Downfall

# Downfall with Intel Core i7-14700KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 delivers a robust performance profile in Downfall, a horror title from 2016. Across the measured resolution and settings matrix, this combination shows a clear pattern: the system scales predictably from 1080p through 4K, with the GPU becoming the dominant constraint at higher resolutions and the CPU maintaining headroom throughout. The data set covers 12 distinct configurations, ranging from 339.7 FPS at 1080p Low to 65.6 FPS at 4K Ultra, offering a comprehensive view of how this hardware handles the game's demands.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent and substantial drop as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload in this title. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, average FPS declines from 226.4 to 162.0, a reduction of approximately 28%. The same transition at Ultra settings sees a drop from 141.6 to 104.1 FPS, roughly a 26% decrease. This pattern confirms that the RTX 5070 is the limiting component at these resolutions, as the performance penalty scales with pixel count rather than revealing a CPU bottleneck.

The jump from 1440p to 4K is even more pronounced. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 162.0 to 101.4, a 37% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop is steeper still: from 104.1 to 65.6 FPS, a 37% decline that leaves the game running at a playable but less fluid frame rate. The Low settings tier shows the same scaling behavior, with 242.7 FPS at 1440p dropping to 148.7 at 4K, a 39% loss. These consistent percentage reductions across all settings tiers indicate that resolution scaling in Downfall is highly uniform, with no unexpected cliffs or plateaus.

Notably, the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, Low produces 339.7 FPS versus 141.6 FPS at Ultra, a 58% difference. At 4K, Low yields 148.7 FPS while Ultra drops to 65.6 FPS, a 56% gap. This consistency suggests that the game's settings primarily affect GPU load rather than introducing CPU-side bottlenecks. The smallest margin between settings occurs at 4K Ultra versus 4K High, where the difference is 35.8 FPS, indicating that the highest preset demands significantly more from the GPU without proportionally more visual complexity.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 319th out of 1741 tested combos for Downfall, placing it in the top 18% of all configurations. This percentile position reflects a strong overall performance, though it is not among the elite pairings. The rank is influenced by both components working together; the RTX 5070's 83rd percentile standing among all GPUs and the i7-14700KF's 96th percentile among all CPUs suggest that the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing's overall ranking.

The i7-14700KF's nearest CPU rivals provide context for its contribution. The Intel Core i7-14700K sits at essentially parity, with a deltaPct of 0 and an average benchmark score of 70074 versus the 14700KF's 70104. The AMD EPYC 9115 trails by a mere 0.3%, while the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is 0.4% ahead and the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 leads by 1.3%. These tiny margins indicate that the CPU is not a differentiator in this game; any of these processors would yield nearly identical frame rates.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5070's nearest rivals show similarly tight clustering. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 is 0.2% behind, the NVIDIA Tesla M40 is 0.5% ahead, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is 0.6% behind, and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X is 0.7% ahead. The RTX 5070's average benchmark score of 41687 sits comfortably within this range, suggesting that its performance in Downfall is representative of its general compute capability rather than an outlier for this specific title.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combo in Downfall?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 339.7, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Does this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra?

A: Yes, the average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 65.6, which exceeds the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How much performance is lost when switching from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 226.4 at 1080p to 101.4 at 4K, a reduction of 125.0 FPS or approximately 55%.

Q: Which component is the bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, as frame rates scale consistently with pixel count and the CPU's 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it has ample headroom.

Q: How does the i7-14700KF compare to its nearest rival, the i7-14700K?

A: The two processors are essentially identical in performance, with the 14700KF averaging 70104 and the 14700K averaging 70074, a deltaPct of 0.

Q: What settings tier provides the largest FPS jump at 1440p?

A: Moving from Low to Medium at 2560x1440 increases average FPS from 242.7 to 196.1, while the jump from High to Ultra is from 162.0 to 104.1. The largest absolute gain is from Ultra to High, adding 57.9 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest performance across all settings. Low settings produce 339.7 FPS average, Medium yields 277.0, High reaches 226.4, and Ultra drops to 141.6. The spread between Low and Ultra is 198.1 FPS, demonstrating that Downfall's settings have a substantial impact on frame rate even at this resolution. The difference between consecutive settings tiers is 62.7 FPS from Low to Medium, 50.6 FPS from Medium to High, and 84.8 FPS from High to Ultra, with the Ultra preset exacting the heaviest toll.

Moving to 2560x1440, the overall performance remains strong but shifts downward. Low settings average 242.7 FPS, Medium 196.1, High 162.0, and Ultra 104.1. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 138.6 FPS, reflecting the increased GPU load at this resolution. The step from Medium to High costs 34.1 FPS, while High to Ultra costs 57.9 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset is disproportionately demanding relative to the prior tiers.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates become more modest. Low settings produce 148.7 FPS average, Medium 121.0, High 101.4, and Ultra 65.6. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 83.1 FPS. Notably, the drop from High to Ultra is 35.8 FPS, the smallest absolute difference among the Ultra transitions across all resolutions, suggesting that at 4K the GPU is approaching its limits and the incremental cost of Ultra settings is compressed. The 4K Low result of 148.7 FPS remains playable, while 4K Ultra at 65.6 FPS is still above 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB205 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It features 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation units, along with 48 ray tracing cores and 192 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2325 MHz and a boost clock of 2512 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for a 2016 horror title.

In Downfall, the GPU's role is clearly dominant, as evidenced by the resolution scaling behavior. The RTX 5070's 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs places it above the median, and its average benchmark score of 41687 is consistent with its measured performance here. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5077 and Geekbench OpenCL score of 185269 further corroborate its capabilities, but the game-specific results show that even this hardware is taxed at 4K Ultra, where the 65.6 FPS average sits just above the 60 FPS mark.

The GPU's texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s are more than sufficient for Downfall's demands, yet the Ultra preset's impact at every resolution indicates that the game's highest settings impose a significant fill-rate and shading burden. The FP32 throughput of 30.87 TFLOPS, with FP16 at the same rate (1:1), suggests the GPU is well-equipped for modern workloads, but the measured data shows that Downfall's Ultra settings still push the RTX 5070 to roughly 36% of its 1080p Low performance when scaled to 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on a 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, with ECC memory supported, and connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes. Its 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs and average benchmark score of 70104 reflect a high-performance part.

In Downfall, the CPU does not appear to be a limiting factor. The consistent frame rates across resolutions, with the same relative performance at 1080p and 4K, indicate that the GPU is the bottleneck. The i7-14700KF's Cinebench R23 multicore score of 44557 and single-core score of 6290 demonstrate substantial compute capability, while the Geekbench multicore score of 19287 and single-core score of 2972 further confirm its strength. The PassMark multithread score of 52425 and single-thread score of 4480 show that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would be most likely to bottleneck, the 339.7 FPS average suggests the processor keeps up with the GPU's output.

The CPU's boost clock of 5.60 GHz is particularly relevant for a horror game like Downfall, which may have single-threaded engine components. The PassMark find prime numbers score of 212 and floating point math score of 134393 indicate strong integer and floating-point performance, though these are general benchmarks rather than game-specific tests. The nearest rival comparisons show the 14700KF is essentially tied with the 14700K (deltaPct 0), slightly behind the Ryzen 9 9950X (deltaPct -0.4), and ahead of the EPYC 9115 (deltaPct 0.3), suggesting that CPU choice among high-end parts has minimal impact on Downfall's frame rates.