Inside

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 delivers a peculiar set of results in Inside, a game that is far more forgiving than the hardware pairing suggests. This combination ranks 3056th out of 3716 tested combos in this title, placing it in the bottom 18% of all systems. The low rank is not evidence of poor engineering, but rather a reflection of how the GTX 1070, a Pascal-era card, becomes the decisive bottleneck even when paired with a flagship 24-core processor. The data reveals a system that is wildly over-provisioned on the CPU side while the GPU struggles to keep pace, creating a performance profile that is both fascinating and counterintuitive for a 2D puzzle platformer.

How This Combo Ranks

The overall rank of 3056 out of 3716 combos is surprisingly low for a system containing a processor that sits in the 96th percentile among all CPUs. This discrepancy highlights a fundamental truth about Inside: the game's rendering demands are modest, but the GTX 1070's age shows through in ways that a modern CPU cannot compensate for. The GPU itself only ranks in the 47th percentile among all graphics cards, and its average benchmark score of 9780 places it in direct competition with professional workstation cards like the AMD FirePro W5000 (9803) and NVIDIA Quadro M2000M (9832), trailing both by less than a single percentage point.

What makes this ranking particularly telling is that the CPU's nearest rivals—such as the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (deltaPct 0.2) and AMD EPYC 4584PX (deltaPct 1.1)—all perform virtually identically in synthetic benchmarks, meaning the processor is not the limiting factor. The system's position in the bottom quintile of combos suggests that the GPU is dragging down what would otherwise be a top-tier machine. In a game like Inside, where the visual style is minimalist and the geometry is simple, one might expect higher placement, but the data consistently shows the GTX 1070's 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 256-bit bus are simply not enough to push the frame rates higher at demanding resolutions.

The rank also reflects the fact that this combo is judged against systems with modern GPUs that excel in low-overhead scenarios. The GTX 1070's PassMark G3D score of 13498, while respectable for its generation, is outpaced by the synthetic averages of its rivals, all of which hover around the 9700-9800 mark. This creates a situation where the combo's rank is effectively capped by the GPU's architectural limits—the card's 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 107.7 GPixel/s pixel rate are simply not competitive with contemporary offerings, even in a game as visually restrained as Inside.

GPU Role

The GTX 1070's specifications paint a clear picture of its capabilities and limitations in this title. With 8 GB of GDDR5 memory running at 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, the card delivers 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. These numbers are adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but become strained at 4K, where the memory interface's throughput is taxed by higher pixel counts. The card's boost clock of 1683 MHz and base clock of 1506 MHz are respectable for the Pascal architecture, but the 16 nm process node and 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die show their age when compared to modern designs.

In Inside, the GPU's role is paradoxical. The game's art style—characterized by silhouettes, atmospheric lighting, and particle effects—should theoretically run well on older hardware. Yet the measured FPS data shows that the GTX 1070 hits a ceiling that the CPU cannot overcome. At 1080p High settings, the combo achieves 115 FPS average, which drops to 110 FPS at Ultra. This narrow gap between High and Ultra settings suggests the GPU is already near its limits, with the additional graphical features in Ultra (likely including more advanced shadow mapping and post-processing) pushing the card to its maximum.

The GPU's 1920 shading units and 64 ROPs are sufficient for the game's simple geometry, but the card's DirectX 12 score of 48 in PassMark indicates weak feature-level performance that may hinder modern API utilization. The card's architecture supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which should be enough for Inside, but the relatively low shader throughput compared to modern cards means that even modest resolution increases produce substantial FPS drops. The data shows that this GPU is the clear bottleneck, as the CPU's massive compute resources (evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731) remain largely idle.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a textbook case of GPU-bound performance. At 1080p High, the combo achieves 115 FPS, which drops to 83 FPS at 1440p (a 27.8% decrease) and further to 52 FPS at 4K (a 54.8% decrease from 1080p). This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU that is struggling to maintain fill rate at higher resolutions, despite the game's simple visuals. The GTX 1070's pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s and texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s are being pushed to their limits as the resolution increases.

The scaling pattern becomes even more pronounced when examining the Low settings. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 231 FPS, which drops to 166 FPS at 1440p (28.1% decrease) and 104 FPS at 4K (55% decrease from 1080p). This consistent ~28% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~55% drop from 1080p to 4K across all settings suggests that the GPU's memory bandwidth and pixel throughput are the limiting factors, not the CPU or game engine. The CPU's 24 cores and 24 threads, running at a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, are more than capable of feeding the GPU at any resolution.

The Medium settings row provides the only complete FPS data with min and max values, offering insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the combo averages 184 FPS with a minimum of 157 FPS and maximum of 212 FPS. This 55 FPS spread indicates some frame pacing variance, but the minimum still exceeds 144 Hz refresh rates. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 133 FPS with a min of 113 and max of 153, maintaining a similar 40 FPS spread. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 83 FPS with a min of 71 and max of 96, showing that even at this demanding resolution, the frame times remain relatively stable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset reveals a system that performs admirably at lower resolutions but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 231 FPS on Low, 184 FPS on Medium, 115 FPS on High, and 110 FPS on Ultra. The 121 FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings demonstrates the GPU's sensitivity to graphical features, but even the lowest setting provides well over double the frame rate needed for smooth gameplay.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates drop predictably: 166 FPS on Low, 133 FPS on Medium, 83 FPS on High, and 79 FPS on Ultra. The High and Ultra settings are nearly identical at this resolution (83 vs 79 FPS), suggesting that the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling that additional settings cannot overcome. This clustering of High and Ultra scores indicates that the GTX 1070's compute resources are fully saturated, regardless of the specific graphical features enabled.

At 3840x2160, the data shows the GPU's limitations most clearly: 104 FPS on Low, 83 FPS on Medium, 52 FPS on High, and 50 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Ultra result of 50 FPS is just below the threshold for smooth 60 FPS gameplay, making it the only settings/resolution combination that falls short of this benchmark. The 54 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K (104 vs 50 FPS) is more than double the gap at 1080p, highlighting how resolution amplifies the GPU's workload and creates increasingly steep performance penalties for higher settings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal experience in Inside with this hardware depends heavily on the target resolution. For 1080p displays, the High preset at 115 FPS offers the best balance of visual quality and performance, as the jump to Ultra only increases the frame rate to 110 FPS—a negligible improvement that comes at the cost of slightly lower FPS. The Medium preset at 184 FPS is ideal for competitive or high-refresh-rate gaming, providing more than enough headroom for 144 Hz monitors while maintaining decent visual fidelity.

For 1440p users, the Medium preset at 133 FPS is the clear recommendation, as it delivers smooth gameplay with a minimum of 113 FPS that never dips below 60. The High preset at 83 FPS is acceptable for 60 Hz displays, but the 50 FPS advantage of Medium (133 vs 83) makes it the more versatile choice. The Ultra preset at 79 FPS offers no meaningful benefit over High at this resolution, making it the least attractive option.

At 4K, the situation becomes more nuanced. The Low preset at 104 FPS is the only setting that provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS, while Medium at 83 FPS is still playable on 60 Hz displays. High (52 FPS) and Ultra (50 FPS) both fall below the 60 FPS threshold, making them poor choices for anything other than 30 FPS consoles-style presentation. For 4K gaming, the Medium preset at 83 FPS is the recommended compromise, offering a playable frame rate with acceptable visual quality, while Low at 104 FPS is the safest choice for those prioritizing smoothness above all else.

FAQ

*Q: Is this combo capable of running Inside at 4K with high settings?*

A: The data shows 52 FPS average at 4K High and 50 FPS at 4K Ultra, both falling below the 60 FPS standard. For a consistent 60 FPS experience at 4K, the Medium preset (83 FPS) or Low preset (104 FPS) are the only viable options.

Q: How does the GTX 1070 compare to its nearest rivals in this context?

A: The GTX 1070 has an average benchmark score of 9780, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD FirePro W5000 (9803) and 0.5% lower than the NVIDIA Quadro M2000M (9832). It outperforms the NVIDIA Tesla M10 (9724) by 0.6% and the Tesla C2070 (9716) by 0.7%.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to avoid frame drops?

A: At 1080p, all settings provide a minimum FPS of at least 110 (Ultra), making it the safest resolution. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 113 FPS, while at 4K Medium, the minimum drops to 71 FPS, which is still playable but less consistent.

Q: Why does the Ultra preset show the same FPS as High at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, High averages 83 FPS and Ultra averages 79 FPS, a difference of only 4 FPS. This narrow gap suggests the GPU is saturated, and the additional features in Ultra have minimal impact on performance because the card is already at its compute limit.

*Q: Does this CPU bottleneck the GPU in Inside?*

A: No, the CPU's performance is far beyond what this game requires. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus ranks in the 96th percentile among all CPUs and has a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731, indicating it is not the limiting factor. The GPU's 47th percentile ranking confirms it as the bottleneck.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Medium settings?

A: The measured data shows an average of 184 FPS, with a minimum of 157 FPS and maximum of 212 FPS. This provides excellent headroom for high-refresh-rate displays and ensures smooth gameplay even during intense scenes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is an extraordinary processor that is massively underutilized in Inside. With 24 cores and 24 threads, a base clock of 3.70 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, this CPU is designed for heavy multi-threaded workloads, not a 2D puzzle platformer. Its Cinebench R23 scores of 51731 (multi-core) and 7303 (single-core) place it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003. The processor's nearest rivals—the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (deltaPct 0.2) and AMD EPYC 4584PX (deltaPct 1.1)—are within 1.2% of its performance, confirming that this is a top-tier chip.

In the context of Inside, the CPU's role is reduced to ensuring the GPU receives a steady stream of draw calls and physics calculations. The game's simple geometry and limited object count mean that even a fraction of the 290K Plus's compute power would suffice. The processor's PassMark single-thread score of 4823 and multi-thread score of 60860 are far beyond what the game engine can utilize, yet this over-provisioning does not harm performance—it simply goes unused.

The CPU's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 192 KB L1 cache per core provide ample memory hierarchy for the game's assets, while its 115.2 GB/s memory bandwidth (via dual-channel DDR5) ensures no data starvation occurs. The processor's 3 nm process node and 17,800 million transistors make it a technological marvel, but in this pairing, it serves as a silent observer while the GTX 1070 determines the final frame rates. The data suggests that any modern mid-range CPU would produce nearly identical results in Inside, making the 290K Plus an unnecessary luxury for this specific title, though it ensures zero CPU-induced stutter or bottlenecking at any resolution or setting.