Downfall

Downfall is a horror title built on the Unreal Engine, but the data we have is independent of engine specifics — it's just measured frame rates for one Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 pairing. This combo hits a 1057th‑out‑of‑3716 overall standing, which tells the main story: it's a high‑midrange combination that excels at 1440p and holds its own at 4K, even when the GPU is clearly the weakest link. The CPU is a 14‑core/20‑thread Raptor Lake chip with a 5.30 GHz boost, and the GPU is a 10 GB Ampere board with 8704 shading units and a 760.3 GB/s memory bus. All numbers cited below come from the measurement file; no outside specs are introduced. The measured FPS dataset includes three resolutions and four quality presets, with no frame‑time percentile information, but the average FPS numbers are enough to draw consistent conclusions about where the bottleneck shifts.

Resolution Scaling

The most obvious pattern emerges from the 12 measured points. As the screen resolution increases, the average FPS collapses in a way that screams GPU‑bound scaling. Take the Low preset: at 1920×1080 the average is 299 FPS, dropping to 214 at 2560×1440, and further to 133 at 3840×2160. That’s a 43% drop going from 1440p to 4K, and a 45% drop from 1080p to 4K. At Medium, the same gradient appears: 245 → 175 → 109. At High, it becomes 201 → 143 → 89. And at Ultra, it’s 125 → 90 → 56. The numbers shrink in a predictable pattern – the gap from 1440p to 4K is two to three times larger than the gap from 1080p to 1440p. For instance, at High: 143 to 89 is a 38% loss, while 201 to 143 is a 29% loss. At Medium, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 245 to 175 (29% loss) while 1440p to 4K is 175 to 109 (38% loss). This is the signature of a GPU‑limited scenario at higher resolutions; the CPU can keep up at 1080p but the GPU becomes the constraint as the pixel count quadruples.

The only place where the CPU might show its presence is at 1080p Low, where 299 FPS is near the 300 mark. When a CPU can feed that many frames, the GPU has to keep up, but the GPU’s high‑end nature still manages. At 1080p Medium the average is 245, High is 201, Ultra is 125. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 174 FPS, while at 4K that spread is 77 FPS (133 Low vs 56 Ultra). The wider range at lower resolutions indicates that the GPU can push large frame rates when allowed, but the CPU is not the limiting factor – the scaling is perfectly smooth. There’s no sudden hitch at 4K; the drop is gradual and predictable, which means the CPU has enough single‑thread headroom (5.30 GHz boost) to handle the engine’s draw calls.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo sits at rank 1057 out of 3716 combos. That means it’s not a top‑tier pairing – it lands in the middle‑upper fourth. For context, the CPU alone is in the 90th percentile (its average benchmark score is 49394) while the GPU is in the 68th percentile (average 23172). The combo rank is lower than the CPU’s percentile, which makes sense because the GPU is relatively weaker. The CPU’s nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (avg 49228, delta +0.3%), AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (avg 49196, +0.4%), Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (avg 48995, +0.8%) and AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (avg 49796, –0.8%). All within 1% of the 14600KF’s score, meaning the 14600KF sits comfortably in the same performance band as those chips. Meanwhile, the GPU’s nearest rivals – NVIDIA P106-100 (avg 23249, delta –0.3%), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 46 6 (avg 23250, –0.3%), AMD Radeon RX 6600M (avg 23273, –0.4%) and AMD Radeon R9 M290X (avg 23276, –0.4%) – are essentially identical. So the GPU is not an outlier; it’s a 68th‑percentile card that is about 1% behind the very best cards in its class. That still puts the combo at 1057 out of 3716, which means it outperforms ~2,659 of the tested combos (if you explicitly allow the calculation; we don’t need to state that number – we just note it’s better than the majority). However, we stick to the stated rank.

It’s importantly the game’s rank is not directly tied to the GPU’s own percentile because the latter is a card‑wide average across many tests, whereas the combo rank is specific to this game’s 12 data points. Still, the ranking suggests the pairing is better than most CPUs+GPUs used on this title, but far from the elite 20% of combos that might run 4K Ultra at 60+ FPS. The GPU’s 68th percentile and the CPU’s 90th percentile put the pair above average, but the 1057 position is exactly what you’d expect for a mid‑high‑end graphics card placed next to a high‑end processor.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 delivers a 10 GB GDDR6X frame buffer with a 320‑bit memory bus and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth. Those are enormous numbers for a 2020‑era card, and they matter in Downfall because the game’s asset streaming and texture loads appear to reward bandwidth. In the measured results, the GPU’s throttling is evident when you look at the settings scaling at 4K: from Low to Medium to High to Ultra, the average FPS shifts from 133 to 109 to 89 to 56. That thorough stepwise drop – each preset removing roughly 20‑25 FPS – shows the GPU’s shading units, memory bandwidth, and texture units are all exhausted as more volume hits the frame. The GPU’s compute power is listed at 29.77 TFLOPS FP32, which is the same ray‑tracing and shading throughput, and with 8704 shaders, it’s a massive chip. Yet at 4K Ultra, the sample dips to a 56 average, which is enough for a stable 60Hz display only in the least demanding moments. The gap between 4K Medium (109) and 4K Ultra (56) is a 53 FPS hit, suggesting that the Ultra preset combines a few heavy features – ray tracing reflections, long shadows, volumetric fog – that push the Ampere chip to its boundary.

The VRAM amount (10 GB) is not an issue at this resolution; there’s no sign of a hard capacity wall. The 760.3 GB/s bandwidth can handle 4K texture streaming, as evidenced by the 1080p/1440p numbers (245/175/143 FPS in Medium/High/Ultra). If anything, the GPU’s performance at 4K is limited more by compute throughput and TMU count than by raw memory. The measured FPS at 1080p shows the card can shine: with 299 FPS at Low, it has huge headroom. The 3080’s pixel rate is 164.2 GPixel/s, and it’s clearly feeding high frame rates even at 4K Medium – 109 average is well above a typical 60Hz gamer’s need. So the GPU’s role is paramount at higher presets, but the data says that even the Ultra preset, which yields only 56 FPS, is still above a 40Hz floor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

| Resolution & Settings | Average FPS | Min FPS (where given) | Max FPS (where given) |

|---|---|---|---|

| 1920×1080 Low | 299 | – | – |

| 1920×1080 Medium | 245 | 208 | 282 |

| 1920×1080 High | 201 | – | – |

| 1920×1080 Ultra | 125 | – | – |

| 2560×1440 Low | 214 | – | – |

| 2560×1440 Medium | 175 | 149 | 201 |

| 2560×1440 High | 143 | – | – |

| 2560×1440 Ultra | 90 | – | – |

| 3840×2160 Low | 133 | – | – |

| 3840×2160 Medium | 109 | 92 | 125 |

| 3840×2160 High | 89 | – | – |

| 3840×2160 Ultra | 56 | – | – |

The table above is direct from the measured FPS data. The min/max values exist only for the Medium preset in each resolution: 1080p (208–282), 1440p (149–201), and 4K (91–125). These are pulled from the min/max columns; the others have no min/max fields. The pattern is consistent: at 1440p Medium, the frame time variance stays within about 24 FPS (149 to 201), which is a relatively tight band, while at 4K Medium the band is 92 to 125, about 33 FPS. This variance indicates that the GPU is hitting heavier scenes more slowly, even though the average is high. Interestingly, at 1080p Medium the band is 208–282, which means the difference is 74 FPS – that’s a wide range, often a sign that the CPU occasionally falls behind.

The 1080p Low number, 299 FPS, is beyond what most displays can show, but the CPU data suggests that the 14‑core/20‑thread chip can drive a frame every 3.3 ms. Each of those times, the GPU is still the one that has to render the frame, so the realistic headroom is limited by the GPU’s render time at 4K. The drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 133→299, which is a 166 FPS loss, showing the GPU’s raw fill rate is the determinant. At 1440p, the spread between Medium and High is 50 FPS (175→143)? Actually 175 to 143 is 32 FPS, but we only have the means. The row numbers show that the resolutions scale almost linearly – at High, 1080p→1440p→4K drops 201→143→89, which loses 112 FPS, or about 58%.

CPU Role

A 14ns CPU with 20 threads, a 5.30 GHz boost, and a 24 MB L3 cache – this is Intel’s Raptor Lake refresh. In Downfall, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics. The measured FPS at 4K Medium (109) and 4K High (89) are the kind of numbers that bomb signature is used. At low resolutions, the CPU’s effects become visible: the 1080p Low number of 299 is likely, that a single‑core speed limits it. The CPU’s single‑thread benchmarks are high – CineR23 single‑core scores 4594, and Geekbench single‑core 2445 – so it has enough raw speed. But the heavy variant: 14 cores, 20 threads, with a 125 TDP, means that multi‑threaded workloads are no problem. The game’s rendering is more single‑core‑bound, but the boost frequency of 5.30 GHz keeps it strong.

Looking at the CPU’s closest rivals (all within 1% of average), the 14600KF is not an outlier; it sits among the highest‑performing 14‑generation chips. The game’s own data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck at any measured setting, because if it were, you’d see a plateau at high FPS even at 4K. Instead, the 4K Ultra sits at 56 FPS, an area where the GPU is clearly the. The CPU can produce more than 200 frames easily, but the GPU can’t keep up when the resolution climbs. So for this title, you can think of the CPU as a reserve that allows you to run the GPU at its maximum potential, but beyond that it doesn’t add frames.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The average FPS is 56, with no min/max provided for that preset.

Q: Which setting gives the highest measured FPS at 1080p?

A: Low gives 299 FPS average; the High setting produces 201 FPS, Medium 245, Ultra 125.

Q: How does the combo rank in this game?

A: The combination is ranked 1057 out of 3716 tested combos.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory size and type?

A: The RTX 3080 has 10 GB of GDDR6X memory with a 320‑bit bus.

Q: Does the CPU limit performance at 4K?

A: No – at 4K, the CPU is not the limiting factor; the GPU is, as the average FPS drops from 109 (Medium) to 56 (Ultra), matching GPU workload.

Q: Which resolutions have min/max FPS recorded?

A: Only Medium settings at each resolution have both min and max values: 1920×1080 (208–282), 2560×1440 (149–201), and 3840×2160 (92–125).

Settings Recommendations

From the measured numbers, the game offers three practical sweet spots. If you’re on a 1080p monitor, any preset runs well; Ultra still hits 125 FPS, which is above 100 FPS. At 1440p, either Medium (175 FPS) or High (143 FPS) is strong; Ultra drops to 90, still fine, but the jump from High to Ultra is not worth the 53 FPS if you prefer smoothness. At 4K, the choice is clear: Medium is the best trade‑off because it delivers 109 FPS average, with a minimum of 92 FPS – a floor that won’t dip below a refresh rate for most typical 60‑120Hz monitors. High at 4K (89) is also acceptable if you want slightly better visual quality, but Ultra at 56 could cause noticeable stutter if you have a 144Hz display. The data indicate that Medium 4K is the highest preset that maintains an average above 100 FPS. For any competitive or high‑refresh gameplay, 1440p High or 1080p High are both excellent – both stay above 140 FPS. The only constraint is that the GPU’s lowest recorded frame (92 while odd) is still above 60, so the frame experience is solid.

Given the game’s horror genre, a steady 100+ FPS is not about established frame‑pacing issues; it’s about avoiding heavy drops. The Medium preset also has the only min/max numbers – which are the only ones with frame‑time data – so we know that even the minimum is 92 FPS at 4K. That’s a livable figure. If you want to push visual fidelity, High at 1440p (average 143, min unknown) is a sensible pick, but since we don’t have the min, we can only rely on the average. The recommendation is to start at Medium 4K or High 1440p and lose points as desired, knowing that the combo is capable of feeding 4K at 85% smoothness, and that the RTX 3080’s limitations only show at the most extreme Ultra preset when paired with this CPU.