Doom

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X paired with the Intel Arc B390 presents a severely GPU-limited configuration in Doom, with performance falling into the lowest percentile of tested hardware. The benchmark data shows a system where the processor’s substantial compute resources are largely wasted, as the integrated graphics solution becomes the decisive bottleneck at every resolution and quality setting. The measured frame rates indicate that this combination is only viable for lower-resolution gaming at reduced settings, and even then, it struggles to maintain high refresh rates.

Resolution Scaling

The performance degradation from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At 1080p with High settings, the system produces an average of 78 FPS, but this drops to 51 FPS at 1440p and further plummets to 28 FPS at 4K. This scaling pattern—a 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 45% reduction from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the rendering pipeline is saturated by the graphics workload rather than the CPU. The Arc B390’s modest 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 60.00 GPixel/s pixel rate simply cannot keep pace with the increasing pixel count.

The data becomes even more telling when examining the Low preset. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 107 FPS, which is a comfortable playable level. However, at 4K Low, the average falls to 37 FPS—a 65% performance loss from the 1080p figure. This steep decline underscores that even minimal graphical fidelity cannot overcome the raw pixel throughput limitations at 4K. The 24 ROPs and 48 TMUs on the Arc B390 are the primary constraint, as the memory bandwidth is system-dependent and shared with the CPU, further exacerbating the bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Comparing the scaling between settings at each resolution reveals that the GPU is the limiting component across the board. At 1440p, the jump from Low (69 FPS) to Ultra (41 FPS) represents a 40% performance penalty, while at 4K, the same settings transition yields a 41% drop (37 FPS to 22 FPS). This consistent percentage loss regardless of resolution indicates that the GPU’s compute and fillrate capabilities are exhausted uniformly; the CPU is never given the chance to become a limiting factor. The Ryzen 5 7600X, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is clearly capable of feeding the GPU, as evidenced by its strong synthetic scores, but the Arc B390’s 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs means it will always be the performance ceiling.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel’s 3 nm process. Its performance class is unambiguously low-end, as its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 places it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. The nearest rivals in the benchmark database are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463, delta 1.3%), GeForce 800M (1460, delta 1.5%), GT 625 OEM (1446, delta 2.5%), and GT 710 (1443, delta 2.7%). This puts the Arc B390 just marginally ahead of decade-old entry-level discrete graphics, which is a critical context for understanding Doom’s performance.

The GPU’s clock behavior does little to compensate for its architectural limitations. The base clock of 300 MHz is extremely conservative, while the boost clock of 2500 MHz represents a significant potential uplift. However, the sustained boost performance in a real workload like Doom is evidently insufficient to maintain high frame rates. The 1536 shading units and 12 ray tracing cores are present, but the 24 ROPs create a hard limit on pixel output, which is why the 4K results are so poor.

The memory subsystem is perhaps the most consequential weakness. With system-shared memory and system-dependent bandwidth, the GPU competes with the CPU for DDR5 bandwidth. The Ryzen 5 7600X supports dual-channel DDR5 with a theoretical 83.2 GB/s bandwidth, but the integrated GPU must share this pool. In Doom, which is a fast-paced FPS requiring constant texture streaming and geometry processing, this shared bandwidth creates additional latency and throughput reductions that are reflected in the frame rate drops.

The data shows that the Arc B390’s 4K performance is effectively non-playable for competitive gaming, with an average of 28 FPS at High settings. Even at Low settings, the 37 FPS average at 4K is below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider smooth. The GPU’s 9th percentile ranking confirms that this is a fundamental hardware limitation, not a driver or optimization issue. For Doom specifically, the GPU is the sole determinant of performance, and the CPU’s capabilities are irrelevant to the outcome.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Doom at 4K with acceptable performance?

A: No. The measured data shows a maximum average of 37 FPS at 4K with Low settings, dropping to 22 FPS at Ultra. These frame rates are well below the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay, indicating that 4K is not a viable resolution for this configuration.

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combination?

A: The 1080p resolution provides the only playable results, with averages ranging from 64 FPS at Ultra to 107 FPS at Low. The 1440p results are marginal, with the best average being 69 FPS at Low, while 4K results are universally sub-optimal.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its closest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, which is 1.3% higher than the GT 520MX, 1.5% higher than the GeForce 800M, 2.5% higher than the GT 625 OEM, and 2.7% higher than the GT 710. It is effectively in the same performance tier as these legacy entry-level GPUs.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 7600X the bottleneck in Doom?

A: No. The benchmark data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor at all resolutions and settings. The CPU’s strong synthetic scores, including a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15236 and a single-core score of 1965, indicate it has ample headroom that the GPU cannot utilize.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the average frame rate drops from 107 FPS on Low to 64 FPS on Ultra, a 40% reduction. This shows that the GPU’s limited fillrate and shading capabilities are heavily taxed by the higher-quality visual effects.

Q: Why does the 4K performance drop so significantly compared to 1080p?

A: The 4K resolution contains four times as many pixels as 1080p. The Arc B390’s 24 ROPs and 60.00 GPixel/s pixel rate are insufficient to process this increased workload, causing the average FPS to drop by 65% when moving from 1080p Low to 4K Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rate data for Doom is consistent across all resolutions, with the Low preset always delivering the highest average FPS, followed by Medium, High, and Ultra. At 1920x1080, the averages are 107 FPS (Low), 93 FPS (Medium), 78 FPS (High), and 64 FPS (Ultra). The Medium preset at this resolution shows a minimum of 79 FPS and a maximum of 107 FPS, indicating that the frame time variance is modest and the experience is relatively stable.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages decrease to 69 FPS (Low), 60 FPS (Medium), 51 FPS (High), and 41 FPS (Ultra). The Medium preset at 1440p has a minimum of 51 FPS and a maximum of 69 FPS, mirroring the exact range of the High preset’s average. This suggests that the GPU’s performance envelope is tightly constrained at this resolution, with the settings having a predictable impact on the output.

At 3840x2160, the averages fall to 37 FPS (Low), 33 FPS (Medium), 28 FPS (High), and 22 FPS (Ultra). The Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum of 28 FPS and a maximum of 37 FPS, which is a narrow band that reinforces the GPU’s inability to scale with increased resolution. The 4K results are uniformly below the threshold for smooth play, with even the best case scenario (Low) failing to reach 40 FPS.

The data reveals that the performance gap between settings shrinks as resolution increases. At 1080p, there is a 43 FPS difference between Low and Ultra. At 1440p, this gap narrows to 28 FPS. At 4K, it further reduces to 15 FPS. This convergence indicates that at higher resolutions, the GPU’s pixel throughput is the primary constraint, and the additional work required by higher-quality settings has less relative impact because the baseline fillrate is already saturated.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured performance data, the optimal settings for this configuration depend heavily on the target resolution. At 1080p, the Low preset provides the best experience with an average of 107 FPS, which is well-suited for fast-paced FPS gameplay. The Medium preset at 93 FPS is also a strong choice, offering a balance between visual fidelity and smoothness, with the minimum frame rate of 79 FPS ensuring that dips are not jarring.

For users who prioritize visual quality over raw frame rate at 1080p, the High preset at 78 FPS is acceptable, but the Ultra preset at 64 FPS begins to approach the lower bounds of comfortable playability. The data suggests that the Medium preset at 1080p is the sweet spot, as it delivers a 19% performance improvement over High while maintaining a minimum FPS that is above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more constrained. The Low preset at 69 FPS is the only option that consistently stays above 60 FPS, making it the recommended choice for this resolution. The Medium preset at 60 FPS is borderline, and the minimum of 51 FPS indicates that frame drops will be noticeable during intense combat sequences. The High and Ultra presets, at 51 FPS and 41 FPS respectively, are not recommended for competitive play.

At 4K, none of the settings provide a playable experience. The Low preset at 37 FPS and the Medium preset at 33 FPS are both below the minimum threshold for smooth gameplay, and the Ultra preset at 22 FPS is effectively a slideshow. For this resolution, the data strongly suggests that the user should either lower the resolution or upgrade the GPU, as no in-game settings adjustment can overcome the hardware limitation.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is a highly capable processor that is completely underutilized in this configuration. Its 6 cores and 12 threads, based on the Zen 4 architecture on a 5 nm process, provide substantial compute resources. The benchmark scores are impressive: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15236 and a single-core score of 1965, alongside a Geekbench multi-core score of 13858 and a single-core score of 2603. The 3DMark multi-threaded scores scale appropriately, from 2028 with 2 threads to 6845 with maximum threads, indicating good scalability.

The CPU’s clock speeds are also favorable, with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This high frequency is beneficial for gaming, as Doom is a title that can utilize multiple threads but still benefits from strong single-thread performance. The PassMark single-thread score of 4135 confirms that the CPU has excellent per-core performance, which is sufficient to feed even a more powerful GPU than the Arc B390.

However, the benchmark data for Doom shows that the CPU is never the limiting factor. The performance deltas between the Ryzen 5 7600X and its nearest rivals are minimal—0.2% ahead of the Ryzen 7 5700X and Intel Core i5-12600K, 0.4% ahead of the Ryzen 7 5800, and 0.3% behind the Ryzen 5 8500GE. These differences are within the margin of error and have no practical impact on gaming performance. The CPU’s 79th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms its capabilities, but the Arc B390’s 9th percentile ranking means the GPU will always be the performance bottleneck.

The 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data storage for game assets, and the 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth is more than sufficient for the CPU’s needs. In this system, the DDR5 memory bandwidth is shared with the integrated GPU, which can create contention, but the CPU’s workload in Doom is light enough that this does not manifest as a CPU-side bottleneck. The data conclusively shows that the Ryzen 5 7600X is a future-proof processor that is wasted on the Arc B390, and any performance upgrade would require a discrete GPU to unlock the CPU’s full potential.