Downfall

# Downfall with AMD Ryzen 9 9900X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 combination delivers a striking performance profile in Downfall, a 2016 horror title that clearly rewards both high core counts and substantial graphics memory bandwidth. The measured frame rates reveal a system that can push well beyond 300 FPS at 1080p on low settings, yet drops to 54.8 FPS at 4K Ultra — a dramatic spread that tells a compelling story about where each component’s influence begins and ends. This pairing ranks 514th out of 1,741 tested combos in the database, placing it in the upper 30% of all configurations, which is notable given the RTX 3080’s end-of-life production status and the Ryzen 9 9900X’s recent 2024 release.

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

The Ryzen 9 9900X brings 12 cores and 24 threads to the table, built on TSMC’s 4 nm process with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. This is a Zen 5 architecture part (Granite Ridge) with 64 MB of shared L3 cache, and its benchmark results show why it excels in a game like Downfall. In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 46,438 in multi-core and 6,555 in single-core, while Geekbench shows 19,827 multi-core and 3,341 single-core. The 3DMark tests further illustrate scaling: 12,552 with 16 threads, 9,114 with 8 threads, 4,886 with 4 threads, 2,519 with 2 threads, and 1,286 with a single thread — a nearly linear progression that indicates strong thread scaling.

Downfall, as a horror title from 2016, likely benefits from the CPU’s ability to handle both high-thread-count workloads and quick single-thread responses. The 24 threads ensure that background AI, physics, and streaming systems don’t create bottlenecks, while the 5.60 GHz boost clock keeps frame pacing tight. The CPU’s 94th percentile ranking among all processors reinforces that this is a top-tier part, but its nearest rivals show how close the field is: the Ryzen 9 9900X3D is only 0.4% faster, the Intel Core i7-14700F is 0.7% slower, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 1.5% faster — margins so thin they’re practically noise. This suggests that Downfall’s CPU demands are well-satisfied by any of these chips, and the 9900X’s advantage lies more in its consistency across thread counts than in raw dominance.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Downfall, and at what settings?

A: The highest measured average is 300.5 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 242.5 FPS at Medium, 199.7 FPS at High, and 126 FPS at Ultra for the same resolution.

Q: How does the combo rank overall in the database for Downfall?

A: This configuration ranks 514th out of 1,741 tested combos, placing it in the upper tier of all tested systems but not at the very top, which suggests room for improvement with newer GPU hardware.

Q: What is the CPU’s percentile ranking compared to all processors?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X sits in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54,450. Its closest rival, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, scores 54,681, a mere 0.4% difference.

Q: What is the GPU’s percentile ranking, and how does it compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 3080 holds the 80th percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 35,787. The AMD Radeon Pro Duo is 0.2% slower, the AMD Radeon 880M is 0.4% faster, and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE is 0.9% faster.

Q: Does the combo hit 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No, the 4K Ultra average is 54.8 FPS, which falls short of a 60 FPS target. However, 4K High achieves 91.4 FPS, comfortably exceeding that threshold.

Q: How does the RTX 3080’s memory configuration affect Downfall performance?

A: The 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus with 760.3 GB/s bandwidth provides ample headroom for Downfall’s textures, as evidenced by the 109 FPS at 4K Medium and 132.5 FPS at 4K Low.

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

The FPS scaling across resolutions reveals a clear transition from CPU-bound to GPU-bound performance. At Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 300.5 to 215.9 FPS (a 28.2% reduction), and then to 4K it falls to 132.5 FPS — a cumulative 55.9% drop from 1080p. This pattern suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU is doing heavy lifting, but the GPU’s rendering load grows disproportionately as pixel count increases.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is even more dramatic: 126 FPS at 1080p, 91.6 FPS at 1440p (27.3% drop), and 54.8 FPS at 4K (56.5% drop from 1080p). The fact that Ultra at 4K nearly halves the 1080p frame rate indicates that the RTX 3080’s 10 GB VRAM and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed to their limits. The High settings show a similar trend — 199.7 to 145.3 to 91.4 FPS — with each resolution step costing roughly 27-37% performance. This is classic GPU-bound behavior at higher resolutions, and it confirms that the RTX 3080, while still strong, is the limiting factor when pushing 4K with maximum details.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

With a rank of 514 out of 1,741 combos, this system sits in the 70th percentile of all tested configurations for Downfall. That’s a solid position, but not exceptional — the data suggests that many newer GPU combinations outperform it, likely due to the RTX 3080’s age. The CPU’s 94th percentile ranking contrasts sharply with the GPU’s 80th percentile, indicating that the processor is capable of driving more performance than the graphics card can deliver. This imbalance is reflected in the rival comparisons: the RTX 3080’s nearest GPU rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE at 0.9% faster and the RTX 5070 Ti Mobile at 1% faster, while the CPU’s rivals are within 1.8% of its score. The combo’s rank suggests that pairing this CPU with a higher-tier GPU would likely push it significantly higher in the rankings, but as configured, it’s a well-balanced mid-to-high-end setup that excels at 1440p and handles 4K with adjusted settings.

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

The measured data points to High settings as the sweet spot for this combo across all resolutions. At 1080p, High delivers 199.7 FPS — a 36.8% improvement over Ultra’s 126 FPS, with likely minimal visual degradation. At 1440p, High’s 145.3 FPS is similarly strong, offering a 58.6% advantage over Ultra’s 91.6 FPS while still exceeding 144 Hz refresh rate targets. Even at 4K, High’s 91.4 FPS is 66.8% faster than Ultra’s 54.8 FPS, and it clears the 60 FPS threshold that Ultra misses. Medium is a viable alternative for 4K users seeking extra headroom — 109 FPS — but the jump from Medium to High is modest (91.4 vs 109 FPS, a 19.3% difference), making High the best balance of visual fidelity and performance. Low settings are only recommended for competitive play at 1080p, where 300.5 FPS can leverage high-refresh monitors, but the visual cost is substantial.

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

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 300.5 FPS on Low, 242.5 FPS on Medium, 199.7 FPS on High, and 126 FPS on Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 58.1% reduction in frame rate, showing how dramatically settings impact performance. At 2560x1440, the numbers are 215.9 FPS (Low), 173.7 FPS (Medium), 145.3 FPS (High), and 91.6 FPS (Ultra). The drop from 1080p to 1440p averages about 28% across settings, which is consistent with the 1.78x pixel count increase. At 3840x2160, the frame rates fall to 132.5 FPS (Low), 109 FPS (Medium), 91.4 FPS (High), and 54.8 FPS (Ultra). The 4K to 1080p ratio shows a 55.9% reduction at Low and a 56.5% reduction at Ultra, indicating that the GPU’s workload scales almost linearly with pixel count regardless of settings. Notably, the 4K Ultra result of 54.8 FPS is the only measured configuration that fails to reach 60 FPS, making it the sole area where this combo struggles to maintain smooth gameplay.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, built on Samsung’s 8 nm process with 28,300 million transistors, brings 10 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 320-bit bus, delivering 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock of 1440 MHz boosts to 1710 MHz, with memory running at 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective). The GPU’s 8,704 shading units, 272 TMUs, and 96 ROPs contribute to a pixel rate of 164.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s. In Downfall, the RTX 3080’s 80th percentile ranking (average score 35,787) positions it as a strong but not elite performer. The GPU’s PassMark G3D score of 25,086 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,407 indicate solid DirectX 12 capabilities, which Downfall’s 2016 engine may not fully exploit given its age.

The VRAM capacity is a critical factor at 4K Ultra, where the 54.8 FPS result suggests the 10 GB buffer is being taxed heavily. At 4K High, the 91.4 FPS shows that reducing texture quality alleviates this pressure. The GPU’s memory bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s is likely sufficient for most scenes, but the 320-bit bus width — narrower than some newer cards — could explain why scaling from 1440p to 4K costs more than 50% performance at every settings level. The nearest GPU rivals — the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (0.2% slower), Radeon 880M (0.4% faster), Radeon RX 7900 GRE (0.9% faster), and RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (1% faster) — all show that the RTX 3080 remains competitive despite being end-of-life since its 2020 release. This suggests that Downfall’s graphical demands are well-served by Ampere’s architecture, and the GPU’s 320 W TDP is a reasonable trade-off for the performance delivered.