Downfall

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER delivers a compelling, high-refresh-rate experience in Downfall, but the data reveals a distinct performance ceiling shaped by both components. Across the measured resolutions, the combo demonstrates exceptional raw throughput at 1080p, yet the scaling patterns suggest the GPU becomes the primary constraint as resolution increases. The benchmark results indicate a system capable of exceeding 360 FPS at lower settings, while the Ultra preset at 4K demands significant compromises, making the choice of settings and resolution critical to the overall experience.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a stark shift in performance dynamics. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 367.8 FPS, which drops to 164 FPS at 4K Low—a 55.4% reduction. This dramatic falloff indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU is doing the heavy lifting, allowing the GPU to push frame rates to extraordinarily high levels. The scaling from 1080p Medium (301.3 FPS) to 1440p Medium (214.3 FPS) shows a 28.9% decrease, while the jump to 4K Medium (134.1 FPS) represents another 37.4% drop. These figures point to the GPU becoming progressively more saturated as pixel count rises.

The High preset tells a similar story. At 1080p High, the system produces 246.7 FPS, which declines to 176 FPS at 1440p (a 28.7% drop) and further to 109.1 FPS at 4K (a 38.0% drop from 1440p). The Ultra preset, however, exhibits the most pronounced scaling penalty. Starting at 154.5 FPS in 1080p, it falls to 110.6 FPS at 1440p (a 28.4% reduction) and bottoms out at 69.6 FPS at 4K—a 37.1% decrease from 1440p. This pattern suggests that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 256-bit bus are sufficient for most workloads, but the sheer pixel throughput at 4K Ultra pushes the GPU to its limits, indicating that the limiting component at higher resolutions is unequivocally the graphics card.

FAQ

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: The data shows a substantial gap. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 367.8 FPS on average, while the Ultra preset delivers 154.5 FPS. This represents a 58.0% reduction in frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K with High settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with High settings, the system maintains an average of 109.1 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS threshold typically considered playable, but it is a significant drop from the 176 FPS seen at 1440p High.

Q: Which resolution offers the best balance of quality and performance?

A: Based on the measured rows, 2560x1440 with High settings provides a strong balance, yielding 176 FPS. This is 39.9% higher than the 4K High result while still offering a noticeable visual upgrade over 1080p.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER the bottleneck at any resolution?

A: The scaling data indicates the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions. For example, the 4K Ultra result of 69.6 FPS is less than half of the 1440p Ultra result of 110.6 FPS, showing that the GPU’s rendering capacity is the primary constraint at 4K.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and High at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset produces 214.3 FPS, while High produces 176 FPS. This is a 17.9% performance decrease for the upgrade from Medium to High.

Q: Can this combo hit 240 FPS at 1080p?

A: Yes, but not at all settings. The Low preset reaches 367.8 FPS and Medium reaches 301.3 FPS, both well above 240 FPS. The High preset at 246.7 FPS also clears this threshold, but Ultra falls short at 154.5 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the optimal experience depends heavily on the target display’s refresh rate and resolution. For 1080p displays with high refresh rates (240 Hz or above), the High preset is the sweet spot, delivering 246.7 FPS. This provides a smooth experience while retaining substantial visual fidelity. The Medium preset at 301.3 FPS is a viable alternative for those prioritizing maximum frame rates, but the 55.4 FPS difference between Medium and High is a relatively small cost for the visual upgrade.

At 1440p, the High preset at 176 FPS is the recommended choice for most users, as it comfortably exceeds 144 Hz refresh rates while offering better image quality than Medium (214.3 FPS) or Low (261.3 FPS). The Ultra preset at 110.6 FPS is also playable, but the 37.2% drop from High to Ultra makes it a less attractive option unless visual fidelity is paramount.

For 4K gaming, the High preset at 109.1 FPS is the best balance, providing a smooth experience on 60 Hz displays and even enabling 100 Hz+ monitors. The Ultra preset at 69.6 FPS is still playable but requires a significant compromise in frame rate, making it suitable only for slower-paced, visually-demanding scenes. The Low and Medium presets at 4K (164 FPS and 134.1 FPS, respectively) offer high performance but sacrifice too much visual quality to be recommended for a horror title where atmosphere is key.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER achieves a combo rank of 193 out of 1741 tested combos in Downfall. This places it in the top 11.1% of all configurations, indicating that it is a high-performing setup for this specific title. The rank reflects the combined capabilities of both components, and the data suggests that the system is well above average for delivering high frame rates across multiple resolutions.

The CPU’s percentile ranking (93rd among all CPUs) and the GPU’s percentile ranking (86th among all GPUs) both contribute to this strong overall position. The combo rank of 193 out of 1741 demonstrates that this configuration outperforms the vast majority of tested systems, making it a formidable choice for Downfall. However, the rank also implies that there are 192 other combinations that deliver even higher performance, likely featuring more powerful GPUs or CPUs that can push frame rates even higher at the most demanding settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER plays a central role in determining the frame rates at higher resolutions. With 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, the GPU offers a memory bandwidth of 672.3 GB/s, which is sufficient for the texture-heavy environments typical of a horror game. The boost clock of 2610 MHz and the 8448 shading units contribute to the card’s raw compute power, enabling the high frame rates observed at 1080p and 1440p.

The data shows that the GPU’s performance scales predictably with resolution, but the 4K Ultra result of 69.6 FPS highlights its limitations. The transition from High to Ultra at 4K results in a 36.2% drop in frame rate (from 109.1 FPS to 69.6 FPS), which is more severe than the 28.4% drop seen at 1440p. This indicates that the Ultra preset at 4K pushes the GPU’s shading units and memory subsystem to their limits. The card’s 44.10 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is impressive, but the demands of 4K Ultra clearly outpace its capabilities in this title. The GPU’s 96 ROPs and 264 TMUs are also taxed heavily at 4K, further confirming the GPU as the primary bottleneck at that resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of the combo’s performance across all resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates range from 367.8 FPS (Low) to 154.5 FPS (Ultra), with Medium at 301.3 FPS and High at 246.7 FPS. The 1080p results show a clear hierarchy where each settings tier reduces performance by a significant margin: Low to Medium is a 18.1% drop, Medium to High is an 18.1% drop, and High to Ultra is a 37.4% drop.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 261.3 FPS (Low), 214.3 FPS (Medium), 176 FPS (High), and 110.6 FPS (Ultra). The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows an average reduction of approximately 29% across all settings, with the Low preset experiencing the smallest drop (28.9%) and Ultra experiencing a similar reduction (28.4%). This consistency suggests that the GPU is handling the increased pixel load uniformly across settings at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 164 FPS (Low), 134.1 FPS (Medium), 109.1 FPS (High), and 69.6 FPS (Ultra). The transition from 1440p to 4K results in a more pronounced average reduction of 38.0%, with the Ultra preset showing the largest drop (37.1% from 1440p) and the Low preset showing a 37.2% reduction. The 4K Ultra result of 69.6 FPS is the lowest measured frame rate and represents a 55.0% reduction from the 1080p Ultra result, underscoring the GPU’s difficulty at this extreme resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF provides the computational foundation for this combo, and its influence is most apparent at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the primary constraint. With 14 cores and 20 threads, the CPU offers substantial multi-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32889. The boost clock of 5.30 GHz ensures strong single-threaded performance, reflected in the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4643, which is critical for game logic and frame pacing.

The CPU’s role becomes evident when examining the 1080p results. The jump from Low (367.8 FPS) to Ultra (154.5 FPS) at 1080p shows that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at extremely high frame rates, but the GPU’s workload at Ultra settings limits overall performance. The data suggests that at 1080p Low, the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU is not fully saturated. This is supported by the fact that the 1080p Low result is more than double the 4K Low result (164 FPS), indicating that the CPU can maintain high frame rates but the GPU cannot keep up at higher resolutions.

In comparison to its nearest rivals, the i5-14600KF is 0.4% faster than the Intel Core i5-14600K and 1.4% faster than the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, but 0.5% slower than the AMD EPYC 4345P. These marginal differences indicate that the CPU is well-matched with the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, providing enough headroom to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at most settings. The CPU’s 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache contribute to its ability to handle the data-intensive workloads of modern games, ensuring that the GPU receives a steady stream of instructions to maintain high frame rates.