Downfall

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 147th out of 1,741 tested combos for Downfall, placing it in the top 8.4% of all configurations. This is a dominant pairing for this horror title, driven almost entirely by the RTX 4090's immense rasterization power. The data shows that the CPU, while a solid mid-range part from 2019, becomes a secondary factor at lower resolutions, where the GPU is so fast that frame rates are pushed into territory where the processor's single-thread performance limits the ceiling. At 4K, however, the GPU's workload becomes so heavy that the combo delivers a very playable experience across all settings, with the CPU bottleneck largely evaporating.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 147 out of 1,741 tested combinations is a strong result, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all tested systems. This high standing is almost entirely attributable to the GPU, which sits in the 91st percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU sits in the 76th percentile. The pairing is heavily skewed towards graphics performance; the RTX 4090 is an end-of-life flagship with an average benchmark score of 66,473, while the Ryzen 5 3600 is a more modest part with an average score of 18,129. In the context of Downfall, a horror game that relies on atmosphere and visual fidelity, the GPU's dominance is the deciding factor for the overall ranking. The CPU's percentile rank is not insignificant, but it is clear that the GPU is the component pulling the combo to the top tier of the database.

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 a bottleneck for the RTX 4090 in Downfall?

A: The data suggests it can be, but only at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 284.5 FPS, while at 4K Low it drops to 195.8 FPS. This 31% drop indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is likely limiting the frame rate, preventing the GPU from reaching even higher numbers.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maximize frame rate?

A: If raw frame rate is the goal, 1080p is the clear winner. The measured data shows the highest average FPS of 284.5 at 1080p Low, and even at 1080p Ultra the combo maintains 188.4 FPS, which is higher than the 4K High result of 131.4 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4090's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 4090's average benchmark score of 66,473 is slightly below the NVIDIA Tesla T4's score of 66,733, a delta of -0.4%. It is also 0.5% behind the NVIDIA Tesla P40, but 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56.

Q: What is the CPU's multi-threaded capability like for this game?

A: The Ryzen 5 3600 has 6 cores and 12 threads. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 15,045, and its Passmark multithread score is 17,700. These results indicate it has sufficient multi-threading headroom for a game like Downfall, which does not appear to be heavily thread-dependent based on the FPS scaling.

Q: Does the game run better on High or Medium settings at 1440p?

A: The data shows that Medium settings at 2560x1440 yield an average of 239.7 FPS, which is significantly higher than the 210.5 FPS on High settings. This suggests that the visual uplift from High may not justify the performance cost.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of the GPU and why does it matter?

A: The RTX 4090 has a memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s, paired with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus. This immense bandwidth is crucial for feeding the 16,384 shading units at 4K resolution, where the demand for texture data is highest.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic pattern of a GPU-bound system at higher resolutions and a CPU-bound system at lower resolutions. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 284.5 FPS at 1080p to 258.6 FPS at 1440p, a modest 9% reduction, and then to 195.8 FPS at 4K, a further 24% reduction. This steeper drop at 4K shows the GPU is beginning to work harder. However, at Ultra settings, the scaling is more dramatic: 188.4 FPS at 1080p, 133.2 FPS at 1440p, and 82.3 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop of 29% is substantial and indicates that the CPU is no longer the primary limiter at 1080p Ultra; instead, the GPU is taking on more work. The 4K Ultra result of 82.3 FPS is still well above the 60 FPS threshold, confirming that the RTX 4090 is the dominant component, but the scaling clearly shows it is being stressed more at higher resolutions and settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to High settings as the sweet spot for balancing visual quality and performance, particularly at 4K. At 3840x2160, High settings produce an average of 131.4 FPS, which is a 60% improvement over the 82.3 FPS seen at Ultra, while still offering a significant visual upgrade over Medium's 162.9 FPS. For players with high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors, High settings at 2560x1440 deliver 210.5 FPS, which is an excellent experience. Ultra settings at 1440p, at 133.2 FPS, are also viable, but the drop from High is noticeable. At 1080p, the combo is so powerful that even Ultra settings at 188.4 FPS are far beyond what most displays can handle, making High or Medium the most sensible choices to reduce unnecessary GPU load. The data does not support using Low settings on this hardware, as the visual compromise is extreme and the frame rate gains are marginal at 1440p and 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 195.8 FPS on Low, 162.9 FPS on Medium, 131.4 FPS on High, and 82.3 FPS on Ultra. This shows a clear progression where each step up in quality costs a significant number of frames, with the jump from High to Ultra being the most punishing at a 37% performance hit.

At 2560x1440, the results are 258.6 FPS on Low, 239.7 FPS on Medium, 210.5 FPS on High, and 133.2 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Medium and High is 12%, while the gap between High and Ultra is 37%, mirroring the 4K scaling pattern. The 1440p results show that the CPU is less of a factor here, as the frame rates are substantially higher than at 4K.

At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 284.5 FPS on Low, 264.7 FPS on Medium, 247.8 FPS on High, and 188.4 FPS on Ultra. The differences between Low, Medium, and High are small, indicating that the CPU is starting to limit the maximum frame rate. The drop from High to Ultra is 24%, which is more pronounced and suggests the GPU is still doing significant work even at 1080p.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Zen 2 architecture, codenamed Matisse. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its performance in this game is best understood through its single-thread and multi-thread scores. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,124 and the Passmark single-thread score of 2,562 are moderate for its generation. The data from Downfall shows that at 1080p, the frame rates are high but do not scale dramatically between Low and High settings, which is a hallmark of a CPU limitation. The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache is adequate, but its 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth is a potential constraint when trying to feed the RTX 4090 at very high frame rates. In contrast, its multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15,045, is more than sufficient for this title, as it does not appear to be a heavily threaded workload. The CPU's percentile rank of 76 places it above average, but it is clearly the weaker link in this pairing, holding back the GPU at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the definitive performance driver in this combo. Its architecture, Ada Lovelace, is built on a 5 nm process and includes 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units. The GPU's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides a staggering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for the high-resolution textures in Downfall. The benchmark results show that the GPU is the primary reason for the combo's high rank. Its Passmark G3D score of 38,194 and average benchmark score of 66,473 put it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs. In the measured FPS data, the GPU's power is evident in the 4K results, where even at High settings it maintains 131.4 FPS. The RTX 4090's 128 ray tracing cores are present, but the game's performance is more dependent on raw rasterization power, which the card has in abundance via its 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 throughput. The data indicates that the GPU is so powerful that it is only truly stressed at 4K Ultra, where the frame rate drops to 82.3 FPS.