Downfall

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The measured FPS data for Downfall with the Intel Core i7-14700K and Intel Arc B580 reveals a clear hierarchy across the four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 185 FPS average, which is the highest raw frame rate measured at any resolution or setting. Medium drops to 151 FPS, High to 124 FPS, and Ultra to 77 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 27 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 47 FPS — a much steeper penalty for the top tier.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with narrower margins. Low produces 132 FPS, Medium 108 FPS, High 88 FPS, and Ultra 55 FPS. The Medium-to-High step is 20 FPS, while High-to-Ultra is 33 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low still manages 82 FPS, Medium 67 FPS, High 55 FPS, and Ultra falls to 34 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only measured configuration that dips below 40 FPS, suggesting it pushes the GPU past its comfortable operating range.

For the best experience per the measured rows, the Medium preset stands out as the optimal choice across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium provides 151 FPS with a minimum of 128 FPS and maximum of 174 FPS — the only preset with min/max data recorded, indicating a stable frame delivery window. At 1440p, Medium yields 108 FPS with min/max of 92/124, again showing consistency. At 4K, Medium hits 67 FPS with min/max of 57/77. The minimums at Medium are respectable, never falling below 57 FPS even at 4K.

High is a viable alternative for users prioritizing visual fidelity, but the data shows it sacrifices 27 FPS at 1080p, 20 FPS at 1440p, and 12 FPS at 4K compared to Medium. Ultra, while visually demanding, reduces frame rates by roughly half relative to Medium at every resolution — from 151 to 77 at 1080p, 108 to 55 at 1440p, and 67 to 34 at 4K. The Ultra numbers are playable only at 1080p, where 77 FPS remains above typical display refresh thresholds, but at 4K the 34 FPS average falls below smooth gameplay expectations. Benchmark results indicate Medium provides the best balance of frame rate and visual quality, with the min/max data confirming frame pacing stability that other presets lack.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 carries a 12 GB GDDR6 memory pool on a 192-bit bus, yielding 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its memory clock runs at 2375 MHz, translating to 19 Gbps effective. The GPU's base and boost clocks are identical at 2670 MHz, which is notable for a card that maintains a flat clock curve under load. The 5 nm TSMC process packs 19,600 million transistors into a 272 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 72.1M per mm². The architecture is Xe2-HPG, part of the Battlemage generation, with 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs. Ray tracing hardware includes 20 RT cores, and the FP32 throughput is 13.67 TFLOPS.

In Downfall, the GPU's role becomes clear when examining the FPS scaling across resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 185 FPS, but at 4K Low it falls to 82 FPS — a drop of 103 FPS. This 55.7% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings suggests the GPU is heavily loaded even at the lowest quality tier. The texture-to-pixel work at 4K quadruples the fragment processing demand compared to 1080p, and the B580's 213.6 GPixel/s pixel rate becomes a limiting factor. The 80 ROPs must handle the increased pixel throughput, and the 456.0 GB/s bandwidth must feed the larger frame buffer requirements.

The VRAM capacity of 12 GB proves sufficient across all measured configurations in Downfall, as no resolution or setting combination shows a catastrophic frame rate collapse indicative of memory spilling. At 4K Ultra, the 34 FPS average is low but not due to VRAM exhaustion — the compute throughput of 13.67 TFLOPS simply cannot sustain the shader complexity. The GPU's percentile ranking of 68 against all GPUs places it in the upper third, and its average benchmark score of 23021 sits within 0.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (23172) and 0.6% above the RTX 2080 (22895). However, in Downfall, the B580's performance at 4K Ultra (34 FPS) versus 1080p Ultra (77 FPS) shows a 55.8% drop, which tracks closely with the pixel-count increase.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in Downfall?

A: The highest average FPS is 185, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. The second highest is 151 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 132 FPS at 1440p Low.

Q: Does the Intel Arc B580 maintain playable frame rates at 4K in Downfall?

A: At 4K, the Medium preset delivers 67 FPS average with a minimum of 57 FPS, which is playable. High drops to 55 FPS, and Ultra falls to 34 FPS. Low at 4K reaches 82 FPS, so playable 4K is achievable but only at lower settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to Medium at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium produces 108 FPS average with a 92 FPS minimum, while Ultra produces 55 FPS average. This is a 53 FPS difference, meaning Ultra delivers roughly half the frame rate of Medium at the same resolution.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations in Downfall?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the Intel Arc B580 ranks 2802 out of 3716 tested combos in this game. This places it in the lower portion of the distribution, around the 75th percentile.

Q: Are there any recorded minimum FPS values for the Low preset?

A: No, the measured data only includes min/max values for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p Medium, min/max is 128/174; at 1440p Medium, it is 92/124; at 4K Medium, it is 57/77. Low, High, and Ultra presets have null min/max values.

Q: What does the GPU's benchmark percentile indicate about its standing?

A: The Intel Arc B580's percentile is 68, meaning it outperforms 68% of all GPUs in general benchmarks. Its average benchmark score of 23021 is 0.6% higher than the RTX 2080 and 0.7% lower than the RTX 3080, placing it in a competitive mid-range band.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank in Downfall is 2802 out of 3716 tested combinations, placing this system in the 24.6th percentile of all combos. This is a bottom-quarter ranking, which initially seems surprising given the hardware specifications. The Intel Core i7-14700K is a high-end CPU with a 94th percentile ranking against all CPUs, and the Intel Arc B580 sits at the 68th percentile for GPUs. Yet the combined system lands well below what either component's individual standing would suggest.

The discrepancy points to Downfall's computational demands. The game is a horror title from 2016, and the data suggests it does not scale efficiently with the B580's architecture. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 185 FPS, which is strong, but at 4K Ultra it drops to 34 FPS. The rank of 2802 indicates that a significant number of other combos achieve higher frame rates in this specific game, likely due to better driver optimization or architectural advantages in the game's rendering pipeline.

Comparing to the nearest rival GPUs, the B580's average benchmark score of 23021 is within 0.2% of the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (23061) and within 0.7% of the RTX 3080 (23172). However, those scores reflect generic workloads. In Downfall specifically, the combo rank suggests the B580's Xe2-HPG architecture faces challenges that general benchmarks do not capture. The 20 RT cores and 2560 shading units are present, but the game's rendering paths may not utilize them efficiently. The CPU side shows no such issue — the i7-14700K's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (deltaPct -0.2%) and the AMD EPYC 9115 (deltaPct 0.1%), indicating the processor is performing at its expected level. The bottleneck in ranking likely stems from the GPU's interaction with this particular game engine.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K brings 20 cores and 28 threads to the system, built on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process node. The base clock is 3.40 GHz, and the boost clock reaches 5.60 GHz. Cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3. The CPU supports dual-channel DDR4 or DDR5 memory and has a 125 W TDP. Its launch MSRP is $409. In general benchmarks, the i7-14700K scores 33440.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2160 in single-core, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 20767 and single-core of 2569. Its percentile against all CPUs is 94, meaning it outperforms 94% of processors.

In Downfall, the CPU's role must be inferred from the FPS patterns, as the game is likely GPU-bound at higher settings. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 185 FPS — a frame rate that places significant demand on the CPU to feed the GPU. The i7-14700K's 28 threads and 5.6 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom for game logic, AI, and physics at this resolution. The fact that 1080p Low (185 FPS) is more than double 4K Low (82 FPS) indicates that at 1080p, the GPU is still the primary constraint, but the CPU is keeping pace.

Comparing to nearest CPU rivals, the i7-14700K's average benchmark score of 69355 is 0.1% above the AMD EPYC 9115 (69288) and 0.2% below the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515). These deltas are negligible, confirming the CPU is performing at its expected level. In Downfall, the CPU's 20 cores may be underutilized if the game is not heavily multithreaded, but the high single-core performance (4472 in Passmark single-thread) ensures that any single-threaded game logic runs efficiently. The CPU's 33 MB of shared L3 cache is likely sufficient for the game's data working set, reducing memory stalls. The data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking — frame rates scale inversely with resolution and settings, which is the expected behavior for a GPU-limited scenario.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings, providing 12 distinct data points. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 185 FPS average. Medium produces 151 FPS with a minimum of 128 FPS and maximum of 174 FPS. High yields 124 FPS, and Ultra drops to 77 FPS. The Medium preset is the only one at 1080p with min/max data, showing a 46 FPS spread between minimum and maximum.

Moving to 2560x1440, Low achieves 132 FPS. Medium produces 108 FPS with a minimum of 92 FPS and maximum of 124 FPS — a 32 FPS spread. High reaches 88 FPS, and Ultra falls to 55 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low still manages 82 FPS. Medium delivers 67 FPS with a minimum of 57 FPS and maximum of 77 FPS — a 20 FPS spread. High produces 55 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 34 FPS.

The Medium preset's min/max data reveals a pattern: as resolution increases, the frame time variance narrows. At 1080p, the spread is 46 FPS (128 to 174), at 1440p it is 32 FPS (92 to 124), and at 4K it is 20 FPS (57 to 77). This suggests that at lower resolutions, the GPU has more headroom and can burst to higher frame rates, while at higher resolutions, the GPU is consistently near its limit. The minimum FPS values at Medium — 128 at 1080p, 92 at 1440p, and 57 at 4K — all remain above the 30 FPS playability threshold, indicating that Medium is the safest preset for consistent performance.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic degradation. At 1080p, Ultra is 77 FPS, which is 49% of Medium's 151 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra is 55 FPS, which is 51% of Medium's 108 FPS. At 4K, Ultra is 34 FPS, which is 51% of Medium's 67 FPS. This consistent halving suggests the Ultra preset doubles the effective rendering cost compared to Medium, likely through increased shadow quality, post-processing, and texture filtering that the B580's 13.67 TFLOPS cannot sustain.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component in this combo. At Low settings, the drop is from 185 FPS at 1080p to 82 FPS at 4K — a reduction of 103 FPS, or 55.7%. At Medium, the drop is from 151 FPS to 67 FPS — a reduction of 84 FPS, or 55.6%. At High, the drop is from 124 FPS to 55 FPS — a reduction of 69 FPS, or 55.6%. At Ultra, the drop is from 77 FPS to 34 FPS — a reduction of 43 FPS, or 55.8%.

The consistency of this 55.7% reduction across all settings is striking. The pixel count increases by a factor of 4 from 1080p to 4K (1920x1080 = 2.07 million pixels, 3840x2160 = 8.29 million pixels), but the FPS does not drop to 25% of the 1080p value. If the GPU were purely pixel-bound, the FPS at 4K would be approximately 25% of 1080p. Instead, it retains roughly 44-45% of the 1080p performance at 4K. This indicates that the limiting component is not purely the pixel throughput but rather the combination of pixel processing and other factors.

The fact that the percentage drop is nearly identical across all settings — 55.7% at Low, 55.6% at Medium, 55.6% at High, and 55.8% at Ultra — suggests a fixed scaling factor. This could be explained by the GPU's memory bandwidth. The B580 has 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth, and at 1080p Low, the frame buffer requirements are modest. At 4K Ultra, the frame buffer demands exceed what the bandwidth can supply, but the scaling remains linear, indicating that bandwidth is not the sole constraint either.

The data implies the limiting component is the GPU's shading and ROP throughput. The B580's 13.67 TFLOPS and 213.6 GPixel/s pixel rate determine how quickly fragments can be shaded and pixels written. At 4K, the GPU is spending more time on each pixel, but the 55.7% drop (rather than 75% drop) suggests that at 1080p, the GPU is not fully saturated — there is overhead that gets absorbed at higher resolutions. The 80 ROPs and 160 TMUs scale with resolution, and the consistent drop percentage indicates that the GPU's compute and memory subsystems are well-balanced for this game. The CPU, with its 20 cores and 94th percentile ranking, is not the limiting factor — the resolution scaling is uniform regardless of settings, which would not be the case if the CPU were constraining the lower-resolution, higher-FPS scenarios.