Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle-platformer that, on paper, should not stress modern hardware. Yet, the data for the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 reveals a configuration that is heavily constrained by its graphics component, producing a wide spread of performance that hinges almost entirely on resolution and quality presets. The benchmark results indicate a system that can deliver smooth, high-refresh-rate gameplay at 1080p but quickly buckles under the pixel load of 4K, painting a clear picture of a CPU that is massively overqualified for the GPU it is paired with.

Resolution Scaling

The most telling metric in this dataset is the frame rate collapse as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 150 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 108 FPS, a 28% reduction, and then to 4K Low, which yields 68 FPS, a further 37% drop from 1440p. This scaling pattern is a textbook indicator that the GPU, not the CPU, is the primary bottleneck. The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, with its 24 cores and 5.50 GHz boost clock, is not the limiting factor; the RX 580’s fillrate and memory bandwidth are.

The trend becomes even more pronounced when examining the High preset. The 1080p High result of 75 FPS falls to 54 FPS at 1440p High (a 28% drop), and then plummets to 34 FPS at 4K High (a 37% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across different quality settings suggests a purely resolution-bound workload. The game’s visual complexity, which is moderate for a 2D side-scroller, does not increase the CPU’s workload enough to shift the balance of power.

What is particularly striking is the gap between Low and High settings at the same resolution. At 4K, the jump from Low (68 FPS) to High (34 FPS) is a 50% performance penalty. This indicates that the RX 580’s compute units are saturated by the increased shading and texture work at higher presets, leaving no headroom for the resolution increase. The data shows a system where the 4K Ultra preset (32 FPS) is essentially unplayable for a smooth experience, while 1080p Low (150 FPS) is firmly in esports territory.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader context of all tested combinations for Inside, this specific pairing does not fare well. The comboRankInGame places this CPU-GPU duo at rank 2631 out of 2887 combos, placing it in the bottom 9% of all configurations tested. This low ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU’s age and position in the market, rather than any fault of the processor. The data suggests that in a game like Inside, which is not CPU-intensive, the processor’s high percentile rank (96th percentile vs all CPUs) is entirely negated by the GPU’s middling performance (53rd percentile vs all GPUs).

Benchmark results indicate that this pairing is a significant mismatch. The CPU is capable of feeding frames far faster than the GPU can render them, but the combo is judged on the final output, which is limited by the weakest link. When compared to other configurations, this rank implies that most users with even a modestly more modern graphics card would see a substantially higher position. The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a top-tier processor that is being held back, resulting in a system that performs like a mid-range rig from several years ago in this specific title.

The deltaPct values for the CPU’s nearest rivals show that it is essentially tied with the Intel Xeon 6520P and only 2.1% behind the AMD EPYC 4565P in average benchmark scores. However, this processing power does not translate to a good rank in Inside because the game’s frame rate is dictated by the Radeon RX 580. This disconnect between the CPU’s standalone strength and the combo’s in-game rank is the central story of this data.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the clear performance anchor in this configuration. With its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, it offers a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s. The benchmark results show that this memory subsystem is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at lower settings, but it becomes a bottleneck at 4K. The GPU’s base clock of 1257 MHz and boost clock of 1340 MHz are modest by today’s standards, and the 2304 shading units are tasked with all the pixel processing.

The GPU’s 32 ROPs and 144 TMUs are the physical limits that scale directly with resolution. At 4K, the demand on these units increases fourfold compared to 1080p, which explains the dramatic frame rate drops observed. The data shows that the RX 580’s pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s is simply not enough to maintain fluid performance at 4K Ultra, where it averages just 32 FPS. Even at 4K Medium, the minimum FPS of 46 shows that there are significant frame time spikes that would be noticeable to the player.

Despite its age, the RX 580 holds its own against specific rivals in synthetic benchmarks. It is 0.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER and 0.1% behind the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile in average score. However, in Inside, the practical difference is negligible because the game’s engine is not particularly demanding. The GPU’s 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the raw compute available, and the data shows it is fully utilized at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the halving of frame rates when moving from Low to High settings at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive look at how this combo scales. At 1920x1080, the system is capable of high refresh rates. Low settings produce 150 FPS, Medium produces 120 FPS (with a minimum of 102 FPS and maximum of 138 FPS), High produces 75 FPS, and Ultra produces 71 FPS. This demonstrates that for competitive or smooth 60Hz+ play, 1080p is the ideal resolution for this pairing, even on Ultra settings. The gap between High (75 FPS) and Ultra (71 FPS) is small, suggesting the GPU is hitting a hard architectural limit rather than a settings-based one.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops are more pronounced. Low settings still offer a very playable 108 FPS, and Medium drops to 86 FPS (minimum 73, maximum 99). However, High settings fall to 54 FPS, and Ultra drops to 51 FPS. The 1440p data shows that the RX 580 is starting to struggle with the increased pixel count, pushing the system below the 60 FPS threshold for high-fidelity presets. The 50% reduction from Low to High at this resolution indicates that the GPU’s texture and shading units are becoming saturated.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly overwhelmed. Low settings produce an average of 68 FPS, which is technically playable, but Medium drops to 54 FPS (minimum 46, maximum 62). High settings average 34 FPS, and Ultra averages just 32 FPS. The data shows that 4K is not a viable resolution for this combo if you want a consistent 60 FPS experience. The 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS is less than half of the 1080p High result, illustrating the massive resolution penalty. The consistency of the min/max frame data for Medium settings at all resolutions shows that the game’s frame pacing is stable, but the average frame rate is simply too low at 4K for a smooth experience.

FAQ

*Q: Can this CPU and GPU combo run Inside smoothly at 4K?*

A: No. The data shows average FPS of 34 at 4K High and 32 at 4K Ultra, which is below the 60 FPS threshold. Only 4K Low (68 FPS) and 4K Medium (54 FPS) are close to playable, but Medium still dips to 46 FPS minimum.

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Inside?*

A: 1920x1080 is the clear sweet spot. All settings, including Ultra, achieve above 70 FPS, with Low settings reaching 150 FPS. This allows for a smooth experience with maximum graphical fidelity.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus the bottleneck in this game?

A: No. The CPU is in the 96th percentile of all CPUs and has 24 cores. The data shows that frame rates drop significantly with resolution, which is a GPU-bound symptom. The RX 580 is the limiting factor.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its direct rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 580’s average benchmark score is 12,928. It is 0.1% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (12,940) and 0.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (12,986). It is 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon 740M.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Low settings produce 150 FPS, while Ultra produces 71 FPS. This is a 53% reduction in performance, showing that the GPU is still significantly taxed by higher quality presets even at the lowest resolution.

Q: Does the game utilize the CPU’s high core count?

A: The benchmark results do not indicate high CPU utilization. Given that Inside is a puzzle platformer and the frame rate scales almost entirely with GPU settings and resolution, the 24-core processor is likely underutilized, with the game relying on single-thread performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is, by all metrics, an extremely powerful processor. It features 24 cores and 24 threads, a base clock of 3.70 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its synthetic benchmarks are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44,253 and a single-core score of 2,439. The PassMark single-thread score of 5,068 places it in a high percentile, suggesting it can handle any game logic or physics calculations that Inside might throw at it. However, the data for this specific game shows that this power is largely irrelevant.

In Inside, the CPU’s role is minimal. The game is a 2D puzzle platformer with simple geometry and limited AI. The 192 KB of L1 cache per core and 36 MB of shared L3 cache are more than sufficient for the game’s data footprint. The processor’s memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s is also not a limiting factor, as the GPU’s bandwidth is much lower at 256.0 GB/s. The CPU is essentially waiting for the GPU to finish rendering frames.

The data shows that the CPU is not the cause of any performance issues. The frame rate drops are exclusively tied to resolution and settings, which affect the GPU. The CPU’s 96th percentile ranking versus all CPUs means that in a balanced system, it would be capable of delivering far higher frame rates than the 150 FPS max observed here. The bottleneck is so heavily weighted towards the GPU that the CPU’s performance is almost completely masked. This is a classic case of a high-end processor being paired with a low-end graphics card, resulting in a system that underperforms its potential. The benchmark results suggest that upgrading the GPU would yield massive gains in Inside, while a CPU upgrade would yield zero gains.