Downfall

The data for Downfall at 1080p with this Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination shows a massive performance envelope, but the scaling pattern reveals a classic transition from CPU-bound to GPU-bound behavior. At Low settings, the average frame rate is 291.9 FPS, which drops to 242.6 FPS at Medium and 196.3 FPS at High. That is a relatively gentle decline of roughly 17% from Low to Medium and another 19% from Medium to High, suggesting that at these settings the processor is keeping the graphics card well fed. The leap to Ultra, however, cuts the frame rate down to 122.5 FPS, a 38% reduction from High. This sharp cliff indicates that the Ultra preset introduces rendering workloads that begin to tax the GPU more heavily, though the absolute numbers remain high enough for very smooth gameplay.

Moving to 1440p, the same pattern holds but with a more pronounced GPU influence. The Low preset averages 212.9 FPS, Medium delivers 174.5 FPS, and High sits at 141.9 FPS. The percentage drops between presets are nearly identical to the 1080p results, which is telling: the scaling from Low to Medium is about 18%, and from Medium to High it is another 19%. This consistency across resolutions suggests that the CPU is still the primary limiter at these settings, as the frame rate is not falling proportionally to the pixel count increase. However, the Ultra preset at 1440p produces 87 FPS, which is a 39% drop from High, mirroring the 1080p Ultra cliff. At 4K, the situation clarifies further. Low yields 132.8 FPS, Medium 105.8 FPS, and High 89.1 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 20% loss, and from Medium to High another 16% loss, but the Ultra preset collapses to 56.1 FPS, a 37% reduction from High.

The aggregate picture is that this combo is never truly GPU-bound until the Ultra preset is engaged, and even then, the 4K Ultra frame rate of 56.1 FPS is playable but no longer competitive with the lower presets. The frame rate at 1080p Low is 2.2 times higher than at 4K Low, which indicates that the GPU has substantial headroom at lower resolutions. The data suggests that the Radeon RX 9070 is the scaling bottleneck at Ultra settings across all three resolutions, while the Intel Core i5-11400F is the limiting component for the Low through High presets, particularly at 1080p where the CPU must feed frames at rates exceeding 290 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with a 4 nm process node from TSMC, packing 53,900 million transistors into a 357 mm² die. Its memory subsystem is substantial: 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s, which is critical for a horror title that often relies on high-resolution textures to build atmosphere. The GPU's clock behavior shows a base of 1330 MHz, a game clock of 2070 MHz, and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory running at 2518 MHz or 20.1 Gbps effective. The shading units number 3584, paired with 224 texture mapping units and 128 raster operations pipelines, yielding a pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput is 36.13 TFLOPS, which places the card in a strong position for modern rendering workloads.

In the context of Downfall, the GPU's role becomes evident when examining the Ultra preset results. The 4K Ultra average of 56.1 FPS is the lowest measured value in the entire dataset, and it represents a 37% drop from the 4K High result of 89.1 FPS. This is a larger proportional drop than the 1080p High to Ultra transition, which falls from 196.3 FPS to 122.5 FPS, a 38% decline. The similarity in these percentage drops across resolutions indicates that the Ultra preset adds a consistent amount of GPU workload, likely through increased shading complexity and memory pressure. The RX 9070's 16 GB frame buffer is not exhausted at any resolution, but the 128 ROPs may be the limiting factor for the Ultra settings, as the pixel fill rate becomes the binding constraint. The benchmark scores for the GPU support its general capability: the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 6290, and the Passmark G3D score is 25381. The GPU's percentile versus all GPUs is 79, meaning it outperforms 79% of the database's graphics cards, but its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 and the AMD Radeon HD 7970, which are not gaming-focused parts, suggesting that the RX 9070's raw compute is strong but its gaming-specific optimizations are what drive the Downfall results.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. Its base clock is 2.60 GHz, and it boosts to 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a shared 12 MB L3 cache. Memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, which is a potential constraint for feeding the GPU at very high frame rates. The CPU's benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14372 and a single-core score of 2029, while the Geekbench multicore score is 7579 and single-core is 1979. The Passmark multithread score is 16908, and the single-thread score is 2981. The average benchmark score across all tests is 17181, placing the CPU in the 75th percentile of all processors in the database.

The CPU's role in Downfall is most apparent at 1080p Low, where the frame rate reaches 291.9 FPS. This is an extremely high value that likely approaches the engine's simulation rate limit. The fact that 1080p Low is only 27% faster than 1080p Medium (242.6 FPS) and 49% faster than 1080p High (196.3 FPS) suggests that the CPU is not fully saturated at Low, but the scaling is still primarily CPU-driven. At 1440p Low, the frame rate drops to 212.9 FPS, which is a 27% reduction from 1080p Low. This drop is larger than the 1440p Medium to High transition, which only loses 19% of its frame rate. This asymmetry indicates that the CPU's single-thread performance, as measured by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2029, is the key factor in maintaining high frame rates at lower resolutions. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz is sufficient for the game's main thread, but the 6-core, 12-thread configuration may limit the ability to handle background tasks or engine sub-threads at the very highest frame rates. The nearest CPU rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and the Intel Core i7-1260P, with average scores of 17189 and 17212 respectively, which are within 0.2% of the i5-11400F's score. This means the CPU is performing as expected for its class, and the Downfall results are not anomalous.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for the best experience across resolutions. At 1080p, the High preset at 196.3 FPS is the recommended choice for most users, as it delivers a frame rate that is 60% higher than Ultra (122.5 FPS) while still maintaining a visually detailed scene. The Medium preset at 242.6 FPS is an option for competitive play or high refresh rate displays, but it sacrifices the visual fidelity that the High preset offers. The Low preset at 291.9 FPS is excessive for any display and likely introduces diminishing returns in visual quality. At 1440p, the High preset at 141.9 FPS is again the optimal balance, providing a smooth experience that is 63% faster than Ultra (87 FPS). The Medium preset at 174.5 FPS is a viable alternative for those prioritizing frame rate, but High is recommended for the best combination of image quality and performance. At 4K, the High preset at 89.1 FPS is the standout choice, as it is the only 4K setting that exceeds 60 FPS while retaining acceptable visual quality. The Medium preset at 105.8 FPS is also playable and offers a 19% improvement over High, but the visual difference between Medium and High is often significant in horror games where lighting and shadow quality matter. The Ultra preset at 56.1 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold and is not recommended for 4K play, though it remains technically playable for those who prioritize maximum visual fidelity over smoothness. Across all resolutions, the High preset provides the most consistent experience, with frame rates of 196.3 FPS at 1080p, 141.9 FPS at 1440p, and 89.1 FPS at 4K, all of which are well above playable thresholds.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 ranks 558th out of 1741 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the 68th percentile of all configurations in the database. This is a strong showing, but the rank is somewhat lower than the individual components' percentiles might suggest. The CPU is in the 75th percentile of all processors, and the GPU is in the 79th percentile of all graphics cards, yet the combo rank is only in the 68th percentile. This discrepancy indicates that the pairing is not perfectly balanced for this specific title. The CPU's 6-core, 12-thread configuration, while capable, may be holding back the GPU's potential in certain scenarios, particularly at Ultra settings where the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The benchmark data supports this interpretation: the frame rate scaling from High to Ultra at 1080p is a 38% drop, which is consistent with the GPU being the limiting factor, but the scaling from Low to Medium at 1080p is only 17%, which suggests the CPU is still able to keep up. The combo rank of 558 out of 1741 means that there are 1183 other configurations that perform better in this game, which is a significant number. However, the measured FPS values are all high, with even the worst case (4K Ultra at 56.1 FPS) being playable. The rank likely reflects that many other combos include higher-end CPUs that can push frame rates even higher at the Low and Medium presets, where the CPU is the primary limiter. The data shows that this combo is well-suited for High preset gaming at any resolution, but it is not an extreme high-refresh-rate setup at 1080p, where the CPU's single-thread performance becomes the ceiling.