Doom

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER delivers a compelling 1080p experience in Doom, but the data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 198.7 FPS, while the Low preset reaches 235.1 FPS, a spread of 36.4 FPS. This relatively narrow gap between settings indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is the primary limiting factor; the GPU has enough headroom to render even the heaviest settings without significant frame loss, but the processor cannot push frame rates much beyond the 235 FPS ceiling. Moving to 2560x1440, the Ultra preset drops to 135.3 FPS, while Low maintains 200.8 FPS. The delta between settings widens to 65.5 FPS, signaling a transition toward GPU limitation, though the CPU still exerts influence at the lower settings. At 3840x2160, the pattern inverts decisively: Ultra yields 77.1 FPS, High 92.4 FPS, Medium 108.8 FPS, and Low 122.1 FPS. The 45 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is almost entirely GPU-driven, as the rendering workload scales with resolution and the CPU becomes less relevant. The data shows a classic diminishing-returns curve: from 1080p Low to 4K Low, frame rates fall by 113 FPS, whereas from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra, the drop is 121.6 FPS, confirming that the RTX 4070 SUPER is the dominant component at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 2000 series, built on the Zen architecture (specifically Zen+ Pinnacle Ridge) using a 12 nm process. Its base clock is 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 3.90 GHz, and it supports DDR4 memory over a dual-channel bus with 46.9 GB/s bandwidth. In Doom, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p, where the difference between Low (235.1 FPS) and Ultra (198.7 FPS) is only 36.4 FPS. This modest spread suggests the processor is saturating its single-thread performance; even with lower graphical settings reducing GPU load, the frame rate cannot exceed approximately 235 FPS. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1579 and multi-core score of 11186 place it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, but its PassMark single-thread score of 2239 reveals the limitation: Doom is a game that responds strongly to per-core performance, and the 2600’s 3.90 GHz boost clock is insufficient to fully feed the RTX 4070 SUPER at 1080p. At 1440p, the CPU still matters for the Low preset (200.8 FPS), but the Ultra preset (135.3 FPS) shows the GPU beginning to take over. By 4K, the CPU’s influence is minimal; even the Low preset (122.1 FPS) is well below the 1080p ceiling, indicating that the GPU is now the sole bottleneck. The processor’s 16 MB shared L3 cache and 12 threads do not appear to create any frame pacing issues, as no min FPS data is available to suggest stutter, but the overall trend is clear: the 2600 is a capable mid-range CPU that limits this combo to sub-240 FPS at 1080p.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is a 40-series GPU based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It features 7168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 ROPs, with 56 ray tracing cores and 224 tensor cores. Its memory subsystem consists of 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s clocks are 1980 MHz base and 2475 MHz boost, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). In Doom, the GPU’s dominance becomes apparent at 1440p and 4K. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset (135.3 FPS) is 30.2% slower than High (165.7 FPS), and the gap between Low (200.8 FPS) and Medium (192.1 FPS) is relatively small, indicating that the GPU is scaling with settings as expected. At 3840x2160, the GPU is definitively the limiting component: Ultra (77.1 FPS) is 36.9% slower than High (92.4 FPS), and even Low (122.1 FPS) cannot exceed the 1080p Low figure by any margin, proving the GPU is fully saturated. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for the 12 GB frame buffer at 4K, as the data shows no anomalous drop between Medium (108.8 FPS) and High (92.4 FPS) that would suggest memory capacity issues. The GPU’s PassMark G3D score of 29995 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4627 place it in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A6000, is only 0.2% ahead in average benchmark score. This performance headroom is what allows the combo to maintain playable frame rates at 4K, though the 77.1 FPS Ultra result indicates that max settings at 4K are borderline for a 60 Hz display.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER achieves a combo rank of 497 out of 1681 tested combinations in Doom. This places it in the 70.4th percentile of all combos, meaning it outperforms roughly 70% of tested systems. The rank is notable because the CPU is a 2018 release (launch MSRP $199) while the GPU is a 2024 release (launch MSRP 599 USD), creating a generation gap that typically favors the newer component. The data shows the combo is not bottlenecked by the CPU at 4K, where the GPU’s 77.1 FPS Ultra result drives the ranking. However, the 1080p results (198.7 FPS Ultra) are likely held back by the CPU, as the RTX 4070 SUPER’s raw compute (35.48 TFLOPS FP32) could theoretically push higher frame rates if paired with a stronger processor. The rank of 497 suggests that many combos with newer CPUs achieve higher 1080p scores, but the combo still outperforms the majority of systems due to the GPU’s strength. The nearest CPU rivals in average benchmark score—Intel Core i5-1345U (-0.4%), AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (+0.6%), Intel Core i5-11600KF (-0.6%), and Intel Core i7-10700F (+0.7%)—all fall within 1% of the 2600’s average score, indicating that the CPU’s performance class is well understood. The GPU’s nearest rivals, including the RTX A6000 (-0.2%) and Radeon RX 7650 GRE (-0.3%), are similarly close, but the combo’s rank is determined by the interaction of both components. In Doom, the data indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER is the primary driver of the combo’s ranking, as the CPU’s limitations are only exposed at 1080p, where the rank would be lower than at 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p Ultra settings for this combo?

A: The measured average frame rate at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 198.7 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at 4K resolutions?

A: No. At 3840x2160, the difference between Low (122.1 FPS) and Ultra (77.1 FPS) is 45 FPS, and the frame rates are well below the 1080p ceiling, indicating the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested systems in Doom?

A: The combo ranks 497 out of 1681 tested combinations, which places it in the 70.4th percentile of all tested combos.

Q: What is the largest FPS drop from 1080p to 4K for this combo?

A: The largest drop is observed at Ultra settings, where the frame rate falls from 198.7 FPS at 1080p to 77.1 FPS at 4K, a decrease of 121.6 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU’s single-core performance a limiting factor in this game?

A: Yes. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1579 and the PassMark single-thread score of 2239, combined with the small 36.4 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p, indicate the CPU limits frame rates at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory bandwidth and how does it affect 4K performance?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER has 504.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth with 12 GB of GDDR6X. This bandwidth is sufficient for 4K, as the data shows a consistent scaling from Medium (108.8 FPS) to High (92.4 FPS) without any capacity-related anomalies.