Downfall

FAQ

Q: What is the overall performance rank of this CPU and GPU combination in Downfall?

A: The combo of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7600 ranks 2008 out of 2928 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K's score of 83807, and 1.1% higher than the AMD EPYC 4584PX's score of 83090.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7600 sits in the 57th percentile among all GPUs, indicating it performs better than a slight majority of cards but is not a top-tier performer.

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved at 1080p in Downfall?

A: The highest average FPS recorded at 1920x1080 is 192 FPS, achieved with Low settings. The Medium preset delivers 157 FPS, while High produces 129 FPS and Ultra drops to 80 FPS.

Q: How much VRAM does the RX 7600 have, and what memory type does it use?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7600 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s.

Q: What is the boost clock speed of the GPU and how does it relate to performance?

A: The RX 7600 has a boost clock of 2655 MHz and a game clock of 2250 MHz. The gap between these clocks suggests the card can sustain high frequencies during gaming, which helps maintain frame rates in Downfall's demanding horror environments.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 serves as the primary rendering engine in this combo, and its specifications directly shape the measured frame rates. The card's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a modest figure by modern standards. In Downfall, a horror game that relies on dark, texture-heavy scenes, this bandwidth becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions where memory pressure increases.

The GPU's clock speeds tell a story of headroom. The base clock runs at 1720 MHz, but the game clock of 2250 MHz and boost clock of 2655 MHz show that the card is designed to ramp up aggressively under load. The data reflects this: at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 192 FPS, indicating the GPU can stretch its legs when pixel count is low. However, the gap between Low and Ultra at each resolution reveals how quickly the card's resources get consumed.

At 4K Ultra, the average FPS collapses to 36, which is barely playable. This 81% drop from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra suggests the GPU's 8 GB frame buffer and 128-bit memory interface become severe bottlenecks when pixel throughput quadruples. The card's pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s are respectable for mid-range hardware, but they cannot compensate for the memory bandwidth ceiling.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its mid-range positioning. A Passmark G3D score of 16634 places it in the 57th percentile among all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM (scoring 15199, 0.2% higher) and the AMD Radeon Pro 560X (scoring 15082, 0.6% lower). This means the RX 7600 is essentially trading blows with entry-level cards from previous generations, which explains why it struggles to maintain high frame rates at demanding settings in Downfall.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of resolution scaling that points to the GPU as the dominant limiting component. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 129 to 92, a 29% reduction. Scaling further to 3840x2160 at High, the FPS falls to 57, representing a 56% drop from the 1080p baseline. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU that is running out of memory bandwidth and shading capacity as pixel count increases.

The pattern holds across all settings. At Low, the 1080p score of 192 FPS drops to 137 at 1440p and then to 85 at 4K — a 56% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At Medium, the numbers go from 157 to 112 to 70, a 55% drop. At Ultra, 80 FPS at 1080p falls to 57 at 1440p and 36 at 4K, a 55% decline. The consistency of this ~55% penalty from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicates that the resolution scaling is largely independent of graphical complexity, which is a hallmark of a GPU-bound scenario.

Interestingly, the CPU does not appear to be the limiting factor in this scaling. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has 24 cores and 24 threads with a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, and its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 places it in the 96th percentile among all CPUs. A processor this powerful should easily feed the RX 7600 at any resolution. The data confirms this: if the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences between resolutions, but the steep drops indicate the GPU is saturated.

The implication is that players seeking higher frame rates in Downfall should prioritize reducing resolution over lowering settings. The 1440p Medium result of 112 FPS is 27% higher than the 4K Low result of 85 FPS, despite Medium settings being more demanding. This suggests that resolution has a larger impact on performance than quality presets for this GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce an average of 192 FPS, Medium yields 157 FPS with a minimum of 133 and maximum of 180, High reaches 129 FPS, and Ultra drops to 80 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 112 FPS, showing that settings have a massive impact at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the averages scale down proportionally. Low hits 137 FPS, Medium produces 112 FPS with a range of 95 to 129, High achieves 92 FPS, and Ultra settles at 57 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 80 FPS, indicating that both resolution and settings are consuming GPU resources.

At 3840x2160, the card begins to struggle. Low still manages 85 FPS, Medium produces 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 and maximum of 80, High drops to 57 FPS, and Ultra falls to 36 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread is 49 FPS, and the Ultra result is the only one that dips below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay.

The Medium preset at each resolution consistently sits roughly 20% below Low and roughly 20% above High, suggesting a balanced progression of graphical demands. The minimum FPS data points, available only for Medium settings, show that frame pacing is stable: at 1080p the minimum of 133 FPS is 85% of the average, at 1440p the minimum of 95 FPS is 85% of the average, and at 4K the minimum of 59 FPS is 84% of the average. This consistency indicates that the GPU does not experience sudden spikes in rendering time, which is important for a horror game where erratic frame times can break immersion.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is an extraordinarily powerful processor that far exceeds the demands of Downfall. With 24 cores and 24 threads, a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, this CPU belongs to the Core Ultra Series 2 and uses the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture on a 3 nm process from TSMC. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 and single-core score of 7303 place it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, and its Passmark multithread score of 60860 confirms its dominance in heavily threaded workloads.

In the context of Downfall, however, this CPU is massively overqualified. The game, released in 2016, likely does not utilize 24 threads effectively, and the measured FPS data shows that the GPU becomes the bottleneck at virtually every resolution and setting. At 1080p Low, the 192 FPS result could theoretically be limited by the CPU's single-thread performance, but the 5.80 GHz boost clock and 736 Cinebench R15 single-core score suggest there is ample headroom.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are all server-class or high-end desktop parts. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K scores 83807 on average (0.2% lower), the AMD EPYC 4584PX scores 83090 (1.1% lower), and the AMD EPYC 9135 scores 82980 (1.2% lower). Only the AMD EPYC 7F72 scores higher at 85072, representing a 1.3% advantage. This places the 290K Plus at the very top of consumer CPU performance, making it an unlikely source of frame rate limitations in a game like Downfall.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 and its PCIe Gen 5 support with 20 lanes provide ample data transfer capacity for the RX 7600's 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth. Even with the GPU connected via PCIe 4.0 x8, the CPU can feed data faster than the GPU can consume it. The 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache further reduce memory latency, ensuring that the CPU never stalls waiting for data.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 157 FPS with a minimum of 133, which is well above any playability threshold and only 18% below the Low preset's 192 FPS. At 1440p, Medium produces 112 FPS with a minimum of 95, maintaining smooth gameplay while providing significantly better visuals than Low's 137 FPS. At 4K, Medium achieves 70 FPS with a minimum of 59, which is the only preset besides Low that stays above 60 FPS average at this resolution.

The High preset is a viable alternative for players who prioritize visual fidelity over raw frame rates. It delivers 129 FPS at 1080p, 92 FPS at 1440p, and 57 FPS at 4K. The 4K result dips just below the 60 FPS threshold, but the consistent frame pacing shown in the Medium data suggests that High would likely maintain playable frame times even if the average is slightly lower.

Ultra settings should be avoided at 4K, where the average of 36 FPS is likely to feel sluggish in a horror game that relies on sudden movements and quick reactions. At 1440p, Ultra's 57 FPS is borderline playable, but the 29% performance penalty compared to High is not justified by the marginal visual improvements. At 1080p, Ultra's 80 FPS is acceptable, but players with high refresh rate monitors would benefit more from Medium's 157 FPS.

For the best experience, the data suggests using Medium at 1440p, which delivers 112 FPS and preserves the game's atmospheric details while maintaining a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS baseline. Players with 4K displays should use Medium at 70 FPS or drop to Low at 85 FPS if they require higher frame rates. The Low preset, despite its name, still provides a playable experience at all resolutions and may be preferable for competitive play where frame rate is paramount.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7600 combination ranks 2008 out of 2928 tested combos in Downfall, placing it in the 31st percentile of all combinations. This rank is surprisingly low given the CPU's top-tier status, which underscores how heavily the GPU holds back the overall result. The CPU's 96th percentile standing among all CPUs contrasts sharply with the GPU's 57th percentile, creating a significant imbalance in this pairing.

The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks provide context for its performance ceiling. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM scores 15199 on average, which is 0.2% higher than the RX 7600's 15171 average, while the AMD Radeon Pro 560X scores 15082, 0.6% lower. The fact that the RX 7600 trades blows with these older or lower-tier cards explains why it cannot push the combo higher in the rankings despite the CPU's immense power.

The CPU's nearest rivals, on the other hand, are all high-end parts. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, AMD EPYC 4584PX, and AMD EPYC 9135 all score within 1.2% of the 290K Plus, while the AMD EPYC 7F72 is 1.3% faster. This clustering at the top of the CPU hierarchy means that swapping to a slightly weaker processor would have virtually no impact on Downfall's performance, since the GPU remains the limiting factor.

The rank of 2008 out of 2928 suggests that most other tested combos achieve better performance in Downfall, likely due to having more balanced GPU-CPU pairings. The data implies that this combo would benefit from a more powerful GPU, such as one with higher memory bandwidth or a wider memory bus, to take advantage of the CPU's untapped potential. Alternatively, players could overclock the RX 7600 — the card's boost clock of 2655 MHz and the CPU's unlocked multiplier suggest both components have headroom — but the fundamental memory bandwidth limitation of 288.0 GB/s would remain a constraint.