Downfall

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti delivers a compelling 1080p and 1440p experience in Downfall, but the data reveals a clear shift in system bottleneck as resolution climbs. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 272.8 FPS, a figure that drops to 182.2 FPS at High and 114.6 FPS at Ultra. This wide spread—a 158.2 FPS difference between Low and Ultra—indicates that at this resolution, the GPU is the primary constraint, with graphical settings having a dramatic impact on frame rate. Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern persists but tightens: Low yields 192.4 FPS, High drops to 132 FPS, and Ultra lands at 80.4 FPS. The scaling from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is a 29.5% reduction, while the same resolution jump at Ultra only costs 29.8% of performance, suggesting the GPU is still the dominant factor but the CPU is beginning to matter more.

The 4K results tell a different story. At 3840x2160, Low settings produce 121.8 FPS, which is still highly playable, but the drop to Medium (100 FPS) and High (82.2 FPS) is steep. The Ultra preset, however, collapses to 48.1 FPS—a 60.5% reduction from Low. This severe penalty at 4K Ultra highlights that the RTX 3070 Ti's 8 GB of VRAM and 608.3 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated, making the GPU overwhelmingly the limiting component at this resolution. The fact that the 1080p Ultra score (114.6 FPS) is higher than the 4K Low score (121.8 FPS) is notable, but the 4K Ultra figure of 48.1 FPS suggests that the card's memory capacity is the bottleneck, not the core clock speed.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.60 GHz boosts up to 4.40 GHz, which is respectable for a mid-range chip. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14372 and a single-core score of 2029, placing it in the 75th percentile among all CPUs. The processor's 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for gaming, but the data from Downfall suggests that the CPU is rarely the limiting factor.

At 1080p Low, the combo hits 272.8 FPS, which is far beyond what most displays can show, indicating the CPU can feed the GPU at high rates. The PassMark multi-thread score of 16908 and the 3DMark max-threads score of 5652 confirm strong multi-threading, but the single-thread score of 868 in 3DMark is more relevant for gaming. The fact that performance scales so heavily with GPU settings—from 272.8 FPS at Low to 114.6 FPS at Ultra at 1080p—demonstrates that the i5-11400F is not the bottleneck. Even at 4K Low, the 121.8 FPS result is well above playable thresholds, proving the CPU can keep up with the RTX 3070 Ti's output. The CPU's 65 W TDP and lack of integrated graphics are minor considerations, but its performance in this horror title is more than sufficient.

The nearest CPU rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with an average score of 17189 (a delta of 0%) and the Intel Core i7-1260P at 17212 (a delta of -0.2%), show that the i5-11400F is competitive in general compute, but these are mobile parts. In Downfall, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are enough to avoid holding back the GPU, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at 1080p. The benchmark data indicates that the processor's role is secondary; it provides a stable platform for the GPU to operate without introducing frame rate dips.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is the star of this combo, and its specifications explain the measured performance. Based on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip built on an 8 nm process, the GPU features 6144 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. Its boost clock of 1770 MHz and 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus deliver 608.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The 21.75 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is substantial, and the 48 RT cores and 192 Tensor cores add ray tracing and DLSS capabilities, though these are not directly measured in the Downfall data.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 23356 and its 74th percentile ranking among all GPUs place it in the upper mid-range tier. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6700 with an average score of 31112 (a delta of -0.8%) and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 at 31142 (a delta of -0.9%), showing that the RTX 3070 Ti is closely matched with these competitors in raw compute. However, in Downfall, the GPU's performance is heavily influenced by VRAM capacity. At 4K Ultra, the 48.1 FPS result suggests that the 8 GB frame buffer is insufficient for the highest settings, leading to a dramatic performance cliff. The 1080p Medium score of 219.1 FPS and the 1440p High score of 132 FPS demonstrate that at lower resolutions, the GPU has ample headroom, but the 4K Ultra result is a clear sign of memory limitation rather than compute limitation.

The GPU's 290 W TDP and 600 W suggested PSU indicate it is a power-hungry part, but the benchmark results show it delivers strong performance when not constrained by VRAM. The pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s are high, yet the 4K Ultra drop to 48.1 FPS—a 41.6% reduction from 4K High's 82.2 FPS—points to the memory subsystem being overwhelmed. This is a classic case where the GPU's compute power outpaces its memory capacity, and the data supports this conclusion.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti ranks 658th out of 1741 combos in Downfall. This places it in the top 37.8% of all tested systems, which is a solid but not outstanding position. Given that the CPU is a mid-range 2021 part and the GPU is a high-end 2021 model, this ranking is expected. The combo outperforms many lower-tier pairings but falls short of systems with newer CPUs or higher-end GPUs.

The rank of 658 suggests that while the RTX 3070 Ti is capable, the i5-11400F may slightly hold back performance in CPU-bound scenarios, though the Downfall data does not show this. The CPU's 75th percentile ranking and the GPU's 74th percentile ranking are closely aligned, indicating a balanced pairing. However, the 4K results show that the GPU's VRAM is the primary weakness, which would affect any CPU paired with this card. The combo's rank is respectable, but the data indicates that for 4K Ultra gaming, this system is not ideal, as the 48.1 FPS result is below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for a smooth experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates are consistent and cover a range of resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 272.8 FPS on Low, 219.1 FPS on Medium, 182.2 FPS on High, and 114.6 FPS on Ultra. These figures show a clear hierarchy: each step up in settings costs roughly 30-40 FPS, with the Ultra preset taking a significant hit due to increased GPU load. At 2560x1440, the scores are 192.4 FPS (Low), 158.5 FPS (Medium), 132 FPS (High), and 80.4 FPS (Ultra). The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 30% across all settings, which is normal for a GPU-bound scenario.

The 3840x2160 results are where the system struggles. Low settings yield 121.8 FPS, which is still excellent, but Medium drops to 100 FPS, High to 82.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 48.1 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra at 4K is a 41.6% reduction, far steeper than the 20-25% drops seen at lower resolutions. This indicates that the Ultra preset at 4K exceeds the GPU's VRAM capacity, causing a severe performance penalty. For gamers targeting 4K, the data suggests using High settings to maintain an average above 80 FPS, while Ultra is only viable if the user accepts sub-60 FPS performance. The 1080p and 1440p results show that this combo is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors, with even Ultra settings at 1440p (80.4 FPS) being playable.