Downfall

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 presents a compelling mid-range combination for Downfall, a 2016 horror title that clearly favors GPU throughput. The measured data indicates that this pairing is capable of delivering high frame rates across all tested resolutions, though the scaling behavior reveals distinct bottlenecks that shift depending on the settings preset chosen.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K in Downfall shows a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, but with some notable nuances. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (237 fps) to 2560x1440 (168.8 fps) represents a 28.8% drop, while moving to 3840x2160 (105.2 fps) cuts performance by 55.6% relative to 1080p. This steep decline indicates that even at Low settings, the RTX 5060 is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the Core i5-10400F has ample headroom to feed the GPU with frames.

The scaling curve at Medium settings follows a similar pattern but with slightly less dramatic drops: from 197.5 fps at 1080p to 139.3 fps at 1440p (a 29.5% reduction) and then to 89.3 fps at 4K (a 54.8% reduction from 1080p). This consistency suggests that the game's renderer scales predictably with pixel count, and the GPU's 128-bit memory bus becomes increasingly stressed as resolution climbs.

High settings reveal an interesting deviation. The drop from 1080p (160.6 fps) to 1440p (115.1 fps) is 28.3%, but the further drop to 4K (68.5 fps) is 57.3% from 1080p. The larger penalty at 4K High suggests that additional texture detail and shading complexity are amplifying the memory bandwidth pressure. Ultra settings show the most extreme scaling: 99.5 fps at 1080p falls to 69.6 fps at 1440p (a 30.1% drop) and then to 46.2 fps at 4K (a 53.6% reduction). The fact that 4K Ultra still maintains playable frame rates above 45 fps indicates that the RTX 5060 has sufficient raw compute for this older title, but the 8 GB VRAM buffer and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are clearly being taxed at the highest preset.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 is the dominant component in this pairing, and the data shows why. With a boost clock of 2497 MHz and 3840 shading units, the GPU delivers 19.18 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. These specs translate into raw throughput that Downfall's horror environments can fully exploit, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU is not a limiting factor.

The GPU's 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is the critical figure for understanding the 4K results. At Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 46.2, which strongly suggests that the frame buffer is being saturated. The 4K High result of 68.5 fps versus the 4K Medium result of 89.3 fps indicates that the jump from Medium to High adds enough texture and shader complexity to meaningfully impact memory throughput, even though the absolute frame rates remain playable.

The RTX 5060's 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores are present in the hardware, but Downfall's 2016 release date means it does not leverage ray tracing or DLSS. The GPU's raw rasterization performance is what drives these results, and the PassMark G3D score of 20891 places it in the 73rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, scores 30097 on the average benchmark, which is nearly identical to the RTX 5060's 30109. This parity in synthetic benchmarks is reflected in the measured FPS, where the RTX 5060 holds its own without relying on modern features.

The CPU side is less stressed. The Core i5-10400F's 6 cores and 12 threads running at a boost clock of 4.30 GHz provide sufficient single-thread performance for Downfall's engine. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 2541 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1453 indicate that it can sustain high frame rates without becoming a bottleneck, even at 1080p Low where the GPU is producing 237 fps.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing the experience in Downfall. For 4K displays, the Medium preset is the sweet spot, delivering 89.3 fps—well above the 60 fps threshold for smooth gameplay. High at 4K drops to 68.5 fps, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. Ultra at 4K should be avoided, as 46.2 fps falls below the standard for a responsive horror experience where quick reactions matter.

At 1440p, the High preset emerges as the best balance, achieving 115.1 fps. This is a significant improvement over the 69.6 fps at Ultra, and the visual difference between High and Ultra in this title is unlikely to justify the 39.5% performance penalty. Medium at 1440p offers 139.3 fps for those prioritizing frame rate, but High provides the better visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness.

For 1080p users, the High preset is recommended, delivering 160.6 fps. This is more than sufficient for any high-refresh-rate monitor, and the jump to Ultra (99.5 fps) introduces a 38% performance hit that may not be worth the marginal visual gains. The Medium preset at 197.5 fps is an option for competitive play, but High offers a better balance of image quality and performance. The Low preset at 237 fps is only useful for extreme frame rate targets, as the visual degradation in a horror game's atmospheric lighting would be noticeable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset shows a consistent hierarchy across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 237 fps, which drops to 197.5 fps at Medium, 160.6 fps at High, and 99.5 fps at Ultra. The gap between Medium and High is 18.7%, while the gap between High and Ultra is 38%, indicating that the Ultra preset carries a disproportionately heavy load.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 168.8 fps, Medium hits 139.3 fps, High reaches 115.1 fps, and Ultra falls to 69.6 fps. The percentage differences are similar to 1080p, confirming that the settings presets scale consistently regardless of resolution. The High-to-Ultra drop of 39.5% is slightly steeper than at 1080p, suggesting that the extra pixel count amplifies the Ultra preset's resource demands.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset produces 105.2 fps, Medium achieves 89.3 fps, High manages 68.5 fps, and Ultra bottoms out at 46.2 fps. The Medium-to-High drop of 23.3% is larger than at lower resolutions, reinforcing that 4K stresses the GPU's memory subsystem more severely. The Low-to-Medium gap of 15.1% is the smallest across all resolutions, indicating that the Medium preset adds visual quality without a proportional cost at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

Among the 1741 tested CPU-GPU combinations in Downfall, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 ranks 875th. This places it in the 50.2nd percentile of all tested combos—exactly the median. The ranking reflects the balanced nature of the pairing: the CPU does not hold the GPU back, but the GPU is not so powerful that it would push the combo into the upper quartile.

The CPU's individual performance is solid, with an average benchmark score of 14168, placing it in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7552, scores 14115 (0.4% slower), while the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C scores 14277 (0.8% faster). The Intel Core i5-8500 and AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 are also within 1.2% of the i5-10400F's score, showing that this CPU is competitive with a range of server and mobile parts.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 30109 also places it in the 73rd percentile of all GPUs. The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT scores 30097 (essentially identical), while the NVIDIA Tesla M60 scores 29969 (0.5% slower) and the RTX 5070 Mobile scores 29928 (0.6% slower). The RTX 5060's median ranking in-game, despite its strong synthetic scores, suggests that Downfall's engine does not fully exploit the GPU's modern architecture, leaving some performance on the table relative to newer titles. The combo's 875th place out of 1741 is a fair reflection of its capabilities: capable of high frame rates in this older title, but not a top-tier performer when compared against more aggressive GPU pairings.