Downfall

Downfall is a 2016 horror title that stresses systems differently than typical shooters, and the combination of the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti produces a wide spread of frame rates depending on how you configure it. The data shows a system capable of high refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p, but the jump to 4K reveals where the graphics card becomes the primary limiting factor)Skip the fluff — here is the practical breakdown.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for this combo shows a clear trend: as resolution increases, the average frame rate drops significantly, but the rate of that drop is not uniform across settings. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 366 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440 Low drops that to 262 FPS, a reduction of about 28%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 163 FPS, which is a 55% drop from the 1080p Low result. This scaling pattern indicates that at lower resolutions and settings, the CPU has enough headroom to push very high frame counts, but the GPU becomes the bottleneck as pixel count rises.

The High settings curve tells a similar story but with a steeper decline. At 1080p High, the average is 246 FPS. At 1440p High, it drops to 176 FPS (a 28% reduction), and at 4K High, it falls to 109 FPS — a 56% drop from the 1080p High figure. The consistency of these percentage drops (roughly 28% from 1080p to 1440p, and another 55-56% from 1440p to 4K) suggests that the RTX 4070 Ti is scaling predictably with pixel throughput, and the CPU is not introducing a variable bottleneck at these settings.

The Ultra settings present the most extreme scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 154 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 110 FPS (a 29% reduction), and at 4K Ultra, the average plummets to 68 FPS — a 56% drop from 1080p Ultra and a 38% drop from 1440p Ultra. This steep decline at 4K Ultra indicates that the GPU is being saturated, and the frame rate is heavily dependent on the graphics card's raw throughput rather than the CPU's capabilities. The fact that 4K Ultra (68 FPS) is less than half of 1080p Ultra (154 FPS) underscores that this resolution/settings combination is pushing the RTX 4070 Ti to its limits.

What this means practically: at 1080p and 1440p, the combo is capable of delivering very high frame rates across all settings, with the CPU providing enough headroom for the GPU to work at full capacity. At 4K, however, the frame rates become more moderate, and the difference between Low (163 FPS) and Ultra (68 FPS) is a massive 95 FPS gap. This reveals that the limiting component at 4K is clearly the GPU, as the CPU's role diminishes when the render load increases. The data suggests that for 4K gaming, users should consider Medium settings (133 FPS average) as a sweet spot, as it maintains a high frame rate while still offering better visual quality than Low.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Downfall?

A: Based on the measured FPS data, 2560x1440 offers the best balance of performance and quality. At High settings, the combo delivers 176 FPS average, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate of most monitors. At 4K High, the average drops to 109 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for frame time spikes.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 Ti perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The average FPS at 4K Ultra is 68 FPS. This is the lowest measured result in the dataset, indicating that this configuration is GPU-bound. While 68 FPS is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, it represents a significant drop from the 4K Medium result of 133 FPS.

Q: Is the Intel Core i9-14900K a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests no. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 366 FPS average, and at 1080p Medium it reaches 300 FPS. These very high frame rates indicate that the CPU is not limiting performance at this resolution, as the GPU is still able to produce frame counts well above typical display refresh rates.

Q: What settings should I use for 4K gaming?

A: The measured data shows that Medium settings at 4K yield 133 FPS average with a minimum of 113 FPS and a maximum of 153 FPS. This is the highest average FPS at 4K that maintains a minimum above 100 FPS Horizons. High settings at 4K drop to 109 FPS average, which is still playable but with less margin for demanding scenes.

Q: How does the combo's performance at 1440p compare to 1080p?

A: At 1440p High, the average FPS is 176, which is 70 FPS lower than 1080p High (246 FPS). At 1440p Low, the average is 262 FPS, which is 104 FPS lower than 1080p Low (366 FPS). The percentage drop is consistent across settings, indicating a predictable scaling pattern.

Q: Does the RTX 4070 Ti have enough VRAM for 4K in this game?

A: The GPU has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory. The measured 4K results show that the card can handle the game at all settings, including Ultra, without falling below playable frame rates. The 12 GB capacity appears sufficient for Downfall's requirements at 4K, as the lowest average FPS (68 at Ultra) is still above 60 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti combination ranks 486th out of 3716 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the top 13% of all configurations. This ranking is based on measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings in the benchmark database.

This rank is notable because it puts this combo ahead of the vast majority of tested systems, but it is not in the top tier. The data indicates that higher-ranked combos likely feature more powerful GPUs, as the CPU is already near the top of its class. The i9-14900K itself ranks in the 95th percentile of all CPUs based on average benchmark scores, with an average score of 79097. Meanwhile, the RTX 4070 Ti ranks in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 44795.

The gap between the CPU's percentile (95th) and the GPU's percentile (84th) suggests that the GPU is the more limiting factor in this combo. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-14900KF, which scores 79371 (0.3% higher), and the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, which scores 79574 (0.6% higher). The AMD EPYC 7413 scores 80041, which is 1.2% higher, while the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 scores 77740, which is 1.7% lower. These small deltas indicate that the i9-14900K is essentially tied with its closest competitors in synthetic benchmarks.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals show a similar pattern. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile scores 45152 (0.8% higher), the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT scores 45384 (1.3% higher), and the Intel Arc A730M scores 45592 (1.7% higher). The NVIDIA RTX A6000 scores 44075, which is 1.6% lower. These tight margins mean that the RTX 4070 Ti's rank of 486th is highly sensitive to small performance differences in the game, and a faster GPU would likely push this combo much higher in the ranking.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). Here is the complete breakdown:

1920x1080:

• Low: 366 FPS average
• Medium: 300 FPS average, 255 FPS minimum, 345 FPS maximum
• High: 246 FPS average
• Ultra: 154 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 262 FPS average
• Medium: 214 FPS average, 182 FPS minimum, 246 FPS maximum
• High: 176 FPS average
• Ultra: 110 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 163 FPS average
• Medium: 133 FPS average, 113 FPS minimum, 153 FPS maximum
• High: 109 FPS average
• Ultra: 68 FPS average

The Medium settings data includes minimum and maximum FPS values, which provide insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the range spans from 255 to 345 FPS, a 90 FPS spread. At 1440p Medium, the range narrows to 182 to 246 FPS, a 64 FPS spread. At 4K Medium, the range is 113 to 153 FPS, a 40 FPS spread. This narrowing range at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is working more consistently as it becomes the bottleneck, whereas at lower resolutions, CPU-driven frame time variance can cause larger swings.

The Ultra settings show the most dramatic drop-off. From 1080p Ultra (154 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (110 FPS), there is a 44 FPS reduction. From 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra (68 FPS), there is a 42 FPS reduction. The consistency of these absolute drops (around 40-44 FPS per resolution step) suggests that the game's Ultra settings impose a fixed additional cost per pixel count, and the GPU's scaling is linear in this range.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using the AD104 chip fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It has 7680 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. The GPU also features 60 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores, which support DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 APIs.

Memory configuration is critical for resolution scaling. The card has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). The base clock is 2310 MHz, with a boost clock of 2610 MHz. The GPU's pixel rate is 208.8 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 626.4 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 40.09 TFLOPS.

In Downfall, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p, the CPU can push the GPU to produce frame rates above 246 FPS at High settings, indicating that the GPU is not fully saturated. At 4K, however, the GPU's raw throughput becomes the limiting factor. The 12 GB VRAM appears sufficient for all settings at 4K, as the card does not experience a catastrophic drop that would indicate memory swapping. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth also seems adequate, as the scaling from 1440p to 4K is consistent with pixel count increases.

The GPU's benchmark scores support its mid-to-high-end positioning. It scores 31624 in Passmark G3D, 176953 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 213808 in Geekbench Vulkan. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 5024. These scores place it in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, which aligns with its measured performance in Downfall. The nearest rival scores (RTX 5090 Mobile at 45152, Radeon Pro 5500 XT at 45384) are within 1.7% of the RTX 4070 Ti's average score of 44795, indicating that this GPU is in a tightly contested performance band.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, specifically the Raptor Lake-R refresh. It has a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, with ECC memory support. It has 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The process node is 10 nm, with a die size of 257 mm².

The CPU's benchmark performance is exceptional. It scores 39399.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2262.5 in single-core. The Geekbench scores are 21697 multi-core and 2655 single-core. In Passmark, it scores 58674 in multi-thread, 4697 in single-thread, and 3140 in physics. The avgBenchmarkScore is 79097, placing it in the 95th percentile of all CPUs.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p and low settings, where the combo achieves 366 FPS average. This high frame rate indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU with enough data to maintain very high throughput. The 6.00 GHz boost clock is particularly relevant for single-threaded game logic, which is common in horror titles that may rely on a few heavily loaded threads. The 32 threads provide ample parallel processing capacity for background tasks, but the game's performance is likely more dependent on the high single-core clock than the thread count.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are all within 1.7% of its score, confirming that the i9-14900K is at the top of the desktop CPU hierarchy. The Intel Core i9-14900KF (79371, 0.3% higher) and Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus (79574, 0.6% higher) are essentially performance equivalents)Skip the fluff — this means the CPU is not a differentiator in Downfall's frame rates. Instead, it provides a stable platform that allows the RTX 4070 Ti to reach its full potential, especially at 1440p and 4K where the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The data shows that at 4K, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is 95 FPS (163 to 68), which is entirely attributable to GPU load rather than CPU limitations. This indicates that the i9-14900K has sufficient headroom to avoid becoming a limiting factor even at the lowest settings and highest resolutions.