Downfall

# Downfall with AMD Ryzen 5 8400F + AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT delivers a strong showing in Downfall, with measured frame rates that scale predictably across resolutions and settings. This combo lands at rank 1160 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the upper third of all systems tested for this horror title. The data reveals a balanced pairing where neither component consistently bottlenecks the other, though the GPU's 16 GB of VRAM and the CPU's 6-core/12-thread configuration each play distinct roles depending on the resolution and preset chosen.

Resolution Scaling

Downfall's frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a classic pattern where the CPU's influence diminishes as resolution increases, and the GPU becomes the primary limiter. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 195 at 1920x1080 to 139 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 56 FPS or roughly 29% when moving to 1440p. Stepping up to 3840x2160 High yields 87 FPS average, which is 108 FPS below the 1080p result — a 55% decline from the starting point. This steep drop-off indicates that the RX 6800 XT's compute resources are increasingly taxed as pixel count rises, while the Ryzen 5 8400F has ample headroom at lower resolutions.

The Low preset tells a similar story with higher absolute numbers. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo produces 291 FPS average, which falls to 207 FPS at 2560x1440 and 129 FPS at 3840x2160. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is about 29%, and from 1440p to 4K it's 38%. These consistent scaling ratios suggest that the game's rendering load grows roughly in proportion to pixel count, with no sudden cliff or unexpected bottleneck appearing at any resolution.

Medium preset data includes minimum and maximum frame times, which offer insight into frame pacing. At 1920x1080 Medium, the average is 238 FPS with a 202 FPS minimum and 273 FPS maximum. At 2560x1440 Medium, the average drops to 170 FPS with a 144 FPS minimum and 195 FPS maximum. The 4K Medium result shows 106 FPS average with a 90 FPS minimum and 121 FPS maximum. The minimum frame rates stay within 15-17% of the averages across all three resolutions, indicating consistent performance without severe hitches.

Ultra settings demonstrate the most dramatic resolution scaling. The 1080p Ultra average is 122 FPS, dropping to 87 FPS at 1440p and just 54 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is less than half of the 1080p Ultra figure, showing that the highest preset at 4K pushes the RX 6800 XT to its limits. This 54 FPS average is still playable for a horror title, but it clearly shifts the experience from high-refresh territory to console-like smoothness.

The scaling analysis reveals that 1440p is the sweet spot where the combination of CPU and GPU produces high frame rates without the GPU becoming the sole constraint. The difference between 1080p and 1440p High is 56 FPS, while the difference between 1440p and 4K High is 52 FPS — nearly identical deltas, suggesting the hardware maintains balanced scaling across these resolutions.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 8400F brings 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, manufactured on a 4 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock of 4.20 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz provide the single-thread performance that Downfall's horror gameplay relies on for consistent frame delivery. The CPU's L3 cache is 16 MB shared, with 1 MB L2 per core and 64 KB L1 per core, which helps maintain responsive gameplay without excessive memory stalls.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 8400F scores 951 in 3DMark single-thread and 1874 in 3DMark 2-thread tests. Its multi-threaded performance shows in the 3DMark 16-thread score of 6091 and max-thread score of 6165, indicating that the 12 threads scale efficiently with only minimal gains beyond 8 threads (5275 in 3DMark 8-thread). Cinebench results reinforce this pattern: R23 multi-core scores 20851 while single-core reaches 2943, and R20 shows 8757 multi-core versus 1236 single-core.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 77 against all CPUs places it comfortably above the median, with an average benchmark score of 25005. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, scores 24964 — a delta of just 0.2%, meaning the two chips are effectively interchangeable in performance. The Intel Core i7-11850H trails by 0.3% with a score of 24935, and the Core i7-13620H is 0.4% behind at 24911. The AMD EPYC 9474F leads by 0.4% with 25103, but that's a server chip irrelevant to gaming comparisons.

In Downfall specifically, the CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the frame rate differences between Low and Ultra presets at the same resolution. At 1080p, Low produces 291 FPS while Ultra produces 122 FPS — a 169 FPS gap that reflects the GPU's workload rather than CPU limitation. The 8400F's 12 threads are sufficient to feed the RX 6800 XT at all tested settings, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at 1080p Low where CPU overhead is most likely to surface.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth contribute to efficient data flow, though the game's performance data shows no signs of memory bandwidth constraining results. The PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes provides adequate bandwidth for the GPU, and the unlocked multiplier allows for tuning if desired, though the measured results already show strong performance.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture using the Navi 21 chip, fabricated on a 7 nm process with 26,800 million transistors. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves ample for Downfall's textures and effects at all resolutions tested. The GPU's 4608 shading units, 288 TMUs, and 128 ROPs provide the raw throughput needed for the game's horror visuals.

Clock speeds are substantial: base clock of 1825 MHz, game clock of 2015 MHz, and boost clock of 2250 MHz. Memory runs at 2000 MHz effective 16 Gbps. These clocks translate to a pixel rate of 288.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 648.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 20.74 TFLOPS. The GPU holds an 85th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3689 and PassMark G3D score of 24980.

The nearest GPU rivals show tight competition. The NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile scores 47743 in average benchmarks, which is 1.5% below the RX 6800 XT's 48477 average. The Intel Arc A550M leads by 2.5% with 49737, and both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 score approximately 49957-50001, putting them 3% ahead. These small deltas indicate the RX 6800 XT remains competitive with newer and older hardware alike.

The GPU's role in Downfall is most visible in the Ultra preset results. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 54, which is a 56% reduction from the 1080p Ultra figure of 122 FPS. This scaling aligns with the GPU being the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the additional pixel workload directly impacts frame rate. The VRAM allocation across presets doesn't appear to be an issue — 16 GB is more than sufficient for this 2016 horror title, and the measured data shows no signs of texture thrashing or memory-related stutters at any resolution.

The RX 6800 XT's 300 W TDP and suggested 700 W PSU requirement are modest for its performance class, and the dual-slot cooler with dual 8-pin connectors handles the power delivery. The GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, ensuring compatibility with Downfall's rendering API options.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which preset delivers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset yields 238 FPS average with a 202 FPS minimum, which is well above the refresh rates of most monitors. High settings at 1080p produce 195 FPS average, still excellent, while Ultra drops to 122 FPS — a significant step down but still smooth. For 1080p users, High settings offer the best experience: the 195 FPS average is only 43 FPS below Medium, and the visual improvements of High over Medium are typically worth that trade-off.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset delivers 170 FPS average with a 144 FPS minimum, which aligns perfectly with 144 Hz monitors. High settings at 1440p produce 139 FPS average, still comfortably above 120 FPS, while Ultra drops to 87 FPS. For 1440p, High is the recommended preset — it maintains a high refresh rate experience while providing better visuals than Medium, and the 139 FPS average leaves headroom for demanding scenes.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes. Medium produces 106 FPS average with a 90 FPS minimum, which is playable but not high-refresh. High settings yield 87 FPS average, which is acceptable for a horror game where atmosphere matters more than competitive response times. Ultra at 4K drops to 54 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS threshold and would feel noticeably less smooth. For 4K users, Medium is the best choice: the 106 FPS average stays above 90 FPS minimum, and the visual difference between Medium and High at 4K is less noticeable than at lower resolutions due to pixel density.

The Low preset is only advisable for competitive play or very high refresh rate displays, as it produces 291 FPS at 1080p, 207 FPS at 1440p, and 129 FPS at 4K. However, the visual compromises in a horror game like Downfall are generally not worth the frame rate gains, especially since even Ultra at 1080p maintains 122 FPS average.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT ranks 1160 out of 3716 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the 68.8th percentile of all systems tested. This ranking indicates that the pairing performs above average, though it's not among the top-tier combinations. Given that the CPU sits at the 77th percentile and the GPU at the 85th percentile individually, the combo's overall ranking of 68.8% suggests that the game is somewhat more demanding on the CPU than the GPU, or that other combos with stronger CPUs achieve better frame rates at lower resolutions where CPU matters more.

The ranking context shows that most of the 3716 tested combos perform worse than this pairing, making it a solid mid-to-upper tier choice for Downfall. The measured FPS data confirms this positioning: the combo delivers playable frame rates at all resolutions and presets, with only 4K Ultra dipping below 60 FPS. For a horror game that emphasizes atmosphere and tension, this level of performance is more than adequate.

The CPU's close rivalry with the Ryzen 5 7500F (0.2% difference) and the GPU's tight competition with the RTX A1000 Mobile (1.5% difference) suggest that alternative pairings with these near-identical components would produce nearly identical results in Downfall. The combo's rank reflects a well-matched pairing where both components contribute meaningfully to the final frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Downfall?

A: The measured data shows that 2560x1440 High settings provide the best balance, with 139 FPS average and no minimum frame rate below 120 FPS at Medium settings. At 4K, the combo still performs well, with 87 FPS at High and 54 FPS at Ultra.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 8400F compare to its closest CPU rival?

A: The Ryzen 5 7500F scores 24964 in average benchmarks versus the 8400F's 25005, a delta of just 0.2%. The Intel Core i7-11850H is 0.3% behind and the Core i7-13620H is 0.4% behind, making these CPUs effectively equivalent in performance.

Q: Is the RX 6800 XT's 16 GB VRAM sufficient for Downfall?

A: Yes, the 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 512.0 GB/s bandwidth is more than adequate for Downfall. The measured results show consistent frame rates across all settings and resolutions, with no indication of VRAM-related performance drops.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 54 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS threshold, so it may feel less smooth, but it remains playable for a horror title.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 1160 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the upper third of all systems tested for Downfall. This indicates above-average performance, with both components performing well individually (CPU at 77th percentile, GPU at 85th percentile).

Q: Which settings preset gives the best experience at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, High settings deliver 195 FPS average, which is 43 FPS below Medium (238 FPS) but provides better visuals. Ultra at 1080p still achieves 122 FPS average, so all presets are playable at this resolution.