Doom

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for Doom with the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 shows a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and playability. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 79.5 FPS average, which is a strong balance for smooth gameplay while retaining more detail than Low. Dropping to Low at 1080p yields 91.8 FPS, a 15.5% improvement over Medium, but the visual cost is substantial. High at 1080p produces 69.5 FPS, still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, making it a viable option for those prioritizing image quality over headroom. Ultra at 1080p falls to 56.2 FPS, dipping below the ideal refresh point for fast-paced FPS action.

At 2560x1440, the picture changes. Low settings produce 61.1 FPS, which is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. Medium drops to 51.2 FPS, and High falls to 43 FPS. Ultra at 1440p is effectively unplayable at 34.6 FPS. For 4K, even Low settings only reach 32.7 FPS, while Medium and High are 30.2 and 23 FPS respectively, and Ultra bottoms out at 19.7 FPS. The data indicates that the best experience for most users is 1080p Medium or High, depending on whether frame rate or visual detail takes precedence. For competitive play, 1080p Low offers the highest measured average, but the difference over Medium is modest enough that the latter is the recommended starting point.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the primary constraint in this combination, and its specifications explain the measured results. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1485 MHz with a boost of 1665 MHz, and it carries 896 shading units. The FP32 throughput is 2.984 TFLOPS, which is modest by modern standards. The GPU sits at the 43rd percentile among all GPUs in the database, indicating it is below average in raw compute capability. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Quadro P2200, which scores 0.5% higher, and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100, which is 0.5% lower, placing this card in a tightly packed mid-low tier.

In Doom, the GPU's limited memory bandwidth and 4 GB VRAM become evident at higher resolutions. The 4K results show a steep decline, with High settings at 23 FPS and Ultra at 19.7 FPS, suggesting the card cannot feed enough pixels to maintain playable rates. The VRAM capacity is not the sole issue, as the game is from 2016 and likely fits within 4 GB at most settings, but the 128.1 GB/s bandwidth struggles with 3840x2160. At 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom to push 69.5 FPS on High, but the jump to 1440p costs roughly 38% of that performance (43 FPS). This pattern points to the GTX 1650 as the limiting component, especially when compared to the CPU's relative strength.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks 1619th out of 1681 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the bottom 4% of all configurations. This is a low position, driven almost entirely by the GPU's modest performance. The CPU itself is far more capable: the Ryzen 5 3600 sits at the 76th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18129. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-11400, scores 18150, a difference of only -0.1%, meaning the two are effectively tied in synthetic tests. The AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS is 0.2% ahead, while the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 is 0.2% behind. This indicates the processor is not the bottleneck in most scenarios.

The GPU, however, is a different story. With an average benchmark score of 8713, the GTX 1650's nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile, is only 0.4% faster, and the AMD Radeon 550X is 0.4% slower. The large gap between the CPU's high percentile (76) and the GPU's low percentile (43) confirms that the graphics card drags down the overall combo ranking. In Doom, which is a well-optimized engine, the CPU can easily feed the GPU, but the GTX 1650 cannot translate that into high frame rates at demanding settings. The rank of 1619 out of 1681 reflects this imbalance, showing that pairing a mid-range CPU with an entry-level GPU yields a system that is CPU-heavy but GPU-limited in this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings presets, providing a full picture of performance. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 91.8 FPS, which is the highest recorded average for this combo. Medium drops to 79.5 FPS, a 13.4% reduction from Low. High produces 69.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 56.2 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 35.6 FPS, showing that the GTX 1650 has a wide performance range at 1080p. For users with a 60 Hz display, High is the maximum playable setting, while those with 144 Hz panels would need to stick with Low or Medium.

At 2560x1440, Low achieves 61.1 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS mark. Medium yields 51.2 FPS, a 16.2% drop from Low. High falls to 43 FPS, and Ultra is 34.6 FPS. The step from High to Ultra at 1440p costs 8.4 FPS, while the step from Low to Medium costs 9.9 FPS. This suggests that the GPU's pixel throughput is the limiting factor, as each preset increase reduces the frame rate by roughly 10-20%. At 3840x2160, the results are consistently below playable levels. Low is 32.7 FPS, Medium is 30.2 FPS, High is 23 FPS, and Ultra is 19.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is only 2.5 FPS, indicating that the card is saturated and further settings changes have diminishing returns.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals the limiting component. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings reduces the average from 69.5 FPS to 43 FPS, a 38.1% decrease. At Medium, the drop is from 79.5 to 51.2 FPS, a 35.6% reduction. Low settings see a smaller relative drop, from 91.8 to 61.1 FPS, a 33.4% decrease. These percentages are consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the workload scales with pixel count but the CPU has ample headroom. The Ryzen 5 3600, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is more than sufficient for Doom's engine, which is known for being efficiently threaded.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is even more punishing. At High, 43 FPS at 1440p falls to 23 FPS at 4K, a 46.5% drop. At Ultra, the decline is from 34.6 to 19.7 FPS, a 43.1% reduction. These figures indicate that the GTX 1650's 128.1 GB/s bandwidth and 2.984 TFLOPS of compute are simply insufficient for 4K rendering. The data strongly suggests that the GPU is the sole bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the CPU's performance would not degrade with resolution in a measurable way. For the best experience, 1080p is the only resolution where this combo can maintain consistently high frame rates, and even then, Ultra settings push the card to its limits. The scaling pattern confirms that users should prioritize resolution over settings, as dropping from 4K to 1080p at the same preset yields a 200% or greater FPS increase, while adjusting settings at 4K has minimal impact.