Inside

# Inside: Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX + AMD Radeon RX 7900M — Benchmark Analysis

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900M delivers exceptional performance in Inside, a Puzzle Platformer from 2016 that remains surprisingly demanding at high resolutions. The combo ranks 998th out of 2,887 tested combinations, placing it in the top 35% of all systems. More importantly, the measured frame rates reveal a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at 4K, CPU-bound at 1080p, and perfectly balanced at 1440p. This analysis breaks down the resolution scaling, component roles, and optimal settings based on measured data.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. At High settings, the system delivers 189 FPS at 1920x1080, drops to 136 FPS at 2560x1440, and falls to 85 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 55% performance reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is substantial but not catastrophic. The scaling pattern suggests the RX 7900M is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the CPU becomes increasingly relevant at lower resolutions.

Examining the Low settings scaling reveals an even more pronounced resolution sensitivity. At 1080p Low, the system produces 377 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 271 FPS, and at 4K Low the system still manages 170 FPS. The 55% drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings mirrors the High settings pattern almost exactly, indicating that resolution scaling is consistent regardless of graphics preset. This consistency points to a well-optimized game engine that scales predictably with pixel count.

The Medium settings data provides the most complete picture, with average, minimum, and maximum frame rates recorded at all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the average is 302 FPS with a minimum of 257 and maximum of 347. At 1440p Medium, the average falls to 217 FPS with minimum 184 and maximum 250. At 4K Medium, the average is 136 FPS with minimum 116 and maximum 157. The frame time consistency degrades slightly as resolution increases, with the gap between minimum and maximum growing from 90 FPS at 1080p to 93 FPS at 1440p and 41 FPS at 4K.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic resolution penalty. At 1080p Ultra, the system achieves 180 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, that drops to 129 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 81 FPS. The 55% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings is nearly identical to the other presets, reinforcing that resolution scaling is resolution-bound rather than settings-bound. However, the absolute frame rates at 4K Ultra dip below the 85 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay.

The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is increasingly the limiting factor. The jump from 180 FPS at Ultra to 377 FPS at Low represents a 109% improvement, which is far larger than the GPU's raw capability would suggest if it were the sole bottleneck. At 4K, the GPU dominates the performance equation, with the difference between Low and Ultra being 89 FPS (170 vs 81), a narrower gap that reflects the GPU being fully saturated.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900M is a mobile GPU based on the Navi 31 chip, built on a 5 nm process with 57,700 million transistors on a 529 mm² die. It features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1825 MHz with a boost clock of 2090 MHz, and memory runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). With 4,608 shading units, 288 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, the RX 7900M is a high-end mobile part that ranks in the 94th percentile of all GPUs.

In Inside, the RX 7900M's performance is characterized by its ability to maintain high frame rates across all settings. At 1080p, even the most demanding Ultra preset produces 180 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most displays. The GPU's 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for this game, as Inside is not a VRAM-intensive title despite its atmospheric visuals. The memory bandwidth of 576.0 GB/s ensures that texture streaming and asset loading never become a bottleneck.

The GPU's benchmark scores contextualize its performance. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the RX 7900M scores 4,201. In Geekbench OpenCL, it achieves 129,499, and in Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 158,760. These scores place the GPU in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 97,487. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro VII (0.4% faster), NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 (4.3% slower), AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 (5.4% faster), and NVIDIA RTX A4500 (6.3% faster).

The 4K results reveal the GPU's practical limits in this game. At 4K Ultra, the RX 7900M produces 81 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate displays. At 4K High, the GPU achieves 85 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it reaches 136 FPS. The GPU's compute capabilities, rated at 38.52 TFLOPS FP32 and 77.05 TFLOPS FP16, are clearly sufficient for Inside's visual effects, but the pixel throughput requirements at 4K begin to strain even this high-end mobile part.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX and AMD Radeon RX 7900M ranks 998th out of 2,887 tested combinations in Inside. This places the system in the top 34.6% of all tested combos, a strong showing for a mobile platform. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU's high single-threaded performance and the GPU's substantial rasterization power.

The CPU itself ranks in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 63,173. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13790F (0.1% faster), AMD Ryzen AI 7 450G (0.2% slower), AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P185 (0.5% faster), and Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX (0.7% faster). This tight clustering means the 265HX is competitive with the best desktop and mobile processors available, though not definitively ahead of any of them.

The GPU ranks in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 97,487. The combo's overall rank of 998 out of 2,887 suggests that while both components are individually in the top 7% of their respective categories, the combination does not always translate to top-tier gaming performance. This is likely because Inside benefits from a balanced system, and the mobile platform's thermal and power constraints may limit sustained performance.

The rank data indicates that this combo outperforms approximately 65% of all tested systems in this game. For a mobile platform, this is an impressive result, placing the system in the upper third of all configurations. The fact that the CPU and GPU are both in the 93rd and 94th percentiles respectively, yet the combo ranks only in the 65th percentile, suggests that other factors such as memory latency, driver optimization, or thermal throttling may be affecting real-world performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a comprehensive view of the system's performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers exceptionally high frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce 377 FPS, Medium produces 302 FPS (minimum 257, maximum 347), High produces 189 FPS, and Ultra produces 180 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is substantial at 113 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 9 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns at the highest settings.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show the expected resolution penalty. Low settings deliver 271 FPS, Medium delivers 217 FPS (minimum 184, maximum 250), High delivers 136 FPS, and Ultra delivers 129 FPS. The pattern here is similar to 1080p, with a 81 FPS gap between Medium and High, and only a 7 FPS gap between High and Ultra. This consistency suggests that the Ultra preset adds minimal visual benefit over High while costing significant performance.

At 3840x2160, the system remains playable across all settings. Low settings produce 170 FPS, Medium produces 136 FPS (minimum 116, maximum 157), High produces 85 FPS, and Ultra produces 81 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 51 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 4 FPS. At 4K, the Ultra preset offers almost no performance advantage over High, making High the more sensible choice for 4K gaming.

The minimum frame rate data, available only for Medium settings, shows that the system maintains smooth performance even during demanding scenes. At 1080p Medium, the minimum of 257 FPS is 85% of the average, indicating excellent frame time consistency. At 1440p Medium, the minimum of 184 FPS is 85% of the average, and at 4K Medium, the minimum of 116 FPS is 85% of the average. This consistency suggests that the system does not experience significant frame drops or stuttering.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process with 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. It features a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a TDP of 55 W. The CPU supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel interface with 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth, and it connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes.

In Inside, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p, where frame rates exceed 300 FPS at lower settings. The 377 FPS at 1080p Low demonstrates that the CPU can feed the GPU with enough data to sustain extremely high frame rates. The 20 cores and 20 threads provide ample parallelism for the game's physics and logic, while the 5.30 GHz boost clock ensures strong single-threaded performance for the game's main thread.

The CPU's benchmark scores highlight its strengths. In Cinebench R23, it scores 40,642 in multicore and 5,737 in single-core. In Cinebench R20, it scores 17,069 multicore and 2,409 single-core. The PassMark tests show a multithread score of 47,985, a single-thread score of 4,500, and strong results in data compression (511,817), data encryption (39,472), floating point math (161,605), and integer math (126,954). These scores place the CPU in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. This cache configuration is well-suited for Inside's level-based structure, where assets are loaded sequentially and reused frequently. The 30 MB L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, which is critical for maintaining high frame rates at lower resolutions where the CPU is more likely to be the bottleneck.

At 1440p and 4K, the CPU's role diminishes as the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings shows a 106 FPS drop (377 to 271), which is consistent with the GPU being the primary constraint at 1440p. The CPU's 20 cores ensure that it does not bottleneck the GPU at any resolution, as evidenced by the consistent frame rate behavior across all settings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal settings depend heavily on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1080p, the system is capable of exceeding 300 FPS at Medium settings, making it ideal for high-refresh-rate displays. The Medium preset at 1080p delivers 302 FPS average with a minimum of 257 FPS, which is well above the 240 Hz refresh rate of most gaming laptops. Players with 144 Hz displays can comfortably use High settings at 189 FPS, while Ultra settings at 180 FPS still exceed 144 Hz.

At 1440p, the Medium preset offers the best balance of performance and visual quality. The 217 FPS average with a 184 FPS minimum ensures smooth gameplay on 144 Hz displays, while the Medium settings provide adequate visual fidelity for a puzzle platformer. High settings at 1440p produce 136 FPS, which is still playable on 120 Hz displays but may experience occasional dips below the refresh rate. Ultra settings at 129 FPS offer minimal visual improvement over High while sacrificing 7 FPS.

At 4K, the High preset is the recommended choice. The 85 FPS average is sufficient for 60 Hz displays and provides headroom for VRR technologies. Ultra settings at 81 FPS offer only a 4 FPS improvement over High, making the extra visual fidelity not worth the performance cost. Medium settings at 4K deliver 136 FPS, which is excellent for 120 Hz displays but may require lowering other graphical options to maintain consistent frame times.

For players prioritizing maximum visual quality, the Ultra preset is viable at 1080p and 1440p, but the measured data shows that High offers nearly identical performance with a 9 FPS advantage at 1080p and a 7 FPS advantage at 1440p. The Ultra preset's additional effects are barely perceptible in a game like Inside, which uses a muted color palette and atmospheric lighting. The Medium preset provides the best frame rate consistency, with minimum frame rates that are 85% of the average across all resolutions.

The system's 16 GB VRAM ensures that texture quality is never a limiting factor at any resolution. Players should prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity in this game, as the puzzle platformer genre benefits more from smooth motion than from high-resolution textures. The measured data supports using Medium settings at 1440p or 4K for the best balance of performance and visual quality, while 1080p players can safely use High or Ultra settings without compromising frame rates.