Downfall

How This Combo Ranks

In Downfall, the combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 secures the 14th spot out of 1,741 tested combos, placing it firmly within the top 1% of all configurations in the database. This is an exceptional ranking that reflects the sheer brute force of the RTX 5090, which sits in the 94th percentile among all GPUs, paired with a CPU that ranks in the 82nd percentile. The data indicates a pairing of a top-tier graphics card with a solidly above-average processor, creating a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound in this title.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 25,236 places it in extremely close competition with its nearest rivals. It sits a mere 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13620H, and 0.5% ahead of both the AMD EPYC 9474F and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340. Interestingly, it trails the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D by 0.5%. These deltas are negligible, showing that in synthetic tests, the 13400F is performance-equivalent to a broad swath of other processors, meaning the massive FPS numbers seen here are almost entirely attributable to the graphics card, not the CPU.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5090's average benchmark score of 84,306 shows a similar story of tight competition. It is 0.1% ahead of the RTX 5090 D and 0.2% ahead of the RTX 5050 Mobile. It leads the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 by 1.3% but falls 1.6% behind the NVIDIA CMP 40HX. The fact that the 5090's nearest rivals are within a 1.6% band highlights how the benchmark scores of top-tier cards cluster together, yet in this specific game, the measured FPS results demonstrate that the 5090 is able to leverage its architecture to deliver class-leading frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the undisputed engine of this configuration, and its specifications explain why it dominates Downfall's performance metrics. The card is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, with a massive die size of 750 mm² housing 92,200 million transistors. This hardware foundation allows for a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz, which are the primary drivers of its raw compute throughput.

Memory is a major differentiator for this card. With 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, the RTX 5090 achieves a staggering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. In a horror title like Downfall, which often relies on high-resolution textures and complex shaders to create atmosphere, this immense memory bandwidth prevents any form of texture streaming bottleneck, ensuring that the GPU cores are always fed with data. The 28 Gbps effective memory clock further underscores the card's ability to handle massive data sets at 4K resolutions without breaking a sweat.

The GPU's compute capabilities are equally formidable. With 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, the card is capable of a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS is the key metric for traditional rasterization, and it is this sheer number-crunching ability that allows the card to push frame rates well above 200 FPS at 1440p in less demanding settings. The data clearly shows that the GPU is the limiting factor only at the highest resolutions and settings, while at lower settings, it is so fast that the CPU begins to take on a more significant role.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience in Downfall depends heavily on the user's display refresh rate and resolution preference. The data suggests that the "High" preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions, providing a significant visual upgrade over Medium while maintaining frame rates that are only modestly lower.

At 4K, the High preset delivers an average of 136.1 FPS, which is a 40 FPS drop from Medium's 169.7 FPS, but the visual fidelity gains are substantial. For users with a 1440p display, the High preset at 220.8 FPS is the sweet spot, providing a fluid experience that exceeds the refresh rates of all but the most extreme gaming monitors. At 1080p, High still produces a blistering 308.4 FPS, making it the recommended choice for competitive play.

The Ultra preset, while visually the most demanding, causes a significant performance hit. It drops average frame rates to 87 FPS at 4K, 135.4 FPS at 1440p, and 193.4 FPS at 1080p. While these numbers are still playable, the performance cost relative to High is steep, suggesting that the extra graphical features in Ultra are not worth the frame rate sacrifice unless a user has a 4K 120Hz+ display and prioritizes absolute image quality. Low settings are only recommended for users chasing maximum frame rates on high-refresh-rate 1080p panels, as it pushes the average to 408.8 FPS, but the visual compromise in a horror game is likely to detract from the intended experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how the RTX 5090 scales across resolutions and settings. At 1080p, the card is so powerful that it appears CPU-limited at lower settings. The average frame rate jumps from 372.4 FPS at Medium to 408.8 FPS at Low, a difference of only 36.4 FPS. However, moving from Medium to High drops the average to 308.4 FPS, and Ultra further reduces it to 193.4 FPS. This sharp decline at the upper settings shows the GPU is now becoming the bottleneck as shader complexity increases.

At 1440p, the scaling is more linear. The Low preset yields 325.5 FPS, which drops to 270.9 FPS at Medium and 220.8 FPS at High. The Ultra preset cuts the frame rate nearly in half relative to High, landing at 135.4 FPS. This indicates that at 1440p, the GPU is doing more of the heavy lifting, and the CPU has enough headroom to keep feeding it data.

At 4K, the GPU is unambiguously the limiting factor. The card produces 203.6 FPS at Low, 169.7 FPS at Medium, and 136.1 FPS at High. The jump to Ultra is significant, with the average falling to 87 FPS. This is the only resolution where the Ultra preset drops below the 100 FPS threshold, confirming that 4K Ultra is the most demanding scenario for this combo. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a consistent and expected degradation in performance as the render load increases.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a clear trend in how frame rates scale with resolution. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at the High setting, the average FPS drops from 308.4 to 220.8, a reduction of 87.6 FPS, or roughly 28%. This is a substantial decrease, but the absolute frame rate remains exceptionally high. The transition from 1440p to 4K at High sees the average fall from 220.8 to 136.1 FPS, a drop of 84.7 FPS, or about 38%. This steeper decline at the 4K resolution is a classic sign of the GPU becoming increasingly saturated with pixel rendering work.

The pattern is consistent across all settings. At Low, the frame rate goes from 408.8 FPS at 1080p, to 325.5 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 203.6 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is over 50%, which is expected for a card with this much power. However, the fact that the 4K Low setting still manages over 200 FPS shows that the RTX 5090 is not truly struggling until the Ultra preset is engaged.

This scaling behavior points to the CPU as the limiting component at 1080p, particularly at Low and Medium settings where the frame rates exceed 370 FPS. The Core i5-13400F, with its 10 cores and 16 threads boosting up to 4.60 GHz, is able to feed the GPU at these extreme rates, but the data suggests that a faster processor might yield slightly higher numbers at 1080p Low. As the resolution increases, the bottleneck shifts entirely to the GPU, and the CPU's influence on the final frame rate diminishes, as evidenced by the near-linear performance scaling of the GPU at 4K across all settings.