Downfall

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across resolutions reveal a predictable pattern, but with some telling nuances. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo of the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 produces 158.8 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops this to 111.7 FPS, a 30% reduction. At 4K, the same Low preset yields 69.3 FPS, which is a further 38% decline from the 1440p figure. This scaling behavior is characteristic of a system where the GPU becomes progressively more dominant as pixel count rises.

The High preset tells a similar story: 105.9 FPS at 1080p, 73.2 FPS at 1440p, and 48.7 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is about 31%, and from 1440p to 4K it is roughly 33%. These consistent drops across settings suggest that the scaling is primarily resolution-driven rather than setting-driven, which points to the GTX 1070 as the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Ultra settings exhibit the steepest curve. At 1080p, the system manages 68 FPS. This falls to 46.1 FPS at 1440p, a 32% decrease, and then to 32 FPS at 4K, another 31% decline. The 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS is the lowest measured value in the entire dataset, indicating that this configuration is not suitable for maximum quality at maximum resolution.

The data shows that the drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 56% (from 158.8 to 69.3 FPS). At Ultra settings, the same resolution span results in a 53% reduction (from 68 to 32 FPS). The similarity in these percentages suggests that the rendering load scales almost linearly with pixel count, and the GTX 1070's 256.3 GB/s memory bandwidth and 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are the constraints being hit. The CPU, with its 20 cores and 28 threads, is not the bottleneck in this scaling pattern; otherwise, the frame rates would plateau more noticeably at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

For a playable experience, the benchmark results indicate that Medium settings offer the best balance across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 126.8 FPS, which is comfortably above the 105.9 FPS of High and dramatically higher than the 68 FPS of Ultra. The jump from Medium to Ultra at 1080p costs 58.8 FPS, a 46% performance hit for what is likely a marginal visual improvement in a horror title where atmosphere matters more than fine detail.

At 1440p, Medium produces 89.7 FPS, which remains smooth. High drops to 73.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 46.1 FPS. Given that Downfall is a horror game, maintaining a fluid frame rate is critical for the intended experience; the data suggests that Medium at 1440p is the sweet spot for this hardware combination. The 89.7 FPS figure leaves enough headroom for occasional dips without becoming stuttery.

At 4K, even Low settings only reach 69.3 FPS, and Medium falls to 58.3 FPS. High manages 48.7 FPS, while Ultra drops to an unplayable 32 FPS. For 4K users, Low is the only preset that consistently stays above 60 FPS, but the 69.3 FPS result is close enough to the threshold that Medium at 58.3 FPS might be preferable for visual quality if the user accepts the slight compromise. The measured data suggests that 4K Ultra is not viable with this GPU, and users targeting 4K should stick to Low or Medium.

Comparing presets, the gap between Low and Medium is consistent: about 20% across all resolutions (158.8 to 126.8 at 1080p, 111.7 to 89.7 at 1440p, 69.3 to 58.3 at 4K). The gap between Medium and High is also consistent, around 17-18%. The gap between High and Ultra is the largest, averaging about 36-37% performance loss. This indicates that the Ultra preset carries a disproportionate rendering cost, likely due to advanced effects that heavily tax the Pascal architecture's 64 ROPs.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combinations for Downfall, this pairing ranks 1457 out of 1741 total combos. This places it in the lower 16th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly 84% of other combinations deliver higher average frame rates in this specific game. The rank reflects a significant bottleneck: the GTX 1070 is an end-of-life product from 2016, while the Core i7-14700F is a 2024 release with a 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs.

The rank of 1457 is notable given the CPU's strength. The i7-14700F scores 35443 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 5003 in single-core, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. Yet the combo still lands near the bottom quarter of tested configurations. This disparity confirms that the GTX 1070 is the limiting component. The GPU's average benchmark score of 12331 places it in the 51st percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the GTX 1650 SUPER and GTX 880M, all of which are similarly aged or lower-tier parts.

The 1457th rank out of 1741 combos suggests that most users pairing modern CPUs with more recent GPUs will outperform this setup in Downfall. However, the combination is not the absolute worst; there are 284 tested combos that rank below it. The data indicates that this pairing is viable for 1080p play at Medium to High settings, but it will struggle to compete with systems that pair the same CPU with a more modern GPU. For a horror game that relies on pacing and atmosphere, the rank suggests that users should prioritize settings that maintain frame rate stability over visual fidelity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings shows clear separation. Low produces 158.8 FPS, Medium 126.8 FPS, High 105.9 FPS, and Ultra 68 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 90.8 FPS, indicating that the GTX 1070 has substantial headroom at this resolution for lower presets but becomes strained at Ultra. The 158.8 FPS Low result suggests that the CPU is capable of driving very high frame rates, as this figure is likely near the engine's ceiling for this scene.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 111.7 FPS, Medium 89.7 FPS, High 73.2 FPS, and Ultra 46.1 FPS. The spread narrows to 65.6 FPS, showing that the GPU is starting to cap performance. The Low versus Ultra gap at 1440p is 65.6 FPS, compared to 90.8 FPS at 1080p, meaning the relative cost of Ultra settings decreases as resolution increases because the GPU is already saturated with pixel work.

At 3840x2160, the measured values are: Low 69.3 FPS, Medium 58.3 FPS, High 48.7 FPS, and Ultra 32 FPS. The spread is just 37.3 FPS, the smallest of any resolution. This compression indicates that at 4K, all settings are constrained by the GPU's raw throughput. Even Low settings cannot break 70 FPS, and Ultra drops below the playable threshold. The 4K results align with the GTX 1070's 256-bit memory bus and 8 GB of GDDR5, which are sufficient for 1440p but insufficient for 4K Ultra in a 2016-era title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is built on the Pascal architecture with a 16 nm process from TSMC. It features 1920 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with a base clock of 1506 MHz and a boost clock of 1683 MHz. The memory configuration is 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, yielding 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications produce 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s.

In Downfall, the GPU's role is clearly the dominant factor in determining frame rates. The 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS is directly attributable to the GPU's limitations, as the CPU is more than capable of handling the scene. The 64 ROPs provide a pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s, which is the bottleneck at high resolutions and high settings. The 8 GB of VRAM is likely sufficient for this 2016 game, as even at 4K Ultra, the game does not appear to exceed this capacity, but the raw compute and bandwidth are insufficient.

The GTX 1070's nearest rivals in the database include the GTX 1650 SUPER (with a delta of -1.4%) and the GTX 880M (with a delta of -1.3%). The Quadro K4200 is 0.7% slower, and the Tesla K20Xm is 1.7% slower. These close margins indicate that the GTX 1070 sits in a niche where its performance is roughly equivalent to these other parts, but none of them are modern GPUs. The 51st percentile ranking among all GPUs shows that it is an average performer overall, which is expected for a 2016 part in a 2024 database.

The measured frame rates show that the GPU scales predictably with settings. The jump from Low to Medium costs roughly 20% performance, from Medium to High costs another 17-18%, and from High to Ultra costs about 36-37%. This non-linear scaling suggests that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are particularly expensive on Pascal hardware, likely related to the 16 nm process node and the lack of dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor from the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 33 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory and has a 65 W TDP. Its benchmark scores are strong: 35443 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 5003 in single-core, and an average benchmark score of 54097, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is largely to ensure that the GPU is not starved of data. The 1080p Low result of 158.8 FPS is a clear indicator that the CPU can push frame rates well above what this GPU can sustain at higher settings. The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X (0.6% slower), the Ryzen 9 9900X3D (1.1% slower), and the Xeon Phi 7290 (1.2% faster). These comparisons show that the i7-14700F is competitive with modern high-end parts, but the combo's rank of 1457 out of 1741 is not due to CPU deficiency.

The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in any of the measured configurations. If it were, we would see frame rates plateau across different resolutions at the same settings. Instead, the frame rates drop consistently as resolution increases, which is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario. The i7-14700F's 20 cores and 28 threads are overkill for a horror game like Downfall, which likely uses only a few threads for gameplay logic. The single-core score of 5003 in Cinebench R23 is more relevant, and it is sufficient to drive the 158.8 FPS result at 1080p Low.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and dual-channel memory support mean it is not a power or bandwidth constraint in this pairing. The PCIe Gen 5 interface is also not a limiting factor, as the GTX 1070 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The data suggests that if a user were to upgrade the GPU to a more modern part, the CPU would be able to support significantly higher frame rates, but as tested, the GTX 1070 is the clear performance ceiling.