Downfall

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

The measured FPS data for Downfall shows a steep and consistent performance cliff as resolution climbs, which points squarely at the GPU as the primary bottleneck in this pairing. At 1080p Low, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti delivers 147 FPS on average. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 105 FPS, a 28.6% reduction from the 1080p figure. At 4K Low, the average falls further to 65 FPS, which is only 44.2% of the 1080p Low result. This pattern — where each resolution step costs a substantial chunk of performance — is the classic signature of a graphics-card-limited scenario.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is less punishing than the jump to 4K, but it is still significant. In High settings, 1080p averages 99 FPS, 1440p averages 70 FPS (a 29.3% drop), and 4K averages 44 FPS (a 55.6% drop from 1080p). The Medium preset tells a similar story: 120 FPS at 1080p, 86 FPS at 1440p (down 28.3%), and 53 FPS at 4K (down 55.8%). Ultra is the most demanding tier, and the scaling there is even harsher in relative terms: 62 FPS at 1080p, 44 FPS at 1440p (down 29.0%), and 27 FPS at 4K (down 56.5%).

What these numbers reveal is that the GTX 1660 Ti's rendering throughput is the limiting factor at every resolution above 1080p. The Ryzen 9 7900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, has ample headroom to feed the GPU at 1080p, where frame rates are highest. But as pixel count increases, the GPU's fixed shading rate becomes the wall. The fact that the 4K Ultra result (27 FPS) is less than half of the 1080p Ultra result (62 FPS) underscores that the GPU is being saturated well before the CPU's capabilities are taxed.

Notably, the delta between Low and Ultra at each resolution is substantial, but the relative gap narrows as resolution rises. At 1080p, Ultra (62 FPS) is 57.8% slower than Low (147 FPS). At 4K, Ultra (27 FPS) is 58.5% slower than Low (65 FPS). This near-constant percentage gap suggests that the GPU's memory bandwidth and pixel throughput are the governing constraints, not the CPU. The GTX 1660 Ti's 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are fixed resources that scale poorly against the 8.3 million pixels of 4K.

The data also shows that 1440p is a viable middle ground for this combo if the user accepts lower presets. The 1440p Medium result of 86 FPS is smooth, and 1440p Low at 105 FPS is even better. But 4K is only playable at Low (65 FPS) or Medium (53 FPS); High at 44 FPS and Ultra at 27 FPS fall below the threshold for fluid horror gameplay, where responsiveness matters for atmosphere and timing.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is a Turing-architecture card built on a 12 nm process, with a base clock of 1500 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory operates at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) across a 192-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications are modest by modern standards, and the benchmark data confirms that they are the decisive factor in Downfall's performance ceiling.

The GPU's 1536 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs produce a pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 169.9 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput is 5.437 TFLOPS. Against this, the game's demands at 4K are simply too high. The 4K Ultra result of 27 FPS is a direct consequence of the card's limited ROP and texture throughput being overwhelmed by the 8.3 million pixel frame buffer. The 4K Medium result of 53 FPS shows that reducing shading complexity helps, but the card still cannot reach 60 FPS at that resolution.

The GTX 1660 Ti's 6 GB VRAM is another factor. Downfall, being a 2016 horror title, does not push extremely high texture budgets, but at 4K Ultra, the combination of high-resolution textures and post-processing can strain the memory subsystem. The fact that 4K High (44 FPS) is only 17.0% faster than 4K Ultra (27 FPS) suggests that the card is not merely bandwidth-limited but also compute-limited at the highest settings. The 4K Low result of 65 FPS indicates that when the game's shader load is minimized, the GPU can still produce a playable frame rate, but it is far from the 147 FPS seen at 1080p Low.

The GPU's percentile rank of 41 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 7723, places it in the lower-middle tier. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks — the AMD Radeon 540 (0.7% slower), AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 (1.9% slower), AMD Radeon R7 250 (2.2% slower), and Intel Arc A310 (2.3% slower) — are all similarly positioned. This means the GTX 1660 Ti is not a high-end part, and Downfall's measured results reflect that. The card's DirectX 12 Passmark score of 51 and DirectX 11 score of 103 are low, which is consistent with the game's reliance on older API paths. The DirectX 9 score of 190 is higher, suggesting that the card retains some strength in legacy workloads.

The GPU's 120 W TDP and 300 W suggested PSU are not performance metrics, but they indicate the card's modest power envelope. What matters for Downfall is that the GTX 1660 Ti's clocks and memory are insufficient to maintain high frame rates at 4K, and the data confirms that the CPU is never the limiting factor in this pairing.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

For a smooth experience in Downfall with this hardware, the data points to 1080p Medium as the sweet spot. The 1080p Medium result averages 120 FPS, with a minimum of 102 FPS and a maximum of 138 FPS. This is well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides a comfortable margin for frame time spikes during intense horror sequences. The 1080p High preset at 99 FPS is also playable, but the 21 FPS loss from Medium to High is not worth the visual gain for a title that relies on atmosphere rather than sharp textures.

At 1440p, the recommendation shifts to Low or Medium. The 1440p Low result of 105 FPS is excellent, and 1440p Medium at 86 FPS (minimum 73 FPS) is still smooth. The 1440p High result of 70 FPS is borderline, and 1440p Ultra at 44 FPS is not recommended for sustained play. For users with 1440p monitors, the data suggests staying on Low or Medium to maintain a consistent frame rate above 80 FPS.

At 4K, the measured results are marginal. The 4K Low result of 65 FPS is the only preset that clears the 60 FPS bar, and even that is close to the edge. The 4K Medium result of 53 FPS is playable but with visible stutter risk, given the minimum of 45 FPS. The 4K High (44 FPS) and 4K Ultra (27 FPS) presets are not recommended for any gameplay that requires responsive input. If the user must play at 4K, the data says to use Low and accept the reduced visual fidelity.

The overall verdict is that this GPU is best paired with a 1080p display for Downfall. The 1080p Ultra result of 62 FPS is the highest preset that remains playable, but the 58 FPS gap between Ultra and Low at 1080p suggests that the card's shading resources are the bottleneck. For the best balance of visual quality and performance, 1080p Medium or High is the measured recommendation. The 4K Ultra result of 27 FPS is a hard floor that should be avoided.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this CPU-GPU combo in Downfall?

A: The highest measured average is 147 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next best is 120 FPS at 1920x1080 with Medium settings.

Q: Can this system run Downfall at 4K with a playable frame rate?

A: Yes, but only at Low or Medium settings. The 4K Low average is 65 FPS, and the 4K Medium average is 53 FPS with a minimum of 45 FPS. High and Ultra presets produce 44 FPS and 27 FPS respectively, which are not recommended.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 Ti compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti has an average benchmark score of 7723. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 540, scores 7673 (0.7% lower). The AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 is 1.9% lower, the AMD Radeon R7 250 is 2.2% lower, and the Intel Arc A310 is 2.3% lower.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low averages 147 FPS while Ultra averages 62 FPS. This means Ultra is approximately 57.8% slower than Low at that resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this system for Downfall?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The Ryzen 9 7900X has 12 cores and 24 threads, while the GTX 1660 Ti's frame rates drop steeply with resolution, which is a GPU-limited pattern. The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7313P, has a nearly identical average benchmark score (0.2% difference), confirming the CPU is not a limiting factor.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested system configurations for this game?

A: This AMD Ryzen 9 7900X + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti combo ranks 3202 out of 3716 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the lower 13.8% of configurations.

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

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the Zen 4 (Raphael) family, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with 64 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB of L2 cache per core. Its memory bandwidth is 83.2 GB/s over a dual-channel DDR5 bus. These are high-end specifications, and the benchmark results show that the CPU is far from being the bottleneck in Downfall.

The CPU's 3DMark scores are telling: 10973 for 16 threads, 7798 for 8 threads, 4151 for 4 threads, and 2137 for 2 threads, with a single-thread score of 1093. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29300 and single-core score of 2016.5 further demonstrate the processor's strength. The Geekbench multi-core score of 19267 and single-core score of 2617 reinforce this. In PassMark, the multi-thread score is 51406, and the single-thread score is 4238. These scores place the Ryzen 9 7900X in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53288.

The nearest rivals to the Ryzen 9 7900X are the AMD EPYC 7313P (0.2% higher average score), Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (0.3% lower), Intel Xeon 634 (0.6% higher), and Intel Core i7-14700F (0.6% lower). None of these rivals show a meaningful performance gap, which means the CPU is delivering expected performance for its class. In Downfall, the game's frame rates at 1080p Low (147 FPS) and 1080p Medium (120 FPS) are high enough to suggest that the CPU is feeding the GPU adequately. The fact that frame rates drop by roughly 28-29% when moving from 1080p to 1440p, and another 28-29% when moving from 1440p to 4K, is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario.

The Ryzen 9 7900X's 12 cores and 24 threads are overkill for a 2016 horror title like Downfall, which likely uses only a few threads. The single-thread performance, as measured by 3DMark single-thread score of 1093 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2016.5, is more relevant. The boost clock of 5.60 GHz ensures that the game's primary thread has ample headroom. The data shows that the CPU's role in this pairing is to provide a stable platform that never limits the GPU, and the measured FPS values confirm that the GTX 1660 Ti is the sole constraint on performance.

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

The measured FPS data for Downfall with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti covers three resolutions and four settings presets. The results are as follows:

At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 147 FPS. The Medium preset averages 120 FPS, with a minimum of 102 FPS and a maximum of 138 FPS. The High preset averages 99 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 62 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 85 FPS, which is the largest absolute gap across all resolutions, indicating that the GPU has the most headroom at this resolution to respond to settings changes.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 105 FPS. The Medium preset averages 86 FPS, with a minimum of 73 FPS and a maximum of 99 FPS. The High preset averages 70 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 44 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 61 FPS, which is narrower than at 1080p, showing that the GPU is starting to saturate as pixel count increases.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 65 FPS. The Medium preset averages 53 FPS, with a minimum of 45 FPS and a maximum of 61 FPS. The High preset averages 44 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 27 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 38 FPS, the narrowest of all resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the binding constraint and that settings changes have diminishing returns at 4K.

Comparing settings across resolutions, the Medium preset shows the most consistent minimum and maximum data. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 102 FPS and the maximum is 138 FPS, a 36 FPS range. At 1440p Medium, the range is 26 FPS (73 to 99). At 4K Medium, the range is 16 FPS (45 to 61). This tightening of the frame rate range at higher resolutions is another indicator of GPU saturation, as the card's frame time variance decreases when it is consistently maxed out.

The Low preset at 4K (65 FPS) is the only 4K result above 60 FPS, while the Medium preset at 4K (53 FPS) is the only other 4K result with a recorded minimum above 40 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K (27 FPS) is the lowest measured value in the entire dataset. The 1080p Low result of 147 FPS is the highest measured value overall. These two extremes define the performance envelope of this hardware combo in Downfall: a 120 FPS range between the best and worst measured configurations.

The data also shows that the 1440p High result (70 FPS) is nearly identical to the 1080p Ultra result (62 FPS) in relative terms, differing by only 8 FPS. Similarly, the 4K High result (44 FPS) matches the 1440p Ultra result (44 FPS) exactly. This suggests that the game's rendering load scales predictably with resolution and settings, and that the GTX 1660 Ti's performance ceiling is consistent across these combinations. The 4K Ultra result of 27 FPS is less than half of the 1440p High result of 70 FPS, illustrating the exponential cost of pushing both resolution and quality to the maximum.