Inside

Inside is a 2016 puzzle platformer that, on paper, should not stress modern hardware. Yet the measured frame rates for the Intel Core Ultra X7 368H paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900M tell a more nuanced story, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. This combination produces a 998th place ranking out of 2,887 tested combos, which places it in the upper third of all systems but not at the very top. The data indicates that this laptop-class CPU and high-end mobile GPU deliver playable performance across the board, with the GPU becoming the primary bottleneck at 4K while the CPU holds its own at 1080p. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS, component roles, and how this pairing compares to other tested configurations.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings is 189. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and indicates that the combination handles this puzzle platformer with significant headroom.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested systems for Inside?

A: The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H and AMD Radeon RX 7900M combination ranks 998th out of 2,887 tested combos. This places it in the 65th percentile, meaning roughly two-thirds of tested systems perform worse in this game.

Q: Does the GPU outperform its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7900M has an average benchmark score of 97,487. It is 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro VII (97,131), 5.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 (92,466), and 6.3% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A4500 (91,671). However, it trails the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 (101,872) by 4.3%.

Q: What is the CPU's performance percentile compared to all CPUs?

A: The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H sits in the 87th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40,518. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core 7 253PE (40,557), is only 0.1% faster, while the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H (40,431) is 0.2% slower.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS recorded in the measured data?

A: The lowest average frame rate is 81 FPS, recorded at 3840x2160 (4K) with Ultra settings. Even at this demanding configuration, the system stays well above playable levels.

Q: How much faster is Low settings compared to Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce an average of 271 FPS, while Ultra settings yield 129 FPS. This represents a difference of 142 FPS, or roughly a 110% performance increase when dropping from Ultra to Low.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900M is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the frame rates observed. It features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU clock speeds are a base of 1825 MHz and a boost of 2090 MHz, with memory running at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). This memory configuration is substantial for a mobile part and prevents bandwidth from being a limiting factor in a game like Inside, which does not require massive texture streaming.

The GPU's architecture is RDNA 3.0 on a 5 nm process, with 4,608 shading units, 288 TMUs, and 192 ROPs. The pixel rate is 401.3 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 601.9 GTexel/s. These raw throughput numbers explain why the GPU can push high frame rates even at 4K. The FP32 performance of 38.52 TFLOPS indicates that the compute capacity is more than sufficient for this title's visual effects, which include dynamic lighting and shadow rendering.

In benchmark terms, the GPU sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs with an average score of 97,487. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro VII, scores 97,131, a delta of 0.4%. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 leads this group at 101,872, which is 4.3% higher. This places the RX 7900M in a competitive position among professional and workstation-class GPUs, despite being a mobile part.

The GPU's role becomes clearer when comparing the 4K results. At 3840x2160, High settings yield 85 FPS, while Ultra settings drop to 81 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is only 4 FPS, which suggests that the GPU is already near its limits at this resolution and that additional settings have diminishing returns. The fact that Low settings at 4K produce 170 FPS shows that the GPU has ample headroom when pixel shader workload is reduced, but the transition from Low to Medium (170 to 136 FPS) and Medium to High (136 to 85 FPS) shows a steep scaling curve that is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-limited scaling as resolution increases. At 1080p with High settings, the average FPS is 189. Moving to 1440p High drops this to 136 FPS, a reduction of 28%. At 4K High, the average falls to 85 FPS, which is 55% lower than the 1080p result. This scaling is consistent with a GPU that has fixed pixel throughput and is being asked to render progressively more pixels.

The Low settings data shows even more dramatic scaling. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 377 FPS. At 1440p Low, this drops to 271 FPS (28% reduction), and at 4K Low, it falls to 170 FPS (55% reduction from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings tiers indicates that resolution scaling is not affected by the quality preset, reinforcing that the GPU's fill rate is the limiting factor.

The Medium settings data provides the only min and max FPS values in the entire dataset. At 1080p Medium, the average is 302 FPS with a minimum of 257 and maximum of 347. At 1440p Medium, the average is 217 FPS with a minimum of 184 and maximum of 250. At 4K Medium, the average is 136 FPS with a minimum of 116 and maximum of 157. The min-to-max spread is relatively narrow (about 30% of the average), which indicates stable frame pacing with no severe hitches or stutters.

The Ultra settings results show the smallest absolute differences between resolutions. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 180 FPS; at 1440p Ultra, it is 129 FPS; and at 4K Ultra, it is 81 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 99 FPS, or 55%. This suggests that Ultra settings introduce enough shader complexity that the GPU becomes saturated even at 1080p, but the resolution scaling still dominates the performance curve.

The data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting component in this game. If it were, the frame rates at 1080p and 4K would converge, but they do not. Instead, the consistent ~55% performance drop from 1080p to 4K across all settings tiers points to the GPU's pixel rendering pipeline as the bottleneck. The CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic, and given that the system achieves 377 FPS at 1080p Low, the CPU is clearly capable of handling this workload without becoming a constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H and AMD Radeon RX 7900M combination ranks 998th out of 2,887 tested combos for Inside. This means that 1,889 other combinations produced better frame rates, while 998 performed worse. In percentage terms, this combo is in the top 34.6% of all tested systems, which is a solid result for a mobile configuration.

The rank reflects the combined performance of both components. The GPU's 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs is higher than the combo's overall rank, which suggests that the CPU is holding back the system somewhat, or that other combos with similar GPUs are paired with faster CPUs. The CPU's 87th percentile ranking is slightly lower than the GPU's, indicating a modest imbalance in this pairing.

Looking at the nearest rival CPUs, the differences are negligible. The Intel Core 7 253PE has an average score of 40,557, which is 0.1% higher than the Ultra X7 368H. The Intel Core 5 223PE scores 40,585 (0.2% higher), while the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H scores 40,431 (0.2% lower) and the Intel Xeon 6507P scores 40,426 (0.2% lower). These deltas are within measurement noise, meaning that swapping the CPU for any of these alternatives would likely produce nearly identical frame rates in Inside.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals show more variance. The AMD Radeon Pro VII is 0.4% slower, the AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 is 5.4% slower, and the NVIDIA RTX A4500 is 6.3% slower. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 is 4.3% faster. The 998th rank out of 2,887 suggests that while the GPU is strong, the overall system is not at the very top tier for this game, likely because some combos pair the RX 7900M with faster desktop-class CPUs or because other high-end GPUs offer higher frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H is a 16-core, 16-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 3, based on the Panther Lake architecture on a 3 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.00 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a TDP of 25 watts. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 2.5 MB of L2 per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is LPDDR5X on a dual-channel bus, providing 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

In the context of Inside, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw call submission. The benchmark scores show that this processor is highly capable. In Cinebench R23 multi-core, it scores 28,221, and in single-core, it scores 3,984. The PassMark multi-thread score is 32,956, with a single-thread score of 4,005. These figures place it in the 87th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40,518.

The CPU's 16 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for a puzzle platformer like Inside, which typically uses fewer than 8 threads. The high boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures that single-threaded performance is strong, which is important for games that rely on a primary game thread. The PassMark single-thread score of 4,005 is particularly relevant, as it indicates fast per-core execution.

The data shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this game. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 377 FPS, which is a very high frame rate that stresses the CPU's ability to issue draw calls. The fact that the frame rate does not plateau at this resolution suggests that the CPU has additional headroom. However, at 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 81 FPS, and this drop is entirely attributable to the GPU's pixel rendering workload, not the CPU.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s is adequate for this game, as it does not require massive data streaming. The 18 MB of shared L3 cache helps keep frequently accessed data close to the cores, reducing latency. The 3 nm process node and 25 W TDP indicate an efficient design that maintains high clocks without excessive power draw, which is beneficial for sustained gaming sessions in a mobile chassis.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings tiers (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). Each entry reports an average FPS, with only the Medium settings providing minimum and maximum values.

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows:

• Low: 377 FPS average
• Medium: 302 FPS average, with a minimum of 257 and maximum of 347
• High: 189 FPS average
• Ultra: 180 FPS average

The 1080p results show a clear progression from Low to Ultra, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium (302) and High (189), a reduction of 113 FPS. The difference between High (189) and Ultra (180) is only 9 FPS, indicating that Ultra settings add minimal visual overhead at this resolution. The 377 FPS at Low is exceptionally high and suggests that the system is CPU-bound at this point, as the GPU has more than enough capacity to render simple frames.

At 2560x1440, the results are:

• Low: 271 FPS average
• Medium: 217 FPS average, with a minimum of 184 and maximum of 250
• High: 136 FPS average
• Ultra: 129 FPS average

The 1440p data shows the same pattern as 1080p, but with lower absolute values. The drop from Low to Medium is 54 FPS, from Medium to High is 81 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 7 FPS. The minimal difference between High and Ultra (136 vs 129 FPS) persists at this resolution, suggesting that Ultra settings are not particularly demanding relative to High for this game.

At 3840x2160, the results are:

• Low: 170 FPS average
• Medium: 136 FPS average, with a minimum of 116 and maximum of 157
• High: 85 FPS average
• Ultra: 81 FPS average

The 4K data reveals the GPU's limits. The drop from Low to Medium is 34 FPS, from Medium to High is 51 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 4 FPS. The fact that High and Ultra are nearly identical (85 vs 81 FPS) indicates that the GPU is fully saturated at this resolution, and additional settings have negligible impact on frame rate.

Comparing across resolutions, the 1080p Ultra average of 180 FPS is higher than the 1440p High average of 136 FPS, and the 1440p Ultra average of 129 FPS is higher than the 4K High average of 85 FPS. This demonstrates that resolution is the dominant factor in performance, with settings having a secondary effect.

The Medium settings min/max data shows that frame pacing is stable across all resolutions. At 1080p, the spread from min to max is 90 FPS (257 to 347); at 1440p, it is 66 FPS (184 to 250); and at 4K, it is 41 FPS (116 to 157). The relative spread (max-min divided by average) is 29.8% at 1080p, 30.4% at 1440p, and 30.1% at 4K, indicating consistent frame time variance regardless of resolution.

The overall picture is that this combination delivers excellent performance for Inside. Even at the most demanding configuration tested (4K Ultra), the average FPS of 81 is well above the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. At 1080p, the system is capable of driving high-refresh-rate displays, with all settings tiers exceeding 180 FPS. The GPU is the primary limiter at 4K, while the CPU demonstrates sufficient headroom at lower resolutions. This makes the combo a versatile choice for both high-refresh 1080p gaming and 4K gameplay at high settings.