Downfall

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

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread Comet Lake processor with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. It uses the Intel Socket 1200 platform, features 12 MB of shared L3 cache, and operates on a 14 nm process node. The CPU supports DDR4 memory over a dual-channel bus with a memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s, and it connects to the system via PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes from the CPU.

In synthetic benchmarks, this processor scores 4,748 in 3DMark's 16-thread test and 4,735 in the max-thread test, showing that scaling from 12 to 16 threads yields negligible gains — a sign that the 12-thread configuration is already near its full throughput ceiling. Single-thread performance is notably weaker: a 3DMark single-thread score of 688 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,451 indicate that the Comet Lake architecture, despite its 4.30 GHz boost capability, trails modern designs in lightly threaded workloads.

For Downfall, a horror title, the CPU's role depends heavily on resolution. At 1080p with Low settings, the measured average FPS is 201, which suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well beyond typical 60 Hz displays. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are more than sufficient for the game's thread demands; the PassMark multithread score of 12,115 and Cinebench R20 multicore score of 4,318 place it in the 68th percentile of all CPUs. However, at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 37, and the bottleneck shifts almost entirely to the GPU — the CPU's compute headroom is not the limiting factor there.

The processor's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are the Intel Xeon 6756E (0.2% higher), the Intel Core 7 160UL (0.3% lower), the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.5% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.6% lower). These deltas are all under 1%, meaning the i5-10400F sits in a tightly clustered performance band — its multi-threaded capability is essentially comparable to those parts, even though the architectures differ drastically. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 2,541 is solid for older titles like Downfall, which rarely need more than a few well-optimized threads.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, with a chip size of 149 mm² and 16,900 million transistors. It operates at a base clock of 2,317 MHz and a boost clock of 2,572 MHz, with memory clocked at 2,500 MHz (20 Gbps effective). The GPU has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 320.0 GB/s. Its compute resources include 2,560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, 32 ROPs, 20 RT cores, and 80 tensor cores, producing 13.17 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5050 scores 17,326 in PassMark G3D, 90,334 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 89,381 in Geekbench Vulkan. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2,502 indicates moderate DirectX 12 performance for a modern GPU. The GPU's percentile rank against all GPUs is 66, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (0.6% higher average score), the AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (1.6% lower), and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile (1.6% higher). These small deltas place the RTX 5050 in a competitive mid-range bracket.

Downfall is a 2016 horror title, and the GPU's 8 GB VRAM is ample for its textures at 1080p and 1440p. At 4K High settings, the average FPS is exactly 60, which aligns with the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute capabilities — the 320.0 GB/s bandwidth and 82.30 GPixel/s pixel rate handle the game's rendering demands at that resolution. The GPU's 20 RT cores and 80 tensor cores are largely unused in this title, as Downfall does not rely on ray tracing or DLSS features; the game's workload is traditional rasterization, where the 2,560 shading units and 80 TMUs do the heavy lifting.

The RTX 5050's boost clock of 2,572 MHz is the key to its 1080p performance. At 1080p Low, the measured average FPS is 201, and at 1080p High it is 135 — both figures indicate that the GPU is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions, as the CPU can feed frames faster than the game's rendering pipeline consumes them. At 4K Ultra, however, the GPU's 32 ROPs and 128-bit memory interface become limiting factors, as the average FPS drops to 37, a figure that reflects the memory bandwidth and fill-rate constraints rather than the CPU.

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 clear scaling pattern across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 201; at 1440p Low, it drops to 144; and at 4K Low, it falls to 89. This represents a 55.7% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 38.2% further drop from 1440p to 4K. The absolute decline from 1080p to 4K is 112 FPS, or 55.7% of the 1080p value.

For Medium settings, the pattern is similar: 1080p averages 165 FPS, 1440p averages 118 FPS, and 4K averages 73 FPS. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 28.5%, and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 38.1%. The High settings show 135 FPS at 1080p, 96 FPS at 1440p, and 60 FPS at 4K — a 28.9% and 37.5% drop respectively. Ultra settings are the most demanding: 84 FPS at 1080p, 60 FPS at 1440p, and 37 FPS at 4K, with drops of 28.6% and 38.3%.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings is revealing. From 1080p to 1440p, the FPS reduction is remarkably uniform — between 28.5% and 28.9% for all settings except Low, where the drop is larger at 28.4%. From 1440p to 4K, the reduction is also uniform — between 37.5% and 38.3%. This consistency indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at every resolution and settings combination, because the CPU's frame generation capacity does not change with resolution, yet the FPS scales in a way that matches the GPU's pixel throughput.

Specifically, the RTX 5050's pixel rate of 82.30 GPixel/s and texture rate of 205.8 GTexel/s dictate how fast the GPU can fill frames. At 4K, the pixel count is 4 times that of 1080p, but the FPS does not drop to exactly one quarter — it drops to approximately 44% of the 1080p value for Low, 44% for Medium, 44% for High, and 44% for Ultra. This suggests that the GPU has some headroom in its memory subsystem or that the game's rendering pipeline is not purely pixel-bound, but the dominant trend is clear: resolution scaling is GPU-bound.

The CPU's role is evident in the fact that the FPS at 1080p Low (201) far exceeds any standard display refresh rate, meaning the CPU is not a bottleneck at that setting. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1,350 and single-thread score of 688 are sufficient for Downfall's engine, which was designed for hardware available in 2016. The data strongly indicates that the RTX 5050 is the primary constraint from 1080p to 4K, while the i5-10400F provides ample headroom at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Downfall?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 201, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The GPU is the bottleneck. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 37, and the CPU's multi-threaded capability (Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10,283) has ample headroom, while the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth are strained by the resolution and settings.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations in Downfall?

A: This combo ranks 1755 out of 2928 tested combos, placing it in the 40th percentile — above the median but not in the top tier for this game.

Q: Does the RTX 5050 outperform its nearest rivals in average GPU score?

A: No. The RTX 5050's average benchmark score of 21,035 is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL, 1% lower than the AMD Radeon HD 8970M, and 1.6% lower than the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile. It is 1.6% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings average 144 FPS, while Ultra settings average 60 FPS — a difference of 84 FPS, or 58.3% lower performance at Ultra.

Q: Is the 8 GB VRAM of the RTX 5050 sufficient for Downfall at 4K?

A: Yes, the measured data shows playable FPS at 4K High (60 FPS average) and 4K Medium (73 FPS average), indicating that 8 GB is adequate for this 2016 title, though Ultra settings drop to 37 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-10400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 combination ranks 1755 out of 2928 tested combos in Downfall. This places the combo in the 59.9th percentile of all tested systems (calculated as 1 - 1755/2928), meaning it outperforms roughly 40% of the tested configurations.

The rank reflects a balanced pairing where the CPU is not a bottleneck at most settings, but the GPU's mid-range positioning limits the combo's overall standing. The CPU's percentile of 68 against all CPUs is notably higher than the combo's game-specific rank, indicating that the GPU drags down the overall result. The GPU's percentile of 66 against all GPUs is similarly moderate, and the combination of two mid-tier components yields a mid-pack result for this game.

Compared to the CPU's nearest rivals, the i5-10400F sits within 0.6% of the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C, the Intel Core 7 160UL, the Intel Xeon 6756E, and the AMD EPYC 7552 in average CPU score. For the GPU, the RTX 5050 is within 1.6% of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile. These tight margins suggest that many similar combos would produce nearly identical FPS in Downfall, and the rank of 1755 could shift by hundreds of positions with a slightly stronger GPU.

The data indicates that the combo is well-suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming in Downfall, where it delivers above 60 FPS at all settings except 4K Ultra. At 4K, the combo becomes marginal, with only Low and Medium settings exceeding 60 FPS. The rank of 1755 reflects this versatility: it is not a top-tier 4K machine, but it handles mainstream resolutions with ease.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 201 FPS average
• Medium: 165 FPS average, with a minimum of 140 and maximum of 189 FPS
• High: 135 FPS average
• Ultra: 84 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 144 FPS average
• Medium: 118 FPS average, with a minimum of 100 and maximum of 135 FPS
• High: 96 FPS average
• Ultra: 60 FPS average

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 89 FPS average
• Medium: 73 FPS average, with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 84 FPS
• High: 60 FPS average
• Ultra: 37 FPS average

The Medium settings rows are the only ones with reported minimum and maximum FPS values, providing a frame-time consistency measure. At 1080p Medium, the range from 140 to 189 FPS spans 49 FPS, indicating some frame variance. At 1440p Medium, the range narrows to 35 FPS (100 to 135), and at 4K Medium, the range narrows further to 22 FPS (62 to 84). This pattern shows that frame pacing becomes more consistent as resolution increases, likely because the GPU's workload becomes more uniform and the CPU's frame delivery is less variable.

The FPS deltas between settings at a fixed resolution are substantial. At 1080p, moving from Low to Ultra costs 117 FPS (a 58.2% reduction). At 1440p, the Low-to-Ultra delta is 84 FPS (58.3% reduction). At 4K, the delta is 52 FPS (58.4% reduction). The consistency of these percentage reductions across resolutions confirms that the settings scaling is uniform — each step up in quality imposes a roughly similar relative cost, regardless of resolution.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target display refresh rate and resolution preference.

For 1080p displays, all settings exceed 60 FPS, with even Ultra averaging 84 FPS. If the display is a standard 60 Hz panel, Ultra settings provide the best visual quality without dropping below the refresh threshold. For 144 Hz displays, Medium settings (165 FPS average) give a comfortable margin above the refresh rate, while High (135 FPS) and Low (201 FPS) also suffice — Ultra at 84 FPS would not fully saturate a 144 Hz panel but remains playable.

For 1440p displays, the choice narrows. Low (144 FPS) and Medium (118 FPS) are ideal for high-refresh monitors (120-144 Hz). High (96 FPS) is suitable for 60-100 Hz panels, and Ultra (60 FPS) is exactly at the 60 Hz threshold, making it viable for standard displays but with no headroom for demanding scenes — the minimum FPS is not reported for Ultra, so frame dips could cause stutter.

For 4K displays, the recommendations are constrained. Low (89 FPS) and Medium (73 FPS) are the only settings that provide a comfortable experience above 60 FPS. High (60 FPS) is playable but leaves no margin — the average exactly matches the 60 Hz refresh rate, and any scene complexity spike could push it below. Ultra (37 FPS) is not recommended for smooth gameplay, as the frame rate is below the 40 FPS threshold typically considered minimally acceptable for interactive play.

The best overall experience is Medium settings at 1440p, which delivers 118 FPS average with a reported minimum of 100 FPS — this keeps frame times well within the 16.7 ms budget for 60 Hz displays and approaches the 8.3 ms budget for 120 Hz displays. At 4K, Medium is the sweet spot at 73 FPS average with a 62 FPS minimum, ensuring no drops below 60 FPS in the measured data. For players prioritizing visual fidelity over frame rate, High at 1440p (96 FPS) offers a balanced compromise, while High at 4K (60 FPS) is the ceiling for playable 4K with this combo.