Downfall

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

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 is a desktop processor built on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael, and produced on TSMC's 5 nm process. It packs 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The CPU has a 65 W TDP and supports DDR5 memory through a dual-channel bus, offering 83.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and a 32 MB shared L3 cache. The processor also integrates Radeon Graphics, though in this configuration, the discrete GPU handles all rendering.

For a game like Downfall, a horror title released on 2016-02-28, the Ryzen 7 7700's multi-threaded capability is substantial. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 29,302 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 12,306 in Cinebench R20 multi-core. Single-thread performance is also strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,136 and a 3DMark single-thread score of 1,049. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 8,484 and max-thread score of 8,479 show consistent scaling. These numbers indicate the CPU has ample headroom for most gaming workloads, especially a 2016 horror title. However, the measured FPS results in Downfall suggest the CPU is not the primary driver of performance, as the frame rates vary far more with resolution and settings than would be expected if the processor were the bottleneck.

The Ryzen 7 7700 sits at the 91st percentile among all CPUs in the benchmark database, with an average benchmark score of 40,468. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H (average score 40,431, delta 0.1%), the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 (average score 40,262, delta 0.5%), and the Intel Core i9-13905H (average score 40,712, delta -0.6%). These deltas, all within 1.2% of the Ryzen 7 7700, show that the CPU's raw processing power is squarely in the upper tier of desktop and mobile parts. For Downfall, this level of CPU performance is more than sufficient; the game's frame rates are constrained by other factors, as seen in the resolution scaling below.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti ranks 1,710 out of 1,741 tested combos in Downfall. This places the combo in the bottom 2% of all configurations tested for this game. The rank is remarkably low given the CPU's high percentile ranking, which strongly indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor. The data shows a massive mismatch: the CPU is positioned near the top of the processor hierarchy, while the combo's in-game rank is near the bottom.

To contextualize, the Ryzen 7 7700 outperforms its nearest rivals by small margins in average benchmark score — 0.1% ahead of the Ryzen 9 7940H, 0.5% ahead of the Ryzen AI 9 365, and 1.2% ahead of the Core Ultra 5 235T. Yet all of these CPUs, when paired with a more capable GPU, would likely achieve far better rankings in Downfall. The GTX 1050 Ti, by contrast, sits at the 30th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 5,316. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce 930A (average score 5,317, delta 0%), the NVIDIA GeForce 940M (average score 5,297, delta 0.4%), and the AMD Radeon R7 240 (average score 5,280, delta 0.7%). The GPU is essentially at the entry-level tier, and the combo rank reflects that.

The rank of 1,710 out of 1,741 combos means that 1,709 other CPU-GPU pairings delivered higher average frame rates in this game. Only 31 combos performed worse. This is a clear signal that the GTX 1050 Ti's 4 GB of VRAM and 112.1 GB/s memory bandwidth are insufficient for the demands of Downfall, even at modest settings. The CPU's contribution to the combo rank is negligible; swapping the Ryzen 7 7700 for a mid-range processor would likely change the rank only slightly, if at all.

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

The measured FPS data across resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 73.1 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at Low settings, the frame rate drops to 54.3 FPS, a decline of 25.7%. At 3840x2160 at Low settings, the average FPS falls to 34.5, which is 52.8% lower than the 1080p Low result. This steep drop as resolution increases is the signature of a GPU-limited system, where the graphics card's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth become the constraint.

The same pattern holds at High settings. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 48.8 FPS. At 1440p High, it drops to 35.4 FPS (27.5% lower). At 4K High, it falls to 24.1 FPS, a 50.6% reduction from the 1080p figure. The scaling is consistent: each step up in resolution costs roughly a quarter to half of the remaining performance. This behavior is not what would be observed with a CPU bottleneck, where frame rates would stay relatively flat across resolutions because the processor would be the limiting factor regardless of pixel count.

The data also shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck even at 1080p. The Ryzen 7 7700's single-thread performance (4,136 in Cinebench R23 single-core) and multi-thread scores are far above what a 2016 horror game would require. If the CPU were the constraint, we would see similar frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, which is not the case. The FPS drops of 25-50% from 1080p to 4K directly point to the GTX 1050 Ti's limits in fill rate and memory bandwidth. The GPU's pixel rate is 44.54 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 66.82 GTexel/s, which are modest figures by modern standards, and these become the binding constraints at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the combo achieves its best results. With Low settings, the average FPS is 73.1. Medium settings produce 62.8 FPS, High settings produce 48.8 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 32.8 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 40.3 FPS, showing that settings have a significant impact at this resolution. The game is playable at Low and Medium, with frame rates above 60 FPS, but High and Ultra fall below the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, performance declines noticeably. Low settings yield 54.3 FPS, Medium yields 44.1 FPS, High yields 35.4 FPS, and Ultra yields 20.9 FPS. Only Low settings remain above 50 FPS, and Ultra dips below 21 FPS, which would be a poor experience for a horror game that relies on atmosphere and smooth movement. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 33.4 FPS, slightly narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU is becoming more saturated.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles across all settings. Low settings produce 34.5 FPS, Medium produces 24.7 FPS, High produces 24.1 FPS, and Ultra produces 13.8 FPS. The difference between Low and High at 4K is only 10.4 FPS, and Ultra is barely above a slideshow. The data shows that 4K is not viable for this combo in Downfall, regardless of settings. Even at Low, the frame rate is below 35 FPS, and at Ultra, it is below 14 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings represents a 57.9% drop in performance, further confirming the GPU's limitations.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is built on the Pascal architecture with the GP107 chip, fabricated on a 14 nm process at Samsung. It has 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1291 MHz and a boost clock of 1392 MHz, with memory running at 1752 MHz (7 Gbps effective). It has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 112.1 GB/s. The card's FP32 performance is 2.138 TFLOPS, and it supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

The GTX 1050 Ti's 4 GB VRAM is a critical limitation for Downfall at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 13.8, which is less than half of the 4K Low result of 34.5 FPS. This suggests that beyond raw compute, the memory capacity and bandwidth are being overwhelmed. The 112.1 GB/s bandwidth is modest, and at 4K, the texture and geometry data required per frame likely exceed what the GPU can fetch from memory in time, causing the steep performance cliff at Ultra settings.

The GPU's pixel rate of 44.54 GPixel/s and texture rate of 66.82 GTexel/s are also low by modern standards. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 73.1 FPS, which means the GPU is processing about 126 million pixels per second (1,920 × 1,080 × 73.1). This is well within the pixel rate limit. However, at 4K Ultra, the required pixel throughput would be 3,840 × 2,160 × 13.8, which is about 114 million pixels per second — still under the pixel rate cap, but the massive increase in texture and shading work per pixel pushes the GPU's compute and memory subsystems to their limits. The GTX 1050 Ti's age is evident; it was released on 2016-10-24, and its end-of-life production status reflects its obsolescence for demanding titles at high resolutions.

FAQ

*Q: Why does the combo rank so low in Downfall despite having a high-end CPU?*

A: The combo ranks 1,710 out of 1,741 tested combos, which places it in the bottom 2%. The CPU is at the 91st percentile among all processors with an average benchmark score of 40,468, but the GPU is at the 30th percentile with an average score of 5,316. The in-game performance is limited almost entirely by the GTX 1050 Ti, which drags the combo rank down despite the Ryzen 7 7700's strength.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 7700 the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: No. The FPS drops substantially with increasing resolution — from 73.1 FPS at 1080p Low to 34.5 FPS at 4K Low. If the CPU were the bottleneck, frame rates would stay roughly constant across resolutions. The data shows a classic GPU-bound pattern, with the GTX 1050 Ti's 4 GB VRAM and 112.1 GB/s bandwidth being the limiting factors.

Q: What settings are playable at 1080p with this combo?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings achieve 73.1 FPS and Medium settings achieve 62.8 FPS, both above the 60 FPS threshold. High settings drop to 48.8 FPS, and Ultra falls to 32.8 FPS. For a smooth experience, Low or Medium settings are recommended at 1080p.

Q: How does the GTX 1050 Ti compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti has an average benchmark score of 5,316. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce 930A, scores 5,317 with a delta of 0%. The GeForce 940M scores 5,297 (delta 0.4%), the AMD Radeon R7 240 scores 5,280 (delta 0.7%), and the AMD Radeon R7 M445 scores 5,361 (delta -0.8%). These differences are negligible, placing the GTX 1050 Ti squarely in the entry-level GPU tier.

Q: What is the impact of Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves only 13.8 FPS. This is less than half of the 4K Low result of 34.5 FPS and represents a 57.9% drop from the 1080p Ultra result of 32.8 FPS. The 4 GB VRAM and 112.1 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for 4K Ultra, making this combination unplayable.

Q: Does the CPU's memory bandwidth affect game performance here?

A: The Ryzen 7 7700 supports DDR5 with 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is ample for gaming. However, the GPU's memory bandwidth of 112.1 GB/s is the relevant constraint in Downfall. The CPU's memory bandwidth does not compensate for the GPU's limitations, as evidenced by the steep FPS drops at higher resolutions.