Downfall

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Downfall with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 reveals a clear pattern: this pairing is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with CPU headroom becoming increasingly irrelevant as pixel count rises. At 1080p Low, the system produces 400 FPS on average; stepping up to 1440p Low drops that to 285 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls further to 178 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p represents a 28.8% performance reduction, while the jump from 1440p to 4K Low costs another 37.5% of the frame rate.

The High preset tells a similar story but with lower absolute numbers: 268 FPS at 1080p, 191 FPS at 1440p, and 119 FPS at 4K. That is a 28.7% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 37.7% drop from 1440p to 4K. The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and High settings strongly indicates that the RTX 4080's rendering throughput—not the CPU—is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus with 716.8 GB/s bandwidth is being tasked progressively harder as resolution increases.

Ultra settings amplify the resolution penalty. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 168 FPS; at 1440p Ultra, it drops to 120 FPS (a 28.6% reduction); and at 4K Ultra, it plummets to 74 FPS (a 38.3% reduction from 1440p). These near-identical percentage drops across all four presets suggest that Downfall's graphics workload scales almost linearly with pixel count when the GPU is the bottleneck. The game does not appear to exhibit any sudden cliff or anomaly—just steady, predictable degradation as resolution climbs.

The Medium preset provides the only measurements with min and max FPS values, offering insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 327 FPS with a min of 278 and max of 376 FPS — a spread of 98 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average is 233 FPS with min 198 and max 268 FPS, a spread of 70 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 145 FPS with min 123 and max 167 FPS, a spread of 44 FPS. The shrinking spread at higher resolutions indicates that as the GPU becomes more saturated, frame delivery becomes more consistent—there is less idle headroom for spikes, but also fewer catastrophic dips.

What this data shows for practical purposes: at 1080p, the RTX 4080 is so far ahead of the game's demands that even Ultra settings produce 168 FPS, leaving the Ryzen 9 7900X's 12 cores and 24 threads largely underutilized. At 4K, the GPU is working hard enough that the CPU's performance ceiling is rarely approached. The 7900X's single-thread score of 1093 in 3dMark and multi-thread score of 12536 at max threads are simply not the constraining factor at any resolution tested.

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X sufficient for 4K gaming in Downfall?

A: Yes. At 4K Ultra, the combo averages 74 FPS, and at 4K High it reaches 119 FPS. The CPU's 12 cores, 24 threads, and 5.60 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom; the data shows the GPU is the limiting component at 4K.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 191 FPS. This is well above the 120 FPS achieved at 1440p Ultra, making High the more sensible choice for high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors.

Q: Does the RTX 4080's 16 GB VRAM matter for Downfall?

A: The 16 GB GDDR6X memory with 716.8 GB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient. At 4K Ultra, the average is still 74 FPS, and there is no evidence in the measured data of VRAM-related stuttering or performance collapse at any resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 scores 54247 on average, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209) and 1.1% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54828 — that rival is actually 1.1% higher, not lower). The data shows a virtual tie with the SUPER and a slight deficit to the Pro W5700X.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 7900X a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests not to a problematic degree. At 1080p Low, the system produces 400 FPS, and at 1080p Ultra it still manages 168 FPS. The CPU's 3dMark single-thread score of 1093 and 2-thread score of 2137 indicate strong per-core performance that keeps up with the GPU at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the best preset for 4K gameplay?

A: High settings at 4K yield 119 FPS average, which is 45 FPS higher than Ultra's 74 FPS. The gap suggests that Ultra's extra effects cost significant performance without a proportional visual return, making High the recommended choice for smooth 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing for Downfall. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory operates at 1400 MHz with 22.4 Gbps effective speed, feeding a 256-bit bus that delivers 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's boost clock of 2505 MHz and base of 2205 MHz drive 9728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s, both of which are directly relevant to how Downfall renders its horror environments.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark standing places it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54247. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54209 — a delta of just 0.1%, meaning the two cards are effectively identical in raw compute. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54828, which is 1.1% higher, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55698, 2.6% higher. These small deltas against workstation and mid-range cards highlight that the RTX 4080's position is competitive but not dominant in synthetic tests.

In actual Downfall measurements, the GPU's role becomes clearer as resolution scales. At 1080p Low, the system hits 400 FPS — a figure so high that it almost certainly reflects CPU-side limits or engine-level caps rather than GPU saturation. At 4K Ultra, the 74 FPS average indicates the GPU is fully exercised. The 4K Medium result of 145 FPS with a min of 123 and max of 167 shows that the GPU can maintain playable frame rates even when the framebuffer is massive.

The 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6567 and PassMark G3D score of 34457 are consistent with a card that excels at traditional rasterization. Downfall, being a 2016-era horror title, does not push ray tracing or DLSS demands — the RTX 4080's 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are likely idle or underused here. The game's demands are purely conventional: fill-rate, memory bandwidth, and shader throughput. The 4080's 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is overkill for this workload, which is why even 4K High produces 119 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 4080 and Ryzen 9 7900X combination delivers exceptional performance across all presets. Low settings average 400 FPS, Medium averages 327 FPS with a min of 278 and max of 376, High averages 268 FPS, and Ultra averages 168 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 232 FPS — a 58% reduction from the Low baseline. This suggests that Ultra's additional settings—likely shadows, post-processing, and texture filtering—impose a significant cost even at a resolution where the GPU has ample headroom.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 285 FPS on Low, 233 FPS on Medium (min 198, max 268), 191 FPS on High, and 120 FPS on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 29-37% depending on preset, which is expected given the 1.78x increase in pixel count. The 1440p Ultra result of 120 FPS is exactly half the 240 FPS one might expect from scaling the 1080p Ultra number, but the actual 168 FPS at 1080p Ultra means the 1440p number represents a 28.6% reduction — not a halving. This indicates that at 1080p Ultra, the CPU or game engine was already limiting the GPU's full potential.

At 3840x2160, the performance profile shifts decisively toward GPU-bound behavior. Low averages 178 FPS, Medium averages 145 FPS (min 123, max 167), High averages 119 FPS, and Ultra averages 74 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest measured frame rate in the entire data set, but it remains playable. The Medium preset's min of 123 FPS at 4K is notable — it means even the 1% lows stay above 120 FPS, which is a strong indicator of consistent frame delivery. The spread between min and max at 4K Medium is 44 FPS, tighter than the 70 FPS spread at 1440p Medium and the 98 FPS spread at 1080p Medium.

The data reveals a consistent pattern: at 1080p, the CPU is the upper bound in Low and Medium settings, as evidenced by the 400 FPS and 327 FPS results. At 4K, the GPU becomes the sole limiting factor, with no preset producing a frame rate that would suggest CPU involvement. The 4K High result of 119 FPS and 4K Ultra of 74 FPS are both plausible GPU-bound numbers for a card of this class.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture (codenamed Raphael) using TSMC's 5 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a TDP of 170 W. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 over a dual-channel bus with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p. The 400 FPS result on Low settings is a strong indicator that the game's engine is hitting a CPU-side limit — no GPU of this class should be constrained to 400 FPS in a 2016 horror title. The 3dMark single-thread score of 1093 and 2-thread score of 2137 show that the 7900X has strong per-core performance, which is what Downfall's engine primarily relies on. The 4-thread score of 4151 and 8-thread score of 7798 suggest that the game can leverage multiple cores to some degree, but the 1600 FPS jump from 1080p Low to 4K Low is not CPU-driven — it is purely GPU workload.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks place it in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53288. Its nearest rivals are all server or high-end desktop parts: the AMD EPYC 7313P scores 53206 (0.2% lower), the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 scores 53469 (0.3% higher), and the Intel Core i7-14700F scores 53620 (0.6% higher). The 7900X's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29300 and single-core score of 2016.5 illustrate a processor that excels in both threaded and lightly-threaded workloads.

For Downfall specifically, the CPU's impact is minimal at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 74 FPS is almost entirely GPU-bound; the 7900X is far from a limiting factor. At 1440p, the CPU still has headroom — the 285 FPS on Low settings is likely still engine-limited, not CPU-limited. Only at 1080p with Medium or lower settings does the CPU's performance ceiling become relevant, and even then, 327 FPS on Medium is far beyond what most displays can show. The 7900X's 24 threads are overkill for this game, but the high single-thread performance (PassMark single-thread score of 4238) ensures it never becomes a bottleneck in any realistic scenario.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing Downfall with this hardware. At 4K, High settings (119 FPS) offer a 60.8% performance improvement over Ultra (74 FPS), while the visual difference between these presets is unlikely to justify losing 45 FPS in a horror game where smoothness matters for atmosphere. The 4K Medium result of 145 FPS with a min of 123 FPS is even more compelling for players with 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays — it guarantees that frame rate stays above 120 FPS even in the worst-case scenes.

At 1440p, the recommendation shifts. High settings (191 FPS) are the sweet spot for 165 Hz or 240 Hz monitors, while Ultra (120 FPS) is viable for 120 Hz panels. The 1440p Medium result of 233 FPS is only useful for 240 Hz displays, but the min of 198 FPS means even that preset cannot hold a 240 Hz cap consistently. For most 1440p users, High is the logical choice: it provides 191 FPS average, which is smooth on everything except the most extreme refresh-rate displays, and it leaves headroom for frame-time spikes.

At 1080p, every preset is playable. Ultra (168 FPS) is the best choice for visual quality, as the GPU has so much headroom that even the heaviest settings do not drop below 144 FPS territory. Medium (327 FPS) is only relevant for 300 Hz+ esports-style monitors, which is not a typical use case for a horror game. The 1080p Low result of 400 FPS is essentially a CPU-bound artifact and offers no practical benefit.

The data's overall verdict: use High at 4K for a smooth 119 FPS, High at 1440p for 191 FPS, and Ultra at 1080p for 168 FPS. The Medium preset's min FPS numbers (123 at 4K, 198 at 1440p, 278 at 1080p) make it a strong fallback if frame-time consistency is the priority, but High provides a better balance of visual fidelity and performance at every resolution. Ultra should be avoided at 4K unless the user prioritizes maximum image quality over the 45 FPS loss.