Downfall

# Downfall with AMD Ryzen 5 8400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers exceptional frame rates across all tested settings in Downfall, a horror title from 2016 that clearly favors high-end hardware. The data shows a system capable of maintaining triple-digit averages even at 4K Ultra, with the measured results placing this combo at rank 29 out of 2,928 tested combinations — a top 1% finish that underscores how well these components complement each other in this specific title.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate trajectory from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, though the magnitude of the drop varies significantly by preset. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 412 at 1920x1080 to 345 at 2560x1440, then further down to 214 at 3840x2160. That represents a 48% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low, indicating the RTX 5090 D's raw throughput is the primary driver at lower graphical loads.

Moving to High settings, the scaling becomes steeper in relative terms: 324 FPS at 1080p drops to 231 at 1440p and settles at 144 at 4K. This 55% decline from 1080p to 4K suggests that as the render workload increases, the GPU's pixel processing capabilities — backed by its 176 ROPs and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate — become progressively more dominant. The gap between 1080p and 1440p at High is 93 FPS, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is 87 FPS, showing a nearly linear scaling pattern that points to consistent GPU utilization across resolutions.

Ultra settings exhibit the most dramatic scaling. The 202 FPS average at 1080p collapses to 144 at 1440p and then to 90 at 4K — a 55% total reduction. Notably, the 4K Ultra result of 90 FPS is exactly half the 1080p High result of 324 FPS, which highlights how the combination of resolution and preset compounds the load. The 4K Ultra figure also matches the 1440p Ultra result exactly, suggesting that at these extremes, the engine's rendering pipeline becomes the limiting factor rather than either component individually.

The Medium preset, which includes min/max data, shows the tightest frame time consistency at higher resolutions. At 4K Medium, the average is 175 FPS with a min of 149 and max of 202 — a 53 FPS spread. At 1440p Medium, the spread widens to 84 FPS (240 to 324), and at 1080p Medium it reaches 116 FPS (326 to 442). This increasing variance at lower resolutions indicates that CPU-related frame pacing becomes more noticeable when the GPU is less burdened, though the Ryzen 5 8400F's 6 cores and 12 threads keep averages remarkably high even in those scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting the highest refresh rates, Low settings at 1080p delivers a 412 FPS average, which is the single highest measured value in this dataset. However, the jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs only 28 FPS (from 412 to 384), a mere 6.8% reduction for what is typically a substantial visual upgrade in texture quality and shadow detail. At 1440p, the Low-to-Medium gap is 63 FPS (345 to 282), representing an 18.3% penalty — still a reasonable trade for improved fidelity.

The most balanced experience appears to be Medium at 1440p, where the 282 FPS average with a 240 FPS minimum comfortably exceeds the 144 Hz refresh threshold while providing a meaningful step up from Low. At 4K, Medium's 175 FPS average with a 149 FPS minimum is the sweet spot, as it maintains a 149 FPS floor that stays above common high-refresh monitor capabilities. High at 4K drops to 144 FPS average, which is still excellent but offers no minimum FPS data to confirm frame stability.

Ultra settings are only advisable for players with very high refresh rate displays at 1080p or 1440p. The 1080p Ultra average of 202 FPS is playable, and 1440p Ultra's 144 FPS average matches a standard 144 Hz display exactly. At 4K, however, Ultra's 90 FPS average represents a 48.6% reduction from High's 144 FPS, making it a questionable trade unless visual fidelity takes absolute priority. Given that High at 4K already delivers 144 FPS, most users would find High the superior choice at that resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 29 out of 2,928 tested combinations places it in the top 1% of all systems evaluated for Downfall. This is an exceptional standing, though it is worth contextualizing given the hardware involved. The RTX 5090 D sits at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, while the Ryzen 5 8400F ranks at the 77th percentile among all CPUs — the combination leverages a top-tier GPU with a mid-to-upper-tier CPU, and the game's responsiveness to the GPU's capabilities boosts the overall ranking.

In terms of synthetic benchmark standing, the GPU's average score of 77,712 places it 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904) and 1.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940). The CPU's average score of 25,005 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F (24,964, a 0.2% delta) and the Intel Core i7-11850H (24,935, a 0.3% delta). These benchmark proximities suggest that the Ryzen 5 8400F is by no means a bottleneck in most workloads, but the GPU's dominance in this pairing is what drives the exceptional in-game ranking.

The rank of 29 becomes more impressive when considering that Downfall is a 2016 horror title — older games often show diminishing returns with newer hardware due to engine-level limitations. Yet this combo still manages to outpace 2,899 other tested configurations, which indicates that the RTX 5090 D's modern architecture (Blackwell 2.0, 21,760 shading units) is being effectively utilized even in this older title. The 4 nm Zen 4 CPU with its 4.70 GHz boost clock ensures that frame generation and draw calls are handled without introducing CPU-bound ceilings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full preset ladder shows consistent progression: Low delivers 412 FPS, Medium 384 FPS (min 326, max 442), High 324 FPS, and Ultra 202 FPS. The 1080p results are uniformly high, with even the most demanding preset keeping the average above 200 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra at 1080p is 122 FPS, the largest preset-to-preset jump in the entire dataset, indicating that Ultra introduces effects that disproportionately tax the GPU at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 345 FPS, Medium 282 FPS (min 240, max 324), High 231 FPS, and Ultra 144 FPS. The 1440p results show a smoother preset-to-preset progression, with each step down in quality adding roughly 40-50 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 240 FPS is notably strong, guaranteeing a fluid experience even during scenes with heavy particle effects or dynamic lighting, which are common in horror titles.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress significantly: Low 214 FPS, Medium 175 FPS (min 149, max 202), High 144 FPS, and Ultra 90 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 90 FPS is the only sub-100 FPS average measured across the entire dataset, and even that remains perfectly playable on standard 60 Hz displays. The 4K Low figure of 214 FPS demonstrates that the RTX 5090 D's 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth and 32 GB of GDDR7 VRAM allow the GPU to maintain high throughput even at 8.3 million pixels per frame.

FAQ

Q: Why does the 4K Ultra average FPS exactly match the 1440p Ultra average?

A: Both resolutions produce a 144 FPS average at Ultra settings, and the 1440p High setting also hits 144 FPS. This triple coincidence suggests the game engine's frame pacing or a vsync-like cap near 144 FPS may be influencing results at these specific configurations, rather than purely hardware limits.

Q: Is this combo more GPU-limited or CPU-limited in Downfall?

A: The scaling pattern indicates GPU limitation at higher resolutions and presets. From 1080p Low (412 FPS) to 4K Low (214 FPS), the drop is 48%, which correlates with the GPU's pixel throughput demands. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads with a 4.70 GHz boost clock appear sufficient to feed the GPU, as evidenced by the 412 FPS peak at 1080p Low.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 8400F compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 25,005 is within 0.4% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F (24,964), Intel Core i7-11850H (24,935), and Intel Core i7-13620H (24,911). It trails the AMD EPYC 9474F (25,103) by 0.4%. These margins are negligible in real-world gaming scenarios.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded across all tests?

A: The 1080p Low preset produces a 412 FPS average, which is the maximum in this dataset. The next highest is 384 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 345 FPS at 1440p Low. All three configurations exceed what most high-refresh displays can show, making them effectively overkill for typical monitors.

Q: Does the RTX 5090 D's performance in Downfall reflect its synthetic benchmark standing?

A: The GPU ranks at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, and its in-game performance is proportionally strong — even 4K Ultra stays at 90 FPS. However, its nearest rivals in synthetic scores (AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT at +1.1% delta, AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at -1.6%) are mobile-class parts, suggesting the desktop RTX 5090 D's synthetic scores may underrepresent its actual gaming headroom in this title.

Q: What frame time consistency does the Medium preset offer at each resolution?

A: At 1080p Medium, the min/max spread is 116 FPS (326 to 442). At 1440p Medium, the spread narrows to 84 FPS (240 to 324). At 4K Medium, the spread tightens further to 53 FPS (149 to 202). This progressive tightening at higher resolutions indicates that GPU load stabilizes frame pacing, reducing CPU-induced variance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, built on TSMC's 4 nm process with a 178 mm² die containing 25,000 million transistors. Its base clock of 4.20 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz, combined with 16 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB L2 per core, deliver strong single-threaded performance — evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 951 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,943. For a horror game like Downfall, which often involves scripted sequences and environmental interactions, this single-thread strength ensures that game logic and AI processing do not become bottlenecks.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are equally robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20,851 and a 3DMark max-threads score of 6,165. The PassMark multithread score of 24,389 and physics score of 1,332 suggest that even if Downfall spawns multiple enemy entities or complex physics interactions, the 12 threads can handle the parallel workloads. The memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 provides sufficient data throughput to keep both the CPU cores and the GPU fed, though the RTX 5090 D's own 1.79 TB/s bandwidth dwarfs this figure.

The CPU's 77th percentile ranking among all CPUs places it above average but not elite, and the nearest rival comparisons show it performing nearly identically to the Ryzen 5 7500F (0.2% delta) and Intel Core i7-11850H (0.3% delta). In Downfall specifically, the 1080p Low result of 412 FPS demonstrates that the CPU can sustain extremely high frame rates when the GPU is not the limiting factor. However, the widening min/max spreads at lower resolutions (116 FPS at 1080p Medium vs. 53 FPS at 4K Medium) indicate that CPU frame pacing becomes more variable when the GPU has spare capacity, though averages remain exceptionally high.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the measured performance. Based on the GB202 chip with Blackwell 2.0 architecture on a 5 nm TSMC process, the GPU packs 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, 176 ROPs, 170 RT cores, and 680 tensor cores. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth — a figure that proves critical for maintaining high frame rates at 4K, where texture streaming and geometry data demands are substantial.

The GPU's clock behavior — 2,017 MHz base and 2,407 MHz boost — combined with its 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, allows it to process the pixel-heavy workloads that Downfall presents at higher resolutions. The measured results confirm this: 4K High maintains 144 FPS, and even 4K Ultra stays at 90 FPS. The pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are directly reflected in the resolution scaling data, where the 4K-to-1080p ratio at High settings (144 vs. 324 FPS) aligns with the 4x pixel count difference.

The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs is consistent with its in-game dominance, though the nearest rival comparison shows synthetic scores within 2.4% of parts like the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940 vs. 77,712) and NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605 vs. 77,712). In Downfall, however, the RTX 5090 D's modern feature set — including 12 Ultimate (12_2) DirectX support and Vulkan 1.4 — ensures compatibility with the game's rendering paths. The 575 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate this is a high-power part, but the measured performance justifies the power envelope for users seeking maximum frame rates in this horror title.