Inside

Inside is a puzzle platformer from 2016 that places almost no stress on modern high-end hardware. The measured data for the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER shows a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher settings, but transitions to a CPU-limited scenario at lower settings and resolutions. The dataset provides a clear picture of how this combination behaves across three resolutions and four quality presets, with average frame rates ranging from 110 FPS at 4K Ultra to 456 FPS at 1080p Low. This analysis walks through the measured FPS values, the scaling patterns between resolutions, and what the component specifications suggest about their respective roles in producing these results.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data reveals a classic scaling pattern where the performance cost of increasing resolution is substantial, but the system remains highly playable even at the most demanding settings. At the High preset, moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 drops the average frame rate from 256 FPS to 184 FPS, a reduction of 72 FPS. Pushing further to 3840x2160 at High yields 116 FPS, which is a 68 FPS drop from the 1440p result. This demonstrates that the RTX 4070 SUPER is the primary limiter at High settings, as the frame rate scales inversely with pixel count in a nearly linear fashion.

The Low preset shows a different behavior that highlights the CPU's influence. At 1080p Low, the system produces 456 FPS, but at 1440p Low it drops to 368 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls to 231 FPS. The relative drop from 1080p to 1440p is only 19.3%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 37.2%. This suggests that at 1080p Low, the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is approaching its limit for this game engine, preventing the GPU from fully stretching its legs. At higher resolutions, the GPU workload increases enough to become the limiting factor again.

The Medium preset provides the most complete dataset, including minimum and maximum frame rates. At 1080p Medium, the system averages 409 FPS with a minimum of 348 FPS and a maximum of 470 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 294 FPS with a minimum of 250 FPS and a maximum of 338 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 185 FPS with a minimum of 157 FPS and a maximum of 213 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is a 28.1% reduction, and from 1440p to 4K is a 37.1% reduction, showing that the GPU workload scales consistently with pixel count.

Ultra settings produce the lowest frame rates across all resolutions. The system delivers 244 FPS at 1080p Ultra, 175 FPS at 1440p Ultra, and 110 FPS at 4K Ultra. The percentage drops are 28.3% from 1080p to 1440p and 37.1% from 1440p to 4K, which is nearly identical to the Medium preset scaling. This consistency indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER's rendering throughput is the dominant factor once the resolution increases, regardless of whether the preset is Medium or Ultra.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo in Inside?

A: The highest average frame rate in the dataset is 456 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

Q: How much faster is the 1080p Low result compared to the 4K Ultra result?

A: The 1080p Low result of 456 FPS is 4.1 times higher than the 4K Ultra result of 110 FPS.

Q: Does the system maintain above 144 FPS at 1440p with maximum settings?

A: Yes, at 2560x1440 with the Ultra preset, the system averages 175 FPS, which is above the 144 FPS threshold commonly associated with high refresh rate displays.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate recorded across all tested configurations?

A: The lowest minimum frame rate recorded is 157 FPS, which occurs at 3840x2160 with the Medium preset.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 185th out of 2887 tested combinations, placing it in the top 6.4% of all systems measured in Inside.

Q: Is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K larger at Low or Ultra settings?

A: The absolute difference is larger at Low settings, with a 225 FPS gap between 1080p and 4K, while the Ultra preset shows a 134 FPS gap between the same resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER achieves a rank of 185 out of 2887 tested combos in Inside, placing it in the 93.6th percentile of all systems measured. This is a strong showing that reflects the high frame rates this combo produces, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU's capabilities come into play. The rank indicates that only 184 other combinations were able to produce higher frame rates, which is impressive given the game's age and the hardware's modern specifications.

Looking at the individual components, the CPU sits in the 96th percentile against all CPUs, while the GPU sits in the 83rd percentile against all GPUs. This discrepancy suggests that the processor is relatively stronger than the graphics card when compared to their respective peer groups. In a game like Inside, which is not graphically demanding, the CPU's high percentile ranking likely contributes to the combo's overall strong position, as the processor can feed frames quickly enough to keep the GPU busy even at lower resolutions.

The nearest rivals for the CPU include the Intel Xeon 6520P, which has a nearly identical average benchmark score with a deltaPct of 0, and the AMD EPYC 4564P, which is 1.5% faster. For the GPU, the closest competitors are the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile, and the NVIDIA Quadro M6000, all within 0.2% of the RTX 4070 SUPER's average score. These rival comparisons show that both components are positioned in a competitive segment, though the measured frame rates in Inside are more favorable than the raw benchmark scores might suggest.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. The Low preset averages 456 FPS, which is the single highest result in the entire dataset. The Medium preset averages 409 FPS with a minimum of 348 FPS and a maximum of 470 FPS. High settings produce 256 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 244 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 47 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 153 FPS, and the gap between High and Ultra is only 12 FPS. This suggests that the jump from Medium to High carries a significant rendering cost, while the jump from High to Ultra is relatively minor.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a clear step down from 1080p. The Low preset averages 368 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth. Medium averages 294 FPS with a minimum of 250 FPS and a maximum of 338 FPS. High settings produce 184 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 175 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at this resolution is only 9 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects have minimal impact at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the system still delivers playable frame rates across all presets. Low averages 231 FPS, Medium averages 185 FPS with a minimum of 157 FPS and a maximum of 213 FPS, High averages 116 FPS, and Ultra averages 110 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to just 6 FPS at 4K, which is the smallest difference between any two adjacent presets at any resolution. The minimum frame rate of 157 FPS at 4K Medium is notable because it remains above the 144 FPS threshold, ensuring a consistently smooth experience even with occasional frame drops.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD104 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It features 7168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units, along with 56 ray tracing cores and 224 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1980 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz for 21 Gbps effective speed. The 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for a game like Inside that was released in 2016.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a similar 35.48 TFLOPS for FP16, with a pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 554.4 GTexel/s. These specifications place the RTX 4070 SUPER in the 83rd percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 43223. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB, which is only 0.1% slower, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile, which is also 0.1% slower.

In Inside, the GPU's role becomes increasingly important as resolution increases. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 110 FPS, which suggests the GPU is the limiting factor at this configuration. The 12 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for this game, as the 4K High preset still averages 116 FPS without any indication of memory capacity issues. The GPU's 504.2 GB/s memory bandwidth is also more than adequate for the game's data requirements, as the frame rates scale consistently with resolution rather than showing any bandwidth-related stutters.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rate data, the Medium preset appears to offer the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the system averages 409 FPS with a minimum of 348 FPS, providing a massive headroom above any display refresh rate. At 1440p Medium, the average of 294 FPS with a minimum of 250 FPS still exceeds the 240 Hz refresh rate that high-end monitors offer. At 4K Medium, the average of 185 FPS with a minimum of 157 FPS remains above 144 FPS, ensuring a consistently smooth experience on high refresh rate 4K displays.

The Low preset offers even higher frame rates, but the visual compromise is significant. At 1080p Low, the system produces 456 FPS, which is only 47 FPS higher than Medium. The 10.3% frame rate improvement from Medium to Low does not justify the substantial reduction in visual fidelity, especially since the Medium preset already delivers frame rates far beyond what most displays can show. At 4K Low, the 231 FPS average is 46 FPS higher than Medium, which could matter for competitive play, but Inside is a puzzle platformer where such extreme frame rates provide no gameplay advantage.

The High and Ultra presets provide diminishing returns over Medium. At 1080p, the difference between Ultra and Medium is a 165 FPS drop, while the difference between High and Medium is 153 FPS. At 4K, the drop from Medium to High is 69 FPS, and the drop from Medium to Ultra is 75 FPS. Given that the Medium preset's minimum frame rate at 4K is 157 FPS, which already exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end displays, the visual improvements from High or Ultra settings come at a cost that may not be perceptible in a game with Inside's art style.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The CPU features 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration with a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s, and it includes 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes from the CPU.

The CPU's benchmark scores are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44253 and a single-core score of 2439. Its PassMark multi-thread score is 68574, and its single-thread score is 5068. These results place the processor in the 96th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 93785. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon 6520P with a deltaPct of 0, the AMD EPYC 4564P with a deltaPct of -1.5, and the AMD EPYC 9175F with a deltaPct of -1.9.

In Inside, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p with the Low preset, where the frame rate of 456 FPS appears to be limited by the processor's ability to feed the GPU. The 24 cores and 24 threads are far more than this game requires, as Inside is a lightly threaded title from 2016. However, the high boost clock of 5.50 GHz and strong single-core performance likely contribute to the system's ability to maintain high frame rates even at lower resolutions. The CPU's 96th percentile ranking suggests that it is not the bottleneck in most scenarios, but the data at 1080p Low indicates that even this powerful processor has an upper limit in this game's engine.