Downfall

Downfall is a 2016 horror title, and pairing it with an Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 produces one of the more interesting matchups in the benchmark database: a mobile-class Meteor Lake CPU feeding a full desktop Blackwell GPU. The measured data shows the game runs comfortably at every resolution and settings tier tested, with average framerates ranging from 42 FPS at 4K Ultra up to 223 FPS at 1080p Low. This page breaks down exactly where those numbers land, what each component contributes, and where the bottlenecks appear.

How This Combo Ranks

Across the full database of tested hardware combinations in Downfall, the Core Ultra 7 165H + RTX 5070 pairing sits at rank 2058 out of 3716 combos. That places it just past the midpoint of the field — better than roughly 1660 of the tested configurations, but behind about 1658 others. For a pairing built around a mobile-segment processor, holding a middle-of-the-pack rank in a 3716-combo field is a reasonable outcome.

Context matters here. The Core Ultra 7 165H itself ranks in the 84th percentile versus all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 34083. Its nearest rivals by aggregate score are the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H (average score 33989, a delta of 0.3 percent), the AMD EPYC 4244P (34220, -0.4 percent), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (34222, -0.4 percent), and the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (34260, -0.5 percent). In other words, the CPU sits in a tight cluster of processors whose overall performance is essentially indistinguishable by aggregate score — the 165H is marginally ahead of the 338H and marginally behind the other three.

The GPU side is stronger in relative terms. The RTX 5070 ranks in the 82nd percentile versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40377. Its aggregate-level rivals are an unusual set: the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (40318, delta of 0.1 percent), the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40063, 0.8 percent), the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (40870, -1.2 percent), and the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (39568, 2 percent). These deltas reflect database-wide average scores across mixed workloads, not gaming head-to-heads — the RTX 5070's modern architecture and feature set are better represented by its game-specific results, which are detailed below.

The takeaway from the combo rank: in Downfall specifically, the pairing lands mid-pack, and the data suggests the CPU is the component capping how high this combination can climb. That conclusion is developed in the resolution scaling section.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070 is built on NVIDIA's Blackwell 2.0 architecture, manufactured by TSMC on a 5 nm process. The GB205 chip packs 31,100 million transistors into a 263 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 118.3 million transistors per square millimetre. That density is what allows the card to carry 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, 80 render output units, 48 RT cores, and 192 tensor cores on a single die.

The raw throughput figures translate directly into Downfall's results. The card delivers 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 compute (with FP16 running at a 1:1 ratio for the same 30.87 TFLOPS), a pixel fill rate of 201.0 GPixel/s, and a texture fill rate of 482.3 GTexel/s. Downfall, as a 2016 horror game, does not come close to saturating these numbers at lower resolutions — which is why 1080p Low reaches 223 FPS. At 4K, where pixel throughput demand is roughly four times higher than 1080p, the card still delivers 66 FPS on High settings, indicating substantial pixel-pushing headroom even at the heaviest resolution tested.

Memory is a key enabler. The RTX 5070 carries 12 GB of GDDR7 on a 192-bit bus, running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) for a total bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s. That bandwidth figure is why the 4K results hold up as well as they do: at 3840x2160, framebuffer traffic is at its heaviest, and the card's memory subsystem keeps the Medium preset at 81 FPS average with a minimum of 69 and a maximum of 93 — a tight frame band that points to consistent frame delivery rather than sporadic stutter. For a 2016 title, 12 GB of VRAM is more than the game's assets can plausibly demand, so VRAM is not a limiting factor at any tested setting.

Clock speeds are 2325 MHz base and 2512 MHz boost. In a game of this age, the GPU will spend most of its time at or near boost clocks because the shader and geometry load is light; the limiting factors at high framerates become the CPU's ability to issue draw calls and the game engine's own frame logic.

Supporting benchmarks reinforce the card's standing: a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5077, Geekbench OpenCL at 172660, Geekbench Vulkan at 178923, and a PassMark G3D score of 29137. The card also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6, so Downfall's rendering path is fully covered. It connects over PCIe 5.0 x16, so interface bandwidth is a non-issue.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Downfall at 4K?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160, the measured averages are 99 FPS on Low, 81 FPS on Medium, 66 FPS on High, and 42 FPS on Ultra. High settings at 4K hold above 60 FPS; Ultra dips below that threshold.

Q: What is the highest framerate this combo reaches in Downfall?

A: 223 FPS average, at 1920x1080 on Low settings. The 1080p Medium preset follows at 182 FPS average, with a maximum recorded frame of 210 FPS.

Q: How stable are the framerates?

A: The most complete frame-band data comes from the Medium preset: 155–210 FPS at 1080p, 111–150 FPS at 1440p, and 69–93 FPS at 4K. In each case the spread between minimum and maximum is moderate, indicating consistent frame delivery.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the bottleneck in this pairing?

A: At lower resolutions the data points to the CPU. From 1080p to 1440p, framerates drop only modestly (223 to 159 on Low, 182 to 130 on Medium), which means the GPU was not fully utilised at 1080p — the processor was holding it back. At 4K the drops steepen and the GPU becomes the limiter.

Q: How strong is the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H compared to other CPUs?

A: It ranks in the 84th percentile versus all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 34083. Its closest rivals — the Core Ultra 5 338H, EPYC 4244P, Ryzen AI 7 350, and Ryzen 7 3700X — all sit within half a percent of its aggregate score.

Q: Is this CPU a desktop or mobile part?

A: It is a mobile-segment processor. It uses the Intel BGA 2049 socket, carries a 28 W TDP, has an unlocked multiplier of no (it is not unlocked), and includes Arc Xe-LPG 128EU integrated graphics. Pairing it with a desktop RTX 5070 is an unusual configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures below are measured average framerates from the database; data is measured, not estimated.

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 223 FPS average
• Medium: 182 FPS average (minimum 155, maximum 210)
• High: 149 FPS average
• Ultra: 93 FPS average

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 159 FPS average
• Medium: 130 FPS average (minimum 111, maximum 150)
• High: 107 FPS average
• Ultra: 67 FPS average

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 99 FPS average
• Medium: 81 FPS average (minimum 69, maximum 93)
• High: 66 FPS average
• Ultra: 42 FPS average

The pattern is consistent at every resolution: each step up the settings ladder costs roughly 15 to 30 percent of the average framerate, and the Ultra preset is where the largest single drop occurs. At 1080p, going from High to Ultra costs 56 FPS — the steepest settings penalty at any resolution. At 1440p the High-to-Ultra drop is 40 FPS, and at 4K it is 24 FPS.

Practical reading: 1080p at any preset is comfortably playable, including Ultra at 93 FPS. At 1440p, every preset clears 60 FPS, with Ultra landing at 67. At 4K, Low, Medium, and High all exceed 60 FPS, but Ultra at 42 FPS falls short of a smooth 60 — players targeting 4K should drop to High, which retains 66 FPS.

The Medium preset has the richest data, and it tells the clearest story about frame consistency. The 4K Medium band of 69 to 93 FPS means the worst measured frame still ran faster than the Ultra preset's average, which is a useful reference point when choosing settings.

Resolution Scaling

Comparing the three resolutions at the Medium preset: 182 FPS at 1080p, 130 FPS at 1440p, and 81 FPS at 4K. That is a drop of roughly 28 percent moving from 1080p to 1440p, and roughly 38 percent moving from 1440p to 4K — a total decline of about 55 percent from 1080p to 4K.

Here is why that shape matters. If the RTX 5070 were the sole limiting component, the framerate decline from 1080p to 1440p would be closer to the pixel-count increase, which is substantial. Instead, 1080p framerates sit well below what the GPU alone could deliver — 223 FPS at 1080p Low against 159 FPS at 1440p Low is only a modest decline despite the much heavier pixel load. That signature is classic CPU limiting: at 1080p, the Core Ultra 7 165H caps the framerate before the GPU runs out of capacity, so raising the resolution costs relatively little.

The picture flips at 4K. The Medium preset loses 49 FPS between 1440p and 4K — the largest single-resolution drop in the dataset at any preset — and the High preset loses 41 FPS over the same span. At 4K the GPU is doing the limiting, with the 192-bit bus and 672.0 GB/s of GDDR7 bandwidth absorbing the framebuffer pressure while fill rates of 201.0 GPixel/s and 482.3 GTexel/s handle the pixel and texture load.

The practical conclusion for a builder: there is little reason to run this combo at 1080p in Downfall. The framerates at 1080p are CPU-capped, so the extra GPU capacity is wasted. At 1440p the pairing delivers the best balance — High settings at 107 FPS with headroom to spare — and 4K High at 66 FPS is entirely viable for a horror title where consistent pacing matters more than raw speed.

CPU Role

The Core Ultra 7 165H is a 16-core, 22-thread Meteor Lake processor on Intel's 7 nm process, released in December 2023. It runs a 3.80 GHz base clock with a 5.00 GHz boost, carries 112 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 24 MB slab of L3. Memory support is DDR5 over a dual-channel bus delivering 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth, and the chip offers PCIe Gen 5 with 8 lanes from the CPU. Its launch MSRP was $460.

For Downfall, single-threaded responsiveness matters more than thread count — horror games of this era typically lean on a few fast cores rather than wide parallelism. The 165H's single-core results are respectable: 257 in Cinebench R15 single-core, 1303 in R20, and 1759 in R23. Its PassMark single-thread score of 3509 is the number most relevant to the 1080p results, where the CPU is demonstrably the limiter: 223 FPS at Low and 182 FPS at Medium represent the ceiling this processor imposes before the RTX 5070 reaches full utilisation.

Multi-threaded muscle is present if the game or background tasks want it. The chip scores 2641 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, 9233 in R20, and 14551 in R23, with a PassMark multithread score of 25933. Individual PassMark sub-scores include 291161 in data compression, 17169 in encryption, 17299 in extended instructions, 118 in find-prime-numbers, 66273 in floating point math, 89415 in integer math, 1806 in physics, and 33473 in random string sorting. None of these are directly exercised by Downfall, but they confirm the processor's 84th-percentile standing is broad-based rather than carried by one workload.

Two caveats shape the CPU's role in this combo. First, the 28 W TDP means sustained boost behaviour is thermally constrained in a way desktop parts are not — relevant when the game pushes high framerates that keep the processor continuously loaded. Second, the CPU provides only 8 PCIe Gen 5 lanes, while the RTX 5070 uses a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface; Downfall is not a demanding enough title for interface bandwidth to matter, but it is a structural quirk of pairing a mobile CPU with a desktop GPU.

In short: the Core Ultra 7 165H is fast enough to keep Downfall smooth at every tested setting and resolution, and its mid-pack combo rank of 2058 out of 3716 reflects a solid CPU paired with a GPU that is underutilised below 1440p. Run this game at 1440p High or 4K High to put the RTX 5070 where it belongs: in front.