Downfall

Settings Recommendations

The measured data for Downfall provides a clear hierarchy across four quality presets at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 261.6 FPS average, while Medium drops to 217.2 FPS, High to 176.9 FPS, and Ultra to 110.7 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs roughly 44 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs roughly 66 FPS, indicating that Ultra imposes a disproportionate performance penalty relative to the intermediate presets.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats with Low at 188.9 FPS, Medium at 152.9 FPS, High at 126.8 FPS, and Ultra at 79.7 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra widens to approximately 47 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is approximately 26 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low produces 117.3 FPS, Medium 93.5 FPS, High 79.3 FPS, and Ultra 47.4 FPS — the Ultra preset falls below 60 FPS, which is a critical threshold for smooth gameplay in a horror title where frame pacing matters for atmosphere.

For the best experience, the High preset at 2560x1440 represents the optimal balance. It maintains 126.8 FPS average, which is comfortably above 60 FPS and within range of high-refresh displays. The jump to Ultra at this resolution costs 47.1 FPS (a 37% reduction) for marginal visual gains. At 1920x1080, High at 176.9 FPS is similarly attractive, but 2560x1440 High offers higher pixel density without sacrificing frame rate. At 3840x2160, High at 79.3 FPS is playable, but the 46 FPS drop from Medium to High suggests the GPU is nearing its limits at this resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process. Its memory configuration consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock runs at 2310 MHz with a boost clock of 2535 MHz, and memory operates at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). The GPU contains 4352 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs, alongside 34 ray tracing cores and 136 tensor cores. Its FP32 throughput is 22.06 TFLOPS, with matching FP16 performance.

Benchmark results show this GPU achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2913, placing it in the 17th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in synthetic testing include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB with a score of 2907 and a deltaPct of 0.2%, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M at 2959 with a deltaPct of -1.5%. The 8 GB variant trails the GTX 860M by 1.5% in this synthetic test, despite being a far more modern part — indicating that this particular benchmark does not fully reflect gaming performance.

In Downfall specifically, the GPU scales well from 1080p to 1440p, with High preset dropping from 176.9 to 126.8 FPS. The 8 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient at these resolutions, as the game does not exhibit catastrophic frame drops that would indicate memory swapping. However, at 3840x2160 Ultra, the 47.4 FPS result suggests the GPU is compute-bound rather than memory-bound, given that the 288.0 GB/s bandwidth is modest for 4K workloads.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F with the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB ranks 719th out of 1741 tested combos in Downfall. This places it in the 41st percentile of all combinations, meaning roughly 59% of tested combos perform better in this game. The rank reflects the balanced nature of this pairing — neither component is a bottleneck, but neither pushes the combo into elite territory.

The i5-11400F itself holds the 75th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17181. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U at 17189 (0% delta), the Intel Core i7-1260P at 17212 (-0.2% delta), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U at 17215 (-0.2% delta). This means the CPU is positioned solidly in the mid-range, and its 6-core, 12-thread configuration with a 4.40 GHz boost clock is adequate for modern gaming.

The GPU's 17th percentile ranking in synthetic tests is misleading when compared to its in-game performance. The RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB produces playable frame rates at all tested settings except 4K Ultra, and the combo rank of 719/1741 suggests that many lower-ranked combos likely pair weaker CPUs with this GPU, dragging down the overall position. The data indicates this combo is well-matched for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K being the only resolution where compromises are necessary.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Downfall?

A: The 2560x1440 High preset delivers 126.8 FPS average, which is the highest resolution and quality combination that maintains a frame rate well above 60 FPS. At 3840x2160, even the High preset drops to 79.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 47.4 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB compare to its 16 GB sibling in synthetic tests?

A: The 8 GB model scores 2913 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, while the 16 GB model scores 2907, a deltaPct of 0.2% in favor of the 8 GB variant. The two GPUs are effectively identical in this benchmark, suggesting VRAM capacity does not influence this particular synthetic workload.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 Low, the combo achieves 261.6 FPS, which is extremely high. The i5-11400F's 6 cores and 12 threads with a 4.40 GHz boost clock appear sufficient to feed the GPU at this resolution, as frame rates scale consistently across settings.

Q: What is the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 176.9 at 1920x1080 to 126.8 at 2560x1440 to 79.3 at 3840x2160. This represents a 55% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating the GPU becomes increasingly stressed as resolution increases.

Q: Is the Ultra preset playable at 1440p?

A: Yes, at 2560x1440 Ultra, the combo produces 79.7 FPS average, which is above 60 FPS. However, this is a 37% drop from the High preset's 126.8 FPS, so the visual improvements must be weighed against the significant frame rate cost.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: The combo ranks 719th out of 1741 tested combinations in Downfall, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all tested hardware pairings.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a consistent scaling pattern across all four quality presets. At Low settings, average FPS drops from 261.6 at 1920x1080 to 188.9 at 2560x1440 (a 28% reduction) to 117.3 at 3840x2160 (a 55% reduction from 1080p). At Medium settings, the progression is 217.2 to 152.9 to 93.5, representing a 57% total drop from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the progression is 176.9 to 126.8 to 79.3, a 55% drop. At Ultra settings, the progression is 110.7 to 79.7 to 47.4, a 57% drop.

The uniformity of these percentage drops across settings — all falling between 55% and 57% from 1080p to 4K — indicates that the GPU is the primary scaling factor. The CPU's influence is minimal across resolutions, as the i5-11400F's performance headroom is not exhausted at lower resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 47.4 FPS is the only sub-60 FPS result in the entire dataset, confirming that this resolution and preset combination exceeds what the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB can deliver for smooth gameplay.

The linearity of the scaling also suggests that the game's rendering workload scales predictably with pixel count. The GPU's 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 128-bit memory bus become more limiting at higher resolutions, but the frame rate drops are proportional rather than abrupt, indicating no single resource is catastrophically exhausted until 4K Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 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 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel configuration and 51.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The CPU connects via PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-11400F scores 14372 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2029 in single-core. Its 3DMark scores range from 868 in single-thread to 5652 in max-threads. The PassMark multi-thread score is 16908, with a single-thread score of 2981. These results place the CPU in the 75th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 17181.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU but not negligible. At 1920x1080 Low, the 261.6 FPS result demonstrates that the CPU can maintain very high frame rates without becoming a bottleneck. The 4.40 GHz boost clock provides strong single-thread performance for game logic, while the 12 threads handle background tasks. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s is adequate for this game, as frame rates scale consistently with GPU load rather than showing CPU-related stutters.

The nearest CPU rivals — the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, Intel Core i7-1260P, and Intel Core Ultra 7 164U — all score within 0.2% of the i5-11400F in average benchmark scores. This indicates the CPU is competitively positioned, and any performance differences in Downfall would be minimal. The 14 nm process node is older than the GPU's 5 nm node, but the architecture's strong single-thread performance compensates for the process disadvantage in gaming workloads.