Downfall

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across the three resolutions reveal a system that scales predictably with pixel count, though the drop from 1080p to 4K is steep enough to signal where the bottleneck shifts. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 189 FPS average. Moving to 1440p High drops that to 135 FPS, a 28.6% reduction. At 4K High, the average falls to 84 FPS, which is a 55.6% decline from the 1080p figure. This curve is typical of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, but the shape of the curve at lower settings tells a different story.

The Low preset shows the most dramatic scaling. At 1080p Low, the system hits 282 FPS average. At 1440p Low, it drops to 202 FPS, and at 4K Low, it reaches 125 FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is 55.7%, nearly identical to the High preset's drop. This consistency across presets suggests that the limiting factor at 4K is not the CPU's ability to feed frames but rather the GPU's raw fill rate and memory bandwidth. The RX 7800 XT's 624.1 GB/s bandwidth and 233.3 GPixel/s pixel rate are the specs that matter here, and they are being fully taxed at 4K.

The Medium preset adds min/max data, which is useful for understanding frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 231 FPS with a min of 196 and max of 266. At 1440p Medium, the average is 165 FPS with min 140 and max 190. At 4K Medium, the average is 103 FPS with min 87 and max 118. The gap between min and max FPS widens slightly as resolution increases, from 70 FPS at 1080p to 50 FPS at 1440p and 31 FPS at 4K. This narrowing of the delta at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is becoming the consistent limiter, reducing the variance that CPU-side hiccups would otherwise introduce.

The Ultra preset shows the most punishing scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 118 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 85 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 53 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only sub-60 FPS figure in the entire dataset, making it the single data point where the combo fails to maintain smooth gameplay. The drop from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra is 37.6%, which is steeper than the drop from 1080p Ultra to 1440p Ultra (28.0%). This accelerating decline suggests that the 4K Ultra preset is hitting a wall, likely related to the GPU's 96 ROPs and the sheer number of pixels being shaded.

What does this say about the limiting component? At 1080p and 1440p, the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are sufficient to keep the GPU fed, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at Low settings where CPU overhead would be more visible. The Ryzen 7 5700G's boost clock of 4.60 GHz and its 3DMark single-thread score of 899 are adequate for this horror title. However, at 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck, and the data shows that the RX 7800 XT's performance at 4K High (84 FPS) is still playable but far from the 144Hz-plus territory that lower resolutions enable.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy of presets, and the data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo, particularly at higher resolutions. At 4K Medium, the system averages 103 FPS with a minimum of 87 FPS. This is the only 4K preset that stays above 60 FPS at all times based on the min data, making it the safest choice for a locked 60 FPS experience. The jump from Medium to High at 4K costs 19 FPS on average (from 103 to 84), which is an 18.4% performance penalty. The visual uplift from Medium to High in a horror game like Downfall, which relies on atmosphere and lighting, may not justify that loss for users prioritizing smoothness.

At 1440p, the choice is more forgiving. Medium delivers 165 FPS average with a 140 FPS minimum, which is well above the 144Hz refresh rate that many monitors use. High at 1440p drops to 135 FPS average, which is still above 120 FPS but below 144. For users with 144Hz displays, Medium at 1440p is the clear recommendation because it keeps the minimum above the refresh threshold. Ultra at 1440p (85 FPS average) is playable but does not offer the headroom needed for competitive or fast-paced scenes.

At 1080p, the story is about headroom. Medium at 1080p delivers 231 FPS average with a 196 FPS minimum. High at 1080p drops to 189 FPS average, and Ultra drops further to 118 FPS. The data indicates that even Ultra at 1080p is playable, but the 118 FPS average means the system cannot fully utilize a 144Hz or 240Hz display. For esports-style play or maximum smoothness at 1080p, Medium is the best choice because it keeps the minimum above 196 FPS, which is high enough to avoid any perceptible stutter on most high-refresh displays.

The Low preset is only worth considering if the user is chasing maximum frame rates on a very high refresh monitor. At 1080p Low, the system hits 282 FPS average, which is the highest figure in the entire dataset. However, the visual compromise in a horror game is substantial, and the data shows that the jump from Low to Medium at 1080p only costs 51 FPS (from 282 to 231), which is an 18.1% penalty. Given the atmospheric nature of Downfall, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance across all three resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the observed frame rates. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is crucial for 4K gaming, where texture data and framebuffer demands are high. The 4K Medium result of 103 FPS average suggests that the 16 GB capacity is not being exhausted, as the game does not appear to be stalling due to memory pressure based on the min FPS of 87.

The GPU's clock behavior is also relevant. The base clock is 1295 MHz, with a game clock of 2124 MHz and a boost clock of 2430 MHz. The boost clock is what the card sustains under load, and the 2430 MHz figure is what drives the 37.32 TFLOPS FP32 throughput. This compute power is what allows the card to handle the 4K High preset at 84 FPS, which is a demanding workload that requires heavy pixel shading. The 60 ray tracing cores are present, but Downfall is a 2016 horror title that does not use ray tracing, so those cores are idle in this benchmark.

The GPU's transistor count of 28,100 million on a 5 nm process from TSMC gives it a 346 mm² die size. This is a large chip with 3840 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. The ROP count is particularly important for 4K performance because it determines the pixel fill rate. The 233.3 GPixel/s pixel rate is what ultimately limits the 4K Ultra preset to 53 FPS, as the card cannot rasterize the 8.3 million pixels of 4K fast enough when combined with the Ultra preset's heavier shading loads.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in a specific context. Its PassMark G3D score is 24176, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 4157. The Geekbench OpenCL score is 18290, while Vulkan scores are much higher at 54228, indicating that the card performs disproportionately well under Vulkan. This is relevant because some horror titles use Vulkan, though the data for Downfall does not specify the API used. The GPU's percentile vs all GPUs is 51, meaning it sits near the median of all tested GPUs, which is surprisingly low for a card with this much memory and compute. This is likely due to the benchmark database including many workstation and enterprise cards that skew the distribution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5700G and the RX 7800 XT achieves a rank of 1234 out of 3716 tested combos in Downfall. This places the combo in the top 33.2% of all tested systems, which is a solid result for a pairing that mixes a 2021 APU with a 2023 GPU. The rank suggests that this is a well-balanced system for this game, though it is not near the top of the charts where the absolute fastest CPUs and GPUs reside.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 27051 places it very close to its nearest rivals. The Intel Core i9-9900K scores 27097, which is a delta of -0.2%, meaning the 5700G is essentially tied with a high-end Intel chip from a few generations earlier. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 scores 26936 with a delta of +0.4%, and the Intel Core i7-1370P scores 26900 with a delta of +0.6%. The Intel Core i5-14400T scores 27166 with a delta of -0.4%. These tiny deltas indicate that the CPU's performance is firmly in the mid-range of modern processors, and it is not a limiting factor in this game's benchmark.

The GPU's average benchmark score is 11627, which puts it in a strange neighborhood. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 at 11680 (delta -0.5%), which is a much older and less capable card in terms of raw specs. The AMD Radeon Pro 5500M scores 11528 (delta +0.9%), and the NVIDIA Tesla K20c scores 11479 (delta +1.3%). The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT scores 11842 (delta -1.8%). This grouping is likely an artifact of the benchmark database's scoring methodology, as the RX 7800 XT's PassMark G3D score of 24176 is far higher than what a GTX 1660 would achieve. The average score is pulled down by other benchmark types where the card performs relatively worse.

The combo rank of 1234 indicates that this pairing outperforms 67.8% of all tested combos in Downfall specifically. This is a strong result, and it aligns with the measured FPS data showing that the system can handle 1440p High at 135 FPS and 4K Medium at 103 FPS. The rank reflects the fact that Downfall is not an exceptionally demanding game by modern standards, and this mid-range CPU paired with an upper-mid-range GPU is enough to produce excellent frame rates.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G is a Zen 3 architecture processor on the Cezanne codename, built on a 7 nm process from TSMC. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The TDP is 65 watts, which is modest for an 8-core part, but the boost clock of 4.60 GHz is what matters for gaming performance. The CPU's cache configuration includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 16 MB of shared L3 cache. This L3 cache size is smaller than some other Zen 3 parts, but it is sufficient for gaming workloads.

The CPU's benchmark scores show a clear threading profile. Its 3DMark scores scale from 899 (single-thread) to 1758 (2-thread) to 3389 (4-thread) to 5648 (8-thread) to 6629 (16-thread). The scaling from 8 to 16 threads is minimal (5648 to 6629, a 17.4% increase), indicating that the CPU has near-linear scaling up to 8 threads but hits diminishing returns beyond that. This is typical for gaming, where most titles use fewer than 8 threads. Cinebench R23 scores of 12830.5 multi-core and 1494 single-core confirm this pattern, with the multi-core score being about 8.6 times the single-core score, which is slightly below the ideal 16-thread scaling.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (282 FPS average) is so high that it suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck at that resolution. If the CPU were strained, we would expect to see the 1080p Low result being much closer to the 1440p Low result, since the GPU would be less loaded at 1080p. Instead, the 1080p Low result is 39.6% higher than the 1440p Low result (282 vs 202 FPS), indicating that the GPU is still the limiter even at 1080p Low.

The CPU's PassMark scores reinforce its gaming capability. The single-thread score of 3283 and the multi-thread score of 24419 place it in the 79th percentile vs all CPUs. The data encryption score of 20325 and the floating point math score of 51296 are strong, but these are less relevant to gaming than the physics score of 999 and the integer math score of 91541. The physics score is particularly notable because it directly relates to game physics calculations, and a score of 999 suggests that the CPU can handle the physics load of Downfall without breaking a sweat.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s (dual-channel DDR4) is a potential limitation, but the data does not show it being an issue in this game. The 16 MB L3 cache helps mitigate memory latency, and the measured frame rates suggest that the CPU is never the primary constraint. The combo rank of 1234 out of 3716 further confirms that this CPU is adequate for the task, as the ranking is likely influenced more by the GPU's performance at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 4K gaming with this combo?

A: The Medium preset at 4K delivers 103 FPS average with a minimum of 87 FPS, making it the only 4K preset that stays above 60 FPS at all times. The High preset drops to 84 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 53 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in raw performance?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700G has an average benchmark score of 27051, which is 0.2% lower than the Intel Core i9-9900K's 27097. It is 0.4% higher than the AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 and 0.6% higher than the Intel Core i7-1370P, placing it in a tight performance cluster.

Q: Is the GPU the bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: Yes. The frame rate drop from 1080p High (189 FPS) to 4K High (84 FPS) is 55.6%, and the drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 55.7%. This consistent scaling indicates the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors at 4K.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate achievable with this setup?

A: The highest measured average is 282 FPS at 1080p Low settings. The next highest is 231 FPS at 1080p Medium, which also has a minimum of 196 FPS, making it the better choice for consistent high refresh rates.

Q: How well does the combo rank among all tested systems in Downfall?

A: The combo ranks 1234 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the top 33.2% of all systems. This indicates strong performance for this specific game.

Q: Does the GPU's 16 GB memory capacity affect performance in this game?

A: The 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 624.1 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient, as the frame rates do not show signs of memory-related stuttering. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 87 FPS, which is smooth, and no preset shows anomalous frame drops that would indicate memory exhaustion.