Inside

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers an exceptional experience in Inside, placing in the top tier of all tested hardware combinations. While the game is not graphically demanding by modern standards, this combo’s performance is so high that it effectively removes any hardware limitations, ensuring a flawless experience at every setting.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific configuration ranks 234th out of 2887 tested combos for Inside, placing it in the top 8.1% of all systems benchmarked. This is a strong result that underscores the raw capability of both components, even though the game itself is a lightweight 2D puzzle platformer. The ranking indicates that this pairing is far more powerful than what Inside requires, meaning the game will never be the bottleneck; instead, the limits will be the display’s refresh rate or the game’s own engine frame cap.

The high rank is primarily driven by the CPU’s immense processing power. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus sits at the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84,003. Its closest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scores 83,807, a negligible 0.2% difference, suggesting that the 290K Plus is essentially the pinnacle of consumer desktop performance. It is also 1.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX and 1.2% ahead of the AMD EPYC 9135, while trailing the AMD EPYC 7F72 by -1.3%. In the context of a game like Inside, this CPU headroom is vast overkill, but it guarantees that frame pacing will be perfectly consistent.

On the GPU side, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a high-end card, though its ranking is less straightforward. It sits at the 55th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 13,745. Interestingly, its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 660M (-0.5%), NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (-0.5%), and AMD Radeon RX 570X (-0.9%), which are significantly less powerful parts. This suggests the average benchmark score is skewed by specific compute workloads, not gaming rasterization. In gaming, the RX 7900 XT is far ahead of those rivals, as evidenced by its measured FPS in Inside. The combo’s overall rank is therefore a product of the CPU’s top-tier status and the GPU’s substantial gaming performance.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 31 chip. It features 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, yielding a massive 800.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is crucial for high-resolution textures, though Inside’s minimalist art style does not stress VRAM capacity. The card’s clock speeds are substantial: a base clock of 1387 MHz, a game clock of 2025 MHz, and a boost clock of 2394 MHz. The memory operates at 2500 MHz (effectively 20 Gbps).

For Inside, the GPU is rarely the limiting factor. Even at 4K Ultra settings, the card produces an average of 107 FPS, which is exceptionally high for a game that is essentially a 2D side-scroller with lighting effects. The GPU’s compute power, rated at 51.48 TFLOPS FP32, is more than sufficient to handle the game’s simple shaders and physics. The data shows that the RX 7900 XT is over-provisioned for this title; the performance gap between Low and Ultra settings is substantial, but even the most demanding preset yields a frame rate that exceeds standard 60Hz displays and most high-refresh monitors.

The card’s specifications, such as 5376 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, contribute to its high pixel throughput of 459.6 GPixel/s. This pixel rate is what allows it to easily fill 4K frames at over 100 FPS. In benchmark comparisons, the GPU’s PassMark G3D score is 29,009, which is far higher than its average score, confirming that its gaming performance is a standout feature compared to its mixed compute workload results. The card is a dual-slot design requiring 2x 8-pin power connectors and a 700 W recommended PSU, but it is end-of-life, so availability is waning.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals that the CPU is the dominant partner in this combo, with the GPU only becoming a meaningful constraint at the highest resolution and settings. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 442 FPS. This number is so high that it is likely limited by the CPU’s single-thread speed or the game engine’s physics tick rate, not the GPU. Moving to 2560x1440 at Low drops the average to 356 FPS, a 19.5% decrease. At 3840x2160 Low, the average is 224 FPS, a further 37.1% drop from 1440p. This progressive decline at Low settings shows the GPU starting to take on more work, but the frame rates remain astronomical.

The pattern is similar for High settings. At 1080p High, the average is 248 FPS. This drops to 178 FPS at 1440p High (-28.2%) and then to 112 FPS at 4K High (-37.1%). The consistent percentage drops suggest a linear scaling with pixel count, typical of a GPU-bound scenario. However, the absolute numbers are still so high that the game feels completely fluid. The most demanding preset, Ultra, shows the GPU’s true load: 236 FPS at 1080p, 170 FPS at 1440p, and 107 FPS at 4K.

The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is the bottleneck, as the difference between Low (442 FPS) and Ultra (236 FPS) is 46.6%. This gap narrows at 4K, where Low (224 FPS) and Ultra (107 FPS) have a 52.2% difference, showing the GPU is now the primary constraint. For a 60Hz display, any setting at any resolution is overkill. For 144Hz or 240Hz monitors, the combo can easily drive the game at maximum refresh rates at 1440p with Ultra settings, and even 4K Ultra (107 FPS) is close to 100Hz+ territory.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Inside at 4K with maximum settings?*

A: Yes. The measured data shows an average of 107 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This is comfortably above 60 FPS and even approaches 100 FPS, making for a very smooth experience on high-refresh 4K displays.

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

A: At 1080p, the CPU is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the large FPS differences between settings (442 FPS Low vs 236 FPS Ultra). At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as the resolution scaling shows a significant drop in performance as pixel count increases.

Q: How does the frame rate scale from 1080p to 4K?

A: The scaling is not linear. For High settings, the average drops from 248 FPS at 1080p to 178 FPS at 1440p, then to 112 FPS at 4K. This represents a 54.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K, showing that the GPU is heavily taxed at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the best setting for a 240Hz monitor?

A: For a 240Hz display, you would need to target 1080p. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 396 FPS, and at 1080p High, it achieves 248 FPS. Both exceed 240Hz, so you could even use Ultra settings (236 FPS) and still be very close to the refresh rate cap.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its direct predecessor, the Core Ultra 9 285K?

A: The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84,003, while the Core Ultra 9 285K scores 83,807. This is a 0.2% difference, meaning the 290K Plus is only marginally faster in synthetic tests. In a game like Inside, this difference is imperceptible.

Q: Is 20 GB of VRAM necessary for this game?

A: No. Inside has a minimalist art style and does not require large texture pools. The 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on the RX 7900 XT is far more than the game needs, but it ensures that the card will not be VRAM-limited at any resolution or setting.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following data represents measured average FPS for the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT combination.

1920x1080 (Full HD):

• Low: Average 442 FPS
• Medium: Average 396 FPS (min 337 FPS, max 455 FPS)
• High: Average 248 FPS
• Ultra: Average 236 FPS

2560x1440 (Quad HD):

• Low: Average 356 FPS
• Medium: Average 285 FPS (min 242 FPS, max 328 FPS)
• High: Average 178 FPS
• Ultra: Average 170 FPS

3840x2160 (4K UHD):

• Low: Average 224 FPS
• Medium: Average 179 FPS (min 152 FPS, max 206 FPS)
• High: Average 112 FPS
• Ultra: Average 107 FPS

The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data, showing 337-455 FPS at 1080p, 242-328 FPS at 1440p, and 152-206 FPS at 4K. This indicates excellent frame consistency, with no severe stutters. The gap between High and Ultra is small at all resolutions (e.g., 12 FPS at 1080p, 8 FPS at 1440p, and 5 FPS at 4K), suggesting Ultra is a minor visual upgrade over High that costs very little performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a monster of a processor, built on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture using a 3 nm process from TSMC. It features 24 cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. The absence of hyper-threading is notable, but the sheer core count and high clock speeds compensate. Its benchmark scores are staggering: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,731 and a single-core score of 7,303. In gaming, single-core performance is often more critical, and the 290K Plus excels there, with a PassMark single-thread score of 4,823.

For Inside, the CPU is the star of the show. The game’s physics and game logic are likely single-threaded, meaning the 5.80 GHz boost clock is the key factor in achieving those 442 FPS at 1080p Low. The L3 cache of 36 MB (shared) helps keep data close to the cores, reducing latency. The CPU’s massive multi-core power (Cinebench R20 multi-core: 21,727; PassMark multi-thread: 60,860) is unused by this game, but it ensures that background tasks will never interfere with frame rendering. The processor’s average benchmark score of 84,003 places it at the 96th percentile, making it one of the fastest desktop CPUs available.

The CPU’s memory support for DDR5 with a dual-channel bus and 115.2 GB/s bandwidth ensures fast data transfer to the GPU. While Inside is not memory-bandwidth sensitive, this setup prevents any potential bottlenecks. The 290K Plus also has integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 64 EUs, but it is irrelevant here since the discrete RX 7900 XT handles all rendering. In this benchmark, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU frames as fast as possible, and it does so without breaking a sweat, proving that the Ultra 9 290K Plus is about as future-proof as a gaming CPU can get, even for a title as old as Inside.