Doom

Settings Recommendations

For DOOM (2016), the measured data across three resolutions and four quality presets shows a clear pattern: the Medium preset delivers the most balanced experience, offering substantial visual quality while maintaining frame rates far beyond display refresh capabilities. At 1920x1080, Medium produces 396 FPS average, which is 63 FPS higher than High and 37 FPS lower than Low, but the min FPS of 336 ensures consistent frame delivery even during intense combat sequences. The Ultra preset, while visually superior, drops to 273 FPS at 1080p — still exceptionally smooth, but the 123 FPS gap between Medium and Ultra suggests diminishing returns for the added GPU load.

At 2560x1440, Medium again emerges as the optimal choice with 256 FPS average and a 218 FPS minimum. This represents a 40 FPS improvement over High's 216 FPS and a 79 FPS advantage over Ultra's 177 FPS. The Low preset reaches 294 FPS but sacrifices visual fidelity for headroom that most displays cannot utilize. For 4K gaming at 3840x2160, the situation tightens: Medium produces 139 FPS average with 118 FPS minimum, while High reaches 117 FPS and Ultra falls to 96 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K maintains frame rates above 120 FPS average, which is the threshold for high-refresh 4K displays.

The data indicates that Medium is the sweet spot across all resolutions because it provides the best trade-off between visual quality and frame rate stability. The minimum FPS figures recorded for Medium — 336 at 1080p, 218 at 1440p, and 118 at 4K — are all above the 100 FPS threshold that defines fluid first-person shooter gameplay. While Ultra presets offer higher texture quality and shadow detail, the performance cost is disproportionate: at 4K, Ultra's 96 FPS average is 31% lower than Medium's 139 FPS. Conversely, Low presets deliver marginal gains over Medium (37 FPS at 1080p, 38 FPS at 1440p, 20 FPS at 4K) that do not justify the significant visual downgrade.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves a combo rank of 65 out of 3,712 tested combinations in DOOM. This places the pairing in the top 1.8% of all tested configurations, reflecting the exceptional performance ceiling of this hardware combination. The percentile positioning is particularly impressive given the game's release in May 2016, predating both the CPU (September 2022) and GPU (January 2025) by several years — yet the modern hardware still delivers frame rates that would have been unthinkable at the game's launch.

The RTX 5090 alone sits in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79,842. Its nearest rivals in aggregate GPU benchmarks include the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605, 0.3% behind), Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396, 0.6% behind), and AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940, 1.1% behind). The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X scores 80,959, which is 1.4% higher, but this does not translate to superior gaming performance in DOOM given the architectural differences.

The Ryzen 5 7600X sits in the 79th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27,636. Its nearest rivals show remarkably tight competition: the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and Intel Core i5-12600K both score 27,578 (0.2% behind), while the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE scores 27,712 (0.3% ahead) and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 scores 27,535 (0.4% behind). This clustering indicates that the CPU's single-threaded and multi-threaded performance are well-balanced for gaming workloads, where the 6-core/12-thread configuration with Zen 4 architecture provides sufficient processing power to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 5090.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 brings substantial memory resources to DOOM, featuring 32 GB of GDDR7 memory across a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is dramatically overprovisioned for a 2016 title, as DOOM's texture requirements are modest by modern standards. The GPU's clock speeds — 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost — combined with 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output units, provide the raw computational throughput that drives the measured frame rates.

The RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are far beyond what DOOM requires, which explains why the game runs at such high frame rates even at 4K Ultra settings. The GPU's 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores are largely idle in this title, as DOOM does not utilize ray tracing or DLSS — the game relies on traditional rasterization techniques. This means the RTX 5090's modern architecture is only partially utilized, with the rasterization pipeline being the primary beneficiary.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its dominance: the PassMark G3D score of 39,650 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 indicate exceptional DirectX 12 performance, which aligns with DOOM's Vulkan and OpenGL rendering paths. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 334,370 and Vulkan score of 376,728 further demonstrate the card's compute capabilities. However, the PassMark DirectX 9 score of 395, DirectX 10 score of 226, and DirectX 11 score of 341 suggest that older API performance is less optimized — though DOOM's Vulkan support bypasses these legacy paths.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5090 delivers exceptional performance across all settings. The Low preset achieves 433 FPS average, representing the absolute ceiling of the GPU's rasterization capability at this resolution. Medium produces 396 FPS average (336 min, 455 max), High reaches 334 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 273 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a performance degradation of 160 FPS (37%), with each preset step costing between 38 and 62 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain extremely high but show the expected resolution penalty. Low yields 294 FPS, Medium 256 FPS (218 min, 295 max), High 216 FPS, and Ultra 177 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra is 117 FPS (40%), with the step from Medium to High costing 40 FPS and from High to Ultra costing 39 FPS. This linear degradation pattern suggests the GPU is still not fully saturated, as the scaling between presets remains consistent.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens. Low produces 159 FPS, Medium 139 FPS (118 min, 160 max), High 117 FPS, and Ultra 96 FPS. The resolution jump from 1440p to 4K costs approximately 45-50% of frame rate at each preset level: Low drops from 294 to 159 (46% reduction), Medium from 256 to 139 (46%), High from 216 to 117 (46%), and Ultra from 177 to 96 (46%). This uniform scaling indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, while at lower resolutions the CPU becomes increasingly relevant.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 1440p to 4K reveals critical information about system balance. At 1080p Medium, the system produces 396 FPS, dropping to 256 FPS at 1440p (35% reduction) and 139 FPS at 4K (46% reduction from 1440p, 65% from 1080p). These scaling ratios are close to theoretical expectations for pixel count increases: 1440p has 1.78x the pixels of 1080p, and 4K has 2.25x the pixels of 1440p. The observed reductions of 35% and 46% respectively are slightly less than the pixel ratios would predict, suggesting the system has some headroom even at the highest resolution.

The Low preset shows similar scaling: 433 FPS at 1080p, 294 FPS at 1440p (32% reduction), and 159 FPS at 4K (46% reduction from 1440p, 63% from 1080p). The Ultra preset demonstrates the steepest scaling curve: 273 FPS at 1080p, 177 FPS at 1440p (35% reduction), and 96 FPS at 4K (46% reduction from 1440p, 65% from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage reductions across presets — approximately 35% for the 1080p to 1440p jump and 46% for the 1440p to 4K jump — indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at all settings.

This scaling behavior has important implications. At 1080p, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads may begin to limit frame rates, as evidenced by the relatively smaller performance gains from Low to Medium (37 FPS) compared to the GPU's raw capability. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, with even the most demanding preset still achieving nearly 100 FPS. The uniform scaling across presets at each resolution confirms that neither component is disproportionately limiting at any configuration, though the 4K results most heavily tax the GPU's 32 GB memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in DOOM?

A: The 2560x1440 Medium preset offers the best balance, delivering 256 FPS average with 218 FPS minimum. This resolution provides ample headroom above 144 Hz displays while maintaining visual quality, and the 4K Medium preset at 139 FPS remains viable for high-refresh 4K monitors.

Q: How does the RTX 5090's memory configuration impact DOOM performance?

A: The 32 GB GDDR7 memory with 512-bit bus and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth far exceeds DOOM's requirements, ensuring no texture streaming or memory bandwidth bottlenecks at any resolution or preset. The memory subsystem contributes to the consistent frame delivery observed in the minimum FPS figures.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 7600X sufficient for this GPU in DOOM?

A: Yes. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads with 4.70 GHz base and 5.30 GHz boost clocks provide ample processing power. The 79th percentile CPU ranking and close competition with rivals (0.2-0.4% differences) indicate that gaming performance is not CPU-limited in this title.

Q: Why is the Ultra preset not recommended despite the powerful hardware?

A: At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 96, which is below the 100 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Even at 1080p Ultra, the 273 FPS average represents a 123 FPS reduction from Medium, with no min FPS data to confirm stability. The visual improvements do not justify the performance cost.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 65th out of 3,712 tested combos, placing it in the top 1.8% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the high percentile scores of both components: the GPU at 92nd percentile and CPU at 79th percentile.

Q: Does the game utilize the RTX 5090's ray tracing or tensor cores?

A: No, DOOM does not support ray tracing or DLSS. The game relies on traditional rasterization, meaning the RTX 5090's 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores are not utilized. Performance is driven by the GPU's 21,760 shading units and 176 ROPs.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X provides the processing foundation for this high-performance combination. Its 6 cores and 12 threads operate at a base clock of 4.70 GHz, boosting to 5.30 GHz, which places it in the 79th percentile among all CPUs. The Zen 4 architecture on TSMC's 5 nm process node includes 32 MB of shared L3 cache, 1 MB L2 per core, and 64 KB L1 per core, totaling 6,570 million transistors on a 71 mm² die. This cache hierarchy is well-suited for gaming workloads, where memory latency and data locality are critical.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate balanced performance: Cinebench R23 scores of 15,236 multi-core and 1,965 single-core, Geekbench scores of 13,858 multi-core and 2,603 single-core, and a PassMark multi-thread score of 28,390 with a single-thread score of 4,135. The 3DMark scores show scaling from 1,060 single-thread to 6,879 at 16 threads, indicating efficient thread utilization across the 6-core/12-thread configuration. The PassMark physics score of 1,824 and floating point math score of 51,025 are particularly relevant for game physics calculations.

In DOOM specifically, the CPU's role becomes more pronounced at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the system achieves 396 FPS at Medium settings, which approaches the CPU's practical frame delivery ceiling for this architecture. The Ryzen 5 7600X's nearest rivals — the Ryzen 7 5700X and Core i5-12600K at 0.2% behind, and the Ryzen 5 8500GE at 0.3% ahead — all show similar gaming performance characteristics. The CPU's 105 W TDP and DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth ensure that memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor, even at the high frame rates measured in this title.

The CPU's PCIe Gen 5 support with 24 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the RTX 5090's PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, ensuring no data transfer bottlenecks between components. The integrated Radeon Graphics remain unused in this configuration, with the discrete GPU handling all rendering tasks. Overall, the Ryzen 5 7600X provides sufficient processing power to keep the RTX 5090 fully utilized across all tested resolutions and settings, with the GPU becoming the primary bottleneck only at 4K Ultra settings.