Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle platformer that, on this Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT combination, delivers extraordinarily high frame rates across all tested settings. The benchmark data positions this pairing in the top 8% of all tested combos for this game, with performance so far above display refresh-rate targets that the GPU and CPU are effectively never the bottleneck, even at 4K Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is heavily GPU-limited at higher resolutions but still vastly overpowered for the game's requirements. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 248 FPS at 1920x1080 to 178 FPS at 2560x1440, a 28% reduction, and then to 112 FPS at 3840x2160, a 55% reduction from the 1080p baseline. This steep decline as pixel count increases is the classic signature of GPU-bound rendering, where the Radeon RX 7900 XT's raw throughput becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The Low settings preset tells an even more revealing story about the scaling curve. Here, the average frame rate moves from 456 FPS at 1080p to 356 FPS at 1440p (a 22% drop) and then to 224 FPS at 4K (a 51% drop from 1080p). The fact that even the 4K Low result exceeds 200 FPS indicates that the GPU is still not fully saturated; the game's simple geometry and lighting for a 2016 title simply cannot push the RDNA 3.0 architecture to its limits. The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings presets, with the 4K to 1440p ratio hovering around 63% of the 1440p performance, which is a typical pixel-count scaling factor for a GPU-bound scenario.

The most interesting observation comes from comparing the Low and High settings at the same resolution. At 1080p, Low produces 456 FPS while High produces 248 FPS, a 1.84x difference. This gap narrows to 1.59x at 1440p (356 vs 178) and to 2.0x at 4K (224 vs 112). The non-linear relationship suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU begins to play a more significant role, but even at 1080p Low, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus delivers over 450 FPS, indicating no practical CPU bottleneck for this game. The data shows that the limiting component shifts from a balanced CPU/GPU load at 1080p to a purely GPU-bound scenario at 4K, but neither component ever approaches a point where frame rates drop below playable thresholds.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT achieves a rank of 228 out of 2,887 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all configurations. This ranking reflects the raw power of both components, but the context of the game is crucial: Inside is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer with modest graphical demands, so the high rank is more proof of the absolute performance headroom than to any specific optimization. The combo outperforms 92.1% of all other tested combinations, which is remarkable given that many of those combos likely include more recent, higher-end parts.

What makes this ranking particularly notable is the gap between the CPU and GPU's individual benchmark percentiles. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus sits at the 96th percentile among all CPUs, while the RX 7900 XT is at the 55th percentile among all GPUs. This asymmetry suggests that the combo's high rank in Inside is driven primarily by the CPU's exceptional single-threaded performance, which is crucial for a game that relies on deterministic physics and object interactions. The GPU, while powerful, is not in the top tier of graphics cards according to the aggregate benchmark data, but its 20 GB of VRAM and high memory bandwidth ensure that it never becomes a constraint in this particular title.

Looking at the nearest rivals for each component provides additional context. The CPU's closest competitor, the Intel Xeon 6520P, has an average benchmark score of 93,786, which is nearly identical to the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus's 93,785, a 0% difference. The GPU's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 660M, scores 13,812 compared to the RX 7900 XT's 13,745, placing the 7900 XT slightly behind by 0.5%. This GPU comparison is misleading because the 660M is an integrated solution, but it highlights that the RX 7900 XT's aggregate benchmark score is not in the same league as its gaming performance in Inside would suggest, due to the game's low graphical complexity.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achievable with this combo in Inside?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 456 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. Even at 4K Ultra settings, the combo maintains an average of 107 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay across all tested configurations.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K compared to 1080p?

A: At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 248 FPS at 1080p to 112 FPS at 4K, a 55% reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 456 FPS to 224 FPS, a 51% reduction, indicating consistent GPU-bound scaling.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: At 4K resolutions, the GPU is clearly the limiting component, as evidenced by the steep frame rate drops. At 1080p Low settings, the CPU's role becomes more significant, but the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus still delivers over 450 FPS, so neither component creates a practical bottleneck.

Q: What is the combo's rank compared to all other tested systems?

A: The combo ranks 228th out of 2,887 tested combinations, placing it in the top 8% of all configurations for Inside. This high rank is driven by the CPU's 96th percentile performance among all processors.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have, and does it matter for this game?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT has 20 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 320-bit bus and 800.0 GB/s bandwidth. For Inside, a 2016 puzzle platformer, this VRAM capacity is vastly overkill, and the data shows no memory-related performance constraints.

Q: What are the minimum frame rates at Medium settings?

A: At 4K Medium settings, the minimum frame rate is 152 FPS with an average of 179 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 242 FPS with an average of 285 FPS, and at 1080p Medium, the minimum is 337 FPS with an average of 396 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) across three resolutions (1080p, 1440p, 4K), with 12 total data points. All measurements are averages, with minimum and maximum values only provided for the Medium preset at each resolution.

At 1920x1080, the performance is exceptionally high. Low settings produce an average of 456 FPS, Medium produces 396 FPS with a minimum of 337 and maximum of 455, High produces 248 FPS, and Ultra produces 236 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 148 FPS, which is the largest single-preset jump at this resolution, indicating that High settings introduce significant graphical effects that impact the GPU. The difference between High and Ultra is only 12 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns from the Ultra preset.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 356 FPS for Low, 285 FPS for Medium (min 242, max 328), 178 FPS for High, and 170 FPS for Ultra. The Medium to High drop is 107 FPS, which is proportionally similar to the 1080p pattern. The High to Ultra difference narrows to just 8 FPS, reinforcing that Ultra offers minimal additional visual fidelity for a performance cost. The 4K results at 3840x2160 show 224 FPS for Low, 179 FPS for Medium (min 152, max 206), 112 FPS for High, and 107 FPS for Ultra.

The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data, allowing for frame time consistency analysis. At 1080p, the frame time range is 118 FPS (337 to 455), which is a wide spread but represents only about 2.2 ms of variance. At 1440p, the range is 86 FPS (242 to 328), and at 4K, the range is 54 FPS (152 to 206). The narrowing range at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU's workload becomes more consistent as it becomes the primary bottleneck, reducing CPU-induced frame pacing variability.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, based on the Navi 31 chip with RDNA 3.0 architecture, plays a decisive role in determining the upper limits of frame rates at 4K resolution. The GPU features 5,376 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 192 render output units, with a boost clock of 2394 MHz and a game clock of 2025 MHz. Its 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus provides 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a game like Inside that does not have demanding texture streaming requirements.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it at the 55th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13,745. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 660M, scores 13,812, a 0.5% difference, while the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile scores 13,821, also a 0.5% difference. These comparisons are somewhat misleading because the 660M is an integrated GPU and the A2000 Mobile is a laptop part, but they highlight that the RX 7900 XT's aggregate performance is not exceptional by modern standards. However, in Inside, the GPU's performance is more than adequate, as evidenced by the 4K High average of 112 FPS and 4K Ultra average of 107 FPS.

The GPU's FP32 compute of 51.48 TFLOPS and pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s are theoretical maximums that the game never approaches. The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the GPU is not fully utilized, as the frame rate stays well above 100 FPS. The 300 W TDP and dual-slot design with two 8-pin power connectors indicate a high-power part, but the game's light load means the GPU likely operates well below its thermal limits. The 800.0 GB/s memory bandwidth ensures that the 20 GB VRAM is never a bottleneck, even with the game's simple textures.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the primary reason this combo achieves such high frame rates at lower resolutions. With 24 cores and 24 threads, a base clock of 3.70 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, this Arrow Lake Refresh processor delivers exceptional single-threaded performance that is critical for a puzzle platformer's physics and logic updates. The CPU's benchmark scores are outstanding: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44,253 and a single-core score of 2,439, positioning it at the 96th percentile among all CPUs.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 93,785 places it nearly identical to the Intel Xeon 6520P (93,786, 0% difference) and slightly behind the AMD EPYC 4564P (95,183, -1.5% difference). These rivals are enterprise-grade server processors, which underscores the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus's position as a high-end desktop part. Its 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 192 KB of L1 cache per core provide the low-latency access that single-threaded game loops require.

In Inside, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p Low settings, where the frame rate of 456 FPS is nearly double the 4K High result. This 2.04x difference suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU can feed frames to the GPU faster than the GPU can render them, creating a CPU-bound scenario. However, even in this case, the 456 FPS average demonstrates that the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is not a limiting factor in any practical sense. The PassMark single-thread score of 5,068 and multi-thread score of 68,574 further confirm that the CPU has ample headroom for this game's workload.