Downfall

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the Intel Arc B370 presents a sharply split picture in Downfall. At 1080p, the combo delivers smooth, playable frame rates across most presets. At 1440p, only the lowest preset clears the 60 FPS threshold. At 4K, no settings configuration reaches playable performance. These results come from measured data recorded in the database, not from theoretical estimates. The following analysis breaks down exactly what the measurements show.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The recorded data for this combination in Downfall covers three resolutions and four quality presets. The 1920x1080 results are the strongest. At Low settings, the average frame rate reaches 96 FPS. This is the highest average recorded across any resolution and preset combination for this system. Moving to Medium, the average drops to 78 FPS, with a minimum of 67 FPS and a maximum of 90 FPS. High settings produce a 64 FPS average. Ultra is the outlier at 1080p, falling to 40 FPS average, which sits well below the 60 FPS playable threshold. The pattern is clear: at 1080p, the system handles Low, Medium, and High presets with headroom, but Ultra demands more than the hardware can deliver.

At 2560x1440, the numbers decline substantially. Low settings yield a 68 FPS average, which is still above the 60 FPS line. Medium drops to 56 FPS average, with a minimum of 48 FPS and a maximum of 64 FPS. High falls further to 46 FPS average. Ultra collapses to 29 FPS average. The delta between Low and Medium at 1440p is 12 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 10 FPS. The step from High to Ultra is a severe 17 FPS loss, indicating that the Ultra preset introduces rendering demands that this GPU cannot handle at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly below playability. Low settings average 43 FPS. Medium averages 35 FPS, with a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. High averages 29 FPS. Ultra averages 18 FPS. The scaling from Low to Medium at 4K is an 8 FPS drop, from Medium to High is 6 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 11 FPS. Notably, the 4K Low average of 43 FPS is actually lower than the 1440p Ultra average of 29 FPS, which shows that resolution has a larger impact on performance than preset selection once the resolution reaches 4K. The minimum and maximum values are only recorded for Medium presets, so those specific bounds are available only at 1440p Medium (48 to 64 FPS) and 4K Medium (30 to 40 FPS).

The overall trend across all measurements shows that preset changes at a fixed resolution produce predictable step downs, but resolution changes produce much larger swings. For instance, moving from 1080p High (64 FPS) to 1440p High (46 FPS) costs 18 FPS, while moving from 1440p High to 4K High (29 FPS) costs another 17 FPS. The system’s performance envelope is narrow enough that only the lowest resolution and lower presets remain comfortable.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The database places the Intel Core i7-12700K at the 84th percentile among all tested CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35287. Its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark data are all within a fraction of a percent. The Intel Core i5-13600T scores 35305, which is 0.1 percent lower. The Intel Core i7-12700KF scores 35365, 0.2 percent lower. The Intel Core i7-13700T scores 35403, 0.3 percent lower. The Intel Core 5 213PE scores 35428, 0.4 percent lower. These deltas are negligible, meaning any of these CPUs would produce nearly identical frame rates in Downfall when paired with the same GPU. The 12700K’s 12 cores, 20 threads, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache are effectively matched by these alternatives in terms of overall compute output.

The Intel Arc B370 sits at the 5th percentile among all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 1184. Its nearest rivals are older and significantly less capable in modern workloads. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 scores 1186, 0.2 percent higher. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 scores 1190, 0.5 percent higher. The AMD Radeon HD 7650M scores 1192, 0.7 percent higher. The AMD FirePro M2000 scores 1168, 1.4 percent lower. These are not direct modern equivalents, but the data indicates that the Arc B370’s raw 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places it in the same performance band as these legacy parts. For Downfall specifically, the measured FPS figures are the authoritative source, but users coming from any of these rival GPUs would see similar frame rates.

What this means for a buyer or analyst is that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this pairing. The 12700K’s nearest rivals all score within 0.4 percent, so swapping in any of those CPUs would not move the FPS numbers meaningfully. The GPU is far more constrained, sitting at the 5th percentile, and its rivals are all in a tight band around 1184 to 1192. The FPS results in Downfall are therefore almost entirely a function of the Arc B370’s capabilities, with the 12700K providing ample headroom.

CPU and GPU Roles

The recorded data allows a clear separation of CPU and GPU influence by examining how FPS scales with resolution and preset. At 1080p Low, the system averages 96 FPS. At 1440p Low, it averages 68 FPS. At 4K Low, it averages 43 FPS. This is a monotonic drop of 28 FPS and then 25 FPS as resolution increases. Since the CPU workload per frame does not change with resolution in a meaningful way for a game like Downfall, this steep decline points to the GPU being the dominant constraint. The Arc B370’s shared memory architecture and relatively low shading unit count (1280 shading units, 40 TMUs, 20 ROPs) simply cannot sustain high fill rates at larger pixel counts.

Preset scaling reinforces this. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 56 FPS (96 to 40). At 1440p, the difference is 39 FPS (68 to 29). At 4K, the difference is 25 FPS (43 to 18). The absolute FPS loss from presets shrinks as resolution rises, which indicates that at 4K the GPU is already saturated by resolution alone, leaving little additional headroom for preset complexity to matter. At 1080p, the GPU has spare throughput, so raising presets consumes that spare capacity and produces large FPS swings. This behavior is classic GPU-bound scaling.

The CPU’s role is minimal across these measurements. The 12700K has a multi-thread benchmark score of 34404 in PassMark and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 19784. For a 2016 horror game like Downfall, these figures are far beyond what the title requires. The single-thread performance is also strong, with a PassMark single-thread score of 4013 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2308. No resolution or preset combination in the recorded data shows a bottleneck that would indicate CPU limitation. The fact that 1080p Low reaches 96 FPS while 4K Low only reaches 43 FPS, with the same CPU, confirms that the GPU is the limiting component at every resolution above 1080p, and even at 1080p the GPU is doing most of the work.

The integrated graphics on the 12700K, the UHD Graphics 770, is irrelevant here since the Arc B370 is a separate GPU. The Arc B370’s 25 W TDP and IGP slot width indicate it is designed for low-power mobile or embedded contexts, not desktop gaming. That explains why its performance in Downfall is modest. The CPU’s 125 W TDP and desktop socket (Intel Socket 1700) are typical for a high-end processor, but the GPU’s constraints dominate the frame rate outcomes.

The Verdict

Using the playable threshold of 60 FPS, the recorded verdict is straightforward. At 3840x2160, no settings preset achieves 60 FPS. The best average at 4K is 43 FPS on Low, which is 17 FPS short of playable. Medium averages 35 FPS, High averages 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS. The verdict for 4K is clear: this system cannot run Downfall at a playable frame rate at that resolution, regardless of settings.

At 2560x1440, the data shows exactly one playable configuration: Low settings, which average 68 FPS. That is 8 FPS above the threshold. Medium falls to 56 FPS, which is below 60. High and Ultra are further below at 46 FPS and 29 FPS respectively. The verdict for 1440p is that the system can run the game only on the lowest preset, and even then the margin is modest.

At 1920x1080, the situation is much better. High settings average 64 FPS, which clears the threshold by 4 FPS. Medium averages 78 FPS, Low averages 96 FPS, and all three are playable. The verdict for 1080p is positive: the system can run Downfall at High preset with an average above 60 FPS. Ultra remains unplayable at 40 FPS.

So the overall verdict is conditional. The system is fully playable at 1080p with High settings, playable at 1440p only with Low settings, and not playable at 4K at all. Users targeting a consistent 60 FPS experience should stay at 1080p. The minimum FPS data available (67 FPS at 1080p Medium, 48 FPS at 1440p Medium, 30 FPS at 4K Medium) reinforces that even the playable configurations have some frame time variance, but the 1080p Medium minimum of 67 FPS is comfortably above the threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database’s ranking of tested CPU and GPU combinations for Downfall, this pairing sits at rank 3429 out of 3716 total combos. That places it in the bottom 8 percent of all tested systems. The rank reflects the Arc B370’s low GPU percentile (5th) dragging down what would otherwise be a strong CPU. The 12700K alone ranks at the 84th percentile among CPUs, but the combo rank is driven by the slower component.

The practical implication is that among the 3716 recorded combinations, only 287 performed worse than this setup. The combo’s 1080p High average of 64 FPS is above the playable threshold, but many other combinations in the database achieve higher frame rates at higher resolutions and presets. The rank is not a verdict on whether the game runs, since it does run at 1080p, but it is a measure of how this hardware compares to all other tested pairings. A user with this exact CPU and GPU should expect performance in the lower quartile of the database, consistent with the GPU’s 5th percentile standing.

The gap between CPU percentile (84) and GPU percentile (5) is 79 points, which is a wide imbalance. In gaming workloads, the GPU percentile is usually the better predictor of FPS, and that holds here. The combo rank of 3429 aligns much more closely with the GPU’s low percentile than with the CPU’s high percentile. For Downfall specifically, the game’s 2016 release date and horror genre do not demand state-of-the-art hardware, but the Arc B370’s modest shading resources still limit performance.

Best Settings per Resolution

For each resolution, the best settings are defined as the most demanding preset that maintains an average of at least 60 FPS. The database’s verdict fields confirm these selections.

At 1920x1080, High settings are the best playable preset, with an average of 64 FPS. Medium also clears the threshold at 78 FPS, and Low reaches 96 FPS, but High is the most demanding of the three that stay above 60. Ultra at 40 FPS is not playable. So the recommended configuration for 1080p is High, which provides a 4 FPS margin above the threshold. The minimum FPS at High is not recorded, so the average is the only metric, but the average is solid.

At 2560x1440, Low settings are the only playable preset, averaging 68 FPS. Medium at 56 FPS, High at 46 FPS, and Ultra at 29 FPS all fall short. Therefore, Low is both the best and only playable setting at 1440p. The 8 FPS margin above 60 is thinner than at 1080p High, but it is still above the line.

At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS. The best average is 43 FPS on Low, which is 17 FPS below the threshold. The database lists no playable settings and no best settings for 4K. Users at this resolution would have to accept sub-60 FPS performance, which contradicts the playable threshold, so the recommendation is to avoid 4K for this game with this hardware.

The data’s overall guidance is to run Downfall at 1080p with High settings. That yields 64 FPS average. If a user prefers higher frame rates, Low at 1080p gives 96 FPS, but High is the best balance of visual quality and performance that still clears 60 FPS. At 1440p, Low is the only option, and at 4K, the system should not be used for this game. The recorded measurements provide no headroom for future patches or driver updates, so users should treat these numbers as stable expectations.