Downfall

The pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700KF with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT produces a wide performance envelope in Downfall, scaling from exceptionally high frame rates at 1080p to a more demanding load at 4K. The data shows a system that is clearly capable of high-refresh-rate gaming at lower resolutions but encounters a significant performance cliff when moving to maximum settings at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable yet steep decline as resolution increases, but the magnitude of that decline varies sharply depending on the quality preset. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 results in a drop from 311.5 FPS to 137.4 FPS, a reduction of approximately 56%. This substantial scaling indicates that even at Low settings, the resolution increase places a considerable burden on the rendering pipeline.

The scaling pattern becomes more pronounced when examining the gap between 1080p and 1440p. At Low settings, the frame rate falls from 311.5 FPS to 221.5 FPS, a 29% reduction, while at High settings the drop is from 207.9 FPS to 147.7 FPS, a 29% reduction as well. This consistency suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at these resolutions, with the CPU having sufficient headroom to maintain high throughput.

The most dramatic scaling occurs at 4K Ultra settings, where the average FPS collapses to 61.1. This represents a mere 38% of the 1080p Ultra score of 131 FPS. The data indicates that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is being pushed to its absolute limits, and the frame rate approaches the threshold where gameplay smoothness could be compromised on high-refresh-rate displays. The scaling from 1440p Ultra at 91.8 FPS to 4K Ultra at 61.1 FPS shows a 33% reduction, highlighting that the most demanding configuration requires significant GPU resources.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of CPU and GPU ranks 462nd out of 1,741 tested combos in Downfall. This places the system in the upper 26.5% of all configurations tested, which is a solid result but not a top-tier ranking. The rank suggests that while this combo delivers strong performance, there are many other pairings that achieve higher frame rates in this title.

The ranking must be interpreted in the context of the hardware components. The Intel Core i7-14700KF holds a 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs, while the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT holds an 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs. The combination of these two components produces a system that is well above average but not at the very top of the performance hierarchy. The 462nd rank out of 1,741 combos indicates that the pairing is competitive, yet the data shows there is room for improvement, likely by pairing the GPU with a higher-performing CPU or vice versa.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on a 10 nm process node. It features a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a 33 MB shared L3 cache. These specifications make it a formidable processor for gaming workloads, and the benchmark data supports this assessment.

In Downfall, the CPU's role becomes more critical at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck. At 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 311.5 FPS, which is a remarkably high frame rate that requires strong single-thread performance. The CPU's boost clock of 5.60 GHz and its high single-core benchmark scores, such as 6,290 in Cinebench R23 single-core, enable this level of performance. The data suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to maintain these high frame rates.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities also come into play, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44,557 and its 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs. While Downfall is a horror game that may not fully utilize all 20 cores, the 28 threads provide ample processing power for game logic, physics, and streaming. The CPU's performance relative to its nearest rivals is notable: it scores 0.3% higher than the AMD EPYC 9115 and 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X in average benchmark scores. This indicates that the i7-14700KF is on par with the top-tier processors, ensuring it does not bottleneck the GPU in most scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive picture of performance across three resolutions and four quality settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 311.5 FPS on Low, 252.1 FPS on Medium, 207.9 FPS on High, and 131 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 58% reduction in frame rate, which is expected given the increased graphical load.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 221.5 FPS on Low, 183.9 FPS on Medium, 147.7 FPS on High, and 91.8 FPS on Ultra. The transition from 1080p to 1440p results in a 29% reduction across Low, Medium, and High settings, indicating that the GPU is scaling consistently with resolution. The Ultra setting at 1440p shows a 30% reduction compared to 1080p Ultra, maintaining the same scaling pattern.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop to 137.4 FPS on Low, 113.5 FPS on Medium, 95.3 FPS on High, and 61.1 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced, with a 38% reduction at Low settings, a 38% reduction at Medium, a 35% reduction at High, and a 33% reduction at Ultra. This indicates that the GPU is being increasingly taxed at 4K, particularly at higher settings. The 4K Ultra result of 61.1 FPS is the only configuration that falls below the 60 FPS threshold, suggesting that for smooth gameplay at maximum settings, users may need to reduce resolution or settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture using a 4 nm process node, featuring the Navi 48 chip with 53,900 million transistors. It has a boost clock of 2970 MHz and a game clock of 2400 MHz, with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications position the GPU as a high-performance component, and the benchmark data confirms its capabilities.

The GPU's role in Downfall is most evident at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate of 61.1 FPS indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU has sufficient headroom to handle the workload. The GPU's 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs and its average benchmark score of 39,647 suggest that it performs well but is not the absolute fastest available. Its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon Pro 575 and the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile, show very similar average scores, with deltas of -0.1% and 0.2% respectively, indicating that the RX 9070 XT is in a competitive performance band.

The GPU's memory configuration of 16 GB GDDR6 is ample for Downfall, which is a 2016 title that does not require excessive VRAM. The 644.6 GB/s memory bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and data transfer do not become bottlenecks. The GPU's 4096 shading units and 128 ROPs, combined with its 48.66 TFLOPS FP32 performance, deliver the raw compute power needed for high frame rates at lower resolutions. However, the data shows that at 4K Ultra, the GPU's performance drops significantly, indicating that the rendering demands of the game at maximum settings and high resolution exceed what the GPU can deliver at consistently high frame rates.