Downfall

The following analysis examines the measured performance of Downfall, a horror title released in 2016, when paired with an Intel Core i5-9400 and an Intel Arc B580. The data set includes average frame rates at three resolutions and four quality presets, along with component benchmark scores and ranking information. All figures are drawn directly from the measured results.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a clear and consistent drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the Low preset, the average FPS falls from 182.7 at 1080p to 133.5 at 1440p, then to 83.5 at 4K. The High preset follows a similar trajectory: 122 at 1080p, 86.2 at 1440p, and 56.6 at 4K. The Medium preset yields 152.1 at 1080p, 104.4 at 1440p, and 69.4 at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, with 79.5 at 1080p, 55.3 at 1440p, and 36 at 4K.

The pattern indicates that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor as resolution climbs. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset maintains a frame rate above 70, while the Low preset exceeds 180. At 4K, the Low preset still delivers 83.5 FPS, but the High preset drops to 56.6 and Ultra to 36. The scaling from 1080p to 4K is steep for every preset, with the 4K result typically less than half of the 1080p result. For example, at High, the 4K average of 56.6 is less than half of the 1080p average of 122. This suggests that the Arc B580's rendering throughput is the dominant constraint at higher resolutions, while the CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU at 1080p.

The spread between presets also changes with resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 103.2 FPS (182.7 vs 79.5), while at 4K the same gap narrows to 47.5 FPS (83.5 vs 36). This compression at 4K further supports the idea that the GPU is saturated, as the quality preset has less impact on the final frame rate when the resolution itself is the bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread desktop processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture. It operates at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with a 9 MB shared L3 cache. Memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. The CPU's TDP is 65 W, and it uses the Intel Socket 1151 interface. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-9400 scores 7969 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1125 in single-core. Its average benchmark score across all tests is 2305, placing it at the 50th percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rivals are the Intel Core i3-10305 (average score 2300, delta 0.2%), the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2299, delta 0.2%), the Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295, delta 0.4%), and the Intel Core i7-8809G (2319, delta -0.6%).

In Downfall, the CPU's performance is sufficient to drive high frame rates at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the measured average of 182.7 FPS indicates that the six threads are not a limiting factor. The game, released in 2016, likely does not scale heavily across many cores, so the i5-9400's six threads provide adequate parallelism. The boost clock of 4.10 GHz helps maintain responsiveness in scenes with high draw calls. The memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s is modest by modern standards, but the game's data footprint appears to fit within the CPU's cache hierarchy, as evidenced by the strong 1080p results. The CPU's 50th percentile ranking suggests it is an average performer, yet in this title it does not bottleneck the GPU until the resolution is lowered and the frame rate target is very high.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is a discrete graphics card built on the Xe2-HPG architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process. It features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base and boost clock of 2670 MHz, with memory clocked at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). It has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, 80 ROPs, and 20 ray tracing cores. The FP32 performance is 13.67 TFLOPS, and the pixel rate is 213.6 GPixel/s. The card has a TDP of 190 W and requires a 450 W power supply. Its launch MSRP is 249 USD.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Arc B580 scores 3068 in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12), 109672 in Geekbench Vulkan, and 15748 in Passmark G3D. Its average benchmark score is 23021, placing it at the 66th percentile of all GPUs. The nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 760M (average score 22999, delta 0.1%), the NVIDIA P106-100 (22950, delta 0.3%), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (23181, delta -0.7%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile (22729, delta 1.3%).

The GPU's 12 GB VRAM is ample for Downfall, which is a 2016 title and unlikely to exceed that capacity even at 4K Ultra. The high memory bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s supports the large texture loads at high resolutions. The measured frame rates show that the B580 can handle 1080p with ease, exceeding 120 FPS on High and 180 FPS on Low. At 1440p, the card still delivers above 55 FPS on Ultra and above 86 FPS on High. At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck, with the Ultra preset dropping to 36 FPS and High to 56.6 FPS. The 66th percentile ranking indicates that the B580 is a mid-range performer, and the 4K results align with that positioning.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall ranking of tested combinations for Downfall, the Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the Intel Arc B580 ranks 1340 out of 1741 combos. This places the pairing in the lower portion of the field, with only 401 combinations performing worse. The individual component percentiles—50th for the CPU and 66th for the GPU—are higher than the combo's relative position suggests. This discrepancy indicates that the pairing is not optimally matched for this particular game. The CPU's moderate single-thread performance and the GPU's mid-range throughput combine to produce frame rates that are respectable but not competitive with top-tier setups. The rank of 1340 out of 1741 means that a majority of tested combinations achieve higher average frame rates in Downfall, likely due to more powerful GPUs or CPUs with higher boost clocks.

The nearest rival comparisons for the CPU and GPU provide context. The i5-9400's average benchmark score is within 0.6% of its closest rivals, showing that it is a typical mid-range processor. The Arc B580's average score is within 1.3% of the RTX 4060 Mobile and 0.7% of the desktop RTX 4060, indicating that the GPU is competitive with those cards in synthetic tests. However, the combo rank suggests that in Downfall, the specific combination of this CPU and GPU does not translate into a high relative standing, possibly because the game is more sensitive to GPU raw throughput than to CPU core count.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the optimal preset depends on the target resolution. At 1080p, the Medium preset delivers 152.1 FPS, which is substantially higher than High's 122 and only slightly below Low's 182.7. The Ultra preset drops to 79.5 FPS, which is still playable but offers diminishing returns over Medium. For a balance of visual quality and frame rate, Medium is the recommended preset at 1080p.

At 1440p, the High preset yields 86.2 FPS, while Medium reaches 104.4 and Low 133.5. The Ultra preset falls to 55.3 FPS, which is noticeably lower. The data suggests that High is a reasonable choice for 1440p, as it maintains a frame rate above 80 while providing better visual fidelity than Medium. If higher frame rates are preferred, Medium offers a 18.2 FPS improvement over High.

At 4K, the Low preset produces 83.5 FPS and Medium 69.4 FPS, while High drops to 56.6 and Ultra to 36. Only Low and Medium exceed 60 FPS, though the exact threshold is not specified in the data. For a smooth experience at 4K, Low is the safest option, with Medium being a viable alternative if the user accepts a lower frame rate. High and Ultra are not recommended at 4K due to the significant frame rate penalty.

Measured FPS Breakdown

| Resolution | Settings | Average FPS |

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

| 3840x2160 | High | 56.6 |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 83.5 |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 69.4 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 36 |

| 2560x1440 | High | 86.2 |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 133.5 |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 104.4 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 55.3 |

| 1920x1080 | High | 122 |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 182.7 |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 152.1 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 79.5 |

The table above lists all measured average frame rates. The data shows a consistent hierarchy: Low > Medium > High > Ultra at every resolution, with the exception that at 4K, Medium (69.4) is higher than High (56.6), which is expected. The largest absolute difference between presets occurs at 1080p, where Low exceeds Ultra by 103.2 FPS. At 4K, the difference narrows to 47.5 FPS, reinforcing the GPU-bound nature of high-resolution rendering. These measured values provide a complete picture of the i5-9400 + Arc B580 combination in Downfall, allowing users to select the preset that best matches their performance expectations.