster), Intel Arc A730M (45,592, 1% slower), and NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation (45,972, 1.8% slower).

For Inside, the GPU’s role is to rasterize simple 2D and 3D scenes with high efficiency. The game’s visual style uses muted colors, silhouetted characters, and limited particle effects, which means the GPU’s raw compute is not heavily stressed. The measured FPS shows that the GPU can produce 314 FPS at 1080p Low and 218 FPS at 4K Low, indicating that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is not the limiting factor at 1080p — the CPU or engine frame rate cap may come into play. At 4K, the GPU’s pixel fill rate (169.7 GPixel/s) and texture rate (496.9 GTexel/s) are sufficient to maintain 175 FPS on Medium settings.

The 24 GB VRAM is far beyond what Inside requires; the game’s textures are simple and likely fit within 2-3 GB. However, the large VRAM pool ensures that future titles with higher memory demands will not be constrained. The memory clock of 1,750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) and 256-bit bus provide the bandwidth needed for 4K rendering, as evidenced by the 104 FPS at 4K Ultra. The GPU’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4 API compatibility ensure full feature support, though Inside likely uses DX11 given its 2016 release.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the combo’s performance across 12 configurations. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 230 (Ultra) to 314 (Low). The Medium setting shows a min of 246 FPS and max of 333 FPS, with an average of 290. High averages 241 FPS, and Ultra averages 230 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 84 FPS (314 to 230), indicating that the game’s settings have a noticeable but not dramatic impact on performance at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS drops to between 165 (Ultra) and 281 (Low). Medium averages 259 FPS with a min of 221 and max of 298. High averages 174 FPS. The delta from Low to Ultra is 116 FPS (281 to 165), showing that the GPU is more sensitive to settings at 1440p. The Ultra preset at 1440p (165 FPS) is still well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on gaming monitors, making it a viable choice.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 104 (Ultra) to 218 (Low). Medium averages 175 FPS with a min of 148 and max of 201. High averages 109 FPS. The delta from Low to Ultra is 114 FPS (218 to 104), consistent with the 1440p scaling. The 4K Ultra performance of 104 FPS is the lowest measured value, but it remains comfortably above 60 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay on 4K displays. The 4K Medium setting at 175 FPS is particularly notable, as it provides a high refresh rate experience at UHD resolution.

The min FPS data is only available for Medium settings: 246 at 1080p, 221 at 1440p, and 148 at 4K. These minimums are 84.8%, 85.3%, and 84.6% of their respective averages, indicating excellent frame time consistency. The lack of min/max data for Low, High, and Ultra suggests that those configurations do not exhibit significant frame drops, or the measurement methodology only captured min/max for the Medium preset.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the combo delivers 290 FPS average with a minimum of 246 FPS, which is far above any display refresh rate currently in use. At 1440p Medium, the average is 259 FPS with a minimum of 221 FPS, again exceeding all but the most extreme 240 Hz+ monitors. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 175 FPS with a minimum of 148 FPS, which still provides a high refresh rate experience on 144 Hz 4K displays.

The High preset is the next best option, but its performance advantage over Medium is minimal in visual terms while costing significant frame rate. At 1080p, High averages 241 FPS versus 290 FPS on Medium — a 16.9% reduction. At 1440p, High averages 174 FPS versus 259 FPS on Medium — a 32.8% reduction. At 4K, High averages 109 FPS versus 175 FPS on Medium — a 37.7% reduction. The High preset does not include min/max data, so frame time consistency is unknown, but the lower averages suggest it is not worth the visual upgrade for a game with Inside’s simple art style.

The Ultra preset provides the highest visual fidelity but at a significant cost. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 230 FPS — still high, but 20.7% lower than Medium. At 1440p Ultra, the average is 165 FPS — 36.3% lower than Medium. At 4K Ultra, the average is 104 FPS — 40.6% lower than Medium. Given that Inside’s visual differences between Medium and Ultra are subtle (likely shadow quality, ambient occlusion, and post-processing effects), the frame rate sacrifice is not justified.

The Low preset offers the highest frame rates (314 FPS at 1080p, 281 FPS at 1440p, 218 FPS at 4K) but compromises the game’s atmosphere. Inside relies on lighting and shadow for its mood, and Low settings are visibly inferior. For competitive or high-refresh-rate play, Low is an option, but the Medium preset provides 290 FPS at 1080p — a negligible difference — with much better visuals.

For most users, the recommendation is Medium settings at any resolution. The 4K Medium configuration (175 FPS average) is particularly compelling, as it offers a UHD resolution with frame rates that exceed typical 144 Hz displays. If a user prioritizes maximum visual fidelity, Ultra at 1080p (230 FPS) or 1440p (165 FPS) is viable, but 4K Ultra (104 FPS) is best reserved for 60 Hz displays. The data strongly supports Medium as the optimal preset for this combo in Inside.