Downfall

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER lands at rank 1035 out of 1741 tested combos in Downfall. That places this pairing in the middle of the pack, which is a reasonable expectation given the component mix. The combo sits at roughly the 59th percentile of all tested systems, meaning about 40% of configurations deliver higher average frame rates in this horror title.

The CPU is the stronger half of this duo. The i7-12700K ranks in the 89th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35684. Its nearest rivals show how tight the competition is at this level: the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 scores 35802, just 0.3% higher, while the Intel Core i5-14500HX posts 35940, a 0.7% advantage. The Intel Core i7-13700T trails slightly at 35468, 0.6% behind, and the Intel Core i7-13800H sits at 35416, 0.8% lower. The GPU, however, is less impressive in relative terms. The RTX 2070 SUPER ranks in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22206. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores 22307, just 0.5% higher, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z sits 0.9% behind at 22006. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile leads this group at 22729, 2.3% ahead, and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 trails at 21670, 2.5% behind.

This combination of a top-tier CPU with a mid-range GPU creates a system that is clearly GPU-limited in most scenarios, which the resolution scaling data confirms.

# Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance on the best settings preset for this combo. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 211 FPS, but that leaves substantial performance on the table. The Medium preset at 173.9 FPS and High at 140.7 FPS are both well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play. The Ultra preset drops to 88.3 FPS, which is still playable but represents a significant 37% reduction from High.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. High settings produce 100.6 FPS, Medium delivers 123.1 FPS, and Low reaches 152.5 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 60.8 FPS, which is right at the edge of comfortable playability for a horror title where frame pacing matters. At 3840x2160, High settings yield 65.9 FPS, Medium produces 78.5 FPS, and Low achieves 92 FPS. Ultra at 4K drops to 40 FPS, which is too low for a smooth experience in a game that relies on tension and atmosphere.

The data suggests the Medium preset offers the best balance across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium provides 173.9 FPS, which is 33.1 FPS higher than High while still looking noticeably better than Low. At 1440p, Medium's 123.1 FPS is 22.5 FPS ahead of High, giving headroom for demanding scenes. At 4K, Medium's 78.5 FPS is 12.6 FPS above High and 38.5 FPS above Ultra. The Medium preset consistently outperforms High by a meaningful margin while delivering visual quality that is close to High in most horror game environments, which tend to have dark, simple geometry.

# Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where this combo's bottleneck lies. At High settings, the system produces 140.7 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 100.6 FPS at 1440p—a 28.5% reduction—and then to 65.9 FPS at 4K, a 53.2% reduction from 1080p. This steep decline as resolution increases is the classic signature of a GPU-limited configuration.

The Low preset shows an even more dramatic scaling curve. At 1080p, the combo hits 211 FPS, but this falls to 152.5 FPS at 1440p and 92 FPS at 4K. The 4K figure represents a 56.4% drop from 1080p. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences between resolutions at low settings, because the CPU workload stays roughly constant regardless of pixel count. Instead, the substantial drops indicate the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed hard at higher resolutions.

The Medium preset tells a similar story: 173.9 FPS at 1080p, 123.1 FPS at 1440p, and 78.5 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows a 36.2% drop, which is slightly less severe than the High preset's 34.5% drop over the same range. This suggests that at higher settings, the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth become the primary constraint, while at lower settings, the frame rate ceiling is still high enough that the CPU's performance is adequate.

# FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of 60+ FPS at 1440p in Downfall?

A: Yes. At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 100.6 FPS, Medium produces 123.1 FPS, and even Ultra manages 60.8 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Downfall?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers 78.5 FPS and High produces 65.9 FPS, both playable. Ultra drops to 40 FPS, which is below the smoothness threshold for a horror title with fast-paced elements.

Q: How much FPS does the Ultra preset cost compared to High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra is 52.4 FPS lower than High (88.3 vs 140.7). At 1440p, the gap is 39.8 FPS (60.8 vs 100.6). At 4K, Ultra is 25.9 FPS lower (40 vs 65.9). The cost of Ultra grows as resolution decreases.

Q: Which component is the weaker link in this combo?

A: The GPU. The RTX 2070 SUPER ranks in the 65th percentile among GPUs, while the i7-12700K sits in the 89th percentile among CPUs. The FPS scaling with resolution confirms the GPU is the primary bottleneck.

Q: How does this combo compare to the RTX 2070 SUPER's nearest rival, the RTX A400?

A: The RTX A400 has a 0.5% higher average benchmark score (22307 vs 22206). In real-world Downfall performance, this difference is negligible and unlikely to be noticeable in frame rates.

Q: What is the best settings preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: Medium at 173.9 FPS offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. High at 140.7 FPS is also excellent, and the 33.1 FPS difference between the two may not be worth the visual upgrade for competitive players.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with the TU104 chip, manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It houses 13,600 million transistors on a 545 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 25.0 million per square millimeter. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1605 MHz and boosts to 1770 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective).

The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is the key constraint at higher resolutions and settings. The 4K Ultra result of 40 FPS shows the GPU running out of memory bandwidth and shading power simultaneously. With 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, the GPU delivers a pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 9.062 TFLOPS and FP16 of 18.12 TFLOPS (2:1) are modest by modern standards but sufficient for a 2016 horror title.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 65 versus the CPU's 89 is the clearest indicator of the system's imbalance. In Downfall, which is not a particularly demanding game by modern standards, the RTX 2070 SUPER still manages to hold frame rates above 60 FPS at 4K with High settings. However, the steep FPS drops when moving from Medium to Ultra settings—from 78.5 to 40 FPS at 4K, and from 173.9 to 88.3 FPS at 1080p—show that the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the highest quality presets at high resolutions.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K is a 12-core, 20-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and its 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes provide adequate bandwidth for the RTX 2070 SUPER over its PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.

The CPU's benchmark scores show strong multi-threaded performance. In Cinebench R23, it scores 29241 multi-core and 4128 single-core. Geekbench scores are 13892 multi-core and 2561 single-core. PassMark multi-thread score is 34404, with a single-thread score of 4013. These numbers place the i7-12700K in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35684.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU enough frames to keep it busy. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 211 FPS, which suggests the CPU can handle high frame rates in this game. Even at 4K, the CPU is not the limiting factor—the GPU is. The i7-12700K's 20 threads and high boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensure that even the most complex horror game scenes with many entities or physics calculations do not cause CPU bottlenecks. The nearest rival comparison shows the i7-12700K is essentially matched with the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (0.3% difference) and the Intel Core i7-13700T (0.6% difference), meaning there is no meaningful CPU performance gap that would change the gaming experience in Downfall.