Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle platformer that places almost no strain on modern high-end hardware, and the benchmark results for the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT reflect that reality. The data shows a system capable of obliterating this title at any resolution, with frame rates that suggest the experience is limited more by the game's engine and the CPU's single-thread speed than by the GPU's raw fill rate. This combination is massive overkill for the task, but the measured numbers reveal a clear hierarchy of performance across settings and resolutions that can guide a builder toward the optimal configuration.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is dramatic, but it follows a predictable pattern that points directly at where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 442 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops that to 330 FPS, a 25% reduction, and then 4K Low brings it down to 207 FPS, another 37% cut from the 1440p figure. This steep decline suggests that while the GPU is becoming more involved as pixel count rises, the CPU is still doing heavy lifting at lower resolutions, keeping the frame rate artificially high.

The gap between 1080p and 1440p is substantial across all settings, but the relative drop from 1440p to 4K is where the GPU's limits start to show. For example, at High settings, the system delivers 230 FPS at 1080p, 165 FPS at 1440p, and 104 FPS at 4K. The percentage loss from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 28%, and from 1440p to 4K it is about 37%. This pattern holds for Medium and Ultra settings as well, indicating that the scaling is consistent and not a sign of a sudden CPU bottleneck at any single resolution.

What the scaling really reveals is that the RX 9070 XT is never the limiting factor at 1080p or 1440p for this game; the CPU's 24 cores and high boost clock of 5.80 GHz are feeding frames so fast that the GPU is barely breaking a sweat. At 4K, the GPU begins to matter more, but even the lowest 4K result (99 FPS at Ultra) is far above the 60 FPS target most players would consider smooth. The takeaway is that for Inside, this pairing offers headroom for days, and the limiting component shifts from the CPU at 1080p to the GPU only at 4K Ultra, where the pixel shader workload finally catches up to the hardware's capabilities.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's position in the database is surprisingly low for such a potent pairing. With a combo rank of 375 out of 2887 tested combinations, this system sits in the top 13% of all configurations tested for Inside. That might sound impressive, but given the hardware involved, it is actually a modest result that reflects how many other high-end systems also crush this game. The rank is not a measure of playability—it is a measure of raw frame rate against every other combo, and Inside's simplicity means even mid-range parts can hit high numbers.

Looking at the individual components, the CPU's percentile versus all CPUs is 96, which places it in the top 4% of processors tested. Its average benchmark score of 84003 is nearly identical to its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which scores 83807 with a delta of only 0.2%. The AMD EPYC 4584PX and EPYC 9135 are also close, at 83090 and 82980 respectively, with deltas of 1.1% and 1.2%. The only rival that edges it out is the AMD EPYC 7F72, which scores 85072, a 1.3% advantage. This tells us the CPU is performing exactly as expected for its class, with no anomalies dragging the combo rank down.

The GPU tells a different story. The RX 9070 XT sits at the 55th percentile versus all GPUs, which is middle-of-the-road, and its average benchmark score of 13543 is nearly identical to far older cards like the AMD Radeon HD 7770M (13536, 0.1% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (13515, 0.2% delta). This is not a knock on the GPU's real-world capability—Inside is just not a demanding title—but it explains why the combo rank is not higher. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 26795 is solid, but its percentile ranking drags the overall combo down because so many other GPUs score similarly in synthetic tests that do not reflect gaming performance. In practice, the RX 9070 XT is more than enough for Inside, but the database ranking is skewed by the game's low requirements.

Settings Recommendations

For a game like Inside, the choice of settings is less about hitting a playable frame rate and more about maximizing visual fidelity without wasting performance. The data shows that at 4K, the Ultra preset delivers 99 FPS, while High delivers 104 FPS—a difference of only 5 FPS. That negligible gap makes High the sensible choice at 4K, as it offers nearly identical performance with presumably lower visual overhead, though the specific visual differences are not quantified in the data. Medium at 4K jumps to 166 FPS with a minimum of 141 FPS and a maximum of 191 FPS, which is a significant boost, but the jump from Medium to High is only a 38 FPS loss, so High remains the sweet spot for visual quality versus smoothness.

At 1440p, the story shifts. High delivers 165 FPS, and Ultra drops to 157 FPS, a mere 8 FPS difference. Medium hits 264 FPS with a minimum of 224 FPS, which is overkill for any display. The best experience here is Ultra, because the 157 FPS result is still far above any refresh rate a typical 1440p monitor would demand, and the visual upgrade from High to Ultra is likely worth the small performance hit. At 1080p, every setting is absurdly fast. Ultra runs at 219 FPS, High at 230 FPS, and Medium at 367 FPS. The difference between Ultra and High is only 11 FPS, so Ultra is the clear recommendation for 1080p, as the system has so much headroom that there is no reason to compromise.

The overarching advice is to play at Ultra settings at any resolution below 4K, and at High settings for 4K if you want to preserve the highest possible frame rate. The minimum frame rates recorded at Medium settings—312 FPS at 1080p, 224 FPS at 1440p, and 141 FPS at 4K—indicate that even the lowest dips are far above the threshold for smooth gameplay, so there is no risk of stutter or hitching regardless of the preset chosen.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces a range of results that showcase its CPU-bound nature. Low settings yield 442 FPS average, which is the highest number in the entire dataset. Medium settings drop to 367 FPS, with a minimum of 312 FPS and a maximum of 422 FPS. High settings come in at 230 FPS, and Ultra settings deliver 219 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 75 FPS, but the gap between High and Ultra is only 11 FPS, suggesting that the High to Ultra transition is not a heavy load increase.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers scale down proportionally. Low settings produce 330 FPS, Medium produces 264 FPS with a minimum of 224 FPS and a maximum of 304 FPS, High delivers 165 FPS, and Ultra delivers 157 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across all settings, hovering around 25% to 28%, which indicates the GPU is starting to take on more work but is still not the primary limiter. The Medium preset at 1440p, with its 224 FPS minimum, is still far beyond what any monitor can display, so the 157 FPS at Ultra is the more meaningful number for practical use.

At 3840x2160, the GPU finally becomes relevant. Low settings produce 207 FPS, Medium produces 166 FPS with a minimum of 141 FPS and a maximum of 191 FPS, High produces 104 FPS, and Ultra produces 99 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 41 FPS, but the drop from Medium to High is 62 FPS, which is the largest single-settings jump in the dataset. This suggests that the High preset introduces a significant shader workload that the RX 9070 XT has to process, and Ultra adds only 5 FPS on top of that, making High and Ultra nearly identical in cost. The 4K Ultra result of 99 FPS is the only number in the entire dataset that falls below 100 FPS, and it is still comfortably above 60 FPS.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo overkill for Inside?

A: Yes. The lowest average frame rate recorded across all tests is 99 FPS at 4K Ultra, and the highest is 442 FPS at 1080p Low. No display commonly available would benefit from frame rates above 240 Hz, and the system exceeds that threshold at 1440p and below on most settings.

Q: What is the best resolution to play this game at?

A: The data shows that 1440p Ultra at 157 FPS is the best balance of visual quality and performance, as it stays above 144 Hz. 4K High at 104 FPS is also viable for 60 Hz displays, but 1440p offers a smoother experience with minimal visual compromise.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K's 83807. It also outperforms the AMD EPYC 4584PX by 1.1% and the AMD EPYC 9135 by 1.2%, but trails the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3%.

Q: Why is the GPU's percentile ranking so low?

A: The RX 9070 XT sits at the 55th percentile versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13543. This is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon HD 7770M, which scores 13536, indicating that synthetic benchmarks do not reflect its gaming capability for a light title like Inside.

Q: Should I use High or Ultra settings at 4K?

A: The difference is only 5 FPS (104 FPS for High versus 99 FPS for Ultra). If you want the highest frame rate, choose High; if you prefer maximum visual fidelity, Ultra is acceptable because 99 FPS is still smooth.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate I can expect?

A: The lowest recorded minimum is 141 FPS at 4K Medium. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 224 FPS, and at 1080p Medium, it is 312 FPS. No test recorded a minimum below 141 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz, and it boosts up to 5.80 GHz, which is critical for Inside because the game's logic and physics simulation are largely single-threaded. The CPU's single-core performance, as measured by Cinebench R23, is 7303 points, and its multi-core score is 51731. These numbers are among the best in the database, and they explain why the system produces such high frame rates at 1080p, where the CPU is the primary driver of performance.

The 24 threads do not directly benefit Inside, as the game likely uses only a handful of cores, but the high boost clock ensures that the active threads run at maximum speed. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4823 confirms its strength in lightly threaded workloads, and its PassMark multithread score of 60860 shows that it has immense headroom for other tasks. The L3 cache is 36 MB shared, and the L2 cache is 3 MB per core, which provides fast access to frequently used data, though Inside's modest memory footprint means this is not a limiting factor.

The CPU's 96th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003, places it just above the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which scores 83807. This 0.2% delta is within noise, but it confirms that the 290K Plus is performing at the top of its class. For Inside specifically, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with as many frames as possible, and the data shows it succeeds admirably. At 1080p Low, the system hits 442 FPS, which is likely near the engine's internal cap or the CPU's limit, and even at 4K Ultra, the 99 FPS result is still high enough to suggest the CPU is not struggling. The combination of high single-thread speed and 24 cores makes this CPU a future-proof choice, but for a game like Inside, its performance is far beyond what the title demands.