Doom

# Doom — AMD Ryzen 5 5600X + AMD Radeon RX 9060

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 delivers a strong 1080p and 1440p experience in Doom (2016), with the data showing that the combo sits at rank 1686 out of 2930 tested configurations. The 6-core, 12-thread Zen 3 processor combined with the RDNA 4.0-based GPU provides a balanced platform where the GPU becomes the primary scaling bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the CPU's single-thread performance keeps frame rates high at lower settings.

FAQ

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

A: The measured average frame rate at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 127 FPS. This drops to 82 FPS at 2560x1440 and 45 FPS at 3840x2160, showing a clear performance degradation as resolution increases.

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to its nearest GPU rival?

A: The RX 9060 has an average benchmark score of 16014, which places it 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (score 16129) and 1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (score 15852). The GPU sits at the 59th percentile among all tested GPUs.

Q: What is the CPU's multi-threaded performance relative to its rivals?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600X scores 21771 on average benchmarks, placing it 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (21749) and 0.5% behind both the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U (21874) and Intel Core i7-11700 (21891). It achieves a 75th percentile ranking among all CPUs.

Q: Which resolution and settings combination yields the highest frame rate?

A: The highest measured average is 211 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The Medium preset at the same resolution achieves 184 FPS average with a minimum of 156 FPS and maximum of 212 FPS.

Q: Is the 8 GB VRAM sufficient across all tested settings?

A: The data shows playable frame rates at all four settings presets up to 1440p, with 4K Ultra being the only configuration that drops below 50 FPS average (45 FPS). The 8 GB GDDR6 memory with 288.0 GB/s bandwidth appears adequate for this game's tested workloads, as no setting shows a catastrophic frame rate collapse.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Doom?

A: The combination ranks 1686th out of 2930 total tested combos in Doom, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database. This ranking reflects the balanced but not top-tier nature of this hardware pairing.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with a Navi 44 chip, manufactured on a 4 nm process by TSMC. The GPU contains 29,700 million transistors across a 199 mm² die, with 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units. The 28 ray tracing cores provide hardware acceleration for DirectX 12 Ultimate features, though Doom's 2016 release relies primarily on traditional rasterization.

Clock speeds are substantial: the base clock runs at 1700 MHz, while the boost clock reaches 2990 MHz and the game clock is specified at 2400 MHz. The memory operates at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed across a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is the maximum capacity listed for this GPU, and the data shows it handles all tested settings without exhausting capacity in a way that would cause frame drops.

The GPU's pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s are directly relevant to Doom's rendering workload. The game's id Tech engine relies heavily on texture sampling and fill rate, and the measured results confirm that the RX 9060's raw throughput scales consistently with resolution changes. The FP32 compute capability of 21.43 TFLOPS (with FP16 at 1:1 ratio) provides ample processing headroom for the game's dynamic lighting and particle effects.

The GPU's benchmark profile shows a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3322, with Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores of 88183 and 39476 respectively. PassMark scores include 17631 for G3D and 9919 for GPU compute. These synthetic results place the RX 9060 at the 59th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16014. The nearest rival is the RTX 3060 Ti at 16129 (0.7% higher), while the R9 370X trails by 1% at 15862.

At 4K resolution, the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The measured frame rates show a steep drop from 74 FPS at Low settings to 45 FPS at Ultra, indicating that the 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 64 ROPs constrain performance when pixel count quadruples. The 191.4 GPixel/s pixel rate means the GPU can theoretically fill about 191 million pixels per second, and 4K Ultra demands more than the card can sustain at 60 FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture with the Vermeer codename. It operates from a 3.70 GHz base clock up to a 4.60 GHz boost clock, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU uses 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process, and it supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth.

Cache hierarchy is notable: 64 KB L1 per core, 512 KB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3 cache. This large L3 is particularly beneficial for games like Doom that have moderate working sets and benefit from lower latency memory access. The CPU's PCIe Gen 4 support with 20 lanes ensures the GPU has a high-bandwidth connection, though the RX 9060 uses PCIe 5.0 x16 interface.

Synthetic benchmarks show strong single-thread performance, which is critical for Doom's main game thread. The CPU scores 917 in 3DMark single-thread, 1793 in 2-thread, 3363 in 4-thread, 4811 in 8-thread, and 5588 in max-thread tests. Cinebench R23 results show 1541 single-core and 11838 multi-core, while Geekbench reports 1989 single-core and 9173 multi-core. PassMark scores include 3364 for single-thread, 21858 for multithread, 71161 for integer math, and 39487 for floating point math.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 21771 places it at the 75th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Ryzen 7 4800H, scores 21749 (0.1% lower), while the Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U scores 21874 (0.5% higher) and the Core i7-11700 scores 21891 (0.5% higher). This clustering indicates the 5600X sits at a performance plateau where minor architectural differences between rivals produce negligible real-world impact.

In Doom, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p Low settings, where the game reaches 211 FPS average. At this resolution and setting, the GPU is not fully saturated, and the CPU's 4.60 GHz boost clock with 32 MB L3 cache enables high frame delivery. The 12 threads help maintain consistent frame pacing, though Doom primarily uses fewer threads for its main simulation. The 3.70 GHz base clock ensures minimum performance levels even under sustained load.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The data provides measured frame rates across three resolutions and four settings presets, with average FPS recorded for all configurations and min/max values available for Medium settings at each resolution.

At 1920x1080, the results show a clear hierarchy. Low settings produce 211 FPS average, Medium yields 184 FPS (min 156, max 212), High achieves 155 FPS, and Ultra delivers 127 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 40% reduction in average frame rate, consistent with increasing rendering complexity. The Medium preset's max FPS of 212 exceeds the Low average, indicating the engine has headroom even at higher settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average frame rates drop proportionally. Low settings still deliver 137 FPS, Medium reaches 119 FPS (min 101, max 137), High manages 101 FPS, and Ultra falls to 82 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 40% at this resolution, suggesting the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor. The Medium preset's min FPS of 101 closely matches the High average, showing consistent performance across similar workload levels.

At 3840x2160, the data reveals the GPU's constraints. Low settings produce 74 FPS, Medium achieves 65 FPS (min 55, max 74), High drops to 54 FPS, and Ultra falls to 45 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra is 39%, similar to lower resolutions, but the absolute values indicate that 4K Ultra is the only configuration that fails to maintain 60 FPS. The Medium preset's min FPS of 55 shows occasional dips below smooth playability, while the max of 74 matches the Low average.

The Medium preset data across all resolutions shows consistent min/max ranges. At 1080p, the range spans 56 FPS (156 to 212); at 1440p, the range is 36 FPS (101 to 137); and at 4K, the range narrows to 19 FPS (55 to 74). This tightening range at higher resolutions indicates that GPU-bound scenarios produce more stable frame delivery, while CPU-bound situations at lower resolutions allow larger variance.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals how the workload shifts between CPU and GPU. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (211 FPS) to 2560x1440 (137 FPS) represents a 35% reduction, and further to 3840x2160 (74 FPS) is another 46% drop. The total scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low is 65% fewer frames, indicating that the GPU becomes progressively more saturated.

For Medium settings, the scaling is similar: 184 FPS at 1080p, 119 FPS at 1440p (35% lower), and 65 FPS at 4K (45% lower from 1440p). The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 65%, matching the Low setting pattern. High settings show 155 FPS at 1080p, 101 FPS at 1440p (35% lower), and 54 FPS at 4K (47% lower), totaling a 65% reduction. Ultra settings follow the same trend: 127 FPS at 1080p, 82 FPS at 1440p (35% lower), and 45 FPS at 4K (45% lower), with a 65% total reduction.

This consistent 65% reduction across all settings indicates that resolution scaling is purely GPU-bound. The 4K pixel count is 4 times that of 1080p, but the frame rate does not drop to 25% of the original, suggesting that the game's rendering workload does not scale linearly with pixel count — likely due to fixed-cost CPU work and memory bandwidth advantages at lower resolutions.

The limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU's single-thread performance (917 in 3DMark single-thread) keeps the GPU fed, as evidenced by the 211 FPS Low result. At 4K, the GPU's 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 191.4 GPixel/s pixel rate become the bottlenecks, with the Ultra preset's 45 FPS showing the card's ceiling. The 74 FPS at 4K Low indicates that the GPU can handle the resolution when shading complexity is reduced, but Ultra settings require more fill rate than the 64 ROPs can sustain.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience per the measured data, the Medium preset at 1440p offers the optimal balance of visual quality and performance. The 119 FPS average with a 101 FPS minimum ensures smooth gameplay, while the max of 137 FPS matches the Low preset's average at this resolution. This configuration provides a 45% frame rate improvement over High settings at the same resolution, with only a modest reduction in visual fidelity.

At 1080p, the High preset at 155 FPS is recommended for users with 144 Hz monitors, as it remains well above refresh rate thresholds while delivering superior visual quality compared to Medium. The Ultra preset at 127 FPS is also viable for 120 Hz displays, but the 18% performance hit over High may not justify the visual gains for competitive play. The Low preset's 211 FPS is unnecessary for most displays and sacrifices too much visual quality.

For 4K, the data shows that no preset achieves a consistent 60 FPS. The Medium preset's 65 FPS average with a 55 FPS minimum is borderline, while High at 54 FPS and Ultra at 45 FPS fall below smooth playability. Users targeting 4K should either accept the Low preset's 74 FPS or reduce render resolution to 1440p with higher settings. The Medium preset at 4K provides the best compromise if 60 FPS is not strictly required, as its min FPS of 55 rarely causes noticeable stutter.

The progression across settings shows diminishing returns at higher presets. At 1440p, the improvement from Ultra (82 FPS) to High (101 FPS) is 23%, while High to Medium (119 FPS) is 18%, and Medium to Low (137 FPS) is 15%. These diminishing gains suggest that High settings at 1440p offer the best visual-per-frame-rate value, while Ultra's additional effects consume disproportionate GPU resources.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X + AMD Radeon RX 9060 combination ranks 1686th out of 2930 tested combos in Doom, placing it at approximately the 57.5th percentile of all configurations. This ranking reflects the hardware's mid-tier positioning: the CPU sits at the 75th percentile among all processors, while the GPU is at the 59th percentile, and the combined result lands between these individual positions.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database are the Ryzen 7 4800H (0.1% higher score), Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U (0.5% higher), Core i7-11700 (0.5% higher), and EPYC 9554P (0.6% higher). These margins are within noise for most games, and Doom's performance is unlikely to differ meaningfully between these processors. The GPU's nearest rivals show similar clustering: the RTX 3060 Ti is 0.7% higher, while the R9 370X and RX 7700 are 1% lower, and the Pro W5500 is 2.1% lower.

The rank of 1686 out of 2930 indicates that this combo outperforms roughly 42% of tested configurations while being outperformed by the remaining 58%. This places it in a competitive middle ground where many alternative GPUs with similar compute capabilities exist. The measured frame rates at 1080p Ultra (127 FPS) and 1440p High (101 FPS) demonstrate that the combo handles Doom's demanding scenarios well, but the 4K Ultra result of 45 FPS shows that top-tier performance requires a more powerful GPU.

Given the CPU's 75th percentile ranking and the GPU's 59th percentile, the combo's in-game rank of 57.5th percentile suggests that Doom is slightly more GPU-bound than the synthetic benchmarks would indicate. The consistent frame rate scaling across settings supports this interpretation, as the GPU's fill rate and bandwidth constraints become the dominant factor at higher resolutions. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads provide sufficient processing power for Doom's engine, but the RX 9060's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus limit its ceiling in this title.