Downfall

The pairing of Intel’s Core i7-14700KF with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is a study in extremes—one component sits near the top of its class while the other is a relic from a previous era. In Downfall, a 2016 horror title, the measured frames per second reveal a system that is almost entirely constrained by its graphics card. The data shows a predictable cascade of performance drops as resolution climbs, but the specific numbers also highlight how the CPU’s headroom is wasted at lower settings. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS, the combo’s standing, and what settings offer the most playable experience.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K makes it clear that the GTX 1050 Ti is the overwhelming bottleneck. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo averages 47.1 FPS. Jumping to 2560x1440 drops that to 34.7 FPS—a 26% reduction. Moving further to 3840x2160 High yields just 21.8 FPS, a 54% loss from the 1080p figure. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU that is running out of pixel-pushing capability, not a CPU that is struggling to feed frames. The i7-14700KF, with its 20 cores and 28 threads, is nowhere near its limit here.

The scaling pattern holds across all settings, but the magnitude of the drop changes. At Low settings, the 1080p result is 74.3 FPS. At 1440p Low, it falls to 49.8 FPS (a 33% drop), and at 4K Low, it hits 34.4 FPS (a 54% drop from 1080p). The consistency of that 1080p-to-4K loss—around 54% for both High and Low—indicates a uniform GPU workload limit. The CPU’s role is static; it is not the limiting factor at any resolution. The data suggests that even at 1080p Low, the GPU is the ceiling, as the frame rate is still far below what the i7-14700KF could theoretically push.

Notably, the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically as resolution increases. At 1080p, Low (74.3 FPS) versus Ultra (32.6 FPS) is a 2.3x difference. At 4K, Low (34.4 FPS) versus Ultra (13.2 FPS) is a 2.6x difference. This underscores that the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth are being saturated at higher resolutions, making the quality preset choice more punishing. The GTX 1050 Ti’s 112.1 GB/s memory bandwidth and 2.138 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are simply insufficient for 4K Ultra, where the combo manages only 13.2 FPS—effectively unplayable for a horror game that relies on atmosphere and timing.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand database of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Downfall, this pairing lands at rank 1722 out of 1741 combos. That places it in the bottom 1.1% of all tested systems. The rank is a direct consequence of the GPU’s low standing; the GTX 1050 Ti sits at the 30th percentile among all GPUs, while the i7-14700KF is at the 96th percentile among all CPUs. The combo’s rank is dragged down entirely by the graphics card.

To contextualize the GPU’s position, its average benchmark score is 5316. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce 930A (scoring 5317, a 0% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce 940M (scoring 5297, a 0.4% delta). The GTX 1050 Ti is also 0.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon R7 240 (score 5280) and 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon R7 M445 (score 5361). These are all entry-level or mobile-class parts, confirming that the GPU is not designed for modern gaming at high resolutions. In contrast, the i7-14700KF’s nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-14700K, scores 70074 (a 0% delta), showing that the CPU is in a completely different performance tier.

The combo rank of 1722 out of 1741 is not a reflection of the CPU’s capability but rather a warning about pairing a top-tier processor with a bottom-tier GPU. In Downfall, the measured FPS are 47.1 at 1080p High, which is playable, but the system’s overall standing in the database is near the bottom. This suggests that for this specific game, the combo’s performance is dominated by the GPU, and the CPU’s 96th percentile ranking is irrelevant to the outcome. The data shows that users with this pairing are getting a fraction of what the i7-14700KF could deliver in a balanced system.

GPU Role

The GTX 1050 Ti is a Pascal-architecture part with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 112.1 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1291 MHz with a boost of 1392 MHz. These specifications are modest by modern standards, and the benchmark results confirm the limitation. The GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 305, and its Passmark G3D score is 6340, placing it at the 30th percentile among all GPUs. The measured FPS in Downfall align with these low scores; the GPU is simply not built for high-fidelity rendering.

The 4 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor at higher resolutions. At 3840x2160, the game’s textures and buffers likely exceed the available memory, causing the average FPS to plummet to 21.8 on High and 13.2 on Ultra. Even at 2560x1440, the Ultra preset yields only 23.9 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is both bandwidth-limited and capacity-limited. The 14 nm process node and 3,300 million transistors on a 132 mm² die are indicative of an older design that cannot handle the pixel fill rate required for 4K.

The GPU’s clocks—1291 MHz base and 1392 MHz boost—are relatively low, but the bottleneck is more about the memory subsystem and shading units than raw clock speed. With 768 shading units and 32 ROPs, the GTX 1050 Ti has a peak pixel rate of 44.54 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 66.82 GTexel/s. These numbers translate directly to the observed FPS: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 74.3 FPS, which is near the practical limit for this GPU in a light load. At 4K Ultra, the 13.2 FPS result shows the GPU is completely overwhelmed. The data indicates that the GTX 1050 Ti’s role in this combo is to act as a strict ceiling, and no amount of CPU headroom can overcome it.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the best experience for a playable horror game is at 1920x1080 with Medium settings, which yields 61.1 FPS. This is smooth enough for the genre’s tense pacing, and it avoids the frame rate dips that would occur at higher resolutions. The Low preset at 1080p offers 74.3 FPS, which is the highest measured average, but the visual quality trade-off may not be worth it for a game that relies on shadows and lighting for atmosphere. Medium at 1080p strikes a balance between fidelity and performance.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset drops to 45.9 FPS, which is still playable but not ideal. The High preset at 1440p yields 34.7 FPS, which is borderline for a horror game where sudden movements require smoothness. The Ultra preset at any resolution is not recommended; even at 1080p, it only manages 32.6 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 13.2 FPS. The data strongly suggests that the GTX 1050 Ti cannot handle Ultra settings in Downfall without tanking the frame rate.

For 4K, the Low preset provides 34.4 FPS, but this is a compromised experience. The 1440p High preset (34.7 FPS) and 4K Low (34.4 FPS) are nearly identical, indicating that the GPU is equally stressed by either resolution or settings combination. The recommendation is to stick with 1080p Medium for the most consistent experience. If a higher resolution is desired, then 1440p Low (49.8 FPS) is the only option that stays above 45 FPS. The measured data shows no scenario where Ultra settings are viable, so users should avoid that preset entirely.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full measured FPS table for this combo is as follows:

• 3840x2160 (4K): Low averages 34.4 FPS, Medium averages 25.9 FPS, High averages 21.8 FPS, and Ultra averages 13.2 FPS.
• 2560x1440 (1440p): Low averages 49.8 FPS, Medium averages 45.9 FPS, High averages 34.7 FPS, and Ultra averages 23.9 FPS.
• 1920x1080 (1080p): Low averages 74.3 FPS, Medium averages 61.1 FPS, High averages 47.1 FPS, and Ultra averages 32.6 FPS.

The 1080p row is the only one where the combo crosses the 60 FPS threshold, and it does so only on Low and Medium. The 1440p row never exceeds 49.8 FPS, and the 4K row never exceeds 34.4 FPS. The data shows a clear linear relationship between settings and FPS within each resolution, but the drop from Low to Ultra is steeper at higher resolutions. At 1080p, Low to Ultra is a 41.7 FPS difference (74.3 to 32.6). At 1440p, the difference is 25.9 FPS (49.8 to 23.9). At 4K, the difference is 21.2 FPS (34.4 to 13.2). This suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so limited that even lowering settings has diminishing returns.

The min and max FPS values are not provided in the data, but the averages alone paint a stark picture. The i7-14700KF is capable of far higher frame rates, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44557 and Passmark multithread score of 52425. However, in Downfall, the GTX 1050 Ti caps the system. The measured FPS are entirely GPU-bound, and the 1722nd rank out of 1741 combos reflects that. Users with this pairing should treat it as a 1080p Medium system for this game, as the data offers no other viable path to a smooth horror experience.