Downfall

# Downfall with AMD Ryzen 5 5500 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti delivers a benchmark result that places this combo at rank 426 out of 1,741 tested combinations in Downfall, a horror title released in 2016. With measured frame rates spanning from 58.2 FPS at 4K Ultra to 310.5 FPS at 1080p Low, the dataset reveals a system that is heavily influenced by resolution and settings, with the GPU acting as the primary scaling factor while the CPU provides sufficient throughput for high-refresh-rate scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 211.1 FPS at 1920x1080 to 151.1 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 94.8 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 55.1% reduction in frame rate when moving from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the rendering workload scales significantly with pixel count. The jump from 1440p to 4K alone costs 56.3 FPS, a 37.3% drop, which is a steeper decline than the 60.0 FPS difference between 1080p and 1440p.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern is even more pronounced. The system achieves 310.5 FPS at 1080p, 220.2 FPS at 1440p, and 138.8 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K here is 55.3%, nearly identical to the High settings scenario, which suggests that the limiting component remains the same regardless of graphical fidelity. However, the absolute FPS values at Low settings are substantially higher, indicating that the GPU has headroom when pixel shading requirements are reduced.

The Ultra settings curve tells a different story. At 1080p Ultra, the average FPS is 132.6, dropping to 91.0 at 1440p and 58.2 at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest in the entire dataset, and the gap between Ultra and Medium at 4K is 53.6 FPS, which is larger than the gap between Medium and Low at the same resolution. This suggests that Ultra settings introduce a disproportionately heavy rendering load, likely from advanced lighting or shadow effects that stress the GPU's compute resources.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications align with the observed scaling behavior. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s. This memory configuration is well-suited for high-resolution textures, and the fact that 4K High achieves 94.8 FPS while 4K Ultra drops to 58.2 FPS indicates that the additional memory bandwidth is not the bottleneck at Ultra — rather, the shading and rasterization workload is. The GPU's 10,240 shading units and 112 ROPs, operating at a boost clock of 1665 MHz, provide a pixel rate of 186.5 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 532.8 GTexel/s.

The benchmark scores for the RTX 3080 Ti place it at the 83rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 41,224. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, scores 41,441, which is only 0.5% higher, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 is 0.9% ahead with a score of 41,610. This tight clustering suggests that the RTX 3080 Ti is operating near the top of its performance tier, and the measured FPS in Downfall reflects that positioning. The GPU's FP32 compute throughput of 34.10 TFLOPS is substantial, and the 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores provide additional capabilities that may be leveraged in this horror title's visual effects.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its 16 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are modest by modern standards, but the benchmark results show that the CPU is not the limiting factor in most Downfall scenarios. The CPU's average benchmark score of 20,875 places it at the 79th percentile among all CPUs, with its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12500, scoring 20,897 — a difference of just 0.1%.

The CPU's single-thread performance, as measured by the 3DMark single-thread test at 836 points and Cinebench R23 single-core at 2,319 points, is adequate for maintaining high frame rates. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 310.5 FPS, which is well beyond the refresh rate of most displays and indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU with enough draw calls to avoid stalling. The multi-threaded capabilities, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16,429 and a Passmark multithread score of 19,330, suggest that the 12 threads are sufficient for the game's engine, which is likely not heavily threaded given its 2016 release date.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ranks 426th out of 1,741 tested combinations in Downfall, placing it in the top 24.5% of all systems tested. This ranking is influenced by the GPU's strong performance, as the RTX 3080 Ti's 83rd percentile standing among GPUs is higher than the CPU's 79th percentile among CPUs. The gap between the combo's rank and the individual component percentiles suggests that the pairing is slightly suboptimal — a more powerful CPU would likely push the combination higher, given that the GPU appears to have headroom at lower resolutions.

At 1080p High, the system achieves 211.1 FPS, which is 79.3% higher than the 4K High result of 94.8 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is the primary scaling factor, and the CPU is not constraining performance at any resolution. The RTX 3080 Ti's nearest rival, the RTX 3090, scores only 0.5% higher in average benchmarks, so the FPS differences observed here would likely be minimal with a different GPU at the same tier. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12500, is within 0.1% of the Ryzen 5 5500's average score, meaning that swapping the CPU would have negligible impact on Downfall performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combo in Downfall?

A: The highest average FPS is 310.5, measured at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the RTX 3080 Ti compare to its nearest rival in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti has an average benchmark score of 41,224, while its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, scores 41,441 — a difference of 0.5% in favor of the RTX 3090.

Q: What is the impact of switching from High to Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops from 94.8 at High settings to 58.2 at Ultra settings, a reduction of 36.6 FPS or 38.6%.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p Low settings?

A: At 1080p Low, the system achieves 310.5 FPS, which is the highest result in the dataset. The GPU's 83rd percentile ranking versus the CPU's 79th percentile suggests the GPU is the stronger component, and the CPU is not limiting at this resolution.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 5500's benchmark score compare to the Intel Core i5-12500?

A: The Ryzen 5 5500 has an average benchmark score of 20,875, while the Intel Core i5-12500 scores 20,897, a difference of 0.1% in favor of the Intel part.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1440p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the system achieves 183.7 FPS at 2560x1440 and 111.8 FPS at 3840x2160, a difference of 71.9 FPS.