Downfall

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Downfall with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and AMD Radeon RX 580 reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 101.9 FPS, but dropping to 4K at the same settings reduces that to 45.9 FPS — a decline of more than half. The scaling curve steepens dramatically as settings climb. At Ultra, the 1080p result of 41.6 FPS falls to 21.7 FPS at 4K, which is roughly a 48% reduction.

This behavior points squarely at the Radeon RX 580 as the limiting component. The Ryzen 9 7900X, with its 12 cores and boost clock of 5.60 GHz, is far more capable than what this 2017-era Polaris GPU can feed. The data shows that moving from 1440p to 4K at Medium settings yields a drop from 63.2 FPS to 36.6 FPS, while the jump from 1080p to 1440p at the same settings is comparatively gentler (83.0 FPS to 63.2 FPS). The resolution scaling is not linear — the GPU's memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s and its 8 GB GDDR5 frame buffer become increasingly strained as pixel count rises.

The Low-to-Ultra spread at 4K tells a similar story: 45.9 FPS at Low versus 21.7 FPS at Ultra is a 24.2 FPS gap. At 1080p, that same setting spread is much wider, from 101.9 FPS down to 41.6 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions is typical of a GPU that has hit its throughput ceiling — the RX 580's 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 32 ROPs simply cannot scale with the pixel workload. In short, the CPU has ample headroom; the GPU is the bottleneck at every resolution tested, and the gap widens as settings increase.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this pairing of the Ryzen 9 7900X and RX 580 ranks 1602nd out of 1741 tested combinations for Downfall. That places it in the bottom 8% of all combos — a stark illustration of how a top-tier CPU is held back by an entry-level GPU from a previous generation. The rank reflects the measured FPS data, not the individual component strengths.

The CPU itself is not the problem. The Ryzen 9 7900X sits in the 93rd percentile against all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 50556. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 (50598, just 0.1% ahead), the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT (50738, 0.4% ahead), the Intel Core i7-13850HX (50827, 0.5% ahead), and the Intel Core i9-13980HX (50944, 0.8% ahead). The 7900X is essentially tied with these parts in raw compute, yet in Downfall it ranks near the bottom because of the GPU pairing.

The RX 580, by contrast, is a mid-pack performer. It sits in the 53rd percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13559. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (13564, 0% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 (13549, 0.1% behind), the AMD Radeon Pro 455 (13416, 1.1% behind), and the NVIDIA P106-090 (13716, 1.1% ahead). These are all older or lower-tier cards, confirming that the RX 580 is not a modern high-end part. The combo rank of 1602 out of 1741 is a direct consequence of pairing a 93rd-percentile CPU with a 53rd-percentile GPU — the data suggests the whole is far weaker than the sum of its parts.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process. It has a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a 170 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a desktop-class part with a 93rd-percentile standing against all CPUs, and its multi-threaded performance is exceptional: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 43695, while the single-core score is 6168.

In Downfall, however, the CPU's role is largely passive. The measured FPS data shows that the game is not thread-limited — even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would be most likely to bottleneck, the combo achieves 101.9 FPS, which is far below the 7900X's potential. The CPU's 3DMark scores reinforce this: 10972 for 16 threads, 7798 for 8 threads, and 12536 for max threads. These are strong numbers, but they don't translate into high frame rates in this title because the GPU caps the output.

The game's release date of 2016-02-28 also matters. Downfall is a Horror title from that era, and its engine was not designed to scale across 12 cores or 24 threads. The 7900X's single-thread performance (Geekbench single-core 2952, Passmark single-thread 4238) is more relevant here, and even that is overkill for a game that appears to be GPU-bound. The CPU's role in this combo is to ensure the GPU never becomes starved for draw calls or physics data — and given the RX 580's modest throughput, that is not a demanding job.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full measured FPS table for this combo in Downfall is as follows:

At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 101.9 FPS, Medium 83.0 FPS, High 67.3 FPS, and Ultra 41.6 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 60.3 FPS, a 59% reduction. The step from High to Ultra is particularly steep — 25.7 FPS — suggesting that the Ultra preset introduces effects that heavily tax the GPU's 32 ROPs and 6.175 TFLOPS of compute.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 73.8 FPS, Medium 63.2 FPS, High 47.7 FPS, and Ultra 33.7 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 40.1 FPS. The Medium-to-High step costs 15.5 FPS, and the High-to-Ultra step costs another 14.0 FPS. This resolution shows the GPU struggling more consistently; even Low settings cannot exceed 74 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 45.9 FPS, Medium 36.6 FPS, High 31.2 FPS, and Ultra 21.7 FPS. The entire range fits within a 24.2 FPS window. At this resolution, even Low settings produce less than half the 1080p Low result. The Ultra preset falls below 30 FPS, which is generally considered the threshold for playable frame rates in a horror title where smooth motion matters for atmosphere.

The data shows a clear hierarchy: 1080p Low is the only configuration that approaches triple-digit frame rates, and 4K Ultra is the only one that drops below 22 FPS. For a 60 FPS target, the combo can reach it at 1080p Low and Medium, and just barely at 1080p High (67.3 FPS) — but no 1440p setting or above achieves 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the clear determinant of this combo's performance in Downfall. This is a Polaris 20 chip built on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process, with 5,700 million transistors and a die size of 232 mm². It has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The base clock is 1257 MHz, with a boost clock of 1340 MHz, and memory runs at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, yielding 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 8 GB GDDR5 frame buffer is generous for the card's class, but the board has only 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 compute to work with.

The GPU's benchmark profile places it in the 53rd percentile, with an average score of 13559. Its Passmark G3D score is 8813, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 1005 — a low number that reflects its GCN 4.0 architecture's age. The RX 580 supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3, but its feature set is limited compared to modern GPUs. It has a TDP of 185 W and requires a 450 W PSU, with a single 8-pin power connector.

In Downfall, the GPU's limitations are exposed at every resolution. The 1080p Ultra result of 41.6 FPS is telling: this card simply cannot handle high-end settings in a 2016 horror title, even at the lowest HD resolution. The 4K results, ranging from 45.9 FPS at Low to 21.7 FPS at Ultra, confirm that the RX 580 is not a 4K-capable GPU for this game. The texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s are the physical limits that these numbers reflect. The GPU's 53rd-percentile standing — practically tied with the GTX 570 and GTX 950 — is consistent with its in-game performance, which is adequate for 1080p at medium settings but nothing more.