Downfall

The pairing of a Ryzen 9 9900X with a GeForce RTX 2060 is an unbalanced combination on paper, but Downfall is a 2016 horror title, and the recorded data shows it clears the 60 FPS bar in more configurations than you might expect from a Turing-era card paired with an aging game. The database contains measured frame rates across three resolutions and four presets for this exact pairing, and the short version is: 1080p is fully playable at every preset, 1440p is playable at everything except Ultra, and 4K requires dropping to Medium or below. The 9900X is never the limiting factor here. Below is the breakdown.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures are measured averages from the database for the Ryzen 9 9900X plus RTX 2060 combination in Downfall.

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 176 FPS average
• Medium: 142.6 FPS average
• High: 115.7 FPS average
• Ultra: 73.5 FPS average

Even the heaviest preset stays above the 60 FPS playable threshold, and Low settings more than double that bar. Every 1080p preset clears the threshold with headroom to spare.

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 122.6 FPS average
• Medium: 100 FPS average
• High: 80.7 FPS average
• Ultra: 55 FPS average

Three of four presets are playable. Ultra falls 5 frames short of 60, which puts it in borderline territory rather than outright unplayable territory, but the recorded verdict does not count it as playable.

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 79.6 FPS average
• Medium: 60.6 FPS average
• High: 51.6 FPS average
• Ultra: 33.6 FPS average

4K is where the RTX 2060 runs out of headroom. Medium squeaks past 60 by a fraction of a frame, while High drops well under and Ultra collapses to roughly half the playable threshold.

CPU and GPU Roles

The GPU is the component doing all the work in this game, and the scaling data makes that unambiguous. From 1080p Low to 4K Ultra, average frame rate falls from 176 to 33.6, a steady decline tied directly to pixel count and preset load. That pattern is characteristic of GPU-bound behavior: as resolution climbs, frame rate drops in a consistent, predictable arc.

The CPU's contribution is effectively invisible. The Ryzen 9 9900X sits in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs in the database, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32172, a single-core score of 2253, and a Geekbench multi-core score of 22174. Downfall, released in 2016, predates this hardware by a wide margin and simply cannot stress a 12-core, 24-thread Zen 5 processor. Nothing in the measured data suggests the CPU limits frame rate at any resolution or preset. If frame rate is short, the fix is a settings reduction or a lower resolution, not a processor swap.

The per-preset scaling tells the same story from the other direction. At a fixed 1440p, moving from Ultra to High recovers roughly 26 FPS, and moving from High to Low recovers another 42. Those are GPU-side gains from reduced render load, not CPU-side improvements.

How This Combo Ranks

Within Downfall specifically, this pairing ranks 2935 out of 3716 tested combinations in the database. That places it in the bottom fifth of the field, which reflects the RTX 2060's standing rather than the CPU's. The GPU sits in the 58th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 15290, while the CPU sits in the 92nd percentile with an average benchmark score of 57498. The rank is a GPU ceiling: the 9900X could feed a far faster card in this game, and the combination's position would rise accordingly.

Practically, this means the pairing leaves performance on the table. Anyone running this configuration in Downfall is limited by a card that is now end-of-life, and the ranking data makes that limitation the single biggest lever for improvement.

Similar Performance Alternatives

For the GPU, the nearest rivals by aggregate score are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, the AMD Radeon 680M, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, and the AMD Radeon RX 7600. The GTX 580's average score of 15283 is a dead match for the RTX 2060's 15290, a difference of effectively zero percent. The Radeon 680M sits 0.1 percent behind, the RTX 3050 OEM 0.6 percent behind, and the RX 7600 0.8 percent behind. Swapping to any of these cards would produce essentially identical Downfall frame rates. That the GTX 580, a much older card, matches the aggregate score is a quirk of the composite benchmark mix, but the database treats them as equals overall.

For the CPU, the nearest rivals are the AMD EPYC 9015, the AMD EPYC 7313, the Intel Core i9-14900, and the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M. The EPYC 9015's average score of 57555 is 0.1 percent ahead of the 9900X's 57498, the EPYC 7313 is 0.2 percent behind, the i9-14900 is 1.1 percent ahead, and the Xeon Platinum 8260M is 1.4 percent ahead. Since Downfall does not stress the 9900X at all, any of these processors would deliver identical in-game results. The choice among them matters for other workloads, not for this game.

FAQ

Q: Can the Ryzen 9 9900X + RTX 2060 run Downfall at 60 FPS?

A: Yes at 1080p on every preset (Ultra averages 73.5 FPS), at 1440p on Low, Medium, and High (High averages 80.7 FPS), and at 4K on Low and Medium (Medium averages 60.6 FPS).

Q: What is the best playable setting at each resolution?

A: Per the database verdict: Ultra at 1080p with a 73.5 FPS average, High at 1440p with 80.7 FPS, and Medium at 4K with 60.6 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU. Frame rates scale down consistently as resolution and preset load rise, which is GPU-bound behavior, and the 92nd-percentile 9900X is never the limiter in a 2016 title.

Q: How close is 1440p Ultra to being playable?

A: It averages 55 FPS, which is 5 frames under the 60 FPS threshold. Dropping one preset to High raises the average to 80.7 FPS.

Q: Would replacing the GPU with a Radeon RX 7600 change the results?

A: Not meaningfully for this game's frame rates. The RX 7600's aggregate score is 0.8 percent behind the RTX 2060's in the database, placing them in the same performance bracket.

Q: Does this pairing rank well against other tested combinations in Downfall?

A: No. It ranks 2935 of 3716 combos, in the bottom fifth, because the RTX 2060 (58th GPU percentile) caps performance while the 9900X (92nd CPU percentile) has unused headroom.

The Verdict

Yes, this PC can run Downfall. The measured data supports clear conclusions per resolution:

• 1920x1080: playable on all four presets, topping out at Ultra with a 73.5 FPS average.
• 2560x1440: playable on Low, Medium, and High, with High delivering 80.7 FPS. Ultra at 55 FPS falls short of 60.
• 3840x2160: playable only on Low and Medium, with Medium at 60.6 FPS sitting right at the threshold. High and Ultra do not clear it.

The sensible configuration for this hardware is 1440p at High settings, which balances image quality against a comfortable 80.7 FPS average. 1080p Ultra also works if maximum detail matters more than resolution. For a smooth experience at 4K, the data indicates this GPU is the wrong tool: a settings drop to Medium is mandatory, and even then the margin above the playable threshold is under one frame. The Ryzen 9 9900X is never in question; every limitation recorded here belongs to the RTX 2060.