Downfall

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Downfall with the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti reveals a clear pattern of scaling as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 333.8 FPS, which drops to 271.8 FPS at 1440p and further to 168.5 FPS at 4K. This represents a 49.5% reduction in frame rate when moving from 1080p Low to 4K Low, indicating that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is becoming the primary constraint as pixel count rises.

The scaling behavior shifts notably when examining High settings. At 1080p High, the system produces 257 FPS, while 1440p High yields 182.1 FPS, and 4K High drops to 113.8 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K at High settings results in a 37.5% performance loss, which is substantial but not as severe as the Low-settings drop. This suggests that at higher quality presets, the workload becomes more balanced between CPU and GPU, though the GPU still dominates the scaling curve.

Ultra settings tell a different story. The gap between 1080p Ultra (159 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (116.9 FPS) is 26.5%, while moving from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra (70.5 FPS) incurs a 39.7% loss. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest in the entire dataset, at less than half the 1080p High frame rate. This indicates that the RTX 5070 Ti's 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth are being heavily taxed at 4K with maximum visual fidelity.

The delta between Low and Ultra settings at each resolution provides insight into the limiting component. At 1080p, the spread from 333.8 FPS (Low) to 159 FPS (Ultra) is 174.8 FPS, showing that CPU overhead is relatively minor in this title. At 4K, the same comparison yields a spread of 98 FPS (168.5 vs 70.5), meaning the GPU is the dominant bottleneck at higher resolutions. The data suggests that for competitive play at high refresh rates, 1080p Low or Medium is the sweet spot, while 4K Ultra is only viable for players who prioritize visual quality over frame rate.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average is 333.8 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration in the dataset that exceeds 330 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 Ti compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti's average benchmark score is 52086, which is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 at 52085 (0% delta). It trails the AMD Radeon RX 7700S by 0.8% and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 2.5%, but leads the NVIDIA RTX A1000 by 2.5%.

Q: Is the i5-11400F a bottleneck at 1080p in Downfall?

A: At 1080p Low, the system hits 333.8 FPS, and at 1080p Medium it reaches 308.8 FPS. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz appear sufficient to feed the GPU at these frame rates, as the drop to 4K Low (168.5 FPS) is much larger than the drop between 1080p presets.

Q: What is the performance difference between High and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce 182.1 FPS while Ultra produces 116.9 FPS. This is a 65.2 FPS difference, representing a 35.8% reduction in frame rate when enabling the highest quality preset.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance rank compared to other processors?

A: The i5-11400F's average benchmark score is 17181, placing it in the 75th percentile of all CPUs. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 14372, and it sits within 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and Intel Core i5-1240U in average score.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra in Downfall?

A: Yes, the measured average at 3840x2160 Ultra is 70.5 FPS, which exceeds the 60 FPS threshold. However, the margin is slim, and players seeking higher frame rates should consider Medium settings at 4K, which deliver 137.4 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured frame rates. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is critical for Downfall at 4K, where the Ultra preset consumes enough VRAM and bandwidth to push the average down to 70.5 FPS. The GPU's boost clock of 2452 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz are relatively modest for a flagship-tier card, but the Blackwell 2.0 architecture compensates with 8960 shading units and 280 tensor cores.

In synthetic testing, the RTX 5070 Ti achieves a Passmark G3D score of 32974 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6604. Its OpenCL score of 231226 and Vulkan score of 227554 indicate strong compute performance that translates to real-world gaming. The GPU's 87th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it firmly in the high-end segment, and its average benchmark score of 52086 is within 0.8% of the AMD Radeon RX 7700S and exactly matches the RTX 4080. This parity explains why the RTX 5070 Ti delivers such consistent results across resolutions in Downfall.

The VRAM allocation becomes a factor at 4K Ultra, where the combination of high-resolution textures and advanced effects likely consumes a significant portion of the 16 GB pool. The 70.5 FPS result at 4K Ultra is the lowest in the dataset, and the 39.7% drop from 4K High (113.8 FPS) indicates that the Ultra preset introduces a memory bandwidth or capacity bottleneck. At 1080p, the GPU's bandwidth is less stressed, allowing frame rates to scale up to 333.8 FPS at Low settings. The pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s are sufficient to drive high frame rates at lower resolutions, but the 4K pixel count overwhelms these resources when combined with Ultra settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings produce 333.8 FPS, Medium yields 308.8 FPS, High reaches 257 FPS, and Ultra drops to 159 FPS. The gap between Low and High is 76.8 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 98 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset carries a heavier penalty than the step from Low to High. This suggests that Ultra enables effects that disproportionately impact frame rate on this hardware.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a steeper decline. Low settings hit 271.8 FPS, Medium achieves 225.9 FPS, High produces 182.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 116.9 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 154.9 FPS, which is larger than the 174.8 FPS delta at 1080p. This indicates that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor as resolution increases, but the CPU still has headroom to spare.

At 3840x2160, the GPU takes full control. Low settings deliver 168.5 FPS, Medium reaches 137.4 FPS, High manages 113.8 FPS, and Ultra drops to 70.5 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium at 4K is 31.1 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 43.3 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only configuration in the entire dataset that falls below 100 FPS, making it the most demanding scenario for this hardware combination. Across all resolutions, the scaling from Low to Ultra is consistent: the RTX 5070 Ti loses roughly half its frame rate when moving from the lowest to highest quality preset, with the exact percentage varying from 52.4% at 1080p to 58.2% at 4K.

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 and boost clock of 4.40 GHz provide sufficient single-thread performance for Downfall, which is reflected in the high frame rates at 1080p. The CPU's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2029 and multi-core score of 14372 indicate balanced performance across both lightly and heavily threaded workloads.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-11400F achieves a 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and a multi-thread score of 5652. Its Passmark single-thread score of 2981 and multithread score of 16908 place it in the 75th percentile of all CPUs. The average benchmark score of 17181 puts it nearly exactly in line with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (17189, 0% delta) and the Intel Core i7-1260P (17212, -0.2% delta). This parity means the i5-11400F is not a performance outlier in either direction; it is a solid mid-range processor that keeps pace with its peers.

The CPU's role in Downfall becomes evident when examining the frame rates at 1080p Low versus 4K Low. At 1080p Low, the system produces 333.8 FPS, which is likely approaching the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are adequate for feeding the GPU at these rates. However, the fact that 1080p Low and 1080p Medium differ by only 25 FPS (333.8 vs 308.8) suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at these settings. Instead, the GPU's rendering pipeline is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the much larger drops when resolution increases.

The i5-11400F's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for Downfall, which is a 2016 horror title that likely does not scale beyond a few threads. The CPU's Passmark physics score of 842 and data compression score of 208472 indicate strong general-purpose performance, but the game's requirements are modest. The combo's rank of 167 out of 1741 tested combinations (top 9.6%) reflects that this pairing is well above average for this game, with the CPU providing enough headroom for the GPU to operate at its full potential across all settings and resolutions.