Downfall

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for Downfall with the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT show a clear tiering across the four available presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 199 FPS average, Medium drops to 162 FPS, High settles at 133 FPS, and Ultra falls to 83 FPS. The step from High to Ultra is the steepest single-preset penalty at this resolution, representing a 37.6% reduction in average frame rate, while the jump from Low to Medium costs 18.6% and from Medium to High costs 17.9%. This pattern suggests the Ultra preset engages effects that disproportionately tax the GPU, while the lower three presets scale more linearly.

At 2560x1440, the same ordering holds: Low produces 142 FPS, Medium 116 FPS, High 95 FPS, and Ultra 59 FPS. The relative drop from High to Ultra here is even larger, 37.9%, indicating that at higher pixel counts the Ultra preset's additional load becomes more punishing. At 3840x2160, the spread compresses: Low yields 88 FPS, Medium 72 FPS, High 59 FPS, and Ultra 37 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to 37.3% in absolute terms, but the Ultra result falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the baseline for smooth horror gameplay.

For the best experience per the measured rows, the Medium preset is the recommended starting point. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 162 FPS with a minimum of 138 FPS, comfortably above any refresh-rate concern for standard 60 Hz or 144 Hz displays. At 2560x1440, Medium still holds 116 FPS average with a 99 FPS minimum, keeping frame delivery consistent even during sudden scene changes, which matters in a horror title where stutter can break immersion. At 3840x2160, Medium is the only preset that clears 60 FPS on average, at 72 FPS, with a minimum of 61 FPS that just touches the playable line. High at 4K lands at 59 FPS average, which is borderline, while Ultra at 4K at 37 FPS is not recommended for fluid play.

If visual fidelity is the priority and the display is 1080p, High at 133 FPS offers a strong compromise, but the minimum frame data for High is not recorded in the measured rows, so consistency cannot be verified. The data favors Medium as the balanced choice across all three resolutions, with the caveat that Ultra is only viable at 1080p where the average stays above 80 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT uses the Navi 23 chip on a 7 nm TSMC process, with 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die. Its RDNA 2.0 architecture includes 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operations pipelines, along with 32 ray accelerators. The GPU carries 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. Clocks are specified at a 2055 MHz base, a 2410 MHz game clock, and a 2635 MHz boost, with memory running at 2190 MHz or 17.5 Gbps effective. Pixel fill rate is 168.6 GPixel/s, texture rate is 337.3 GTexel/s, and FP32 compute reaches 10.79 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 21.59 TFLOPS via 2:1 ratio. The card is rated for 176 W TDP, requires a single 8-pin power connector, and suggests a 450 W power supply. It connects via PCIe 4.0 x8 and outputs through one HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a connections.

In Downfall, the GPU's memory configuration is a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at most presets, but at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combination of higher resolution textures and post-processing effects can pressure the memory pool. The 128-bit bus width and 280.3 GB/s bandwidth are modest by current standards, yet the measured FPS data shows the card still delivers playable results at 4K Medium, which suggests the game's memory footprint is manageable at that preset. The 32 ray accelerators are present but Downfall is not a ray-tracing-heavy title, so their impact on the measured results is likely minimal; the frame rates are driven more by raw rasterization throughput.

The GPU's percentile rank among all GPUs is 65, with an average benchmark score of 19,765 in the lab's test suite. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the NVIDIA Tesla K40m (average score 19,885, delta -0.6%), the AMD FirePro D300 (19,637, delta +0.7%), the AMD FirePro W7000 (19,905, delta -0.7%), and the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 (19,602, delta +0.8%). These deltas are all within one percent, indicating that in pure compute terms the RX 6650 XT sits in a tight cluster with workstation cards from previous generations, but in gaming workloads like Downfall, the architectural differences (RDNA 2.0 vs older GCN or Kepler) favor the newer card.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how the RX 6650 XT scales from 1080p to 4K in Downfall, and the pattern reveals where the bottleneck shifts. At Low settings, average FPS goes from 199 at 1920x1080 to 142 at 2560x1440 (a 28.6% drop) and then to 88 at 3840x2160 (a 38.0% drop from 1440p, or 55.8% from 1080p). At Medium, the progression is 162 → 116 → 72, with drops of 28.4% and 37.9% respectively. At High, it is 133 → 95 → 59, drops of 28.6% and 37.9%. At Ultra, it is 83 → 59 → 37, drops of 28.9% and 37.3%.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all presets is striking. From 1080p to 1440p, every preset loses roughly 28-29% of its frame rate; from 1440p to 4K, every preset loses roughly 37-38%. This uniformity indicates that the scaling is dominated by pixel count rather than by preset-specific effects. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p multiplies pixels by 1.78, and the frame rate drops by about 0.72x, which is close to the inverse (0.56x) but not exact—the card is not purely pixel-bound at 1080p, as the CPU still has headroom. From 1440p to 4K, the pixel count multiplies by 2.25, and the frame rate drops by about 0.62x, again not the full inverse, suggesting that at 4K the GPU is becoming the primary limiter but is not completely saturated.

The absolute FPS values tell the story of the limiting component. At 1080p Low, 199 FPS is far beyond what a 60 Hz display needs, indicating the CPU and GPU are both capable of high throughput. At 4K Ultra, 37 FPS shows the GPU is struggling with the combined load. The fact that the Low preset at 4K still hits 88 FPS means the game's rendering cost is scalable; the Ultra preset's extra effects (likely shadows, ambient occlusion, and reflections) multiply the per-pixel cost significantly. The data suggests that for this combination, the RX 6650 XT is the limiting factor at 4K for all presets above Medium, while at 1080p, the CPU (an 8-core Zen 5 part) is not holding the GPU back, as evidenced by the 199 FPS ceiling.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Downfall at 4K smoothly?

A: Yes, but only on Medium settings. At 3840x2160 with Medium, the average FPS is 72 with a minimum of 61, which stays above the 60 FPS threshold. High at 4K averages 59 FPS, just below that line, while Ultra averages 37 FPS, which is not recommended for smooth play.

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming?

A: Medium is the safest choice, with 116 FPS average and a 99 FPS minimum. High at 1440p delivers 95 FPS average but has no recorded minimum, so consistency is uncertain. Ultra at 1440p drops to 59 FPS, which is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.

Q: How does the RX 6650 XT's memory bandwidth affect performance in this game?

A: The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 280.3 GB/s bandwidth. In Downfall, this appears sufficient for 1080p and 1440p across all presets, and even for 4K Medium (72 FPS). The 4K Ultra result at 37 FPS suggests the memory subsystem, combined with the GPU's compute limits, cannot handle the highest preset at that resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The CPU is not the bottleneck at 1080p. At Low settings, the combo reaches 199 FPS, and at Ultra it still manages 83 FPS. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F has 8 cores and 16 threads with a 5.50 GHz boost, which is more than adequate for this title. The GPU is the limiting factor at higher presets and resolutions.

Q: What is the FPS difference between High and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, High averages 133 FPS, while Ultra averages 83 FPS. That is a 37.6% reduction, the largest single-preset gap in the measured data. For a horror game where frame pacing matters, the drop from High to Ultra may not be worth the visual gains.

Q: Does the combo rank well among tested systems for this game?

A: The combo ranks 2424 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the 34.8th percentile (calculated as 2424/3716). This is below the median, indicating that while the RX 6650 XT can play the game, many other GPU configurations deliver higher frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT achieves a combo rank of 2424 out of 3716 tested combinations in Downfall. This places it in the lower 35% of all tested systems. The rank reflects the GPU's mid-range positioning; the RX 6650 XT has a percentile rank of 65 among all GPUs in the lab's synthetic benchmarks, but in a specific game like Downfall, the actual frame rates depend on the title's optimization and the CPU's ability to feed the GPU.

The CPU's percentile rank is 94 among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 69,996. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (average 69,875, delta +0.2%), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70,163, delta -0.2%), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515, delta +0.7%), and the Intel Core i7-14700K (69,355, delta +0.9%). These deltas are all under one percent, meaning the 9700F is statistically tied with these high-end desktop and mobile parts in synthetic throughput. However, in Downfall, the combo's rank is dragged down by the GPU, not the CPU.

The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 199 FPS, which is in the upper range of what most displays can show, but at 4K Ultra it falls to 37 FPS, a figure that many higher-tier GPUs would exceed. The combo's rank of 2424 suggests that for players targeting 4K or high refresh rates at max settings, this pairing is not ideal. For 1080p Medium or High, the combo would likely rank much higher, but the aggregate rank across all settings and resolutions places it in the lower third.

The deltaPct values for the CPU's rivals are all positive or near-zero, meaning the 9700F is slightly ahead of or equal to those parts in synthetic benchmarks. This indicates that if the GPU were upgraded, the CPU would not be a limiting factor in most games. In Downfall specifically, the combo's rank is a reflection of the GPU's performance ceiling rather than any CPU deficiency.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is an 8-core, 16-thread processor from the 9000 series, built on the Zen 5 architecture (codename Granite Ridge) using a 4 nm TSMC process. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The chip is fabricated with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. Cache hierarchy includes 80 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3. It supports DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration, with a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, and includes ECC support. The CPU uses AMD Socket AM5 and provides Gen 5 PCIe with 24 lanes. It has no integrated graphics. The launch MSRP is $289. The CPU's average benchmark score is 69,996, placing it in the 94th percentile of all processors.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (199 FPS) demonstrates that the 9700F's single-thread performance, boosted by the 5.50 GHz clock, can drive frame rates far beyond what most monitors can display. The PassMark single-thread score is 4,691, and the multi-thread score is 36,470, with a physics score of 2,122. These numbers indicate strong per-core performance, which is what matters for a game like Downfall that is unlikely to scale perfectly across 16 threads.

The nearest CPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks—the Ryzen 9 7940HX, Core i7-14700KF, Ryzen 9 7950X, and Core i7-14700K—all have average scores within 0.9% of the 9700F. This means that in Downfall, swapping the 9700F for any of these would yield almost identical frame rates, assuming the same GPU. The bottleneck at higher resolutions is clearly the graphics card. The CPU's 32 MB L3 cache and DDR5 memory support (89.6 GB/s) are ample for the game's data streaming needs, and the 8 cores are more than sufficient for the horror genre's typical single-player workloads.

The CPU's percentile rank of 94 indicates it outperforms 94% of all processors in the lab's database. This is a high-end part, and its performance in Downfall is not the limiting factor. The measured FPS at 1080p Medium (162 FPS) and 1440p Medium (116 FPS) are both well above playable thresholds, and the only scenario where the combo struggles—4K Ultra at 37 FPS—is entirely attributable to the GPU's compute and memory limits.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates for Downfall with the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT are as follows, organized by resolution and preset.

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 199 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.
• Medium: 162 FPS average, 138 FPS minimum, 187 FPS maximum.
• High: 133 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.
• Ultra: 83 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 142 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.
• Medium: 116 FPS average, 99 FPS minimum, 133 FPS maximum.
• High: 95 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.
• Ultra: 59 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 88 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.
• Medium: 72 FPS average, 61 FPS minimum, 83 FPS maximum.
• High: 59 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.
• Ultra: 37 FPS average, no minimum or maximum recorded.

Only the Medium preset has complete minimum and maximum data across all three resolutions. The minimum-to-average ratios for Medium are 85.2% at 1080p (138/162), 85.3% at 1440p (99/116), and 84.7% at 4K (61/72). This consistency indicates that Medium provides stable frame pacing regardless of resolution, which is important for a horror game where sudden frame drops can ruin tension. The maximum values for Medium are 187 FPS at 1080p, 133 FPS at 1440p, and 83 FPS at 4K, showing that the card can burst to higher frames in less demanding scenes.

The data reveals a clear pattern: every preset scales down by roughly the same percentage when moving to a higher resolution, and the Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimums, suggesting it is the most thoroughly tested or stable configuration. The Ultra preset at 4K, with 37 FPS average, is the only measured result below 40 FPS, and the High preset at 4K at 59 FPS is the only other result below 60 FPS. All other combinations exceed 60 FPS, with the majority exceeding 80 FPS. This breakdown confirms that the RX 6650 XT is a capable 1080p and 1440p card for Downfall, with 4K viability limited to Medium settings.