Downfall

# Downfall with AMD Ryzen 7 5700 + AMD Radeon RX 570

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 delivers a playable but constrained experience in Downfall, a 2016 horror title that clearly favors CPU headroom at lower resolutions while exposing the GPU's 4GB VRAM ceiling at 4K. Benchmark data shows this combo ranks 1648th out of 1741 tested combinations, placing it near the bottom quartile of all system pairings. The measured FPS rows reveal a system that can hit 94.7 FPS at 1080p Low but collapses to 19.6 FPS at 4K Ultra, a spread that tells a story of two very different bottlenecks depending on how the game is configured.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Ryzen 7 5700 brings 8 cores and 16 threads to the table, running on the Zen 3 Cezanne architecture at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. With a 65W TDP and 16 MB of L3 cache, this is a desktop part that sits in the 84th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27220. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-9900K at 27043 (0.7% slower), the Intel Core i7-12700H at 27006 (0.8% slower), the Intel Core i7-1370P at 26991 (0.8% slower), and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 at 26909 (1.2% slower) — meaning the 5700 is essentially tied with those parts in aggregate compute.

In Downfall, the CPU's influence is most visible at 1080p, where the game becomes less GPU-bound. At 1080p Low, the system produces 94.7 FPS, and at 1080p Medium it drops to 73 FPS — a 21.7 FPS gap that suggests the CPU is still feeding frames efficiently even as settings rise. The single-thread performance of 901 in 3dmark_single_thread and 2916 in Cinebench R23 single-core indicates solid per-core capability for a horror game that likely relies on scripted sequences and physics. Multi-threaded scores like 20655 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 24303 in Passmark multithread show the 8-core design has ample headroom for background tasks, but Downfall's 2016 engine may not fully exploit 16 threads, making the 5700's strong single-core boost clock of 4.60 GHz more relevant than its core count.

The deltaPct against rivals is remarkably tight — all four nearest rivals are within 1.2% of the 5700's average score — which suggests that swapping to an i9-9900K or i7-12700H would yield negligible CPU-side differences in this game. The data implies the CPU is rarely the primary limiter at 1080p, but its headroom becomes irrelevant once the GPU hits its VRAM or compute ceiling at higher resolutions.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Radeon RX 570 is a Polaris 20 part built on GCN 4.0 architecture with a 14nm process from GlobalFoundries, featuring 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Its base clock of 1168 MHz boosts to 1244 MHz, while the 4GB GDDR5 memory runs at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, yielding 224.0 GB/s bandwidth. The GPU's 5.095 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 159.2 GTexel/s texture rate are modest by modern standards, but its 74th percentile ranking against all GPUs places it ahead of many older parts.

In Downfall, the RX 570's 4GB VRAM appears to be the critical constraint at 4K. The 3840x2160 results show a steep degradation: Low produces 38.9 FPS, Medium drops to 32.8 FPS, High falls to 29.2 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 19.6 FPS. The 19.3 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K — while the equivalent 1080p spread is 55.5 FPS (94.7 to 39.2) — indicates that at 4K the GPU is running out of memory bandwidth or capacity before settings even matter. The 224.0 GB/s bandwidth is likely insufficient for 4K textures, causing the frame rate to compress into a narrow, low range regardless of quality level.

The GPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 at 30109 (0.2% faster), AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT at 30097 (0.2% faster), NVIDIA Tesla M60 at 29969 (0.6% slower), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile at 29928 (0.8% slower). This comparison is striking — the RX 570's aggregate score of 30158 puts it within 0.8% of much newer GPUs, but in Downfall's 4K tests, the gap widens dramatically because the newer cards have more VRAM and bandwidth. The data suggests that raw benchmark scores don't capture the RX 570's memory limitation in this specific title.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern: scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K produces increasingly severe penalties, and the magnitude of those penalties depends heavily on settings. At High settings, the system delivers 61.2 FPS at 1080p, 46 FPS at 1440p, and 29.2 FPS at 4K. That's a 15.2 FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p (24.8% reduction) and a further 16.8 FPS drop to 4K (36.5% reduction from 1440p). These are consistent, linear declines that point to the GPU being the dominant bottleneck across all resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic: 94.7 FPS at 1080p falls to 68 FPS at 1440p (26.7 FPS drop) and then to 38.9 FPS at 4K (29.1 FPS drop). The fact that Low at 4K (38.9 FPS) is barely higher than High at 4K (29.2 FPS) — a 9.7 FPS difference — suggests that even at the lowest settings, the RX 570 cannot overcome the 4K resolution's memory and pixel demands. The 32 ROPs and 39.81 GPixel/s pixel rate are simply too low for 8.3 million pixels.

The Ultra settings tell a harsher story: 39.2 FPS at 1080p drops to 25.7 FPS at 1440p and then to 19.6 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset at 4K is effectively unplayable, and even at 1080p it barely maintains 40 FPS. The data implies that the CPU is not the limiting factor in these drops — the Ryzen 7 5700's performance is constant across resolutions, while the GPU's workload scales with pixel count. The 4K results across all settings (19.6 to 38.9 FPS) reside in a narrow band, reinforcing that the GPU's 4GB VRAM is saturated regardless of quality settings.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination — Ryzen 7 5700 with RX 570 — ranks 1648th out of 1741 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the bottom 5.3% of all system pairings. This is a surprisingly low rank given the CPU's 84th percentile standing and the GPU's 74th percentile, suggesting that the pairing's performance in this game is dragged down by the GPU's 4GB VRAM limitation. The rank implies that most other combinations tested — including those with weaker CPUs but stronger GPUs — outperform this setup in Downfall, likely because the game is more sensitive to GPU memory and fill rate than to CPU compute.

The rank also reflects the game's 2016 release date; horror titles of that era often had unoptimized rendering paths that punish low-VRAM cards at high resolutions. The combo's position near the bottom (1648 of 1741) means that only 93 other combos perform worse, which is a stark contrast to the individual components' respectable benchmark percentiles. This discrepancy highlights a key analytical point: component-level scores don't always predict game-specific performance, especially when memory capacity becomes a hard limit.

For context, the CPU alone ranks in the 84th percentile, and the GPU in the 74th, but the combo ranks at roughly the 5th percentile in this game. That massive gap suggests that Downfall is an outlier where the RX 570's 4GB VRAM is catastrophically insufficient, and no amount of CPU headroom can compensate. The data indicates that upgrading either component would help, but the GPU is the clear bottleneck — a stronger GPU with more VRAM would likely move this combo much higher in the rankings.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Downfall at 1080p with playable frame rates?*

A: Yes, but only at lower settings. The measured data shows 94.7 FPS at 1080p Low, 73 FPS at Medium, and 61.2 FPS at High, all above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra drops to 39.2 FPS, which is below 60 FPS but still technically playable.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K on this hardware?

A: The 4K results are all below 40 FPS: Low produces 38.9 FPS, Medium 32.8 FPS, High 29.2 FPS, and Ultra 19.6 FPS. Even Low at 4K is barely playable, so the data suggests avoiding 4K entirely if smooth gameplay is the priority.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700's average benchmark score of 27220 is 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i9-9900K, 0.8% higher than the Intel Core i7-12700H and Core i7-1370P, and 1.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 340. These are negligible differences in practice.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the bigger bottleneck in this game?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the bottleneck, especially at 1440p and 4K. The RX 570's 4GB VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth cause steep FPS drops as resolution increases, while the CPU's performance remains consistent across resolutions.

Q: What FPS can I expect at 1440p Medium settings?

A: The measured average is 53.8 FPS at 1440p Medium, which is above 30 FPS but below 60 FPS. High settings at 1440p produce 46 FPS, and Low produces 68 FPS, so Medium is a reasonable middle ground.

Q: How does the RX 570's benchmark score compare to its rivals?

A: The RX 570's average benchmark score of 30158 is 0.2% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, 0.6% higher than the NVIDIA Tesla M60, and 0.8% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile. Despite these close scores, the RX 570's 4GB VRAM limits its real-world performance in Downfall.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings, providing a complete picture of performance. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 94.7 FPS on Low, 73 FPS on Medium, 61.2 FPS on High, and 39.2 FPS on Ultra. These results show a smooth degradation as settings increase, with a 55.5 FPS range between the lowest and highest presets.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates compress: Low produces 68 FPS, Medium 53.8 FPS, High 46 FPS, and Ultra 25.7 FPS. The 42.3 FPS range between Low and Ultra is narrower than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU's fill rate is becoming a constraint. The drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is 26.7 FPS, while the drop from 1080p Ultra to 1440p Ultra is 13.5 FPS — suggesting that at lower settings, resolution scaling has a bigger absolute impact because the GPU isn't already saturated.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly low: 38.9 FPS on Low, 32.8 FPS on Medium, 29.2 FPS on High, and 19.6 FPS on Ultra. The range from Low to Ultra is only 19.3 FPS, the smallest spread of any resolution, which implies that the 4GB VRAM is the hard limit. Even at Low settings, the game cannot exceed 38.9 FPS at 4K, and Ultra drops below 20 FPS — a level that is effectively unplayable for a horror game requiring quick reactions.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is particularly punishing: at High settings, the drop is 16.8 FPS (from 46 to 29.2), at Medium it's 21 FPS (from 53.8 to 32.8), at Low it's 29.1 FPS (from 68 to 38.9), and at Ultra it's 6.1 FPS (from 25.7 to 19.6). The Ultra drop is smallest because both resolutions are already GPU-bound to near the same low level.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution. For 1080p, the High preset at 61.2 FPS offers the best balance of visual quality and performance, staying above the 60 FPS threshold while providing more detail than Medium's 73 FPS or Low's 94.7 FPS. Ultra at 39.2 FPS is playable but sacrifices smoothness for marginal visual gains.

For 1440p, the Medium preset at 53.8 FPS is the recommended choice, as it maintains a playable frame rate while offering better quality than Low (68 FPS) or High (46 FPS). The 25.7 FPS at Ultra is too low for comfortable play, and High's 46 FPS is borderline, so Medium provides the best compromise between smoothness and fidelity.

For 4K, the data shows no truly playable preset — even Low at 38.9 FPS is below 60 FPS, and Ultra at 19.6 FPS is a slideshow. If 4K is mandatory, Low is the only viable option, but the 29.2 FPS at High versus 38.9 FPS at Low suggests that the visual difference is not worth the 9.7 FPS penalty. The analysis indicates that this hardware is best suited to 1080p with High settings or 1440p with Medium settings, allowing the Ryzen 7 5700's CPU headroom to keep frame times stable while the RX 570 operates within its memory limits.