Downfall

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run Downfall at 1920x1080?

A: Yes. The recorded data shows playable performance at High, Low, and Medium settings. The High preset averages 64 FPS, Low runs at 96 FPS, and Medium sits at 78 FPS. Ultra settings drop to 40 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What is the best settings preset at 2560x1440?

A: Low is the only playable option at this resolution. The average FPS at Low is 68, which clears the 60 FPS threshold. Medium averages 56 FPS, High averages 46 FPS, and Ultra averages 29 FPS, none of which meet the playability standard.

Q: Is 3840x2160 playable with this hardware?

A: No. None of the four tested presets at 4K reach 60 FPS. The best result is Low at 43 FPS, followed by Medium at 35 FPS, High at 29 FPS, and Ultra at 18 FPS. The database lists no playable settings for this resolution.

Q: How does the Intel Core i9-14900K compare to its nearest rival processors?

A: The i9-14900K has an average benchmark score of 79097. The Intel Core i9-14900KF scores 79371, which is 0.3% higher. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus scores 79574, 0.6% higher. The AMD EPYC 7413 scores 80041, 1.2% higher. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 scores 77740, which is 1.7% lower.

Q: What is the Intel Arc B370's performance ranking among all GPUs?

A: The Arc B370 sits in the 5th percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score from 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 is 1184. The nearest rival, the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, scores 1186, a 0.2% difference.

Q: Which component is the bottleneck for this game?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU is a high-end 24-core, 32-thread processor with a 95th percentile ranking, while the GPU sits in the 5th percentile. Benchmark results show that frame rates scale strongly with resolution changes, which is characteristic of GPU-bound performance.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data shows a clear division of labor in this pairing. The Intel Core i9-14900K is a flagship desktop processor with 24 cores, 32 threads, and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz. It ranks in the 95th percentile of all CPUs in the database, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39399.5 and a single-core score of 2262.5. The Intel Arc B370, by contrast, is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture with 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster operations pipelines. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 1184, placing it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs.

For Downfall, a horror game released in 2016, the GPU dictates the outcome. The recorded frame rates collapse as resolution increases, which is the signature of a graphics-bound workload. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average is 96 FPS. At 2560x1440 with Low settings, the average drops to 68 FPS. At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the average falls to 43 FPS. That is a 55% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at the same preset, a scaling pattern that points squarely at the graphics pipeline rather than the CPU.

The CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions where the GPU has less work per frame. At 1080p Low, the system produces 96 FPS, and at 1080p Medium, it produces 78 FPS. The 18 FPS gap between Low and Medium at 1080p shows that the CPU can feed the GPU fast enough to exploit lower graphics loads. However, the i9-14900K's immense multi-threading capability, demonstrated by a PassMark multi-thread score of 58674, is largely irrelevant for this title. Downfall does not appear to scale with the 24-core, 32-thread configuration; the performance ceiling is the Arc B370's fill rate and shader throughput.

The verdict by resolution confirms the GPU bottleneck. At 2560x1440, only Low settings clear 60 FPS, with an average of 68 FPS. At 1920x1080, High, Low, and Medium all clear 60 FPS, with High at 64 FPS, Low at 96 FPS, and Medium at 78 FPS. At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS. The pattern is monotonic: each resolution step down roughly doubles the playable settings options, which is exactly what a GPU-limited system should show when the CPU has ample headroom.

The i9-14900K's 125 W TDP and integrated UHD Graphics 770 are not factors in this measurement; the Arc B370 operates as the primary display adapter. The CPU's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support provide sufficient bandwidth for the game's data streaming, but the measured FPS deltas between presets at each resolution are far larger than any CPU-side variance could explain. For example, at 3840x2160, the spread from Ultra (18 FPS) to Low (43 FPS) is 25 FPS, a 139% improvement from the lowest to the highest preset. At 1920x1080, the same spread is 56 FPS (40 to 96), a 140% improvement. The consistency of these ratios across resolutions reinforces that the GPU's shading and texture units are the binding constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the system records its lowest performance tier. Ultra settings produce an average of 18 FPS. High settings improve to 29 FPS. Medium settings average 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. Low settings reach an average of 43 FPS. The database records no minimum or maximum values for Ultra, High, or Low at this resolution, indicating the frame time variance is either too wide or too narrow to report meaningful bounds. The Medium preset's 30 to 40 FPS range shows a 10 FPS spread, which is moderate for a horror title where sudden scene changes can stress the renderer.

At 2560x1440, the performance improves substantially. Low settings average 68 FPS, which is the only playable preset at this resolution according to the verdict data. Medium settings average 56 FPS with a minimum of 48 FPS and a maximum of 64 FPS. The 48 FPS minimum is notable because it falls below the 60 FPS threshold even though the average does not. High settings average 46 FPS. Ultra settings average 29 FPS. The transition from 4K to 1440p yields a 25 FPS gain at Low settings (43 to 68), a 21 FPS gain at Medium (35 to 56), a 17 FPS gain at High (29 to 46), and an 11 FPS gain at Ultra (18 to 29). The diminishing gains at higher presets suggest that Ultra's extra effects, such as shadows and reflections, consume most of the GPU's available resources regardless of resolution.

At 1920x1080, the system reaches its playable envelope. Low settings average 96 FPS, the highest recorded value in the entire dataset. Medium settings average 78 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS and a maximum of 90 FPS. High settings average 64 FPS. Ultra settings average 40 FPS. The verdict data lists High, Low, and Medium as playable, with High designated as the best setting at an average of 64 FPS. The Medium preset's 67 FPS minimum is the only recorded minimum that stays above the 60 FPS threshold at any resolution, which indicates consistent frame pacing. The 26 FPS gap between Low and High at 1080p (96 to 64) is smaller than the 53 FPS gap between Low and Ultra (96 to 40), showing that the highest preset's cost is disproportionately large.

The progression across resolutions at each preset follows a consistent pattern. Low settings: 96 FPS at 1080p, 68 FPS at 1440p, 43 FPS at 4K. Medium settings: 78 FPS at 1080p, 56 FPS at 1440p, 35 FPS at 4K. High settings: 64 FPS at 1080p, 46 FPS at 1440p, 29 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings: 40 FPS at 1080p, 29 FPS at 1440p, 18 FPS at 4K. The resolution scaling factor from 1080p to 4K is roughly 2.25x in pixel count, and the measured FPS drops by approximately 55% at Low, 55% at Medium, 55% at High, and 55% at Ultra. This near-uniform scaling is a textbook example of a pixel-bound renderer, where the GPU's fill rate, rated at 48.00 GPixel/s, is the primary constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i9-14900K and Intel Arc B370 ranks 3429 out of 3716 tested combos for Downfall in the database. That places it in the bottom 8% of all tested configurations. The rank reflects the GPU's low absolute performance, not the CPU's capability. The i9-14900K alone ranks in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, while the Arc B370 ranks in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. The combination of a top-tier processor with a bottom-tier graphics solution creates a lopsided system that underperforms in GPU-bound titles like Downfall.

The rank of 3429 means that 287 other tested combos perform worse. Those inferior combinations likely pair even weaker GPUs with less capable CPUs, but for this game, the GPU is the dominant factor. The recorded frame rates at 4K, where the system averages between 18 and 43 FPS depending on preset, are consistent with a GPU that has only 6.144 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 20 ROPs. The texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s are modest figures that cap the system's ability to fill the screen with detailed horror environments.

Compared to the broader database, the combo's percentile ranking is low, but the CPU's headroom means that any GPU upgrade would dramatically shift the rank. The data shows that the i9-14900K's PassMark single-thread score of 4697 and Cinebench R15 single-core score of 324.5 are more than sufficient for the game's CPU demands. The bottleneck is entirely on the graphics side, as evidenced by the fact that the system cannot maintain 60 FPS at 1440p High (46 FPS) or 1080p Ultra (40 FPS), despite the CPU's multi-core score being in the top 5% of all processors.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The Intel Arc B370's nearest rivals in the database are all older discrete or integrated GPUs with similar 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 scores. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 scores 1186, which is 0.2% higher than the Arc B370's 1184. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 scores 1190, 0.5% higher. The AMD Radeon HD 7650M scores 1192, 0.7% higher. The AMD FirePro M2000 scores 1168, which is 1.4% lower. These four GPUs bracket the Arc B370's performance within a 2.1% range, meaning a system with any of these graphics solutions would produce nearly identical frame rates in Downfall, assuming the CPU is not the limiting factor.

On the CPU side, the Intel Core i9-14900K's nearest rivals are the Intel Core i9-14900KF (0.3% higher average score), Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus (0.6% higher), AMD EPYC 7413 (1.2% higher), and AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (1.7% lower). For Downfall, these CPU differences are immaterial because the game's performance is GPU-bound. A user with an i9-14900KF, which is the same chip without integrated graphics, would see virtually identical FPS. The AMD EPYC 7413, a server processor, would also deliver the same frame rates as long as the GPU remains the Arc B370 or its equivalent.

The practical takeaway from the rival data is that the GPU's nearest neighbors are all products from the early 2010s, indicating that the Arc B370's performance level is roughly a decade old. The ATI Radeon HD 5770, for example, was a mainstream discrete GPU from 2009, and its 0.5% higher benchmark score means it would perform identically in this title. The AMD Radeon HD 7650M, a mobile GPU from 2012, is 0.7% faster. Any of these alternatives would yield the same playable settings: 1080p High/Low/Medium at 60+ FPS, 1440p Low at 68 FPS, and no playable 4K options.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: this PC can run Downfall, but only at specific resolutions and presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers playable performance at High (64 FPS), Low (96 FPS), and Medium (78 FPS) settings. The best settings preset at 1080p is High, with an average of 64 FPS, which clears the 60 FPS threshold by a narrow margin. Ultra at 1080p drops to 40 FPS, which is unplayable by the database's standard.

At 2560x1440, the only playable preset is Low, with an average of 68 FPS. Medium averages 56 FPS, which is 4 FPS short of the threshold, and the recorded minimum of 48 FPS confirms that frame drops are common. High at 1440p averages 46 FPS, and Ultra averages 29 FPS. Neither is close to playable.

At 3840x2160, no preset is playable. The best result is Low at 43 FPS, followed by Medium at 35 FPS, High at 29 FPS, and Ultra at 18 FPS. The verdict data lists no playable settings for 4K, which is consistent with the GPU's 5th percentile ranking and its 6.144 TFLOPS FP32 throughput.

The Intel Core i9-14900K is not the issue. Its 95th percentile CPU ranking, 24 cores, 32 threads, and 6.00 GHz boost clock provide far more processing power than Downfall requires. The system's performance is entirely constrained by the Intel Arc B370, an integrated GPU with 25 W TDP and system-shared memory. Users seeking a smooth experience at 1080p should stick with High settings, where the 64 FPS average leaves a small but real buffer above the 60 FPS line. For 1440p, Low settings are the only viable option, and even then, the 68 FPS average is close to the edge. At 4K, the hardware simply does not have enough graphics throughput, and no settings adjustment will change that conclusion.