Doom

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a thoroughly playable experience in Doom, but the benchmark data reveals a clear shift in system bottleneck as resolution increases. At 1080p, the frame rates are exceptionally high, reaching 259.2 FPS on Low settings, which indicates that the CPU is doing the heavy lifting to feed frames to the GPU. As the resolution climbs to 1440p and then 4K, the frame rate drops become more pronounced, signaling a transition to a GPU-limited scenario where the RTX 3070’s rendering throughput becomes the primary constraint.

The measured FPS data shows a consistent pattern across all settings presets. Moving from 1080p to 1440p, the average frame rate at High settings drops from 191.8 FPS to 122.6 FPS, a reduction of 69.2 FPS. Scaling further to 4K, the same High preset yields 67.8 FPS, which is a substantial 124.0 FPS decrease from the 1080p figure. This steep decline of roughly 65% from 1080p to 4K at High settings confirms that the RTX 3070 is the limiting component at higher resolutions, as the pixel throughput demand outpaces the GPU’s ability to maintain the same level of performance.

The data suggests that the Ryzen 5 9600X, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is more than capable of keeping the GPU fed at lower resolutions. The high single-thread performance, evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 1253 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3603, ensures that the CPU does not become a bottleneck even at frame rates exceeding 200 FPS. However, at 4K, the GPU’s 8 GB of VRAM and its memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s are put under significant stress, and the scaling from Low to Ultra settings illustrates how the frame rate is increasingly governed by the graphics card’s fill rate and shader processing capabilities.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K provides a clear picture of where the performance ceiling lies for this combination. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces 259.2 FPS, but this drops to 169.8 FPS at 1440p and further to 89.4 FPS at 4K. This represents a 65.5% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K on Low settings. The scaling is not linear, with the most significant per-pixel cost occurring between 1440p and 4K, where the pixel count more than doubles. This behavior is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the RTX 3070’s 5888 shading units and 96 ROPs are saturated by the increased resolution.

For the Ultra preset, the frame rate drops from 158.4 FPS at 1080p to 99.9 FPS at 1440p and finally to 55.8 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest measured in the entire dataset, falling below the 60 FPS threshold that is often considered the minimum for a smooth experience in an FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 33.6 FPS, which is smaller than the 100.8 FPS gap observed at 1080p. This compression of performance differences at higher resolutions further reinforces that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the cost of additional visual effects becomes relatively less significant compared to the raw pixel fill rate demand.

Benchmark results indicate that the CPU’s role is diminished at 4K. The Ryzen 5 9600X, which ranks in the 85th percentile among all CPUs, has ample headroom to process game logic and draw calls. The data shows that at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is 100.8 FPS, while at 4K, the same settings difference yields only 33.6 FPS. This suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU can push frame rates higher, but the GPU’s rendering capacity caps the final output at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal balance between visual quality and performance is achieved at the High preset for most resolutions. At 1080p, High settings produce 191.8 FPS, which is well above any practical refresh rate ceiling, allowing for maximum detail without sacrificing smoothness. At 1440p, the High preset delivers 122.6 FPS, which is still exceptionally fluid and suitable for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Medium preset at 1440p offers 144.3 FPS, a marginal improvement of 21.7 FPS over High, but the visual fidelity difference may not justify the performance trade-off for most users.

At 4K, the High preset yields 67.8 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for competitive play. The Medium preset at 4K provides 77.2 FPS, a 9.4 FPS improvement over High, and may be the better choice if maintaining a stable frame rate above 70 FPS is a priority. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 55.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target and could result in noticeable stuttering on displays with variable refresh rates. The data suggests that for a 4K experience, Medium settings offer the best compromise, delivering 77.2 FPS while still providing a reasonable level of graphical detail.

The Low preset is not recommended for this hardware combination, as it sacrifices too much visual quality for performance gains that are not necessary. At 4K, Low settings achieve 89.4 FPS, but the graphical downgrade is significant, and the High preset at 67.8 FPS provides a much better visual experience for a moderate performance cost. For users prioritizing frame rate over all else, the Low preset at 1440p yields 169.8 FPS, but this is unlikely to be a practical choice given the High preset’s 122.6 FPS already exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors.

How This Combo Ranks

The Ryzen 5 9600X and RTX 3070 combination ranks 775th out of 1681 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the benchmark database. This ranking reflects a solid, but not exceptional, performance for this specific game. The percentile ranking of the CPU at 85th among all CPUs and the GPU at 72nd among all GPUs suggests that the processor is relatively stronger than the graphics card in this pairing. This is consistent with the resolution scaling data, which shows the GPU becoming the bottleneck at higher resolutions.

When compared to other components in their respective benchmark pools, the Ryzen 5 9600X is closely matched with several rivals. Its average benchmark score of 28246 is just 0.3% higher than the Intel Core i5-13490F and the AMD Ryzen 5 230, which both have average scores around 28173 and 28164, respectively. The AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS edges out the 9600X by 0.4%, and the Intel Core i5-14500T leads by 0.5%. These small deltas indicate that the 9600X is competitively positioned within its performance class, and the differences are negligible in real-world gaming scenarios.

The RTX 3070’s average benchmark score of 28238 places it in a similar competitive bracket. It is 0.6% behind the AMD FirePro S7150 and 1.1% behind the AMD Radeon R9 M295X, while being 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and 1.0% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti. These marginal differences suggest that the RTX 3070 is a well-balanced mid-range GPU, and its performance in Doom is representative of its overall benchmark standing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data provides a detailed view of performance across all resolution and settings combinations. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 259.2 FPS on Low, 227.2 FPS on Medium, 191.8 FPS on High, and 158.4 FPS on Ultra. This represents a spread of 100.8 FPS from the lowest to highest settings, demonstrating the significant impact of graphics presets at this resolution. The frame rates are all well above 144 Hz, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates drop to 169.8 FPS on Low, 144.3 FPS on Medium, 122.6 FPS on High, and 99.9 FPS on Ultra. The spread between settings is 69.9 FPS, which is narrower than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is beginning to become a more significant factor. The Ultra setting at 1440p is the only one that falls below 100 FPS, but it still provides a playable experience.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are 89.4 FPS on Low, 77.2 FPS on Medium, 67.8 FPS on High, and 55.8 FPS on Ultra. The spread between settings is 33.6 FPS, the smallest of all resolutions. This confirms that at 4K, the GPU’s rendering capabilities are the primary constraint, and the choice of settings has a reduced impact on performance compared to lower resolutions. The 4K Ultra result is the only measured data point below 60 FPS, highlighting the limits of the RTX 3070 at this resolution with maximum settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is the defining component in this pairing, particularly at higher resolutions. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, which is sufficient for 1440p gaming but becomes a limiting factor at 4K with high-detail textures. The GPU’s boost clock of 1725 MHz and its 5888 shading units deliver 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, which is the raw processing power that drives the frame rates seen in the data.

The RTX 3070’s architecture, based on the GA104 chip manufactured on an 8 nm process, includes 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores. While Doom does not heavily utilize ray tracing, the presence of these cores supports the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set. The GPU’s 96 ROPs and 184 TMUs contribute to its pixel and texture fill rates of 165.6 GPixel/s and 317.4 GTexel/s, respectively. These figures are directly relevant to the resolution scaling observed in the data, as the GPU’s ability to process pixels and textures determines the frame rate at higher resolutions.

The measured data shows that the RTX 3070’s performance is well-suited for 1440p gaming, where it maintains frame rates above 100 FPS across all settings. At 4K, the GPU struggles to maintain 60 FPS on Ultra settings, producing 55.8 FPS. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is adequate for this game, but the overall performance ceiling is set by the GPU’s compute throughput rather than memory capacity. The RTX 3070 ranks in the 72nd percentile among all GPUs, and its performance in Doom is consistent with its position relative to rivals, being 0.9% ahead of the RX 6600 XT and 1.0% ahead of the GTX 980 Ti in average benchmark scores.