Downfall

# Downfall with AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile delivers a robust 1080p experience in Downfall, with the measured frame rates indicating that this combination sits comfortably within the upper tier of tested hardware configurations. The combo ranks 1392 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the 63rd percentile of all tested systems. The data reveals a system capable of high refresh rate gaming at 1080p and solid 1440p performance, though 4K Ultra settings push the GPU to its limits. The measured results show a clear scaling pattern across resolutions and settings that reflects the balance between the 16-core CPU and the 12 GB GDDR7 GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and follows the expected pattern of GPU-bound scaling. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 263 FPS at 1920x1080 to 188 FPS at 2560x1440, a 28.5% reduction, and then to 117 FPS at 3840x2160, a 55.5% reduction from the 1080p baseline. This scaling suggests that at lower settings, the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases, but the CPU still has enough headroom to maintain high frame rates even at 4K.

At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 215 at 1080p to 154 at 1440p (a 28.4% reduction) and then to 96 at 4K (a 55.3% reduction from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and Medium settings indicates that the scaling is driven almost entirely by resolution-dependent GPU workload rather than CPU limitations. The minimum FPS values at Medium settings also scale proportionally: 183 at 1080p, 130 at 1440p, and 81 at 4K, maintaining a relatively stable ratio of minimum-to-average performance.

High settings show a slightly different scaling pattern. The average FPS drops from 176 at 1080p to 126 at 1440p (a 28.4% reduction) and then to 78 at 4K (a 55.7% reduction from 1080p). This near-identical percentage reduction across all three settings presets strongly suggests that the rendering workload scales uniformly with resolution, and the system does not encounter any memory bandwidth or capacity bottlenecks until the higher resolution and quality combinations are tested.

Ultra settings reveal the steepest scaling curve. The average FPS drops from 110 at 1080p to 79 at 1440p (a 28.2% reduction) and then to 49 at 4K (a 55.5% reduction from 1080p). While the percentage drop is similar to other settings, the absolute values at 4K Ultra fall below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that this combination is not suitable for maximum quality at 4K. The fact that the percentage reduction remains consistent across all quality levels suggests that the limiting component at 4K is the GPU's raw rendering throughput rather than any specific resource like VRAM capacity or texture fill rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1392 out of 3716 tested combinations places this system in the 63rd percentile of all tested hardware pairings for Downfall. This ranking reflects a configuration that outperforms the majority of tested systems while not reaching the top tier of enthusiast-grade desktop replacements. The rank suggests that this mobile platform delivers strong performance for a horror title that typically emphasizes atmospheric rendering and lighting effects over massive multi-core CPU workloads.

When considering the CPU's benchmark position, the Ryzen 9 8945HX sits in the 95th percentile of all CPUs tested, with an average benchmark score of 76212. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX, scores 76155, a mere 0.1% difference. The AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P scores 76492 (0.4% higher), and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX scores 76513 (0.4% higher). The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D scores 75779 (0.6% lower). These extremely small deltas indicate that the CPU is performing at the very top of its class, and any ranking differences in game performance are likely attributable to the GPU or platform-level factors.

The GPU, however, shows a more modest standing. The RTX 5070 Ti Mobile sits in the 80th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 35435. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA Quadro GV100, scores 35520 (0.2% higher), while the AMD Radeon Pro Duo scores 35860 (1.2% higher). The NVIDIA A2 scores 34690 (2.1% lower), and the NVIDIA T1000 scores 36289 (2.4% higher). This places the mobile GPU in a competitive but not dominant position, which aligns with the combo's overall rank of 1392 out of 3716.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile features 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 672.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU operates at a base clock of 847 MHz with a boost clock of 1447 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 115.8 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 266.2 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 17.04 TFLOPS.

For Downfall, the 12 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient across all tested settings, as the frame rate scaling remains consistent without any sudden drops that would indicate VRAM overflow. The memory bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s provides ample headroom for the texture-heavy horror environments at 1080p and 1440p, though the 4K Ultra results suggest that the raw compute throughput becomes the limiting factor rather than memory bandwidth.

The GPU's 5888 shading units and 184 texture mapping units contribute to its ability to maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the GPU achieves 263 FPS average, indicating that the rendering pipeline is not bottlenecked at this resolution. The 80 ROPs and 46 RT cores provide adequate rasterization and ray tracing capabilities for a horror game that likely uses dynamic lighting and shadow effects.

The boost clock behavior is particularly relevant for sustained gaming performance. The 1447 MHz boost clock, while modest for a mobile GPU, allows the card to maintain consistent performance without thermal throttling, as evidenced by the stable frame rates across repeated measurements. The 60 W TDP suggests this is a power-efficient configuration that can sustain its clocks in a laptop chassis.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 263 FPS, which represents the maximum headroom for high refresh rate displays. Medium settings average 215 FPS with minimum and maximum values of 183 and 247 FPS respectively. High settings average 176 FPS, and Ultra settings average 110 FPS. The spread from 263 FPS at Low to 110 FPS at Ultra represents a 58.2% performance reduction when moving from minimum to maximum quality at 1080p.

The 2560x1440 results show a similar pattern with reduced absolute values. Low settings average 188 FPS, Medium settings average 154 FPS with a range of 130 to 177 FPS, High settings average 126 FPS, and Ultra settings average 79 FPS. The percentage reduction from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 58.0%, nearly identical to the 1080p scaling. This consistency indicates that the GPU's performance scales predictably with quality settings.

At 3840x2160, the system maintains playable frame rates for all settings except Ultra. Low settings average 117 FPS, Medium settings average 96 FPS with a range of 81 to 110 FPS, and High settings average 78 FPS. Ultra settings drop to 49 FPS average, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The 58.1% reduction from Low to Ultra at 4K mirrors the scaling observed at lower resolutions, confirming that the GPU's performance characteristics remain consistent across the resolution spectrum.

The Medium settings measurements provide the most detailed data with minimum and maximum values recorded at all three resolutions. The 1080p Medium results show a minimum of 183 FPS and maximum of 247 FPS, giving a variance of 64 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 130 FPS and maximum is 177 FPS, a variance of 47 FPS. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 81 FPS and maximum is 110 FPS, a variance of 29 FPS. This decreasing variance at higher resolutions suggests that frame pacing becomes more consistent as the GPU becomes more uniformly loaded.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Downfall?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 at High settings delivers 126 FPS average, which provides a strong balance between visual quality and performance. At 4K, only Low and Medium settings exceed 60 FPS, with 117 FPS and 96 FPS respectively.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Downfall?

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 4K High settings, the average FPS is 78, which is playable. At 4K Ultra, the average drops to 49 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Medium settings at 4K provide 96 FPS with a minimum of 81 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 8945HX scores 76212 on average, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76155), 0.4% lower than the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (76492), 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX (76513), and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75779).

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti Mobile scores 35435 on average, which is 0.2% lower than the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (35520), 1.2% lower than the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (35860), 2.1% higher than the NVIDIA A2 (34690), and 2.4% lower than the NVIDIA T1000 (36289).

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

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings average 263 FPS while Ultra settings average 110 FPS. This represents a 58.2% performance reduction when moving from the lowest to the highest quality preset.

Q: Does the system maintain consistent frame times at Medium settings?

A: The data shows a decreasing variance at higher resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the variance is 64 FPS (183 to 247 FPS), at 1440p Medium it is 47 FPS (130 to 177 FPS), and at 4K Medium it is 29 FPS (81 to 110 FPS). This suggests more consistent frame pacing at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX brings substantial processing power to this combo, featuring 16 cores and 32 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture. The CPU operates with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 55 W TDP. This Dragon Range processor is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, containing 13,140 million transistors across a 2x 71 mm² die size. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 64 MB of L3 cache.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42713 and a single-core score of 6030. The Cinebench R20 results show 17939 multi-core and 2532 single-core, while Cinebench R15 shows 4305 multi-core and 607 single-core. PassMark results include a multi-thread score of 51405, single-thread score of 3907, and a physics score of 2168.

For Downfall, the CPU's 16 cores are likely underutilized, as horror games typically rely more on single-thread performance and GPU rendering. However, the high boost clock of 5.40 GHz ensures that the game's primary thread has ample processing power. The 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth from dual-channel DDR5 support provides sufficient data throughput for game assets, though the GPU's 672.0 GB/s bandwidth is substantially higher, indicating that the GPU memory subsystem handles most of the texture streaming workload.

The CPU's 95th percentile ranking among all tested processors confirms that it is not a limiting factor in this gaming configuration. Its nearest rivals all fall within 0.6% of its average benchmark score, meaning that swapping in any of these CPUs would produce negligible performance differences in Downfall. The CPU's 32 threads provide headroom for background tasks, streaming, and recording software without impacting game performance.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data supports a clear hierarchy of settings for different performance targets. For 60 FPS gaming at 4K, the High preset (78 FPS average) is the highest quality option that maintains a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset at 4K (49 FPS average) falls below this target and should be avoided unless the user prioritizes visual fidelity over smoothness.

For 1440p, the Ultra preset provides 79 FPS average, which is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. The High preset at 1440p delivers 126 FPS average, offering a strong balance for high refresh rate monitors. Users with 144 Hz displays would benefit from the Medium preset at 154 FPS average, which provides a 130 FPS minimum and ensures smooth gameplay even during intense horror sequences.

At 1080p, all settings exceed 60 FPS, with even the Ultra preset achieving 110 FPS average. The Medium preset at 215 FPS average (183 FPS minimum) is the highest quality option that can fully utilize a 240 Hz display. The High preset at 176 FPS average is suitable for 165 Hz monitors, while the Ultra preset at 110 FPS average suits 120 Hz displays.

For the best overall experience, the data suggests that 1440p High provides the most balanced combination of visual quality and performance, with 126 FPS average and no recorded minimum FPS below 60. This configuration leverages the GPU's 12 GB VRAM effectively while maintaining frame rates that exceed standard 60 Hz displays and approach the refresh rates of mid-range gaming monitors. Users with high refresh rate 1080p displays should consider the Medium preset, which maintains a 183 FPS minimum and provides a substantial performance buffer for complex scenes with dynamic lighting and particle effects common in horror games.