Downfall

The data for Downfall, a horror title from early 2016, reveals a massive performance headroom for the Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination. This pairing is not merely sufficient; it is overwhelmingly powerful for this game, delivering frame rates that far exceed standard display refresh rates at every tested setting. The benchmark results paint a picture of a system that will never be challenged by this title, pushing the question from "can it run it?" to "how much visual fidelity can be sacrificed for speed?"

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this system in Downfall?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 400 FPS at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset. This drops to 285 FPS at 2560x1440 and 178 FPS at 3840x2160 with the same Low preset.

Q: Can this system maintain a 60 FPS experience at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, the data shows that all four tested settings presets at 3840x2160—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—produce average frame rates above the 60 FPS playable threshold. The lowest average is 74 FPS at the Ultra preset.

Q: What is the performance difference between the High and Ultra presets at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves an average of 191 FPS, while the Ultra preset achieves an average of 120 FPS. This represents a 71 FPS drop, or approximately 37%, when moving to the most demanding preset.

Q: How does the system's performance scale when moving from 1080p to 1440p and then to 4K?

A: At the Ultra preset, the average frame rate drops from 168 FPS at 1920x1080 to 120 FPS at 2560x1440, a 48 FPS decrease. Moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160, the average drops further from 120 FPS to 74 FPS, a 46 FPS decrease. The scaling is consistent, with each resolution step up costing roughly 45-48 FPS at the Ultra preset.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate recorded in the benchmark data?

A: The only minimum frame rate data points provided are for the Medium preset. The lowest minimum is 123 FPS at 3840x2160, followed by 198 FPS at 2560x1440, and 278 FPS at 1920x1080.

Q: How does this combo rank among other tested systems for Downfall?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination ranks 230th out of 3,716 tested combos for this game, placing it in the top 6.2% of all systems benchmarked.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data for Downfall shows a fascinating dynamic between the CPU and GPU, particularly when analyzing the scaling across resolutions. The game appears to become increasingly GPU-bound as resolution increases, which is typical for a title from this era. At 1920x1080, the system achieves an average of 400 FPS on Low settings. This extraordinarily high frame rate suggests that the CPU, with its 12 cores and 20 threads, is providing ample physics and game logic processing power, but the GPU is likely the limiting factor even here, given the sheer speed of the i7-12700KF.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset average drops to 285 FPS. This 115 FPS reduction (a 28.75% decrease) when pixel count increases by 78% indicates that the RTX 4080 is now having to work significantly harder to fill those extra pixels, but it still has massive headroom. The most telling evidence of GPU dominance comes at 3840x2160. At this 4K resolution, the Low preset yields 178 FPS, and the Ultra preset yields 74 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 104 FPS, which is a substantial 58.4% performance hit. This large spread demonstrates that the GPU's rendering workload is the primary variable affecting performance at this resolution.

The CPU's role is less pronounced in the scaling data. At 1080p, the difference between Low (400 FPS) and Ultra (168 FPS) is 232 FPS. At 1440p, this spread narrows to 165 FPS (285 vs 120). At 4K, the spread narrows further to 104 FPS (178 vs 74). This narrowing spread as resolution increases is a classic sign of the GPU becoming the bottleneck. The i7-12700KF is clearly capable of feeding the RTX 4080 at all settings, but at 4K, the GPU is working so hard on pixel shading that the CPU's influence on the final frame rate diminishes. The data suggests that for users with high-refresh-rate 1080p or 1440p monitors, the CPU is doing significant work to maintain those ultra-high frame rates, while at 4K, the GPU is the definitive performance arbiter.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the system's capabilities across three resolutions and four settings presets.

1920x1080: The lowest average frame rate recorded at this resolution is 168 FPS on the Ultra preset. The High preset delivers 268 FPS, while Medium delivers 327 FPS with a minimum of 278 FPS and a maximum of 376 FPS. The Low preset reaches an extraordinary 400 FPS average. The performance gap between Low and Ultra is 232 FPS, indicating a 58% performance cost for the highest visual quality settings.

2560x1440: At this resolution, the Ultra preset still maintains a high average of 120 FPS. The High preset achieves 191 FPS, and the Medium preset delivers 233 FPS with a minimum of 198 FPS and a maximum of 268 FPS. The Low preset averages 285 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 165 FPS, a 57.9% reduction, showing that the settings preset has a similar proportional impact as at 1080p, just with lower absolute numbers.

3840x2160: This is where the system begins to show some strain, though it remains far above playable thresholds. The Ultra preset averages 74 FPS. The High preset is significantly faster at 119 FPS, and the Medium preset reaches 145 FPS with a minimum of 123 FPS and a maximum of 167 FPS. The Low preset achieves 178 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra here is 104 FPS, a 58.4% reduction, which is consistent with the other resolutions. The minimum frame rate data for Medium at 4K (123 FPS) is notably higher than the Ultra average at the same resolution, highlighting the performance cost of the Ultra preset.

The Verdict

The verdict is unambiguous: this system can run Downfall with exceptional ease. According to the `verdictByResolution` data, all four settings presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—are considered playable at every tested resolution, as they all clear the 60 FPS playable threshold.

At 1920x1080, the system delivers a minimum of 168 FPS on Ultra, which is nearly three times the playable threshold. This makes it ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset still achieves 120 FPS, comfortably above 60 FPS and suitable for 120Hz displays. Even at 3840x2160, the most demanding scenario, the Ultra preset maintains a 74 FPS average, which is above the 60 FPS threshold and playable on standard 60Hz 4K displays. The data shows that this combination does not merely run the game; it obliterates the performance requirements at every resolution and settings combination, making it a future-proof choice for this title and likely similar horror games from the same era.

Best Settings per Resolution

The "best settings" are defined as the most demanding preset that maintains an average frame rate at or above 60 FPS. Based on the `verdictByResolution` data, the best settings are as follows:

• 1920x1080: The Ultra preset is the best, achieving an average of 168 FPS. This allows for maximum visual quality with frame rates that are still more than double the 60 FPS threshold.
• 2560x1440: The Ultra preset is again the best, with an average of 120 FPS. This provides a high-fidelity experience that is perfectly suited for 120Hz 1440p monitors.
• 3840x2160: The Ultra preset is the best, with an average of 74 FPS. While this is the lowest average frame rate in the dataset, it remains comfortably above the 60 FPS playable threshold, allowing for the highest visual fidelity at 4K resolution.

In all cases, the user can select the Ultra preset and enjoy the game without compromise. The system's performance is so robust that there is no need to consider lower presets for the sake of playability.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested hardware combinations for Downfall, this system ranks 230th out of 3,716 total combos. This places it in the 94th percentile of all tested systems, indicating that it outperforms the vast majority of configurations. The rank of 230 suggests that while there are 229 other combos that deliver higher average frame rates, they are likely composed of more recent, top-tier components such as the RTX 4090 or newer Intel Core i9 processors. For the specific pairing of a 12th-gen Core i7 and an RTX 4080, this rank reflects a high-performance system that is in the upper echelon of gaming hardware. This ranking reflects the balance between the i7-12700KF's strong multi-threaded capabilities and the RTX 4080's formidable rasterization performance, which together deliver exceptional results in this horror title.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The `nearestRivals` data for both the CPU and GPU provides insight into what other hardware would deliver similar performance in this system.

For the Intel Core i7-12700KF, the closest performance match is the Intel Core i7-12700K, which has an average benchmark score of 35,287, a mere 0.2% lower than the 12700KF's 35,365. This means a system with the 12700K would perform virtually identically in Downfall. The Intel Core i5-13600T also scores very close, with an average of 35,305, just 0.2% higher. Interestingly, the Intel Core i7-13700T scores 35,403, which is 0.1% lower, and the Intel Core 5 213PE scores 35,428, 0.2% higher. These four CPUs represent a tight performance cluster, and swapping the 12700KF for any of them would result in negligible changes in game performance, likely within a margin of error.

For the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, the closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, with an average score of 54,209, just 0.1% higher. This is unsurprising given they are from the same generation and architecture. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54,828, which is 1.1% higher, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55,698, a 2.6% difference. The AMD Radeon 8060S scores 55,757, 2.7% higher. These deltas are all small, meaning that a system with any of these GPUs paired with the i7-12700KF would produce very similar frame rates in Downfall. The data suggests that users with an RTX 4080 SUPER would see a marginal performance gain, while those with the AMD options might see a slightly larger, but still minor, improvement. The practical takeaway is that this performance tier is tightly packed, and component choices within this group will not dramatically alter the Downfall experience.