Downfall

The pairing of a 12-core, 24-thread AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with the entry-level NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 creates one of the most pronounced CPU-GPU performance imbalances in the database. In the horror title Downfall, the benchmark results are almost entirely dictated by the graphics card's limitations, with the processor's substantial headroom going largely unused. The measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings reveal a system where the GPU is the definitive bottleneck, and the data quantifies exactly how severe that constraint is.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates the GTX 1650's struggle as pixel count increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 91.2 FPS, which drops to 67.3 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 39.7 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 56% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, a pattern that holds across other quality presets. The scaling is steep but not perfectly linear, suggesting the GPU is hitting compute limits rather than memory bandwidth walls.

The High settings preset shows similar behavior: 62.2 FPS at 1080p, 43.3 FPS at 1440p, and 30.1 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 30%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is another 30%. This consistent scaling points to a GPU that is uniformly stressed by resolution increases, with the 4 GB GDDR5 memory buffer and 128-bit bus becoming increasingly inadequate. The 128.1 GB/s memory bandwidth is a critical limitation at higher resolutions, as the card must constantly swap data in and out of its limited frame buffer.

The Ultra preset tells a more dramatic story. At 1080p, the average is 35.6 FPS, which is already borderline playable for a horror title. Dropping to 1440p yields 25.6 FPS, and 4K Ultra collapses to just 17.7 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 4K is 22 FPS (39.7 vs. 17.7), which is a 55% performance penalty for enabling maximum quality settings. This indicates that the GTX 1650's 896 shading units and 32 ROPs are simply overwhelmed by the combination of high resolution and maximal graphical effects.

Data suggests the limiting component at all resolutions is the GPU. The Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 4.40 GHz base clock and 5.60 GHz boost clock, is never the constraint in this scenario. The processor's 64 MB shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support provide far more capability than Downfall requires. Even at 1080p Low, where CPU overhead is typically highest, the 91.2 FPS result is still well below what the 9900X could theoretically feed to a more powerful graphics card.

FAQ

*Q: Is the Ryzen 9 9900X bottlenecked by the GTX 1650 in Downfall?*

A: The data confirms a severe GPU bottleneck. The 9900X scores 54,650 on average across all benchmarks, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, while the GTX 1650 sits in the 43rd percentile of all GPUs. The CPU's massive compute headroom is entirely wasted in this pairing, as the GPU cannot keep up even at lower settings.

Q: What is the best settings preset for playable frame rates?

A: At 1920x1080, Medium settings deliver 76.2 FPS, which is a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. Low settings at 1080p hit 91.2 FPS. For 1440p gaming, Low settings at 67.3 FPS is the only preset that clears 60 FPS, while Medium drops to 51 FPS. At 4K, no preset reaches 60 FPS; the best option is Low at 39.7 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1650 has an average benchmark score of 8,713. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile, scores 8,746, which is 0.4% higher. The AMD Radeon 550X is also 0.4% ahead at 8,749. The NVIDIA Quadro P2200 trails by 0.5% with 8,671, and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 leads by 0.5% at 8,761. These are all effectively tied, indicating the GTX 1650 is at parity with its direct competition.

Q: Does the CPU's performance advantage translate to better frame rates?

A: No. The Ryzen 9 9900X outperforms its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, which scores 55,304, by 1.5% on average. However, this CPU advantage never manifests in Downfall. The frame rates are identical regardless of CPU performance because the GTX 1650 is the limiting factor in every scene.

Q: What is the frame rate impact of moving from High to Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, Ultra (35.6 FPS) is 43% slower than High (62.2 FPS). At 1440p, the penalty is 41% (25.6 vs. 43.3 FPS). At 4K, Ultra (17.7 FPS) is 41% slower than High (30.1 FPS). The consistent penalty suggests Ultra settings add a uniform load increase that the GTX 1650 cannot absorb.

Q: Is the 4 GB VRAM capacity sufficient for this game?

A: At 1080p, the frame rates remain playable at Medium and below, suggesting 4 GB is adequate for lower settings. However, the steep drop at 4K Ultra (17.7 FPS) indicates the memory capacity and bandwidth are insufficient for high-resolution, high-detail rendering, likely causing texture thrashing.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is built on the TU117 chip using TSMC's 12 nm process, with 4,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. Its Turing architecture, despite lacking dedicated ray tracing cores, provides DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 API support. The card operates at a base clock of 1485 MHz with a boost of 1665 MHz, paired with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory running at 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective). This yields 128.1 GB/s of memory bandwidth over a 128-bit bus.

The benchmark results show the card's compute capabilities. Its FP32 performance is 2.984 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 5.967 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio). The 896 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 53.28 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 93.24 GTexel/s. In synthetic tests, the card scores 7,880 in Passmark G3D and 3,048 in Passmark GPU Compute, with a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 305.

Despite its modest specifications, the GTX 1650 achieves 91.2 FPS at 1080p Low in Downfall, showing that the game is not demanding at minimal settings. The card's 75 W TDP and lack of power connectors make it a low-power solution, but that thermal headroom does not translate to performance. The measured data shows the card's percentile ranking at 43rd among all GPUs, placing it in the lower half of the performance distribution. Its nearest rivals are within 0.5% in either direction, confirming it is a mid-pack performer that cannot leverage the 9900X's capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the GTX 1650 delivers its best results. Low settings produce an average of 91.2 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded in this test. Medium settings drop to 76.2 FPS, a 16% reduction from Low. High settings further reduce performance to 62.2 FPS, an 18% drop from Medium. Ultra settings are the most demanding, yielding just 35.6 FPS, which is a 43% penalty compared to High. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a total performance loss of 61%, indicating that each settings tier adds significant graphical load.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings average 67.3 FPS, which is 26% slower than the same settings at 1080p. Medium settings hit 51 FPS, exactly 33% slower than Low at the same resolution. High settings produce 43.3 FPS, a 15% drop from Medium. Ultra settings fall to 25.6 FPS, which is 41% slower than High. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 62%, similar to the 1080p range.

At 3840x2160, the GTX 1650 is clearly out of its depth. Low settings average 39.7 FPS, which is the only preset that approaches playability. Medium settings drop to 33.9 FPS, a 15% reduction. High settings yield 30.1 FPS, an 11% drop from Medium. Ultra settings produce just 17.7 FPS, which is 41% slower than High. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 55%, showing that the card's limitations become more pronounced at higher resolutions.

The data reveals that the GTX 1650 has a maximum playable threshold of Medium settings at 1080p (76.2 FPS) and Low settings at 1440p (67.3 FPS). At 4K, no settings preset achieves 60 FPS, and even Low settings cannot reach 40 FPS. The card's 4 GB memory buffer and 128.1 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for 4K rendering, regardless of quality settings. The Ultra preset at any resolution is effectively unplayable, with the best result being 35.6 FPS at 1080p.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge codename) built on TSMC's 4 nm process. It features 16,630 million transistors across a dual-chiplet design with 2x 70.6 mm² dies. The CPU operates at a 4.40 GHz base clock and boosts to 5.60 GHz, with a 120 W TDP. It supports DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth and includes 80 KB L1 cache per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 64 MB shared L3 cache.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9900X demonstrates exceptional performance. It scores 46,438 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 6,555 in single-core. Its Geekbench scores are 19,827 multicore and 3,341 single-core. The Passmark multithread score is 54,643, with a single-thread score of 4,672. The 3DMark results show 12,552 for 16 threads, 9,114 for 8 threads, 4,886 for 4 threads, and 2,519 for 2 threads. The max threads score is 13,929, while single thread is 1,286.

The CPU's average benchmark score is 54,450, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, scores 54,681, which is 0.4% higher. The Intel Core i7-14700F is 0.7% slower at 54,097, while the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF are 1.5% and 1.8% faster, respectively. These results show the 9900X is competitive with the best desktop processors available.

Despite this overwhelming CPU performance, Downfall does not utilize it. The measured frame rates show no variation that could be attributed to CPU load. The game is clearly GPU-bound, as evidenced by the identical performance deltas across resolutions. The 9900X's 4.40 GHz base clock and 5.60 GHz boost clock are more than sufficient for any game engine, and the 12 cores provide massive parallel processing headroom that this horror title cannot exploit. The launch MSRP is $499, reflecting its high-end positioning, but in this configuration, that investment provides no tangible benefit in Downfall.