Doom

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run Doom at 4K?

A: No. At 3840x2160, the measured average FPS falls below the 60 FPS playable threshold at every preset: 57 FPS on Low, 50 FPS on Medium, 42 FPS on High, and 35 FPS on Ultra. The verdictByResolution data lists no playable settings at this resolution.

Q: What is the best playable preset at 1440p?

A: Ultra. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 64 FPS, which clears the 60 FPS threshold. Lower presets also work — High averages 78 FPS, Medium 92 FPS, and Low 106 FPS — but Ultra is the most demanding setting that remains playable.

Q: How much FPS does the combo get at 1080p on Ultra?

A: 99 FPS average. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the measured average is 99 FPS, well above the 60 FPS playable threshold. This is the best settings/resolution combination in the measured data.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in Doom?

A: The data indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant factor, which points to the GPU as the primary constraint. Across all presets, dropping from 1080p to 1440p reduces FPS by roughly 30-40%, and moving from 1440p to 4K cuts FPS by roughly half again. The CPU, with a 96th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, is unlikely to be the limiting component in this older FPS title.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B570 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B570 has an average benchmark score of 20556, which is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, 0.1% slower), the Intel Arc A750 (20582, 0.1% faster), the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480, 0.4% slower), and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (20662, 0.5% faster). These are all within a 0.5% margin, so performance in Doom should be effectively the same across these GPUs.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested PC combinations for Doom?

A: This combo ranks 2987 out of 3712 tested combinations, placing it in the lower portion of the overall distribution. Despite this, the system still achieves playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p across all presets, including Ultra.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU performance data shows that the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus (average benchmark score 84003) is virtually tied with its nearest rivals. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K scores 83807, a mere 0.2% difference, making it the closest match. The AMD EPYC 4584PX (83090, 1.1% slower) and AMD EPYC 9135 (82980, 1.2% slower) are also within a couple of percentage points, while the AMD EPYC 7F72 (85072, 1.3% faster) sits slightly ahead. In Doom, any of these CPUs would produce nearly indistinguishable frame rates, since the game's engine is not heavily dependent on multi-core throughput at these performance levels.

On the GPU side, the Intel Arc B570 (average score 20556) has four rivals within a 0.5% performance band. The Intel Arc A750 (20582) is essentially a peer — 0.1% faster — and would deliver the same gameplay experience in Doom. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534) and NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480) are 0.1% and 0.4% slower respectively, while the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (20662) is 0.5% faster. For practical purposes, swapping the Arc B570 for any of these would yield nearly identical FPS numbers at every resolution and preset combination measured.

The significance of this tight grouping is that the system's playability profile — playable at 1080p and 1440p on all presets, unplayable at 4K — would remain unchanged with any of these alternative components. The 4K results are consistently 35-57 FPS across presets, meaning even the fastest rival GPU (R9 M390X, 0.5% ahead) would still fall short of the 60 FPS threshold at that resolution.

CPU and GPU Roles

The measured FPS data reveals how the balance between CPU and GPU shifts across resolutions in Doom. At 1920x1080, the system produces 164 FPS on Low, 143 FPS on Medium, 121 FPS on High, and 99 FPS on Ultra. These high frame rates suggest the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU adequately at this resolution, and the GPU is the limiting factor even at 1080p — the 65 FPS spread between Low and Ultra is purely a GPU workload difference.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates drop to 106 FPS on Low, 92 FPS on Medium, 78 FPS on High, and 64 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a consistent reduction of roughly 30-35% across all presets. This proportional drop indicates that the GPU is still the primary constraint — if the CPU were limiting, the gap between resolutions would narrow at higher settings as the GPU becomes more loaded.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes decisively. Low settings produce 57 FPS, Medium 50 FPS, High 42 FPS, and Ultra 35 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 22 FPS, and even the lowest preset fails to hit 60 FPS. The CPU, with a 96th percentile ranking and a single-thread Passmark score of 4823, has ample headroom; the Arc B570's 11.52 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 380.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are simply insufficient for 4K in this title.

The preset scaling within each resolution tells the same story. At 1080p, the drop from Low to Ultra is 65 FPS (164 to 99). At 1440p, it is 42 FPS (106 to 64). At 4K, it is 22 FPS (57 to 35). As resolution increases, the absolute FPS cost of each preset tier shrinks because the GPU is already saturated by pixel fill rate — a hallmark of GPU-bound performance. For this game and this combo, the GPU is the dominant component at all measured resolutions, and the CPU's role is largely to stay out of the way.

The Verdict

This PC can run Doom, but only up to 1440p. The verdictByResolution data lists no playable settings at 3840x2160 — every preset fails to reach the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440, all four presets (Low, Medium, High, and Ultra) are playable, with Ultra averaging 64 FPS. At 1920x1080, the system is comfortably playable on every preset, with Ultra hitting 99 FPS and Low reaching 164 FPS.

The practical takeaway is that 1440p Ultra is the ceiling for this combo — it clears 60 FPS by a slim 4 FPS margin, so 1440p High (78 FPS) provides more headroom if you prefer consistent frame times over visual fidelity. At 1080p, the system has plenty of performance for high-refresh monitors on any preset, with even Ultra delivering nearly 100 FPS.

For 4K, the answer is straightforward: do not attempt it. Even Low settings at 57 FPS fall short of the playable threshold, and the visual compromise of running at Low on a 4K panel is not worth the marginal frame rate gain. The Arc B570's 10 GB GDDR6 memory and 160-bit bus are the limiting factors here; the data shows this GPU simply cannot keep up with 8.3 million pixels in Doom.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the Intel Arc B570 ranks 2987 out of 3712 tested combinations for Doom. That places this system in the bottom 20% of all tested hardware combos — a low rank that might seem surprising given the 96th percentile CPU and the 65th percentile GPU standings. The rank reflects the specific demands of Doom's engine and the era of the game (released 2016-05-12), which does not heavily leverage modern multi-core CPUs or advanced GPU features.

The rank is dragged down primarily by the GPU's mid-range position. The Arc B570 sits at the 65th percentile among all GPUs, and in Doom, the GPU is the bottleneck at every resolution, as shown by the resolution scaling analysis. Meanwhile, the CPU's top-tier standing is largely irrelevant in this title — the game does not need 24 threads or a 5.80 GHz boost clock to achieve high frame rates.

In practical terms, the rank means that many other combos — particularly those with faster GPUs paired with mid-range CPUs — will outperform this system in Doom. However, the rank does not mean the system is unplayable; it simply reflects the relative performance distribution. The measured data shows this combo delivers smooth gameplay at 1080p and 1440p, which is the realistic use case for this hardware tier.

Best Settings per Resolution

3840x2160: No settings are playable. The best average FPS at this resolution is 57 on Low, 50 on Medium, 42 on High, and 35 on Ultra — all below the 60 FPS threshold. The verdictByResolution data confirms no playable settings exist, so there is no recommended preset.

2560x1440: Ultra is the most demanding playable preset, averaging 64 FPS. This clears the 60 FPS threshold by a narrow margin, so it is the recommended choice for maximum visual quality. If you prefer stability, High averages 78 FPS, Medium 92 FPS, and Low 106 FPS — all well above the threshold.

1920x1080: Ultra is the most demanding playable preset, averaging 99 FPS. This is the best combination of visual fidelity and performance in the measured data. High averages 121 FPS, Medium 143 FPS, and Low 164 FPS, so there is substantial headroom for high-refresh-rate displays even at Ultra.

For the best experience, 1080p Ultra (99 FPS) offers the highest frame rate at maximum quality, while 1440p Ultra (64 FPS) trades some smoothness for higher resolution. The 4K resolution should be avoided entirely, as no preset reaches the 60 FPS playable threshold.