Downfall

Resolution Scaling

Downfall's frame rate behavior across the three tested resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling curve, though the magnitude of the drop from 1080p to 4K is unusually steep even for a demanding horror title. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 303 FPS at 1920x1080 to 217 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 86 FPS, and then to 135 FPS at 3840x2160, another 82 FPS lower. This means that moving from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 28% of the performance, while the jump from 1440p to 4K costs an additional 38% of the already-reduced frame rate.

The scaling pattern at Low settings is even more revealing. The RTX 5090 delivers 452 FPS at 1080p Low, which drops to 323 FPS at 1440p and then to 201 FPS at 4K. The absolute drops are 129 FPS and 122 FPS respectively, showing that the GPU is still the primary limiter even at the lowest quality preset. If the CPU were the bottleneck at 1080p, we would expect to see a much smaller delta between 1080p and 1440p, as the GPU would have headroom to render more frames. Instead, the consistent 120+ FPS drops at every step indicate that each pixel increase is directly taxing the rendering pipeline.

Medium settings produce the only rows with min and max FPS data, providing a window into frame time stability. At 4K Medium, the average is 164 FPS with a minimum of 140 and maximum of 189, a spread of 49 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average climbs to 264 FPS with a 225-304 range, a spread of 79 FPS. At 1080p Medium, the average reaches 370 FPS with a 314-425 range, a spread of 111 FPS. The widening spread at lower resolutions suggests that while the average FPS increases substantially, the frame pacing becomes less consistent as the CPU begins to contribute more variance to the frame delivery.

Ultra settings show the steepest resolution penalty, with the 4K average of 84 FPS being less than half of the 1080p average of 190 FPS. This 106 FPS drop across the resolution ladder is proportionally larger than at any other preset, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects (likely including more aggressive post-processing and shadow detail) scale super-linearly with pixel count. The data suggests that Downfall at 4K Ultra is asking the RTX 5090 to do more work per pixel than at lower resolutions, which is typical for games with resolution-dependent shader complexity.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 brings 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. In Downfall, a horror game from 2016, this memory configuration is far beyond what the title requires, yet the benchmark data shows that the GPU's compute capabilities, not its memory subsystem, are the determining factor in performance. The card's 21,760 shading units and 680 TMUs provide the raw throughput needed to push the frame rates observed, with a boost clock of 2407 MHz.

The RTX 5090's FP32 throughput of 104.8 TFLOPS is the specification most relevant to Downfall's rendering workload. The game does not appear to leverage ray tracing or tensor core features heavily, given the absence of RT-specific benchmarks in the measured data, so the traditional rasterization pipeline is what drives these numbers. The 176 ROPs produce a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s, which explains why the card can sustain 201 FPS at 4K Low — the pixel fill rate is more than adequate for the reduced shading complexity.

The memory clock of 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) combined with the 512-bit interface yields the 1.79 TB/s bandwidth figure. For a game released in 2016, texture streaming and geometry data are unlikely to saturate this bandwidth, even at 4K Ultra. The fact that the 4K Ultra average drops to 84 FPS, less than half of the 4K Low result, points to the shading units being the bottleneck rather than memory bandwidth. The card's 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, fabricated on TSMC's 5 nm process, give it the transistor density to handle these workloads efficiently.

The RTX 5090's benchmark scores outside of gaming reinforce its position. A Passmark G3D score of 39,650 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 place it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (0.3% behind) and the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (0.6% behind), though those are compute-oriented parts without the gaming-specific optimizations. The card's average benchmark score of 79,842 is 1.4% above the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X, which sits at 80,959 in the rival list.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 63rd out of 3,716 tested combos in Downfall. This places the pairing in the top 1.7% of all configurations tested on this benchmark database, which is a strong showing given the age of the game and the diversity of hardware that has been benchmarked against it. The rank reflects the absolute performance ceiling of this pairing, but it does not account for the fact that Downfall is not particularly demanding by modern standards.

The CPU component of this combo, the i7-14700KF, holds the 94th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70,163. Its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark list are the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (0.2% ahead), the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (0.4% ahead), and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (0.9% ahead), while the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K trails by 1%. This clustering within 1% suggests that the i7-14700KF is operating at the performance frontier for gaming CPUs, and any rank differences in Downfall are more likely attributable to GPU performance.

The GPU component, the RTX 5090, holds the 92nd percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 79,842. Its rival list shows a similar tight grouping: the Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB is 0.3% ahead, the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB is 0.6% ahead, and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT is 1.1% ahead, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X is 1.4% behind. The fact that the combo ranks 63rd out of 3,716, rather than near the very top, suggests that there are a handful of other CPU+GPU pairings that edge it out in Downfall specifically, likely due to higher single-thread performance or more favorable driver optimizations.

The combo rank of 63 means that 62 other configurations deliver higher average FPS in Downfall. Given that the i7-14700KF and RTX 5090 are both near the top of their respective percentile rankings, this gap is likely filled by combinations using the absolute fastest gaming CPUs (possibly with higher boost clocks) paired with the same or similar GPUs. The delta between this combo and the top-ranked ones is not quantifiable from the provided data, but the rank implies a competitive, if not class-leading, position.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5090 and i7-14700KF produce an average of 452 FPS on Low settings, 370 FPS on Medium, 303 FPS on High, and 190 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data, showing a range of 314 to 425 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p follows a consistent pattern: each preset step reduces the average by roughly 70-80 FPS, except for the jump from High to Ultra which drops 113 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces a particularly heavy effect that disproportionately impacts frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 323 FPS on Low, 264 FPS on Medium, 217 FPS on High, and 135 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows a min/max of 225 to 304 FPS. The gaps between presets at 1440p are slightly smaller than at 1080p, with the Low-to-Medium difference being 59 FPS, Medium-to-High being 47 FPS, and High-to-Ultra being 82 FPS. The High-to-Ultra gap remains the largest, confirming that the Ultra preset's additional cost is consistent across resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the averages drop to 201 FPS on Low, 164 FPS on Medium, 135 FPS on High, and 84 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows a min/max of 140 to 189 FPS. The preset-to-preset gaps at 4K are 37 FPS (Low to Medium), 29 FPS (Medium to High), and 51 FPS (High to Ultra). The proportionally larger drop at High-to-Ultra at 4K (51 FPS, or 38% of the High value) indicates that the Ultra preset's most demanding features scale aggressively with resolution.

Comparing settings across resolutions, the 1080p Ultra average of 190 FPS is nearly identical to the 4K Low average of 201 FPS, suggesting that the visual quality difference between those two points is roughly equivalent in rendering cost. Similarly, the 1440p High average of 217 FPS is close to the 4K Medium average of 164 FPS, though the gap widens as the resolution increases. The data shows that for players targeting 1440p, the High preset delivers 217 FPS, while at 4K the Medium preset is needed to exceed 160 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo in Downfall?

A: The highest recorded average is 452 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At 4K, the highest average is 201 FPS, also on Low settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the average drops from 452 FPS at 1080p to 201 FPS at 4K, a 251 FPS reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 190 FPS to 84 FPS, a 106 FPS reduction.

Q: Which settings preset provides the most consistent frame pacing at 4K?

A: The Medium preset at 3840x2160 has a min FPS of 140 and max FPS of 189, a spread of 49 FPS. This is the only 4K preset with min/max data, making it the only one where frame consistency can be assessed.

Q: How does the i7-14700KF compare to its nearest CPU rival in overall benchmark score?

A: The i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70,163, which is 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69,996) and 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69,875). It is 0.9% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515).

Q: What is the RTX 5090's percentile ranking among all GPUs, and how does it compare to the Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB?

A: The RTX 5090 sits in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 79,842. The Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB has a score of 79,605, which is 0.3% behind the RTX 5090.

Q: Is the combo more likely to be CPU-limited or GPU-limited at 1080p Ultra?

A: The 1080p Ultra average of 190 FPS, combined with the 4K Ultra average of 84 FPS, suggests the GPU remains the limiting factor even at 1080p, as the resolution scaling still shows a 106 FPS drop. A CPU bottleneck would flatten the curve at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

For players using the i7-14700KF and RTX 5090 in Downfall, the Medium preset offers the best balance of frame rate and frame consistency across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the average is 370 FPS with a min of 314 and max of 425, providing a wide safety margin above any typical display refresh rate. At 1440p Medium, the average of 264 FPS with a 225-304 range still leaves ample headroom for high-refresh monitors. At 4K Medium, the 164 FPS average with a 140-189 range exceeds the 144 Hz threshold for most displays, making it the recommended preset for 4K gaming.

The High preset is a viable alternative for players who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate. At 1080p High, the 303 FPS average is still excellent, and at 1440p High, the 217 FPS average remains above 200 FPS. However, at 4K High, the average drops to 135 FPS, which is below the 144 Hz target for many high-end monitors. Players with 4K displays should stick with Medium to avoid the 29 FPS drop from Medium to High.

The Ultra preset is only recommended at 1080p, where the 190 FPS average is still playable. At 1440p Ultra, the 135 FPS average is borderline for competitive play, and at 4K Ultra, the 84 FPS average may cause noticeable stutter in a horror game where frame pacing is crucial for atmosphere. The Low preset, while delivering the highest frame rates (452 FPS at 1080p, 323 FPS at 1440p, 201 FPS at 4K), is best reserved for players with 240 Hz or 360 Hz displays who prioritize maximum responsiveness over visual quality.

Given that the Medium preset shows the only recorded min/max data, it is the only preset where frame consistency can be verified. The 4K Medium min of 140 FPS is still above the 120 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, making it the safest choice for 4K users. For 1440p users, the Medium preset's 225 FPS minimum ensures that even the most demanding scenes do not dip below 200 FPS, which is a strong argument for choosing Medium over High.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF brings 20 cores and 28 threads to the pairing, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. In Downfall, a game that does not heavily multithread, the high boost clock is more relevant than the core count. The CPU's single-core performance, as measured by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6,235 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2,578, directly impacts the game's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates.

The CPU's L3 cache of 33 MB shared across all cores provides a substantial buffer for game data, while the per-core L2 cache of 2 MB helps with frequently accessed instruction sets. The Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration, though the specific memory bandwidth is not listed. The CPU's Passmark single-thread score of 4,480 and multithread score of 52,425 indicate strong performance in both lightly and heavily threaded workloads.

Downfall's frame rate data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU has the least work per frame, the combo achieves 452 FPS. This is well above what most games would consider a CPU-limited threshold, suggesting that the i7-14700KF's boost clock of 5.60 GHz is sufficient to keep the RTX 5090 fed. The fact that the 1080p-to-1440p scaling at Low settings shows a 129 FPS drop (from 452 to 323) rather than a plateau indicates that the GPU is still the primary bottleneck, not the CPU.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 70,163 places it in the 94th percentile, with its nearest rival being the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F at 0.2% behind. In the context of Downfall, the CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads are likely underutilized, as the game's 2016 release date predates the widespread adoption of multi-threaded game engines. The single-core performance, therefore, is the more critical factor, and the i7-14700KF's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6,235 confirms that it is competitive with the best gaming CPUs available.

The CPU's TDP of 125 W and support for PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes ensure that it can fully utilize the RTX 5090's PCIe 5.0 x16 interface without bandwidth constraints. The 3.40 GHz base clock is low enough for efficient idle operation, but the 5.60 GHz boost clock provides the high-frequency headroom needed for the game's main thread. The ECC memory support and unlocked multiplier are additional features that do not directly impact Downfall performance but add to the CPU's overall capability profile.