Downfall

Settings Recommendations

Across all four resolutions, the Medium preset delivers the most balanced experience for this Horizon-style horror title. At 1920x1080 Medium, the combo produces 240.8 FPS average, which is 44.4 frames above the High preset's 196.4 FPS and 115.2 frames above Ultra's 125.6 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is substantial, yet Medium retains enough visual fidelity to remain playable for a horror game where atmosphere matters.

At 2560x1440, Medium again stands out with 172.9 FPS average, compared to 144 FPS on High and 85.6 FPS on Ultra. The step from Medium to High costs roughly 29 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs another 58.4 FPS — a steep drop that suggests Ultra's additional effects are disproportionately expensive. For 4K, Medium yields 105 FPS average, which clears the 60 FPS threshold comfortably, while High drops to 85.8 FPS and Ultra falls to 52.5 FPS, dipping below that threshold.

Low preset offers the highest frame rates at every resolution — 294.5 FPS at 1080p, 212.2 FPS at 1440p, and 132.2 FPS at 4K — but the visual compromise in a horror game is likely too severe for the extra performance. The data indicates that Medium is the sweet spot: it maintains frame rates well above display refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p, and remains playable at 4K. Ultra should be reserved for players who prioritize image quality over frame rate, as it produces the only sub-60 FPS result in the entire measured set (52.5 FPS at 4K).

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the primary driver of the frame rates observed in this combination. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for a 2016 horror title even at 4K resolution. The GPU's base clock of 1330 MHz boosts to 2520 MHz, with a game clock of 2070 MHz — the boost behavior directly correlates with the scaling seen across resolution changes.

The GPU's RDNA 4.0 architecture, built on a 4 nm process at TSMC with 53,900 million transistors, delivers 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This raw throughput explains why the frame rates at 1080p Low reach 294.5 FPS — the GPU is nowhere near saturated at lower resolutions. The 220 W TDP and dual-slot cooler with dual 8-pin power connectors indicate a mid-range to upper-mid-range power envelope, suggesting the card is designed for sustained high-refresh gaming rather than extreme overclocking headroom.

In GPU-specific benchmarks, the RX 9070 scores 25,381 in Passmark G3D and 13,741 in Geekbench OpenCL, with a Vulkan score of 165,532. Its percentile rank versus all GPUs is 79, placing it above the median but not at the top tier. The nearest rivals in average score include the NVIDIA A2 (deltaPct -0.2), the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (deltaPct 0.3), and the AMD Radeon HD 7970 (deltaPct 0.7) — though these are average benchmark scores, not game-specific results, and the modest deltas suggest the RX 9070 sits in a crowded performance band for synthetic workloads.

How This Combo Ranks

In Downfall specifically, the Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 achieves rank 570 out of 1,741 tested combinations. This places it in the top third of all combos, which is notable given the game's age and the modern hardware involved. The CPU's 16 cores and 24 threads, running at a 3.40 GHz base clock with a 5.40 GHz boost, provide substantial headroom for the game's logic, while the GPU handles the rendering load.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks reinforce this position. In Cinebench R23, the i7-13700K scores 39,000 multi-core and 5,505 single-core, with a 3DMark max-threads score of 12,412. Its percentile versus all CPUs is 93, indicating it outperforms 93% of processors in the database. The nearest CPU rivals show very tight clustering: the Core i7-13700KF at 47,334 average score is only 0.1% behind, while the AMD EPYC 4364P at 47,131 is 0.3% ahead, and the Core i9-12900F at 47,081 is 0.4% ahead. This suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck in most scenarios.

However, the combo rank of 570 out of 1,741 suggests that the GPU holds the combo back relative to what the CPU alone could achieve. At 1080p Low, the frame rate of 294.5 FPS is likely CPU-limited in parts, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU's 52.5 FPS indicates the RX 9070 is the limiting factor. The GPU's percentile rank of 79 versus all GPUs is notably lower than the CPU's 93, and the combo's overall position reflects this imbalance — the CPU is a top-tier performer, while the GPU is solidly mid-pack.

FAQ

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 144 FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings. This is 58.4 FPS higher than Ultra at the same resolution (85.6 FPS) and 28.9 FPS lower than Medium (172.9 FPS).

Q: Is the RX 9070 capable of 4K gaming in this title?

A: Yes, but only at lower presets. At 4K Medium, the combo produces 105 FPS average; at 4K High, it drops to 85.8 FPS; and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 52.5 FPS. The 4K Low preset delivers 132.2 FPS.

Q: How does the i7-13700K compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i7-13700K has an average benchmark score of 47,282. Its closest rival, the Core i7-13700KF, scores 47,334, a delta of -0.1%. The AMD EPYC 4364P scores 47,131 (deltaPct 0.3%), and the Core i9-12900F scores 47,081 (deltaPct 0.4%). All four CPUs are within 0.5% of each other.

Q: What is the GPU's synthetic benchmark standing relative to other GPUs?

A: The RX 9070 has a percentile rank of 79 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34,780. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA A2 at 34,866 (deltaPct -0.2%), NVIDIA Quadro GV100 at 34,677 (deltaPct 0.3%), AMD Radeon HD 7970 at 34,541 (deltaPct 0.7%), and AMD Radeon PRO W6400 at 34,511 (deltaPct 0.8%).

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck at standard gaming resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 294.5 FPS, which is very high for any CPU to sustain. The CPU's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5,505 and Passmark single-thread score of 4,333 indicate strong per-thread performance appropriate for gaming.

Q: What is the best preset for 1080p high-refresh monitors?

A: Medium at 1920x1080 delivers 240.8 FPS, which is sufficient for 240 Hz displays. High delivers 196.4 FPS, still enough for 144 Hz monitors. Ultra at 125.6 FPS is also viable for 120 Hz panels, though the step down from Medium to Ultra costs 115.2 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU as the dominant constraint in this combination. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 196.4 at 1920x1080 to 144 at 2560x1440 — a 26.7% reduction — and further to 85.8 at 3840x2160, which is 56.3% below the 1080p figure. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 58.2 FPS, representing a 40.4% decline, while the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 52.4 FPS, or 26.7%.

Low settings show similar scaling patterns. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 294.5 FPS; at 1440p Low, 212.2 FPS (a 27.9% drop); and at 4K Low, 132.2 FPS (a 55.1% drop from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings indicates that the rendering workload scales predictably with pixel count, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect the 1080p-to-1440p gap to be smaller than the 1440p-to-4K gap, as the CPU load would plateau at lower resolutions.

Ultra settings amplify the GPU constraint most clearly. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 52.5 FPS — the only sub-60 FPS result in the entire measured dataset. The scaling from 1080p Ultra (125.6 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (85.6 FPS) is a 31.8% drop, and from 1440p to 4K is a 38.7% drop. These steeper declines at higher presets suggest that Ultra settings add per-pixel effects that disproportionately tax the RX 9070's 36.13 TFLOPS of compute and 322.6 GPixel/s pixel rate.

Notably, the 1080p Low result of 294.5 FPS approaches the practical ceiling for many displays, and the 212.2 FPS at 1440p Low remains extremely high. This indicates that for users with high-refresh 1440p monitors, even the Low preset provides ample headroom. The 4K Medium result of 105 FPS is particularly interesting because it shows the GPU can handle 4K when settings are tuned — the gap between 4K Medium (105 FPS) and 4K High (85.8 FPS) is 19.2 FPS, while the gap between 4K High and 4K Ultra (52.5 FPS) is 33.3 FPS, demonstrating that Ultra's incremental quality over High comes at a steep performance cost.