Downfall

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for Downfall with the Intel Core i7-12700KF and Intel Arc B390 shows a clear hierarchy across presets, with Medium delivering the most balanced experience. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 87 FPS with a minimum of 74 FPS and a maximum of 100 FPS, placing it well above the playability threshold while maintaining visual fidelity. Low at the same resolution reaches 106 FPS average, but the jump from Low to Medium costs only 19 FPS while likely providing substantially better image quality in a horror title where visibility of environmental details matters.

High at 1080p yields 71 FPS average, which is still playable but represents a 16 FPS drop from Medium. Ultra at 1080p collapses to 44 FPS average, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay despite being the highest visual preset. The data indicates that Ultra is not viable at any resolution, as even the 2560x1440 Ultra result drops to 32 FPS and 3840x2160 Ultra falls to 20 FPS.

At 2560x1440, Medium produces 62 FPS average with a minimum of 53 FPS and a maximum of 71 FPS, which remains acceptable for a horror game where slower pacing and atmospheric tension are more important than twitch reflex response. High at 1440p reaches 51 FPS average, while Low achieves 76 FPS. The spread between Low and Medium at 1440p is 14 FPS, similar in proportion to the 1080p spread.

At 3840x2160, Medium manages only 39 FPS average with a minimum of 33 FPS and a maximum of 44 FPS, which is borderline for playability. High at 4K drops to 32 FPS, and Low at 4K reaches 47 FPS — the only 4K preset that clears 40 FPS. The recommendation is clear: Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p provides the best combination of smooth frame delivery and visual quality. The minimum FPS figures for Medium at both 1080p (74 FPS) and 1440p (53 FPS) indicate acceptable frame pacing without severe dips. Ultra should be avoided entirely given its 44 FPS ceiling at 1080p and 20 FPS floor at 4K.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, built on the Xe3-LPG architecture with a 3 nm process node from Intel. The GPU features 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units, alongside 12 ray tracing cores. Its memory configuration is entirely system-shared, meaning both capacity and bandwidth depend on the host system's memory subsystem rather than dedicated VRAM. The memory type, bus width, and bandwidth are all listed as "System Shared" or "System Dependent," which explains the GPU's performance profile in this benchmark.

The GPU's single recorded benchmark score is 1482 in 3dmark_steel_nomad_dx12, placing it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX with an average score of 1463 (1.3% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce 800M at 1460 (1.5% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM at 1446 (2.5% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 at 1443 (2.7% higher). This puts the Arc B390 in extremely low-end territory, which is consistent with its measured FPS results in Downfall.

The pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 7.680 TFLOPS and FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). The 80 W TDP and IGP slot width indicate this is an integrated-class solution despite carrying the Arc branding. The bus interface is also listed as IGP, confirming that this GPU is not a discrete add-in card but rather an integrated graphics processor. This explains why the 4K Ultra preset manages only 20 FPS — the system-shared memory architecture and low-end compute resources are simply overwhelmed at higher resolutions and quality settings.

The GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which means it has the API feature set required for modern games, but the raw performance ceiling is low. The measured FPS scaling from Low to Ultra at each resolution shows the GPU saturating quickly. At 1080p, the range from Low (106 FPS) to Ultra (44 FPS) spans 62 FPS; at 1440p, the range is 44 FPS (76 to 32); at 4K, the range narrows to 27 FPS (47 to 20). The narrowing range at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor more aggressively as pixel count increases.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the Intel Arc B390 achieves a combo rank of 2589 out of 2928 tested combinations for Downfall. This places the combo in the bottom 12% of all tested systems, which aligns with the GPU's low percentile ranking. The CPU itself is far more capable than the GPU, holding the 85th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 35365. The GPU, by contrast, sits at the 9th percentile with an average score of 1482.

The massive discrepancy between CPU capability and GPU capability means this combo is heavily GPU-limited in almost every scenario. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13700T (35403 average score, 0.1% lower), the Intel Core 5 213PE (35428, 0.2% lower), the Intel Core i5-13600T (35305, 0.2% higher), and the Intel Core i7-12700K (35287, 0.2% higher). The i7-12700KF's own average benchmark score of 35365 places it essentially at parity with these rivals, all within 0.2% of each other.

Given the combo rank of 2589 out of 2928, there are 339 tested combinations that perform worse in Downfall. This suggests that while the GPU is weak, it is still capable of delivering playable frame rates at lower settings and resolutions. The data indicates that the combo is not competitive with mainstream gaming systems, but it is also not the absolute worst configuration that could be assembled. The CPU contributes essentially no bottleneck at 1080p Medium (87 FPS) or 1440p Medium (62 FPS), as the GPU's performance ceiling is reached well before CPU limitations would appear.

The rank position becomes more understandable when considering that the GPU's nearest rivals are all legacy NVIDIA parts from the early 2010s era. The GT 710, GT 625 OEM, and 800M are all entry-level parts from a decade ago, and the Arc B390 manages to edge them out by 1.3% to 2.7%. This places the GPU's performance in historical low-end territory, which drags the overall combo ranking down despite the strong CPU.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use with this combo at 1920x1080?

A: Medium preset delivers 87 FPS average with a minimum of 74 FPS and a maximum of 100 FPS. This is the highest preset that maintains consistently playable frame rates, as High drops to 71 FPS and Ultra falls to 44 FPS.

Q: Can this combo run Downfall at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, which produces 47 FPS average. Medium at 4K drops to 39 FPS, High to 32 FPS, and Ultra to 20 FPS. The 4K experience is only viable at Low settings.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3dmark_steel_nomad_dx12, which is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (1443).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this combo?

A: The GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The CPU holds the 85th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 35365, while the GPU sits at the 9th percentile with an average score of 1482. The measured FPS results reflect GPU-bound performance across all resolutions and settings.

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking for Downfall?

A: The combo ranks 2589 out of 2928 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 12% of all systems. This is consistent with the GPU's low percentile ranking and the CPU's high percentile ranking.

Q: Does the GPU have dedicated VRAM?

A: No, the memory configuration is entirely system-shared. The memory size, type, and bus width are all listed as "System Shared," and bandwidth is "System Dependent," meaning performance relies on the host system's memory subsystem.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a predictable decline that confirms the GPU as the primary bottleneck. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 87 at 1080p to 62 at 1440p, then to 39 at 4K. This represents a 28.7% drop from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 37.1% drop from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is not linear — the 4K penalty is proportionally larger than the 1440p penalty, which is characteristic of a GPU that runs out of memory bandwidth or shading resources at higher pixel counts.

At Low settings, the progression is 106 FPS at 1080p, 76 FPS at 1440p, and 47 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 28.3% and 38.2% respectively, showing a similar pattern. At High settings, the numbers are 71 FPS, 51 FPS, and 32 FPS, with drops of 28.2% and 37.3%. The consistency of these percentage drops across settings — roughly 28% for the 1080p-to-1440p step and roughly 37% for the 1440p-to-4K step — indicates that the GPU's performance scaling is resolution-bound rather than setting-bound.

The Ultra preset shows the most severe degradation: 44 FPS at 1080p, 32 FPS at 1440p, and 20 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 27.3%, and from 1440p to 4K is 37.5%. The fact that Ultra at 1080p (44 FPS) is slower than Low at 1440p (76 FPS) and even Low at 4K (47 FPS) demonstrates that the GPU's compute resources are so limited that visual settings have a larger impact than resolution in some cases. Going from Ultra at 1080p to Low at 4K increases the pixel count by 4x but still improves FPS from 44 to 47.

The resolution scaling data also shows that the CPU is not a factor in these frame rates. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences between resolutions at the same settings. Instead, the consistent 28-38% drops per resolution step indicate that pixel throughput is the constraint. The Arc B390's system-shared memory and 60.00 GPixel/s pixel rate explain why 4K (approximately 8.3 million pixels) produces roughly half the FPS of 1080p (approximately 2.1 million pixels) at the same settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process node. It features a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a desktop-class CPU with a launch MSRP of $384, released on 2021-11-03.

The CPU's benchmark results are strong across the board. Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 28838, while single-core achieves 4071. Geekbench multicore scores 14367 and single-core 2255. PassMark multithread scores 34092, with single-thread at 3984. The 3DMark thread scaling shows 1043 for single-thread, 2065 for 2-threads, 4011 for 4-threads, 7211 for 8-threads, 9282 for 16-threads, and 9983 for max-threads. This thread scaling is nearly linear from 2 to 8 threads, with diminishing returns beyond 16 threads, which is typical for a 12-core/20-thread part.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 35365 places it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals being the Intel Core i7-13700T (35403, 0.1% lower), Intel Core 5 213PE (35428, 0.2% lower), Intel Core i5-13600T (35305, 0.2% higher), and Intel Core i7-12700K (35287, 0.2% higher). The differences among these five CPUs are negligible — all within 0.2% of each other — which indicates the i7-12700KF is positioned at a performance plateau where minor architectural variations produce no meaningful separation.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is to feed frames to the GPU without becoming a bottleneck. Given that the GPU produces between 20 and 106 FPS depending on settings and resolution, the CPU has ample headroom. The 20 threads and 25 MB of L3 cache are more than sufficient for a horror game's typical workloads, which include physics calculations, AI pathfinding, and streaming assets. The CPU's single-thread performance (1043 in 3dmark_single_thread, 4071 in Cinebench R23 single-core) ensures that even single-threaded game logic won't stall frame delivery.

The data shows no scenario where the CPU appears to limit performance. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect FPS to remain flat across resolution changes at the same settings. Instead, FPS scales inversely with resolution, confirming that the Arc B390's rendering capability is the sole constraint. The CPU's high percentile ranking (85th) versus the GPU's low ranking (9th) creates a lopsided pairing where the processor is ready for far more demanding graphics hardware, but the integrated-class GPU holds the system back.