Downfall

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows for Downfall reveal a clear hierarchy across the four available presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 156.1 FPS, which is the highest figure recorded for this combination. Medium drops to 129.1 FPS, High to 107.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 66.5 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs roughly 17% performance, while the jump from High to Ultra is proportionally steeper, losing about 38% of the High preset's frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats with Low at 111 FPS, Medium at 93.7 FPS, High at 76.3 FPS, and Ultra at 44.6 FPS. The Ultra preset here is the first to dip below 45 FPS, which suggests that the highest settings place a significant load on the graphics pipeline. At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained: Low still manages 70.9 FPS, Medium drops to 55.2 FPS, High to 47.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 29.1 FPS.

The data indicates that the Low preset is the only configuration that maintains playable frame rates across all three resolutions, staying above 70 FPS even at 4K. Medium is viable at 1080p and 1440p but falls to 55.2 FPS at 4K, which may be marginal for smooth gameplay depending on the user's tolerance. High is acceptable at 1080p and 1440p but drops to 47.7 FPS at 4K. Ultra should be reserved for 1080p or 1440p use, as the 29.1 FPS result at 4K is likely too low for a horror title requiring responsive controls.

For the best balance between visual fidelity and performance, Medium at 1080p or 1440p appears to be the sweet spot, offering 129.1 FPS and 93.7 FPS respectively. These numbers are substantially above the 60 FPS threshold while retaining higher-quality shadows and textures than Low. Users prioritizing maximum smoothness should select Low, particularly at 1440p or 4K, where the frame rate cushion is thinner.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is built on the Pascal architecture with a GP104 chip manufactured on a 16 nm process. Its base clock is 1506 MHz with a boost clock of 1683 MHz, and it carries 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 256.3 GB/s. The memory operates at 2002 MHz with 8 Gbps effective speed. The GPU has 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units.

In Downfall, the GPU's memory capacity and bandwidth appear sufficient for the game's demands, as the measured FPS scales consistently with settings changes. The biggest performance gap between Low and Ultra at any resolution is at 1080p, where the difference is 89.6 FPS (156.1 vs 66.5). This wide spread indicates that the GTX 1070 has enough headroom to handle the game's lowest settings easily, but the Ultra preset's additional effects and draw distances push the GPU's compute resources harder.

The GPU's 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 202.0 GTexel/s texture rate are the likely bottlenecks at higher settings. At 4K Ultra, the 29.1 FPS result suggests the pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s is insufficient to sustain fluid output when combined with heavy shading work. The GTX 1070 sits at the 51st percentile among all GPUs in the benchmark database, with an average benchmark score of 12331, placing it near the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 (0.7% higher) and the GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER (1.4% higher). This mid-range positioning explains why the card handles Low and Medium presets comfortably but struggles with Ultra at high resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with the GTX 1070 ranks 1461 out of 1741 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the lower 16% of all configurations. This rank reflects the GPU's age relative to more modern cards, as the CPU is far more capable. The GTX 1070's percentile of 51 puts it in the middle of the GPU distribution, but the pairing with a top-tier CPU does not boost the overall ranking because the game's frame rates are largely GPU-bound at higher settings.

The Ryzen 9 5900X itself ranks in the 90th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39453. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 4245P (0.2% higher), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS (0.7% higher), the Intel Core i7-13700F (0.9% lower), and the Intel Core i7-13700 (1% lower). This CPU is clearly overqualified for the GTX 1070 in a game like Downfall, where the measured FPS at Low settings across all resolutions suggests the GPU is the limiting factor. The combo rank of 1461 indicates that most other tested pairings achieve higher frame rates, but this is expected given the GTX 1070's 51st percentile standing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the four presets produce the following average FPS: Low at 156.1, Medium at 129.1, High at 107.4, and Ultra at 66.5. The progression from Low to Medium to High to Ultra shows a steady decline of approximately 27 FPS, 22 FPS, and 41 FPS respectively. The Ultra preset's drop is the most severe, suggesting that the highest settings introduce effects that disproportionately tax the GPU.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results are: Low at 111, Medium at 93.7, High at 76.3, and Ultra at 44.6. The gaps between presets narrow compared to 1080p, with differences of roughly 17.3 FPS, 17.4 FPS, and 31.7 FPS. The Ultra preset again shows the largest penalty, falling 31.7 FPS below High. At 3840x2160, the numbers compress further: Low at 70.9, Medium at 55.2, High at 47.7, and Ultra at 29.1. Here, the difference between Low and Ultra is 41.8 FPS, but the absolute values are low enough that each preset represents a meaningful step in playability.

The data shows that at every resolution, the jump from High to Ultra is the largest single drop, ranging from 31.7 FPS at 1440p to 40.9 FPS at 1080p. This suggests that the Ultra preset enables a specific set of effects that the GTX 1070 cannot handle efficiently, making High a more reasonable ceiling for this GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS decline from 1080p to 1440p to 4K follows a predictable pattern that reveals the GPU's limitations. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 156.1 at 1080p to 111 at 1440p (a 28.9% reduction) and then to 70.9 at 4K (a 36.1% reduction from 1440p). At Medium, the corresponding drops are from 129.1 to 93.7 (27.4%) and then to 55.2 (41.1%). At High, the figures go from 107.4 to 76.3 (29.0%) and then to 47.7 (37.5%). At Ultra, the progression is from 66.5 to 44.6 (32.9%) and then to 29.1 (34.8%).

The consistent percentage drops across settings indicate that the GTX 1070 is the primary limiting component, as the CPU remains constant. If the Ryzen 9 5900X were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to remain roughly flat across resolutions at lower settings, but the data shows a steady decline even at Low. The steeper percentage drops at Medium and High (41.1% and 37.5% respectively from 1440p to 4K) suggest that higher settings increase the pixel shader workload, which scales with resolution. The Ultra preset shows slightly smaller relative drops, likely because the frame rate is already so low that other bottlenecks, such as draw call overhead, begin to play a role. Overall, the scaling behavior confirms that this game is GPU-bound for this combination, and users should expect resolution to be the primary determinant of frame rate.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Vermeer), built on TSMC's 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz, with a 64 MB L3 cache divided into two 74 mm² dies. The CPU supports DDR4 memory on a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s and uses PCIe Gen 4. Its benchmark scores are strong: Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 33150, single-core reaches 4680, and Geekbench multicore scores 11877 with a single-core score of 2202. The Passmark multithread score is 39002, and the 3DMark max threads score is 10075.

In Downfall, the CPU's role appears minimal because the game is primarily GPU-bound, as evidenced by the resolution scaling patterns. However, the Ryzen 9 5900X's high single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core of 4680 and 3DMark single-thread of 941) ensures that the game's main thread is never starved. The 24 threads provide ample headroom for background tasks and any multi-threaded game systems, but the measured FPS at 1080p Low (156.1) is likely near the GPU's maximum output, not the CPU's limit.

The nearest rival CPUs in the database, such as the Intel Core i7-13700 (1% higher average score) and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS (0.7% higher), would not produce noticeably different results in Downfall given the same GPU, as the frame rates are constrained by the GTX 1070. The CPU's 90th percentile ranking means it is far more capable than this game requires, and the combo rank of 1461 is not a reflection of CPU weakness but rather the GPU's mid-range position. For users of this specific pairing, upgrading the GPU would yield far larger improvements than any CPU change, as the data consistently shows the GTX 1070 as the limiting factor across all settings and resolutions.