Inside

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a starkly CPU-bound experience in Inside, a result that becomes increasingly apparent as resolution drops. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 72 FPS, while at 1080p Ultra it reaches 159 FPS, indicating that even at lower resolutions, the frame rate ceiling is heavily influenced by the processor. The data shows a clear pattern: the RTX 4060 is more than capable of handling the graphical load, but the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus’s single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor in this puzzle platformer.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a non-linear scaling pattern that points directly to the CPU as the primary bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 333 FPS, which is an extraordinarily high frame rate that most displays cannot even utilize. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 239 FPS, a 28% reduction, and at 4K Low it falls to 150 FPS, another 37% reduction. This scaling is far from ideal, as a purely GPU-bound scenario would show a more dramatic drop between 1080p and 4K.

The Medium settings tell a similar story. At 1080p Medium, the average is 266 FPS with a minimum of 226 FPS and a maximum of 306 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 192 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it reaches 120 FPS. The High preset shows 167 FPS at 1080p, 120 FPS at 1440p, and 75 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, yields 159 FPS at 1080p, 114 FPS at 1440p, and 72 FPS at 4K.

What is striking is the relatively small gap between the High and Ultra presets at the same resolution. At 1080p, High produces 167 FPS while Ultra produces 159 FPS—a difference of only 8 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset is not adding a significant GPU load that the RTX 4060 cannot handle. Instead, the CPU is likely limiting the maximum frame rate, preventing the GPU from stretching its legs even at lower resolutions. Benchmark results indicate that the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, with its 24 cores and 24 threads, has a robust multi-threaded score of 44,253 in Cinebench R23, but its single-core score of 2,439 in the same test is what matters most for a game like Inside, which relies heavily on a single primary thread.

The data pattern strongly suggests that this game is not GPU-bound until the resolution reaches 4K and the settings are cranked to High or Ultra. At 1080p Low, the system is clearly CPU-bound, as the 333 FPS figure is likely near the processor's maximum frame generation capability in this title. The RTX 4060's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game's assets, even at 4K, as evidenced by the playable 75 FPS at High settings. The bottleneck is the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play Inside with this hardware?*

A: The data shows that 1440p High provides an excellent balance, delivering 120 FPS average. This is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and represents a significant improvement over the 75 FPS at 4K High, while still offering much higher visual fidelity than the 1080p Low setting.

*Q: Is the RTX 4060 powerful enough for 4K gaming in Inside?*

A: Yes, the measured FPS data indicates that 4K is playable. At 4K High, the system averages 75 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it averages 120 FPS. Even at 4K Ultra, the average is 72 FPS, which is above the standard 60 FPS target for most players.

Q: Why does the frame rate not double when going from 4K to 1080p?

A: This is due to the CPU becoming the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system generates 333 FPS, but at 4K Low, it generates 150 FPS. If the GPU were the only constraint, the 1080p frame rate would be much higher relative to 4K. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus's single-thread performance appears to cap the maximum frame rate in this game.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1080p?

A: The difference is minimal. At 1080p, High averages 167 FPS, while Ultra averages 159 FPS, a difference of only 8 FPS. This suggests that the extra graphical effects in the Ultra preset are not heavily taxing the RTX 4060, and the CPU is still the primary performance limiter.

Q: Should I enable the Low preset for the highest possible frame rate?

A: If maximum frame rate is the goal, the Low preset at 1080p produces 333 FPS. However, this is likely beyond the refresh rate of most monitors. The Medium preset at 1080p still delivers 266 FPS, which is also extremely high, and will provide a significantly better visual experience for a relatively small performance cost.

Q: Is the 8 GB VRAM of the RTX 4060 a limitation in this game?

A: Based on the measured data, 8 GB is not a limitation. The system achieves playable frame rates even at 4K Ultra with 72 FPS. The game, released in 2016, does not appear to require more than 8 GB of VRAM at these settings, as the RTX 4060 handles the load without significant performance degradation.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal experience, balancing visual fidelity and frame rate, is found at the Medium preset. At 1440p Medium, the system produces 192 FPS with a minimum of 163 FPS and a maximum of 220 FPS. This is an exceedingly smooth experience that takes advantage of the hardware's capabilities. The Medium preset provides a substantial improvement over Low, which at 1440p yields 239 FPS but with noticeably reduced visual quality. The frame rate difference between Medium and High at 1440p is 72 FPS (192 vs 120), which is a significant margin that favors Medium for competitive or high-refresh-rate play.

For players with a 144Hz monitor, 1440p Medium is the clear choice. The 192 FPS average is well above the monitor's refresh rate, ensuring no screen tearing if V-Sync is enabled. At 4K, the Medium preset is also the best option, delivering 120 FPS with a minimum of 102 FPS. This is a superb experience for a puzzle platformer, providing high detail and a smooth frame rate. The High preset at 4K delivers 75 FPS, which is playable but noticeably less fluid than the Medium preset.

The Ultra preset offers no meaningful advantage over High. At 1080p, the difference is 8 FPS (159 vs 167), and at 1440p, it is 6 FPS (114 vs 120). At 4K, the difference is 3 FPS (72 vs 75). The data suggests that the Ultra preset's additional graphical features do not justify the performance cost, as the CPU becomes the limiting factor before the GPU can be fully utilized. Therefore, the Medium preset is the recommended setting for the best combination of performance and visual quality across all tested resolutions. It offers the highest frame rates that still maintain a high level of graphical detail, and it avoids the diminishing returns seen with the High and Ultra presets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 333 FPS. This is the highest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 266 FPS, with a minimum of 226 FPS and a maximum of 306 FPS. High averages 167 FPS, and Ultra averages 159 FPS. This shows a clear step-down from Low to Medium, but a much smaller step from Medium to High and Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 239 FPS. Medium averages 192 FPS, with a minimum of 163 FPS and a maximum of 220 FPS. High averages 120 FPS, and Ultra averages 114 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at this resolution is only 6 FPS, reinforcing the idea that the Ultra preset is not adding significant GPU load.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 150 FPS. Medium averages 120 FPS, with a minimum of 102 FPS and a maximum of 138 FPS. High averages 75 FPS, and Ultra averages 72 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at the Medium setting shows a drop from 192 to 120 FPS, which is a 37.5% reduction. This is a significant drop, but the resulting 120 FPS at 4K Medium is still an excellent result for this hardware combination.

The data also reveals the frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the difference between the maximum and minimum is 80 FPS (306 vs 226). At 1440p Medium, this difference is 57 FPS (220 vs 163). At 4K Medium, the difference is 36 FPS (138 vs 102). This tightening of the frame rate range as resolution increases suggests that the GPU is taking on more of the workload, reducing the impact of CPU frame time spikes. The system is most stable at 4K Medium, where the minimum frame rate of 102 FPS is still comfortably above 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 plays a secondary role in this game, as the CPU appears to be the primary bottleneck. The GPU's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory is adequate for the game's requirements, as evidenced by the playable frame rates at 4K. The memory clock is listed as 2125 MHz, with an effective speed of 17 Gbps, providing a bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s over a 128-bit bus. This bandwidth is sufficient for the textures and assets in Inside, which is a puzzle platformer with a stylized art style.

The RTX 4060's boost clock of 2460 MHz and base clock of 1830 MHz are high, but the data indicates that the GPU is not being fully utilized at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system produces 333 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's limit. The GPU's 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is more than enough to handle the game's shaders, even at 4K Ultra, where it still manages 72 FPS. The GPU's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are not particularly relevant for this title, which does not appear to use ray tracing or DLSS features, based on the measured data.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it at the 61st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17,639. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon HD 7790, has an average score of 17,666, a delta of -0.2%. This indicates that the RTX 4060 is a mid-range performer. In this specific game, its role is to render the frame at the target resolution and settings, which it does effectively. The 4K High result of 75 FPS shows that the GPU can handle the resolution when the CPU can keep up. The limiting factor is not the GPU's raw power but the CPU's ability to issue draw calls.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the dominant component in this system for Inside. The game's engine appears to be highly sensitive to single-thread performance, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling. The CPU has 24 cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its single-thread performance is highlighted by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,439, and a Passmark single-thread score of 5,068.

The benchmark data reveals that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p and 1440p. At 1080p Low, the system hits 333 FPS, but this does not scale up to 4K as a GPU-bound system would. The CPU's multi-threaded performance is excellent, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44,253, but this game likely uses only one or two cores. The Passmark multithread score of 68,574 and the 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirm that this is a very powerful processor, but its single-core performance is what determines the frame rate ceiling in this title.

The CPU's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache are large, which helps with game data locality. The CPU's release date of 2026-03-10 makes it a very recent part, and its architecture is based on Arrow Lake Refresh. The measured FPS data shows that at 4K Medium, the system produces 120 FPS, which is exactly double the 60 FPS target. This suggests that the CPU can easily handle the game's logic at this resolution, and the GPU is starting to become more of a factor. The relationship between the CPU's boost clock of 5.50 GHz and the frame rates suggests that the game benefits from high clock speeds rather than the sheer number of cores.