Downfall

# Downfall with AMD Ryzen 5 5600G + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

The pairing of AMD's Ryzen 5 5600G with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 produces a fascinating split personality in Downfall, a 2016 horror title that clearly favors GPU throughput at higher resolutions while exposing CPU limitations at 1080p. The data shows a combo that ranks 47th out of 1,741 tested configurations, placing it in the top 2.7% of all systems measured — an impressive result that nevertheless hides significant scaling asymmetries between resolution tiers. The RTX 5090, with its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, dominates the frame rate conversation, but the Ryzen 5 5600G's six Zen 3 cores and 16 MB of L3 cache become the bottleneck when pixel counts drop.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a distinctive pattern: dropping from 4K to 1440p yields massive gains, while the jump from 1440p to 1080p produces much smaller improvements. At Ultra settings, the 4K average sits at 84.7 FPS, rising to 134.6 FPS at 1440p — a 58.9% improvement. Moving further down to 1080p Ultra yields 192.6 FPS, a 43.1% gain over 1440p. This steepening curve suggests the GPU remains the primary driver even at lower resolutions, though the rate of improvement slows as the CPU begins to constrain frame delivery.

The Low settings row tells an even clearer story. At 4K Low, the combo delivers 201.2 FPS; at 1440p Low, it jumps to 317.7 FPS (a 57.9% gain); but at 1080p Low, it only reaches 356.1 FPS — just a 12.1% improvement over 1440p. This dramatic compression between 1440p and 1080p indicates the Ryzen 5 5600G's single-thread performance, which scores 872 in 3DMark single-thread and 2,365 in Cinebench R23 single-core, becomes the limiting factor when the RTX 5090 has fewer pixels to process. The CPU's 3.90 GHz base and 4.40 GHz boost clocks simply cannot feed frames fast enough to match the GPU's raw capability at 1080p.

Medium settings reinforce this interpretation. The spread from 4K Medium at 167.9 FPS to 1440p Medium at 267.7 FPS is a substantial 59.4% uplift, while 1080p Medium at 330.7 FPS represents only a 23.5% gain over 1440p. High settings show a similar but slightly less severe compression: 138.3 FPS at 4K, 222.1 FPS at 1440p (60.6% higher), and 306.4 FPS at 1080p (37.9% higher). The pattern across all settings is consistent — the RTX 5090's Blackwell architecture, with its 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, scales impressively from 4K to 1440p, but the 5600G's dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s and Gen 3 PCIe interface create a ceiling that no amount of GPU headroom can bypass.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which proves decisive in Downfall's higher-resolution presets. The 4K Ultra result of 84.7 FPS is notably lower than 4K High at 138.3 FPS — a 63.3% gap — suggesting that Ultra settings demand significantly more memory throughput and shading power. The GPU's 21,760 shading units and 680 texture mapping units deliver a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s, enabling the High preset to maintain playable frame rates even at 4K. The boost clock of 2,407 MHz, running against a 2,017 MHz base, provides the sustained frequency headroom needed for these demanding scenes.

Memory bandwidth becomes the differentiator between Medium and High at 4K. The jump from 167.9 FPS at Medium to 138.3 FPS at High represents a 21.4% cost for the additional visual fidelity, while the leap from High to Ultra (84.7 FPS) costs another 63.3% of performance. This non-linear scaling points to the GDDR7 memory's effective 28 Gbps speed being saturated by Ultra's texture and shadow workloads. At lower resolutions, memory bandwidth is less constrained, allowing the GPU's compute resources to shine — the 1440p High result of 222.1 FPS and 1080p High of 306.4 FPS demonstrate that the RTX 5090 can push well beyond 200 FPS when pixel count drops.

The GPU's 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores are present in the silicon, though Downfall's 2016 release predates widespread RT adoption, so their impact on these measured results is minimal. The FP32 throughput of 104.8 TFLOPS is the more relevant metric for this horror title's rasterization workload. The RTX 5090's percentile ranking of 94th among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84,306, places it just 0.1% ahead of the RTX 5090 D and 0.2% ahead of the RTX 5050 Mobile in synthetic tests — though in-game results show far greater separation from those rivals due to the 5090's memory subsystem advantage.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that High settings at 1440p offer the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At 222.1 FPS, the system delivers smooth, high-refresh-rate gameplay without the 63.3% performance penalty that Ultra imposes (134.6 FPS at 1440p). The gap between High and Medium at 1440p is 45.6 FPS (267.7 vs 222.1), meaning High costs 17% of the frame rate for what is typically a noticeable improvement in texture detail and shadow quality in horror titles.

For 4K displays, High settings at 138.3 FPS represent the sweet spot. Ultra drops to 84.7 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices 38.8% of the High preset's performance. The 4K Medium result of 167.9 FPS is tempting, but the 21.4% jump to High is worth the visual upgrade for a game that relies on atmosphere and lighting cues. At 1080p, High settings at 306.4 FPS are the recommended choice — Ultra at 192.6 FPS costs 37.1% of performance for marginal visual gains, and the CPU bottleneck at Low settings (356.1 FPS) means the extra frames provide no practical benefit on standard 60 Hz or 144 Hz monitors.

The Ultra preset appears poorly optimized for this pairing across all resolutions. The consistent 50-60% performance penalty versus High suggests that Downfall's Ultra settings include effects that disproportionately stress the Ryzen 5 5600G's memory controller or the GPU's geometry pipeline. Medium settings provide a solid fallback for users seeking higher frame rates, but the data indicates that High is the most efficient preset for this CPU-GPU combination.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce 356.1 FPS, Medium reaches 330.7 FPS, High manages 306.4 FPS, and Ultra drops to 192.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 163.5 FPS, representing a 54% reduction in performance at the highest preset. The 1080p results show clear CPU limitations — the jump from Low to Medium costs only 25.4 FPS (7.1%), while Medium to High costs 24.3 FPS (7.3%). These small deltas indicate that the 5600G's six cores are the binding constraint, not the GPU.

At 2560x1440, the scaling becomes more pronounced. Low delivers 317.7 FPS, Medium 267.7 FPS, High 222.1 FPS, and Ultra 134.6 FPS. The delta between Low and Medium is 50 FPS (15.7%), Medium to High is 45.6 FPS (17%), and High to Ultra is 87.5 FPS (39.4%). This wider spread shows the GPU beginning to assert its influence, with Ultra's demands on the 32 GB memory pool and 512-bit bus becoming evident. The 1440p results demonstrate that the RTX 5090 can maintain very high frame rates even with a mid-range CPU, provided the settings don't push into Ultra territory.

At 3840x2160, the GPU fully takes over. Low produces 201.2 FPS, Medium 167.9 FPS, High 138.3 FPS, and Ultra 84.7 FPS. The 4K Low result is particularly impressive, showing that even at maximum pixel count, the RTX 5090's 1.79 TB/s bandwidth can saturate the frame buffer. The step from Medium to High at 4K costs 29.6 FPS (17.6%), while High to Ultra costs 53.6 FPS (38.7%). The 4K Ultra result of 84.7 FPS is the only sub-100 FPS measurement in the entire dataset, confirming that this combo's limits are reached only at maximum resolution and maximum settings simultaneously.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 47 out of 1,741 tested configurations places it in the 97.3rd percentile of all systems measured in Downfall. This exceptional ranking is driven almost entirely by the RTX 5090's dominance — the GPU's average benchmark score of 84,306 and 94th percentile among all GPUs provide the foundation for these results. The Ryzen 5 5600G, with its 78th percentile among all CPUs and average score of 19,983, is the weaker link, yet it still delivers sufficient performance to avoid dragging the combo down more than it does.

Comparing the CPU to its nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 5600G's average score of 19,983 sits just 0.2% below the Intel Core i7-11800H's 20,024 and 0.2% below the AMD EPYC 7713P's 20,024. It edges out the Intel Core i7-11600H by 0.2% (19,949) and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX by 0.3% (19,928). These razor-thin margins in synthetic benchmarks belie the 5600G's real-world gaming performance, which is constrained by its 16 MB L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support. In Downfall specifically, the CPU's 12 threads and 3.90 GHz base clock prove adequate for maintaining 100+ FPS at 4K and 300+ FPS at 1080p, even if they cannot fully unlock the RTX 5090's potential. The GPU's rivals tell a similar story — the RTX 5090's 84,306 average score is 0.1% ahead of the RTX 5090 D (84,241), 0.2% ahead of the RTX 5050 Mobile (84,171), and 1.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 (83,209), while trailing the NVIDIA CMP 40HX by 1.6% (85,637). In actual Downfall gameplay, the 5090's 32 GB memory and 512-bit bus provide advantages that synthetic scores cannot fully capture, cementing this combo's top-50 placement.