Doom

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 delivers a robust 1080p and 1440p experience in Doom, with performance scaling predictably as resolution increases. The data shows a combination that is well-balanced for high-refresh-rate gaming, though the GPU becomes the primary constraint at 4K Ultra settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates indicate that the Ultra preset is the most demanding configuration, producing the lowest average FPS at every resolution tested. At 1920x1080, Ultra yields 178.6 FPS, while High, Medium, and Low presets deliver 217.9, 255.6, and 297 FPS respectively. This pattern holds across all resolutions, with Ultra consistently lagging behind the other presets by a significant margin.

For the best experience, the High preset represents the optimal balance between visual fidelity and performance. At 1440p, High produces 140.8 FPS, comfortably above the 117 FPS seen at Ultra. The gap widens considerably at 4K, where High achieves 75.3 FPS compared to Ultra’s 63.6 FPS. Given that High offers substantial image quality improvements over Medium while maintaining a healthy frame rate advantage, it is the recommended setting for this hardware combination.

The Low preset provides the highest frame rates—297 FPS at 1080p and 106.2 FPS at 4K—but sacrifices too much visual quality for the marginal gains over Medium. The Medium preset sits between the two extremes, offering 255.6 FPS at 1080p and 91.1 FPS at 4K. For competitive play where maximum frame rates are paramount, Low is viable, but for most users, High provides the superior overall experience without compromising the game’s visual presentation.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 9070 is the dominant component in this pairing, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s. The GPU’s architecture, RDNA 4.0 on a 4 nm process, includes 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units. With a boost clock of 2520 MHz and a game clock of 2070 MHz, the card’s raw compute capability is substantial.

The GPU’s role in Doom becomes evident when examining the frame rate deltas between settings. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 118.4 FPS (297 versus 178.6), indicating that the GPU is fully utilized as settings increase. The card’s pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s support these high frame rates, even at Ultra settings where the render load is heaviest.

At 4K, the GPU’s memory bandwidth and capacity become critical. The 16 GB frame buffer prevents any memory-related bottlenecks, and the 644.6 GB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming remains fluid. The measured 63.6 FPS at 4K Ultra demonstrates that the GPU is the limiting factor at this resolution, as the frame rate drops by over 50% compared to 1080p Ultra. The GPU’s benchmark scores, including a Passmark G3D score of 25381 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6290, corroborate its positioning as a high-end part capable of handling demanding titles.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 5500 provides 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. The CPU’s 16 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support contribute to its overall responsiveness. In Doom, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, but it must keep up with the game’s simulation and draw call processing.

The CPU’s benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16429 and a Passmark multithread score of 19330. Single-threaded performance is also respectable, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2319 and a Passmark single-thread score of 3058. These scores indicate that the CPU can feed the GPU adequately, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU is less taxed.

Evidence of the CPU’s adequacy appears in the 1080p results. At 1080p Low, the system produces 297 FPS, which is a high frame rate that requires the CPU to process frames quickly. If the CPU were a bottleneck, the frame rates at 1080p would plateau regardless of GPU capability. The fact that frame rates scale consistently from Low to Ultra at 1080p suggests that the CPU is not limiting performance in this title. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 79 versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20875, places it in the upper tier of processors, further supporting its capability in this pairing.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the Ryzen 5 5500 and Radeon RX 9070 ranks 566 out of 1681 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the upper third of all configurations. This ranking reflects the synergy between the two components, where the CPU’s solid multi-threaded performance complements the GPU’s high frame rate output.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores include the Intel Core i5-12500 with an average score of 20897 and a delta of -0.1%, indicating near-identical performance. Similarly, the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE scores 20900 with a -0.1% delta, while the AMD EPYC 7J13 scores 20845 with a 0.1% delta. These negligible differences suggest that the CPU’s contribution to the combo’s ranking is consistent with other mid-range processors.

On the GPU side, the Radeon RX 9070’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA A2 with an average score of 34866 and a delta of -0.2%, and the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 with a score of 34677 and a delta of 0.3%. The GPU’s percentile ranking of 79 places it among the top 21% of all GPUs, which is a strong indicator of its capability. The combo’s rank of 566 out of 1681 suggests that while the individual components are capable, the pairing does not reach the top tier of performance, likely due to the CPU’s mid-range positioning.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component at each resolution. At 1080p High, the system achieves 217.9 FPS. Moving to 1440p High reduces this to 140.8 FPS, a decrease of 77.1 FPS or 35.4%. At 4K High, the frame rate drops further to 75.3 FPS, a 65.5 FPS reduction from 1440p. This scaling pattern shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck as resolution increases, with the frame rate dropping by roughly half at each resolution step.

The Ultra preset exhibits a similar pattern. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 178.6 FPS, which drops to 117 FPS at 1440p and 63.6 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result represents a 64.4% reduction from 1080p Ultra, clearly indicating that the GPU’s rendering capabilities are the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The Low preset shows the steepest scaling curve, with 297 FPS at 1080p, 189.5 FPS at 1440p, and 106.2 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low result is still above 100 FPS, demonstrating that even at the lowest settings, the GPU’s workload at 4K is substantial. The consistent pattern across all presets—where frame rates drop by approximately 35-40% from 1080p to 1440p and then another 45-50% from 1440p to 4K—points to the GPU as the dominant performance limiter. The CPU’s influence is minimal at 1080p, as evidenced by the high frame rates, but it becomes increasingly irrelevant as resolution scales up and the GPU takes over the majority of the rendering burden.