Downfall

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for Downfall with the Intel Core i7-14700KF and AMD Radeon RX 580 show a clear hierarchy across the four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 104.6 FPS average, which is the highest measured value across all resolutions and settings. Medium at 1080p drops to 81.5 FPS, while High falls further to 70.6 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields only 40.8 FPS, which represents a substantial 61% reduction compared to Low.

For players prioritizing smooth motion in this horror title, the Low preset at 1080p is the only configuration that comfortably exceeds the 100 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at 1080p remains playable at 81.5 FPS, but the step from Low to Medium costs 23.1 FPS. At 1440p, Low produces 75.8 FPS, which is still respectable, while Medium drops to 59.2 FPS. The High preset at 1440p sits at 50.7 FPS, and Ultra falls to 34.1 FPS.

The data suggests that the best experience per the measured rows is the Low preset at 1080p. It provides the largest performance headroom, which is valuable in a horror game where sudden frame drops can disrupt immersion. The Medium preset at 1080p is a viable alternative if visual fidelity is prioritized, but the 23.1 FPS penalty relative to Low is significant. At 4K, even the Low preset only reaches 43.2 FPS, and Medium falls to 39.8 FPS, making 4K gaming impractical with this combination. The Ultra preset is consistently the worst performer at every resolution, with 19.6 FPS at 4K, 34.1 FPS at 1440p, and 40.8 FPS at 1080p.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate measured for this CPU-GPU combination in Downfall?

A: The highest measured average is 104.6 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to Low at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Ultra produces 40.8 FPS average, which is 63.8 FPS lower than the Low preset's 104.6 FPS. This represents a 61% performance reduction when switching from Low to Ultra.

Q: Is 4K resolution playable with this hardware in Downfall?

A: At 3840x2160, the best measured result is 43.2 FPS on Low settings. Medium reaches 39.8 FPS, High drops to 27.9 FPS, and Ultra falls to 19.6 FPS. None of the 4K configurations exceed 45 FPS, indicating limited playability at this resolution.

Q: What settings preset provides the most balanced experience at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 75.8 FPS, while Medium achieves 59.2 FPS. High produces 50.7 FPS, and Ultra drops to 34.1 FPS. The Medium preset offers a reasonable middle ground, though Low provides a more comfortable frame rate margin.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 28.8 FPS (104.6 to 75.8). At Medium, the drop is 22.3 FPS (81.5 to 59.2). At High, the drop is 19.9 FPS (70.6 to 50.7), and at Ultra, the drop is 6.7 FPS (40.8 to 34.1).

Q: Does the RX 580's 8 GB VRAM appear to be a limiting factor in the measured results?

A: The measured data shows the GPU's benchmark percentile is 53 among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score is 13559. The frame rate progression across settings suggests the GPU is the primary constraint, particularly at higher resolutions where even Low settings fail to maintain high frame rates.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 operates with a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz. Its memory runs at 2000 MHz with 8 Gbps effective speed, utilizing an 8 GB GDDR5 frame buffer across a 256-bit bus. The memory bandwidth measures 256.0 GB/s, which is a critical specification for texture-heavy scenes common in horror environments.

The GPU's architecture is GCN 4.0 on a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries, containing 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die. The shading units number 2304, with 144 texture mapping units and 32 render output units. The pixel rate is 42.88 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 193.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 compute performance is 6.175 TFLOPS.

In Downfall, the RX 580's performance characteristics align with its benchmark positioning. The GPU's percentile versus all GPUs is 53, placing it just above the median. Its average benchmark score of 13559 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570's 13564, with a deltaPct of 0. The GTX 950 scores 13549, a 0.1% difference, while the AMD Radeon Pro 455 trails by 1.1% at 13416. The NVIDIA P106-090 leads this group slightly at 13716, a 1.1% advantage.

The measured FPS data indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the combination achieves 104.6 FPS, but at 4K Low, this drops to 43.2 FPS. The scaling pattern suggests that the RX 580's 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for 1080p and manageable at 1440p, but the GPU's compute resources struggle to maintain playable frame rates at 4K. The DirectX 12 benchmark score of 43 and DirectX 11 score of 60 provide context for the GPU's API-specific performance, though the measured game data is more directly relevant.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 1601 out of 1741 tested combos in Downfall. This places the pairing in the bottom 8% of all tested configurations, indicating that the GPU is significantly underpowered relative to the CPU's capabilities.

The CPU component of this combo is exceptionally strong. The Core i7-14700KF holds a 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70104. Its nearest rivals include the Core i7-14700K at 70074 (0% delta), the AMD EPYC 9115 at 69887 (0.3% behind), the Ryzen 9 9950X at 70420 (0.4% ahead), and the Xeon Platinum 8270 at 71056 (1.3% ahead). The CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads, combined with boost clocks up to 5.60 GHz, provide substantial processing headroom that this game does not fully utilize at lower resolutions.

The GPU, by contrast, ranks at the 53rd percentile among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 13559 places it in direct competition with the GTX 570 (13564), GTX 950 (13549), and Radeon Pro 455 (13416). This wide gap between CPU and GPU performance tiers explains the combo's low overall ranking — the CPU is capable of feeding far more powerful graphics hardware, but the RX 580 cannot translate that CPU headroom into high frame rates in Downfall.

The combo ranking of 1601 out of 1741 suggests that most other tested pairings achieve better performance in this game. The data indicates that the RX 580 is the bottleneck, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling patterns across resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the CPU's strength allows the GPU to reach 104.6 FPS, but this is still well below what the CPU could support with a more capable graphics card.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how performance scales from 1080p to 4K for this combination. At Low settings, the progression is 104.6 FPS at 1080p, 75.8 FPS at 1440p, and 43.2 FPS at 4K. This represents a 27.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 43.0% drop from 1440p to 4K. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 58.7%.

At Medium settings, the progression is 81.5 FPS at 1080p, 59.2 FPS at 1440p, and 39.8 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 27.4%, and from 1440p to 4K is 32.8%. High settings show 70.6 FPS at 1080p, 50.7 FPS at 1440p, and 27.9 FPS at 4K, with drops of 28.2% and 45.0% respectively.

Ultra settings exhibit the steepest scaling curve: 40.8 FPS at 1080p, 34.1 FPS at 1440p, and 19.6 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is only 16.4%, but from 1440p to 4K it is 42.5%. This pattern indicates that at Ultra settings, the GPU is already heavily loaded at 1080p, leaving less headroom for resolution scaling to affect the lower-resolution transition.

The scaling behavior strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting component. The CPU's high performance tier (96th percentile) would not exhibit such pronounced frame rate drops purely from resolution changes. The RX 580's 53rd percentile ranking and its modest compute specifications (6.175 TFLOPS FP32, 193.0 GTexel/s texture rate) align with the observed performance degradation as pixel count increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are as follows: Low produces 104.6 FPS, Medium produces 81.5 FPS, High produces 70.6 FPS, and Ultra produces 40.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 23.1 FPS, between Medium and High is 10.9 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 29.8 FPS. The Ultra preset's penalty relative to Low is 63.8 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the measured averages are: Low at 75.8 FPS, Medium at 59.2 FPS, High at 50.7 FPS, and Ultra at 34.1 FPS. The Low to Medium difference is 16.6 FPS, Medium to High is 8.5 FPS, and High to Ultra is 16.6 FPS. Compared to 1080p, the same settings lose between 6.7 FPS (Ultra) and 28.8 FPS (Low) when moving to 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the measured averages are: Low at 43.2 FPS, Medium at 39.8 FPS, High at 27.9 FPS, and Ultra at 19.6 FPS. The Low to Medium difference narrows to just 3.4 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns from the Low preset's optimizations at this resolution. The High preset drops 12.3 FPS below Medium, and Ultra falls 8.3 FPS below High.

The minimum and maximum FPS values are not provided in the measured data, so the analysis relies solely on average frame rates. The consistent pattern across all resolutions is that Low offers the highest performance, followed by Medium, High, and Ultra in descending order. The relative ordering remains stable, but the absolute differences shrink at higher resolutions as the GPU becomes increasingly saturated. At 4K, even the best preset (Low at 43.2 FPS) falls below the 60 FPS target, and only Low at 1080p (104.6 FPS) and Low at 1440p (75.8 FPS) exceed that threshold among all measured configurations.