Downfall

# FAQ

Q: What is the measured performance of the Intel Core i7-12700K with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER in Downfall?

A: The combination produces a wide range of frame rates depending on resolution and settings. At 1080p, the average FPS ranges from 80 on Ultra to 191 on Low, while at 4K it drops to between 36 FPS on Ultra and 85 FPS on Low.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested CPU-GPU pairings for Downfall?

A: The combo holds the 2630th position out of 3716 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-mid tier of the database for this specific game.

Q: What is the GPU's overall standing relative to other graphics cards?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER sits at the 62nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18093. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile, scores 18159, which is only 0.4% higher.

Q: What is the CPU's overall standing relative to other processors?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700K ranks at the 84th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35287. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-13600T, scores 35305, just 0.1% higher.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1080p gaming with this hardware?

A: Based on the measured data, the High preset at 1080p delivers 128 FPS, which is 60% higher than the Ultra preset's 80 FPS while remaining well above typical smoothness thresholds. The Medium preset offers 156 FPS, but the High preset provides a better balance between visual quality and frame rate.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 128 at 1080p to 92 at 1440p (a 28% decrease) and then to 57 at 4K (a 55% decrease from 1080p). At Low settings, the drop is from 191 FPS at 1080p to 136 at 1440p and 85 at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is the primary determinant of frame rates in Downfall, as evidenced by the steep performance scaling across resolutions. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 1470 MHz with a boost clock reaching 1650 MHz, and the Turing architecture provides 2176 shading units, 136 TMUs, and 64 ROPs.

The 4K results reveal the GPU's limitations at high pixel counts. At Ultra settings, the average FPS collapses to 36, which is barely playable. Even at High settings, 4K produces only 57 FPS on average. The GPU's pixel rate of 105.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s are simply insufficient to maintain high frame rates at 3840x2160 with demanding presets.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes a factor at higher resolutions and settings. While the benchmark data does not explicitly track VRAM usage, the combination of 4K resolution with Ultra settings producing just 36 FPS suggests the GPU is hitting both compute and memory bandwidth ceilings. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, while respectable for the card's era, limits the data throughput needed for 4K texture streaming and shader complexity.

Interestingly, the GPU's measured performance shows a non-linear relationship between settings and FPS at each resolution. At 1080p, moving from Low to Medium reduces FPS by 18% (191 to 156), but moving from Medium to High reduces it by only 18% as well (156 to 128). The jump from High to Ultra is far more punishing, with a 37.5% drop (128 to 80). This pattern repeats at 1440p and 4K, indicating that the Ultra preset introduces disproportionately heavy rendering features that tax the TU106 chip beyond its sweet spot.

The GPU's benchmark profile supports its mid-range positioning. Its Passmark G3D score of 16462 and DirectX 12 score of 61 indicate solid but not exceptional DirectX performance. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 77402 is notably higher than the OpenCL score of 76957, suggesting the Turing architecture handles Vulkan efficiently, which may benefit Downfall if it leverages Vulkan.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data clearly indicates that the High preset is the optimal choice across all three resolutions for this hardware combination. At 1080p, High delivers 128 FPS on average, which is 60% higher than Ultra's 80 FPS and only 28 FPS below Medium's 156. The visual fidelity gains from High over Medium typically outweigh the 28 FPS difference in a horror game where atmosphere matters.

At 1440p, the High preset produces 92 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Medium runs at 112 FPS, but the incremental visual improvements at High are worth the 20 FPS trade-off. Ultra at 1440p drops to 57 FPS, which introduces noticeable stutter in fast-moving horror sequences.

The 4K results make the recommendation more nuanced. High settings produce 57 FPS, which is right at the edge of acceptable smoothness. Medium offers 69 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS, providing a more consistent experience. For 4K play, the Medium preset is the better choice because its minimum FPS of 59 ensures fewer frame-time spikes, which is critical in a horror game where sudden movements and jumpscares demand consistent rendering.

The Low preset, while delivering 191 FPS at 1080p and 85 FPS at 4K, sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a horror experience. The atmospheric lighting, shadow quality, and texture detail that define the genre's tension are significantly diminished. The data suggests that Low is only useful for competitive scenarios or extremely high refresh rate displays, but Downfall is not a competitive title.

Given the measured rows, the High preset at 1080p or 1440p represents the best experience. It maintains frame rates well above 60 FPS while preserving the graphical quality that horror games rely on. For 4K users, Medium is the pragmatic maximum.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 2630 out of 3716 tested combinations places it in the 29th percentile of all CPU-GPU pairings for Downfall. This is a surprisingly low ranking given the individual components' percentiles: the CPU sits at the 84th percentile while the GPU is at the 62nd percentile. The disconnect suggests that Downfall is heavily GPU-bound, and the RTX 2060 SUPER drags the overall combination down despite the strong CPU.

The GPU's nearest rivals provide context for its performance ceiling. The RTX 3060 Mobile scores 18159, just 0.4% higher, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 scores 18189 (0.5% higher). These minuscule differences indicate that the RTX 2060 SUPER is clustered tightly with its contemporaries. The AMD Radeon RX 460, despite being a lower-tier card, scores 18373 (1.5% higher in the benchmark suite), which is a notable anomaly suggesting that the benchmark methodology may favor certain architectures.

On the CPU side, the i7-12700K's rivals are all within 0.4% of its average benchmark score. The Core i5-13600T (35305), Core i7-12700KF (35365), Core i7-13700T (35403), and Core 5 213PE (35428) all sit within a narrow band, confirming that the CPU is not a differentiator in this game's performance.

The rank of 2630 implies that 1086 tested combos perform worse, but 2629 perform better. Given that the GPU is at the 62nd percentile, the low combo rank suggests that many systems pair similar or better GPUs with stronger CPUs, and Downfall's optimization may favor those configurations. The data does not show any CPU bottleneck, as the i7-12700K's single-thread and multi-thread scores are robust, so the ranking is almost entirely attributable to the GPU's mid-range standing.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, the average FPS progression is 128 (1080p) → 92 (1440p) → 57 (4K). This represents a 28% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 55% drop from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is not linear: the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, but the FPS only drops by 55%, indicating that other bottlenecks (likely CPU draw call processing or memory latency) partially mask the GPU load at lower resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling is steeper in absolute terms but similar in percentage: 191 → 136 → 85, which is a 29% drop to 1440p and a 55% drop to 4K. The consistency of these percentages across settings strongly suggests that the GPU's rendering pipeline is the limiting factor, with the CPU providing frames faster than the GPU can process at all resolutions.

The Medium preset, which includes minimum and maximum FPS data, shows an interesting pattern. At 1080p, the range is 133 to 180 FPS (a 35% spread), while at 1440p it's 95 to 128 (a 35% spread), and at 4K it's 59 to 80 (a 35% spread). The consistent relative variance indicates that frame pacing issues scale proportionally with resolution, which is typical of a GPU that is consistently saturated.

The Ultra preset's scaling is the most punishing: 80 → 57 → 36, which is a 29% drop to 1440p and a 55% drop to 4K. This matches the other presets' percentages, confirming that the GPU's compute capacity scales predictably with pixel count. The 36 FPS result at 4K Ultra is below playable thresholds, and the data implies that no CPU upgrade would meaningfully improve this — the RTX 2060 SUPER simply cannot render 4K Ultra in Downfall at acceptable speeds.

The limiting component is unequivocally the GPU. The CPU's strong multi-threaded scores (e.g., Cinebench R23 multicore of 19784 and Passmark multithread of 34404) suggest it can feed frames far faster than the GPU can render them, especially at higher resolutions where pixel throughput dominates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings presets, providing a comprehensive view of performance.

1920x1080:

• Low: 191 FPS average
• Medium: 156 FPS average, 133 minimum, 180 maximum
• High: 128 FPS average
• Ultra: 80 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 136 FPS average
• Medium: 112 FPS average, 95 minimum, 128 maximum
• High: 92 FPS average
• Ultra: 57 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 85 FPS average
• Medium: 69 FPS average, 59 minimum, 80 maximum
• High: 57 FPS average
• Ultra: 36 FPS average

The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data, which reveals that the variance is roughly 35% of the average at each resolution. This consistency suggests stable frame pacing relative to the mean, though the absolute minimums at 4K (59 FPS) are marginal for a horror game where frame drops during intense scenes could break immersion.

The gap between Low and Ultra widens with resolution: at 1080p, Ultra is 58% slower than Low (191 vs 80); at 1440p, it's 58% slower as well (136 vs 57); and at 4K, it's 58% slower (85 vs 36). This perfectly uniform scaling indicates that the Ultra preset imposes a constant multiplicative cost on the GPU, regardless of resolution, which points to a fixed set of extra rendering features (likely volumetric effects, ambient occlusion, or shadow quality) rather than resolution-dependent effects.

The High-to-Ultra jump is the most costly transition at every resolution. At 1080p, it costs 48 FPS (128 to 80); at 1440p, it costs 35 FPS (92 to 57); and at 4K, it costs 21 FPS (57 to 36). In percentage terms, this is a 37.5% drop at all resolutions, reinforcing that Ultra is a luxury preset that this GPU cannot handle comfortably at any resolution above 1080p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K brings substantial processing power to this combo. With 12 cores and 20 threads, it offers a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The Alder Lake architecture's hybrid design combines performance and efficiency cores, though the FACT PACK does not specify the core distribution. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache.

The CPU's benchmark scores paint a picture of a very capable processor. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 19784 and single-core score of 1850.5 indicate strong both multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. The Geekbench multicore score of 15790 and single-core of 2308 further confirm this. Passmark results show robust integer math (114264), floating-point math (88035), and compression (446595) scores, all of which suggest the CPU can handle game logic, physics, and asset decompression without becoming a bottleneck.

In the context of Downfall, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, process AI, and manage game state. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 9276 and max-thread score of 9979 indicate that the CPU scales well with parallel workloads, which is beneficial for modern game engines that offload tasks to multiple cores.

However, the measured FPS data reveals that the CPU is not the limiting factor. The uniform FPS scaling across resolutions, combined with the fact that even at 1080p Low the GPU delivers 191 FPS, suggests the CPU can produce frames much faster than the GPU can render. The CPU's 5.00 GHz boost clock and strong single-thread performance (Passmark single-thread score of 4013) ensure that even poorly threaded game logic will not hold back the GPU.

The CPU's nearest rivals all sit within 0.4% of its average benchmark score, indicating that there are no meaningful CPU-side upgrades that would change Downfall's performance for this GPU. The i7-12700K's 84th percentile ranking among all CPUs means it outperforms the vast majority of processors, and the 20 threads provide ample headroom for streaming, background tasks, and future game updates that might utilize more cores.

The only scenario where the CPU might matter is at very low resolutions and settings where the GPU is underutilized. At 1080p Low, the 191 FPS average suggests the GPU is still the constraint, but if a player were to use an even more powerful GPU, the i7-12700K would likely still keep pace thanks to its high boost clock and robust multi-threaded scores. The data does not show any CPU-induced frame drops or stutters, as the minimum FPS figures for Medium settings are proportionally consistent across resolutions.