Downfall

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured frame rates for Downfall with the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT show a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combination produces 229 FPS, which drops to 164 FPS at 1440p and further to 102 FPS at 4K. That represents a 55.5% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, a substantial hit that indicates the GPU is becoming increasingly stressed as pixel count grows.

Moving to Medium settings, the same pattern emerges but with slightly different magnitudes. The 1080p Medium result is 187 FPS, falling to 134 FPS at 1440p and 83 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 55.6%, nearly identical to the Low setting scaling, which suggests the game's rendering load scales almost linearly with resolution at these preset levels. At High settings, the numbers are 154 FPS at 1080p, 110 FPS at 1440p, and 68 FPS at 4K — a 55.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K.

Ultra settings tell a more dramatic story. At 1080p, the system manages 96 FPS, which drops to 69 FPS at 1440p and 43 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-4K decline here is 55.2%, consistent with the other presets. This consistency across all four settings levels is telling: the percentage drop from 1080p to 4K remains tightly clustered between 55.2% and 55.8% regardless of quality preset. That uniformity strongly suggests the frame rate scaling is dominated by the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth limits rather than CPU-side bottlenecks.

The fact that even at Low settings, where the CPU would theoretically have more headroom, the 4K result still falls to 102 FPS indicates the RX 6700 XT is the limiting component at higher resolutions. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the 1080p results to show a plateau where increasing resolution yields minimal FPS changes until the GPU becomes saturated. Instead, the steady, proportional decline across all resolutions points to a system where GPU load is the primary constraint even at the lowest quality preset.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is a RDNA 2.0 architecture part built on a 7 nm process, featuring 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus. Its memory bandwidth is rated at 384.0 GB/s, with memory clocks running at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). The GPU has a base clock of 2321 MHz, a boost clock of 2581 MHz, and a game clock of 2424 MHz. With 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, the card delivers 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 compute.

The 12 GB VRAM capacity is relevant for Downfall at 4K with Ultra settings, where the measured average FPS falls to 43. While the game's VRAM usage isn't directly measured in the data, the steep performance cliff between High (68 FPS) and Ultra (43 FPS) at 4K suggests the Ultra preset may be pushing memory capacity or bandwidth limits. The 384.0 GB/s bandwidth, while respectable for this GPU class, appears to be a constraint at 4K Ultra — the 55%+ FPS drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets aligns with a memory-bandwidth-bound scenario.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 72 places it above most GPUs, and its nearest rival comparisons show it essentially tied with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile (deltaPct 0%) and within 0.5% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090. The RX 6700 XT's average benchmark score of 27425 situates it in a competitive mid-to-high range, but the 4K Ultra result of 43 FPS indicates that Downfall's most demanding settings exceed what this card can comfortably deliver at maximum resolution.

Notably, the GPU's pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s are fixed hardware characteristics. At 4K, the number of pixels being processed quadruples compared to 1080p, and the measured FPS scaling suggests the card's ROP and texture throughput are being taxed heavily. The 64 ROPs, while adequate for 1080p and 1440p, appear to become a limiting factor at 4K with higher quality settings.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh codename, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The processor features a substantial cache hierarchy: 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s.

The CPU's benchmark results are impressive. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and single-core score of 7303 place it in the top tier of desktop processors. Its PassMark multithread score of 60860 and single-thread score of 4823 reinforce this positioning. The processor's percentile versus all CPUs is 96, meaning it outperforms 96% of all CPUs in the benchmark database.

When compared to its nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus shows a 0.2% advantage over the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, a 1.1% lead over the AMD EPYC 4584PX, and a 1.2% edge over the AMD EPYC 9135. Interestingly, it trails the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3%. These margins are small, indicating that the 290K Plus sits at the very top of CPU performance charts.

In the context of Downfall, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 229 FPS, which is high enough that the CPU's single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303) is likely sufficient to feed the GPU without bottlenecking. The 24 cores and 24 threads provide ample multi-threaded capacity for any game engine background tasks, but horror games like Downfall rarely scale across more than a few cores.

The CPU's 5.80 GHz boost clock is particularly relevant for maintaining high frame rates at 1080p, where CPU-bound scenarios are more likely. The measured 229 FPS at 1080p Low suggests the CPU has enough headroom to push frame rates well above typical display refresh rates. However, the consistent 55% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K indicates that even this powerful CPU cannot compensate for the GPU's resolution scaling limitations.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combination?

A: The data shows 1080p provides the highest frame rates across all settings, with Low achieving 229 FPS, Medium 187 FPS, High 154 FPS, and Ultra 96 FPS. At 1440p, the same settings yield 164, 134, 110, and 69 FPS respectively, which remains playable for most scenarios.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Downfall?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K, Low settings deliver 102 FPS, Medium 83 FPS, and High 68 FPS, all of which are playable. However, Ultra settings at 4K drop to 43 FPS, which may feel less smooth in a horror game requiring quick reactions.

Q: How does the RX 6700 XT compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RX 6700 XT has an average benchmark score of 27425, which is essentially identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile (deltaPct 0%). It trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 by 0.5% and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 by 1.5%, while leading the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell by 1.1%.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck in this game?

A: The data suggests not. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus ranks in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731. The consistent FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicates the GPU is the limiting component rather than the CPU.

Q: What is the difference between Medium and High settings?

A: At 1080p, High delivers 154 FPS versus 187 FPS for Medium, a 33 FPS difference. At 1440p, the gap narrows to 24 FPS (110 vs 134). At 4K, the difference is 15 FPS (68 vs 83). Higher resolutions reduce the performance penalty of High settings relative to Medium.

Q: Are the measured FPS numbers consistent across resolutions?

A: Yes, the percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is remarkably consistent: 55.5% at Low, 55.6% at Medium, 55.8% at High, and 55.2% at Ultra. This uniformity indicates predictable scaling behavior.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its best performance. Low settings achieve an average of 229 FPS. Medium settings yield 187 FPS, with a minimum of 159 FPS and a maximum of 215 FPS. High settings produce 154 FPS on average. Ultra settings drop to 96 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 133 FPS, showing a substantial performance cost for maximum quality.

At 2560x1440, performance scales down proportionally. Low settings average 164 FPS. Medium settings average 134 FPS, with minimum and maximum values of 114 FPS and 154 FPS respectively. High settings deliver 110 FPS. Ultra settings fall to 69 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 1440p narrows to 95 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the system operates at its most constrained. Low settings average 102 FPS. Medium settings average 83 FPS, with a minimum of 71 FPS and a maximum of 96 FPS. High settings produce 68 FPS. Ultra settings drop to 43 FPS. The spread here is 59 FPS, indicating that at 4K, the range between quality presets becomes tighter in absolute terms.

Looking at the Medium settings across resolutions provides a clear picture of scaling: 187 FPS at 1080p, 134 FPS at 1440p, and 83 FPS at 4K. Each resolution step up (1080p to 1440p represents a 1.78x pixel increase, 1440p to 4K is another 2.25x) costs roughly 28-38% of the previous frame rate. The High settings show a similar pattern: 154, 110, and 68 FPS.

The Ultra preset is the most demanding. At 1080p, 96 FPS is just above the 90 FPS threshold often considered smooth for fast-paced games. At 1440p, 69 FPS is still playable. At 4K, 43 FPS is borderline for a horror game where smooth camera movement matters for atmosphere.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Given the measured data, the optimal settings depend heavily on the target resolution and the user's frame rate preferences. For users with 1080p displays, the High preset at 154 FPS offers an excellent balance between visual quality and performance. The jump from High to Ultra costs 58 FPS (154 to 96), which is a 37.7% performance penalty for what is typically a modest visual improvement in most games. Medium at 187 FPS is even faster but may sacrifice too much visual fidelity for the extra 33 FPS.

At 1440p, the High preset at 110 FPS is the recommended choice. It stays above the 100 FPS threshold that most gamers consider smooth, while Medium at 134 FPS offers a safety margin for those who prioritize frame rate stability. Ultra at 69 FPS is still playable but approaches the range where frame pacing issues become noticeable in horror games with dark scenes and sudden movements. Low at 164 FPS is excessive for most displays and unnecessary unless the user has a very high refresh rate monitor.

For 4K users, the data presents a clearer recommendation. Medium at 83 FPS is the best choice for maintaining playability while preserving some visual quality. High at 68 FPS is also viable but drops below the 70 FPS mark that many consider the floor for comfortable gameplay. Ultra at 43 FPS is not recommended, as it falls below the 60 FPS baseline that most hardware reviewers consider the minimum for a smooth experience. Low at 102 FPS is the only preset that exceeds 100 FPS at 4K, but the visual compromise may be too severe for a horror game that relies on atmosphere and lighting.

The Medium preset across all resolutions shows the most consistent minimum frame rates. The measured minimums of 159 FPS at 1080p, 114 FPS at 1440p, and 71 FPS at 4K indicate this setting provides stable frame delivery without severe drops. This is particularly important in Downfall, where sudden visual effects and scene transitions could otherwise cause noticeable stutter. Users seeking the safest experience across varying scene complexity should consider Medium settings as their default, with the option to raise to High if their display refresh rate allows.