Downfall

# Downfall with Intel Core i5-14600KF + AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT delivers a thoroughly playable Downfall experience across all tested resolutions, but the scaling behavior reveals a GPU-bound title at higher settings. At 1080p Low the combo reaches 263 FPS average, while 4K Ultra drops to 49 FPS — a dramatic 81% reduction that clearly identifies the RX 7700 XT as the limiting component in demanding configurations. The combo ranks 1392 out of 3716 tested combinations in this game, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K shows classic GPU-limited scaling behavior, with the steepest drops occurring at higher preset levels. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 263 at 1920x1080 to 188 at 2560x1440 (a 28.5% reduction), then to 117 at 3840x2160 (a 37.8% further reduction from 1440p). This pattern indicates that even at the lowest preset, the RX 7700 XT's rendering capacity is the primary constraint as pixel count increases.

Medium settings exhibit similar but slightly gentler scaling: 215 FPS at 1080p, 154 FPS at 1440p (28.4% drop), and 96 FPS at 4K (37.7% drop from 1440p). The High preset shows 176 FPS at 1080p, 126 FPS at 1440p (28.4% drop), and 78 FPS at 4K (38.1% drop). The consistency of these percentage reductions across Low, Medium, and High presets — all hovering near 28% for the 1080p-to-1440p transition and 38% for 1440p-to-4K — strongly suggests that resolution scaling is governed by fill-rate and memory bandwidth rather than CPU throughput.

Ultra settings break this pattern with a much steeper decline: 110 FPS at 1080p, 79 FPS at 1440p (28.2% drop), and 49 FPS at 4K (38.0% drop from 1440p). While the relative percentages remain consistent, the absolute FPS values at Ultra are roughly 40% lower than High at every resolution. This indicates that Ultra preset introduces additional GPU work beyond simple resolution scaling, likely through more demanding shading effects that amplify the RX 7700 XT's load.

The 4K-to-1080p ratio at each preset tells a clear story: Low delivers 117 FPS at 4K versus 263 FPS at 1080p (2.25x), Medium delivers 96 versus 215 (2.24x), High delivers 78 versus 176 (2.26x), and Ultra delivers 49 versus 110 (2.24x). This near-identical 2.25x scaling factor across all presets confirms that the game's resolution scaling is remarkably uniform, and the limiting component remains the GPU throughout. The CPU, with its 14 cores and 20 threads, never becomes the bottleneck in any tested configuration.

Settings Recommendations

The data supports High settings as the optimal balance for this combo, particularly at 1440p where it delivers 126 FPS average. At 4K, High maintains 78 FPS, which remains comfortably in playable territory for a horror title where smoothness matters but 60 FPS is the practical floor. The jump from High to Ultra costs 29 FPS at 1080p (176 to 110), 47 FPS at 1440p (126 to 79), and 29 FPS at 4K (78 to 49). The 4K Ultra result of 49 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider minimum for responsive gameplay, making Ultra a questionable choice at that resolution.

Medium settings provide a substantial headroom buffer: 215 FPS at 1080p, 154 FPS at 1440p, and 96 FPS at 4K. For players using high-refresh-rate 1080p or 1440p monitors, Medium offers the best chance of saturating display refresh rates. However, the measured min FPS values for Medium (183 at 1080p, 131 at 1440p, 81 at 4K) show that even the lowest frames remain well above 60 FPS, meaning Medium never dips into stutter territory.

Low settings are only recommended for competitive play or extreme refresh-rate chasing, with 263 FPS at 1080p being the only configuration that approaches the 240 Hz class of displays. At 1440p Low (188 FPS) and 4K Low (117 FPS), the visual quality trade-off becomes harder to justify when Medium provides 154 FPS and 96 FPS respectively — both still far above the 60 FPS threshold. The 4K Ultra result of 49 FPS is the only measured configuration that drops below 60 FPS, and players seeking maximum visual fidelity at 4K should accept this or drop to High for a 29 FPS improvement.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, based on the Navi 32 chip with RDNA 3.0 architecture, provides the rendering foundation for all measured results. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for all tested settings at 4K — the fact that 4K Medium (96 FPS) and 4K High (78 FPS) remain playable suggests no memory capacity or bandwidth wall is hit. The GPU's 28,100 million transistors on a 5 nm TSMC process give it a 346 mm² die size, and its boost clock of 2544 MHz (with a game clock of 2171 MHz) drives the shading units to produce the measured frame rates.

The RX 7700 XT's benchmark profile places it in the 67th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22549. Its nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile (0.5% higher score), the RTX 4060 Mobile (0.8% lower), the RTX 2080 (1.5% lower), and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 (1.7% lower). These narrow deltas — all within 1.7% — indicate that the RX 7700 XT sits in a tightly contested performance tier, and the measured Downfall results reflect this mid-range positioning.

The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3316 and PassMark G3D score of 22547 provide synthetic confirmation of its real-world performance. The compute capabilities, measured at 12912 in PassMark GPU Compute, are not heavily exercised by Downfall based on the FPS scaling patterns, which remain consistently proportional to resolution rather than showing compute-related anomalies. The 96 ROPs and 216 TMUs provide the pixel and texture throughput needed for the game's horror environments, and the 549.5 GTexel/s texture rate and 244.2 GPixel/s pixel rate align with the observed resolution scaling behavior.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. Low settings produce 263 FPS average, Medium reaches 215 FPS with a measured range of 183 to 247 FPS, High achieves 176 FPS, and Ultra drops to 110 FPS. The 1080p results show that the RX 7700 XT has substantial headroom at this resolution, with even Ultra remaining far above the 60 FPS threshold.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but the GPU load becomes more evident. Low delivers 188 FPS, Medium averages 154 FPS with a range of 131 to 177 FPS, High produces 126 FPS, and Ultra drops to 79 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that High settings provide a 60 FPS buffer above the minimum playable threshold, while Ultra still clears 60 FPS with a 19 FPS margin.

At 3840x2160, the resolution demands begin to challenge the GPU. Low maintains 117 FPS, Medium averages 96 FPS with a range of 81 to 110 FPS, High delivers 78 FPS, and Ultra falls to 49 FPS. The 4K Ultra configuration is the only measured scenario that fails to reach 60 FPS, making it the sole problematic combination in the entire dataset. The 4K Medium minimum of 81 FPS demonstrates that even the lowest frame dips remain above the 60 FPS standard.

The min-max data available only for Medium settings reveals consistent frame pacing: at 1080p the range spans 183 to 247 FPS (a 64 FPS spread), at 1440p it spans 131 to 177 FPS (46 FPS spread), and at 4K it spans 81 to 110 FPS (29 FPS spread). The narrowing range at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes more consistently loaded, reducing frame time variance as the pixel workload increases.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Downfall at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, at Low, Medium, and High settings. The 4K results show 117 FPS on Low, 96 FPS on Medium, and 78 FPS on High. Only Ultra settings drop below 60 FPS, with a measured average of 49 FPS.

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming with this hardware?

A: High settings deliver 126 FPS average at 2560x1440, providing a 66 FPS buffer above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra also works at 79 FPS, but the visual gain over High costs 47 FPS in average performance.

Q: How does the RX 7700 XT compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 7700 XT scores 22549 on average benchmarks, placing it 0.5% below the RTX 5060 Mobile, 0.8% above the RTX 4060 Mobile, 1.5% above the RTX 2080, and 1.7% above the RX 5700. These deltas are all within 1.7%, indicating near-identical performance tiers.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in Downfall?

A: The GPU is the limiting component. Resolution scaling from 1080p to 4K reduces FPS by approximately 2.25x at every preset, a pattern consistent with GPU-bound rendering. The CPU's 14 cores and 20 threads never show signs of becoming the constraint.

Q: Does the 12 GB VRAM cause any issues at 4K?

A: No. The 4K results show playable frame rates at all presets except Ultra, with Medium delivering a minimum of 81 FPS. The 432.0 GB/s memory bandwidth appears sufficient for the game's requirements at this resolution.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1080p with maximum settings?

A: Ultra settings at 1920x1080 produce 110 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold. For higher refresh rates, Medium reaches 215 FPS and Low reaches 263 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF provides the processing foundation for this combo, and the data shows it is never the limiting factor in Downfall. With 14 cores and 20 threads, the CPU offers substantial multi-threaded capacity, yet the game's scaling behavior remains purely GPU-bound across all resolutions and presets. The 3.50 GHz base clock and 5.30 GHz boost clock deliver strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4594 and Geekbench single-core score of 2445.

The CPU's benchmark results place it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49394. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (0.3% higher score), the Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (0.4% higher), the Core Ultra 5 245 (0.8% higher), and the Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (0.8% lower). These extremely narrow deltas — all within 0.8% — confirm that the i5-14600KF sits at the top of its performance tier, and no CPU-bound limitation could plausibly affect the measured FPS results.

The multi-threaded benchmark scores reinforce this conclusion: Cinebench R23 multi-core reaches 32544, Cinebench R20 multi-core hits 13668, and Geekbench multi-core scores 17085. The PassMark multithread score of 38697 and PassMark physics score of 2449 further demonstrate that the CPU has ample headroom for game logic and physics processing. Downfall, as a horror title from 2016, does not appear to stress modern high-end CPUs, and the measured FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows no evidence of CPU-related frame drops or stuttering.

The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide the memory hierarchy needed for smooth data flow, and its support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus ensures the GPU receives data without starvation. The 10 nm process node and 257 mm² die size give the i5-14600KF a power-efficient design with a 125 W TDP, though power consumption is irrelevant to the measured FPS results. The data unequivocally shows that the RX 7700 XT determines performance in Downfall, with the i5-14600KF providing more than sufficient processing power to keep the GPU fully utilized at every resolution and preset combination tested.