Downfall

FAQ

Q: What is the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K's position against its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core Ultra 7 265K posts an average benchmark score of 79,102, placing it nearly level with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF (79,240, -0.2%) and the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79,245, -0.2%). It sits slightly behind the Intel Core i9-14900K (79,824, -0.9%) and the AMD EPYC 7413 (80,041, -1.2%).

Q: How does the Radeon RX 9070 XT compare to its closest GPU rivals in aggregate performance?

A: The RX 9070 XT achieves an average benchmark score of 39,647. It is effectively tied with the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (39,703, -0.1%) and the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (39,568, 0.2%). The AMD Radeon Pro 575X (39,836, -0.5%) and AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (39,879, -0.6%) are marginally ahead.

Q: What is the best performance result for this combo in Downfall at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS recorded is 140.7 FPS on Low settings. The High preset yields 93.7 FPS, Medium yields 112.7 FPS, and the demanding Ultra preset drops to 56.1 FPS.

Q: How much performance does the combo lose when moving from 1080p to 4K on High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 High, the combo delivers 208.1 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 High drops that to 149.3 FPS, and at 3840x2160 High it falls to 93.7 FPS. This represents a 55% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K on the same preset.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested configurations?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT ranks 467th out of 1,741 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the top 27% of all configurations.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU appear to be the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The CPU's strong multi-core throughput (50,009 in Cinebench R23) and the GPU's 16 GB VRAM buffer suggest the system is balanced, but the steep FPS decline from 1080p to 4K on identical settings points to GPU-bound rendering at high pixel counts.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the central component driving Downfall's visual output. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a 644.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is sufficient to handle the game's texture-heavy horror environments without stutter. The GPU's base clock sits at 1660 MHz, with a game clock of 2400 MHz and a boost clock reaching 2970 MHz. These clock speeds allow the card to maintain high throughput, as reflected in its 48.66 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance.

In Downfall, the GPU's role is most evident in the scaling between presets. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset delivers 56.1 FPS, which is a dramatic drop from the Medium preset's 112.7 FPS. This 50% performance penalty for moving from Medium to Ultra highlights the GPU's raw processing limits under maximum graphical load. The card's 4 nm process node from TSMC, packing 53,900 million transistors, enables efficient execution of the game's shader workloads, but the 4096 shading units and 128 ROPs are clearly taxed at 4K Ultra.

The GPU's benchmark results further contextualize its role. A 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 7,260 and a Passmark G3D score of 26,795 indicate strong DirectX 12 performance, which is relevant for a 2016 horror title that relies on modern API features. The card's 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs suggests it is a high-tier part, but the measured FPS in Downfall shows that even this capable hardware struggles with the game's Ultra preset at 4K. The 56.1 FPS result at 4K Ultra is playable but below the 60 FPS threshold, whereas the 93.7 FPS at High demonstrates that dialing back one preset level yields a much smoother experience.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases. At 1920x1080, the combo produces 310.5 FPS on Low, 255.6 FPS on Medium, 208.1 FPS on High, and 130.6 FPS on Ultra. These numbers indicate that even at 1080p, the game is already pushing the GPU hard, as the gap between Low and Ultra is 180 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the same presets yield 221.5, 183.1, 149.3, and 91.6 FPS respectively. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at High settings is 58.8 FPS, a 28% reduction.

At 3840x2160, the trend accelerates. Low settings produce 140.7 FPS, Medium 112.7 FPS, High 93.7 FPS, and Ultra drops to 56.1 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at High is a 55.6 FPS loss, bringing the frame rate down to 93.7 FPS. The most telling metric is the 4K Ultra result of 56.1 FPS, which is less than half of the 1080p Ultra result of 130.6 FPS. This disproportionate drop at the highest resolution indicates that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors, rather than the CPU.

The resolution scaling data also suggests that the CPU has ample headroom. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 310.5 FPS, which is a frame rate that would typically expose CPU limitations in many titles. The fact that the Core Ultra 7 265K sustains this performance without bottlenecking suggests its 20 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient for Downfall's single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads. The game appears to be entirely GPU-bound above 1080p, with the 644.6 GB/s memory bandwidth of the RX 9070 XT being the key enabler for higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 467 out of 1,741 tested configurations places it in the 73rd percentile of all tested combos in Downfall. This is a strong result, though not a top-tier one. The ranking suggests that while this pairing is capable of delivering high frame rates, there are many other combinations that outperform it, particularly at lower resolutions where CPU or GPU differences become more pronounced.

The rank is influenced by the fact that the RX 9070 XT, despite its 82nd percentile standing among GPUs, faces stiff competition from higher-end cards. The CPU's 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates that the processor is not the weak link in this configuration. Instead, the GPU's 82nd percentile is the more likely constraint on the combo's overall rank. The measured FPS data supports this: at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 310.5 FPS, which is excellent, but at 4K Ultra, the 56.1 FPS result pulls the average down when compared to combos with more powerful GPUs.

The rank also reflects the game's age and optimization. Downfall, released in 2016, may not fully utilize modern hardware features like the RX 9070 XT's ray tracing cores or the CPU's efficiency cores. The combo's performance is likely limited by the game's engine rather than the hardware itself. Nevertheless, the 467th rank out of 1,741 combos indicates that this configuration is well above average, with roughly 73% of tested systems performing worse in this title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K brings substantial processing power to this configuration. With 20 cores and 20 threads, it offers a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, which is a significant frequency range for a desktop processor. The 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB L2 cache per core provide ample storage for frequently accessed data, reducing latency in game logic and physics calculations. The CPU's 125 W TDP and 3 nm process node from TSMC indicate a power-efficient design that does not compromise on performance.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU's strengths are clear. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 50,009 and single-core score of 7,060 demonstrate balanced performance across both heavily threaded and lightly threaded workloads. The Passmark multithread score of 58,838 and single-thread score of 4,904 confirm this balance. The CPU's 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs means it outperforms 97% of all processors in the database, making it a top-tier part for gaming and productivity alike.

In Downfall, the CPU's role is less critical than the GPU's, as evidenced by the resolution scaling data. The fact that frame rates at 1080p Low reach 310.5 FPS without any apparent CPU bottleneck suggests that the game's engine is not heavily reliant on multi-core processing. However, the CPU's high boost clock of 5.50 GHz ensures that single-threaded game logic runs smoothly, preventing any potential frame pacing issues. The 20-thread count also helps with background tasks and streaming, which can be relevant for a horror game that benefits from immersive audio and visual effects.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the Core Ultra 7 265KF (-0.2%), Core i9-14900KF (-0.2%), Core i9-14900K (-0.9%), and AMD EPYC 7413 (-1.2%). These deltas are all within 1.2% of the 265K's score, indicating that the CPU is not a differentiating factor in overall system performance. This is reflected in Downfall, where the 265K's strong scores translate into consistent frame delivery across all tested resolutions and presets, without becoming the limiting component.