Downfall

# AMD Ryzen 7 9700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 in Downfall

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a formidable combination for Downfall, a horror title where frame rate stability can be as important as visual fidelity. The data shows this combo ranks 90th out of 2928 tested combinations, placing it in the top 3.1% of all systems evaluated for this game. This pairing leverages an 8-core, 16-thread Zen 5 processor with a flagship Ada Lovelace GPU, producing frame rates that range from 82 FPS at 4K Ultra to 442 FPS at 1080p Low — a spread that reveals much about where the bottleneck lies in different scenarios.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is built on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) using a 4 nm TSMC process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz can boost up to 5.50 GHz, which is a substantial clock headroom for a 65 W TDP part. The processor includes a 32 MB shared L3 cache, with 1 MB L2 and 80 KB L1 per core. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a PassMark single-thread score of 4691 and a multithread score of 36470, with an average benchmark score of 69996.

When examining Downfall's performance data, the CPU's influence is most visible at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the system produces 442 FPS average, and at 1080p Medium it hits 361 FPS — these numbers are so high that they suggest the CPU is keeping pace with the GPU's output even in a title that might not be heavily threaded. The Ryzen 7 9700F's single-thread performance, indicated by its 4691 PassMark score, likely helps in a horror game where AI routines, physics calculations, and scripted events can create spikes in CPU demand.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 94 (vs all CPUs) places it in the top 6% of processors. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (0.2% higher average score), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (0.2% lower), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (0.7% higher), and the Intel Core i7-14700K (0.9% higher). These margins are tiny — within 1% — suggesting that in CPU-bound scenarios, swapping between these processors would yield nearly identical frame rates. The fact that the 9700F trades blows with higher-core-count chips like the 7950X indicates strong per-core efficiency, which matters for a game that may not scale perfectly across 16 threads.

The data from Downfall shows a pattern consistent with a CPU that is not the primary limiter in most configurations. At 1440p High, the system delivers 212 FPS, and at 4K High it manages 132 FPS. These are high enough that even a modest CPU would likely reach similar numbers, but the 9700F's ability to feed the RTX 4090 at 1080p Low (442 FPS) demonstrates that it can handle extreme frame rates without becoming a bottleneck. The PassMark data compression score of 421988 and integer math score of 120788 further support that this chip has substantial computational throughput for game logic and physics.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows for Downfall reveal a clear hierarchy across four settings presets at each resolution. At 1080p, the Low preset yields 442 FPS average, Medium produces 361 FPS (with a minimum of 307 and maximum of 416), High delivers 296 FPS, and Ultra drops to 185 FPS. The step from Medium to High costs 65 FPS (about 18% performance), while High to Ultra costs another 111 FPS (about 37% performance). This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces a heavy rendering load — likely volumetric effects, shadows, or post-processing — that disproportionately impacts frame rate.

At 1440p, the pattern holds but with compressed margins. Low gives 315 FPS, Medium 258 FPS (min 219, max 297), High 212 FPS, and Ultra 132 FPS. The Medium-to-High drop is 46 FPS (18%), and High-to-Ultra is 80 FPS (38%). At 4K, Low produces 196 FPS, Medium 161 FPS (min 136, max 185), High 132 FPS, and Ultra 82 FPS. Here, the High-to-Ultra drop is 50 FPS (38%), while Medium-to-High is 29 FPS (18%).

The data indicates that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At every resolution, Medium maintains a frame rate that is at least 76% of the Low preset's output (361/442 at 1080p, 258/315 at 1440p, 161/196 at 4K), while presumably adding meaningful graphical improvements over Low. The Medium preset also has the only reported min/max FPS values, which show a 109 FPS range at 1080p (307-416), a 78 FPS range at 1440p (219-297), and a 49 FPS range at 4K (136-185). These ranges are tighter at higher resolutions, suggesting the Medium preset at 4K provides the most consistent frame pacing — a critical factor in a horror game where sudden frame hitches can break immersion.

For players with high-refresh-rate displays, the High preset at 1080p (296 FPS) or 1440p (212 FPS) exceeds most monitors' refresh ceilings, making it a viable choice if the additional visual effects over Medium are valued. Ultra at 1080p (185 FPS) and 1440p (132 FPS) remain playable, but the 4K Ultra result of 82 FPS is the only measured average below 100 FPS — a potential concern for smoothness in a genre that benefits from fluid motion.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K reveals how this system scales under increasing pixel load. At Low settings, the averages are 442 FPS (1080p), 315 FPS (1440p), and 196 FPS (4K). This represents a 28.7% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 55.7% drop from 1080p to 4K. At Medium, the numbers are 361, 258, and 161 FPS — a 28.5% drop to 1440p and a 55.4% drop to 4K. High settings show 296, 212, and 132 FPS — 28.4% and 55.4% drops respectively. Ultra settings are 185, 132, and 82 FPS — 28.6% and 55.7% drops.

The consistency of these percentages across all four settings is striking. Whether at Low or Ultra, moving from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 28-29% of frame rate, and moving to 4K costs about 55-56%. This uniformity suggests that Downfall's rendering load scales nearly linearly with pixel count, and that neither the CPU nor GPU is becoming disproportionately stressed at any particular resolution. If the CPU were the bottleneck at 1080p, we would expect the percentage drops to be smaller (because the GPU would have headroom to absorb more pixels without losing proportionally). If the GPU were overwhelmed at 4K, we would see larger drops. The data shows neither extreme — it indicates a balanced system where the RTX 4090's raw throughput scales predictably with resolution.

The absolute frame rates at 4K are still high — 132 FPS at High and 82 FPS at Ultra — which implies the GPU is rarely the limiting factor in the traditional sense. The 4K Ultra result of 82 FPS is the only point where the system dips below 100 FPS average, and even that is above the 60 FPS threshold typically considered minimum for smooth gameplay. The min/max data available for Medium settings shows the frame range widening at lower resolutions: 109 FPS range at 1080p, 78 FPS at 1440p, and 49 FPS at 4K. This indicates that at 1080p, the system's frame output has more variance — possibly due to CPU-bound frames where a single-threaded spike causes a dip — while at 4K the GPU is more consistently loaded, producing tighter frame delivery.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Downfall?

A: The highest measured average is 442 FPS at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. The lowest measured average is 82 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 9700F compare to its nearest CPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 69996 is 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875), 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70163), 0.7% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515), and 0.9% behind the Intel Core i7-14700K (69355). These deltas are within 1%, indicating near-identical performance.

Q: Does the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM matter for Downfall?

A: The GPU features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth. Given that the game runs at 132 FPS at 4K High, the memory capacity and bandwidth appear more than sufficient for this title's demands at all tested settings.

Q: What is the combo's ranking among all tested systems for Downfall?

A: This combination ranks 90th out of 2928 tested combos, placing it in the top 3.1% of all systems benchmarked in this game.

Q: How much FPS is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the drop is from 442 to 196 FPS (55.7% reduction). At Medium, it's 361 to 161 FPS (55.4%). At High, it's 296 to 132 FPS (55.4%). At Ultra, it's 185 to 82 FPS (55.7%). The loss is consistently around 55-56% regardless of preset.

Q: What is the only measured setting where the average FPS falls below 100?

A: The 3840x2160 Ultra preset produces an average of 82 FPS, the only measured configuration below 100 FPS. The next lowest is 132 FPS at 1440p Ultra and 4K High.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture (AD102 chip) using a 5 nm TSMC process, with 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. Its base clock is 2235 MHz with a boost clock of 2520 MHz, and it features 16384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. The GPU includes 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores, with a pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s. Its FP32 compute performance is 82.58 TFLOPS.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4090 achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9223, a Geekbench OpenCL score of 255416, and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 271631. Its PassMark G3D score is 38194 with a GPU compute score of 26613. The GPU's percentile ranking is 88 (vs all GPUs), and its average benchmark score is 60347. Its nearest rivals in synthetic tests are the Intel Arc Pro A60 (0% delta), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (0.3% higher), AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (2.5% lower), and AMD Radeon PRO V710 (2.9% higher).

The RTX 4090's role in Downfall is clearly dominant. Even at 4K Ultra, the system produces 82 FPS — a result that would be impossible without a GPU of this caliber. The 24 GB GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth provides ample headroom for high-resolution textures and effects. The measured FPS data shows that at 4K High (132 FPS), the GPU is still delivering more than double the 60 FPS target, suggesting that even the most demanding settings in this horror title do not fully stress the card.

The GPU's PassMark DirectX 11 score of 326 and DirectX 12 score of 150 are interesting data points. These scores, while not directly comparable to in-game FPS, suggest the card's API-specific performance characteristics. The game's release date of 2016-02-28 means it predates the RTX 4090's 2022-09-19 release by over six years, so Downfall was not designed with Ada Lovelace architecture in mind. Despite this, the card's raw horsepower translates to exceptional frame rates, implying the game's engine scales well with modern GPU compute capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. The Low preset produces an average of 442 FPS. Medium settings yield 361 FPS average with a minimum of 307 and maximum of 416 FPS. High settings produce 296 FPS average. Ultra settings drop to 185 FPS average. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 257 FPS span (442 to 185), with each successive preset reducing performance by roughly 65-111 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 315 FPS (Low), 258 FPS (Medium, with min 219 and max 297), 212 FPS (High), and 132 FPS (Ultra). The span from Low to Ultra is 183 FPS, narrower than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is starting to become more of a factor as pixel count increases.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 196 FPS (Low), 161 FPS (Medium, with min 136 and max 185), 132 FPS (High), and 82 FPS (Ultra). The Low-to-Ultra span is 114 FPS. Notably, the 4K Ultra result of 82 FPS is the only measured average below 100 FPS across all 12 configurations.

The Medium preset is the only one with min/max FPS data across all three resolutions. At 1080p, the 307-416 range represents a 35.5% variation from min to max. At 1440p, the 219-297 range is a 35.6% variation. At 4K, the 136-185 range is a 36.0% variation. These nearly identical percentages across resolutions suggest the frame time variance is consistent regardless of resolution, pointing to a game engine characteristic rather than a hardware limitation.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a combo rank of 90 out of 2928 tested combos in Downfall. This places the system in the top 3.1% of all configurations benchmarked for this game. The rank reflects the overall capability of the pairing across all measured settings and resolutions.

To contextualize this rank, consider that the CPU's percentile vs all CPUs is 94 (top 6%), and the GPU's percentile vs all GPUs is 88 (top 12%). The combo rank of 90 out of 2928 is actually better than either component's individual percentile would suggest — implying that the synergy between the Ryzen 7 9700F and RTX 4090 is particularly effective for Downfall. This could be because the game benefits from the CPU's strong single-thread performance (PassMark single-thread score of 4691) combined with the GPU's massive compute throughput (82.58 TFLOPS FP32).

The nearest CPU rivals — the Ryzen 9 7940HX, Core i7-14700KF, Ryzen 9 7950X, and Core i7-14700K — all score within 1% of the 9700F in synthetic benchmarks. This suggests that swapping the CPU for any of these alternatives would likely produce nearly identical frame rates in Downfall, meaning the combo rank is primarily driven by the GPU's performance. The RTX 4090's nearest GPU rivals in synthetic tests (Intel Arc Pro A60, AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48, AMD Radeon Pro W6600M, AMD Radeon PRO V710) are workstation-class cards with average scores within 3% of the 4090, but none of these would be expected to match the 4090's gaming performance in practice.

The rank of 90 out of 2928 means there are 89 combinations that outperform this setup in Downfall. Given that the RTX 4090 is the fastest consumer GPU in the data, those higher-ranked combos likely pair it with even stronger CPUs, possibly with higher multithreaded scores (the 9700F's PassMark multithread score is 36470). However, the 9700F's 94th percentile CPU rank suggests that only a small fraction of processors could meaningfully improve on this result. The data implies that for most players, this combo sits at the practical ceiling of what is achievable in Downfall, with only marginal gains available from alternative high-end CPU pairings.