Doom

FAQ

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X has a launch MSRP of $329. This is a desktop processor from the 3000 series, built on the Zen 2 (Matisse) architecture using a 7 nm process node.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 D compare to its nearest rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 5090 D has an average benchmark score of 77712. It is 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (score 76904), 1.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (score 78940), 2.1% behind the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (score 79396), and 2.4% behind the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (score 79605).

Q: What is the combo rank of the Ryzen 7 3700X with the RTX 5090 D in Doom?

A: This combo ranks 254th out of 2930 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the top 8.7% of all tested configurations for this game.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU have a higher percentile ranking among all their respective peers?

A: The CPU (Ryzen 7 3700X) has a percentile rank of 84 among all CPUs, while the GPU (RTX 5090 D) has a percentile rank of 92 among all GPUs. The GPU is relatively stronger in its peer group than the CPU.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of the RTX 5090 D and the Ryzen 7 3700X?

A: The RTX 5090 D has a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, using 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus. The Ryzen 7 3700X has a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, using dual-channel DDR4 memory.

Q: What are the measured FPS averages for the Ultra preset across all three resolutions?

A: For the Ultra preset, the measured average FPS is 232 at 1080p, 189 at 1440p, and 102 at 4K. The 4K result represents a 56% drop from the 1080p result.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant component in this configuration for Doom. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides a massive 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for feeding the GPU's 21760 shading units at high resolutions. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). These specifications result in a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s, explaining why the card can sustain high frame rates even at 4K.

The GPU's FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS is substantial for a 2016-era game like Doom. The game's id Tech 6 engine was designed for hardware of that generation, making the RTX 5090 D an extreme overprovisioning of graphics capability. The benchmark data confirms this: at 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 278 FPS average, and even at 4K Ultra, it maintains 102 FPS average. The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs (avg benchmark score 77712) places it well above the Ryzen 7 3700X's 84th percentile among CPUs (avg score 34260), indicating that the graphics card is the more capable component in this pairing.

The RTX 5090 D's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are all within a tight band: the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76904, +1.1% relative to the 5090 D), AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78940, -1.6%), NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79396, -2.1%), and NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79605, -2.4%). This suggests that while the 5090 D is a top-tier consumer card, its raw compute scores are not dramatically higher than some other options in the database, despite its flagship positioning. The GPU's 575 W TDP and requirement for a 950 W suggested PSU indicate the power envelope needed to sustain this performance level.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern of scaling from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 250 at 1080p to 216 at 1440p (a 13.6% decrease) and then to 125 at 4K (a 50% decrease from 1080p). This scaling pattern reveals that the RTX 5090 D remains the primary performance driver throughout the resolution range, but the CPU begins to play a more significant role at lower resolutions.

At Low settings, the FPS progression is 278 (1080p) → 240 (1440p) → 170 (4K). The 1080p to 1440p drop of 13.7% is nearly identical to the High preset's drop, but the 1440p to 4K drop of 29.2% is less severe than High's 42.1% drop. This indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is more likely to become a limiting factor at 1080p, where the GPU has less work to do and can push frames faster than the Ryzen 7 3700X can feed it.

For the Medium preset, the data shows 265 FPS at 1080p, 229 FPS at 1440p, and 148 FPS at 4K. The relative drops are 13.6% (1080p→1440p) and 44.1% (1440p→4K). The Ultra preset shows 232 FPS at 1080p, 189 FPS at 1440p (an 18.5% drop), and 102 FPS at 4K (a 56% drop from 1080p). The larger percentage drops at Ultra settings suggest that the GPU is more heavily loaded, making its performance the dominant factor in determining frame rates.

The pattern across all presets is consistent: the transition from 1080p to 1440p results in relatively modest FPS reductions (13-19%), while the jump to 4K causes much larger drops (44-56%). This indicates that the RTX 5090 D's memory bandwidth and compute resources are increasingly stretched as resolution increases, but even at 4K Ultra, the combo maintains a playable 102 FPS average. The CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions and settings, where the GPU can render frames faster than the processor can submit draw calls.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values across settings are: Low 278, Medium 265 (min 225, max 305), High 250, and Ultra 232. The spread from Low to Ultra is 46 FPS (16.5% reduction). The Medium preset's min/max range of 225-305 FPS shows significant variance, indicating that the CPU is likely causing frame time inconsistencies even at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 240, Medium 229 (min 195, max 264), High 216, and Ultra 189. The reduction from Low to Ultra is 51 FPS (21.3%). The Medium preset's min/max range of 195-264 FPS shows less variance than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU is becoming more of a factor in limiting frame rates, which typically smooths out frame pacing.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 170, Medium 148 (min 126, max 170), High 125, and Ultra 102. The reduction from Low to Ultra is 68 FPS (40%). The Medium preset's min/max range of 126-170 FPS is the tightest relative range across all resolutions, reinforcing that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K. The minimum FPS of 126 at Medium 4K is higher than the average FPS at Ultra 4K (102), showing that the settings choice has a substantial impact on playability.

The data reveals that the RTX 5090 D can handle Doom at extreme frame rates even at 4K. At 4K Medium, the combo achieves 148 FPS average with a minimum of 126 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold typically considered playable. The gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases: 46 FPS difference at 1080p, 51 FPS at 1440p, and 68 FPS at 4K. This suggests that the GPU's headroom is so large at lower resolutions that it can easily accommodate settings changes, while at 4K, the settings have a more pronounced effect on absolute frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D achieves a rank of 254 out of 2930 tested combos in Doom. This places it in the top 8.7% of all configurations, which is an impressive result given the age of the CPU (released 2019-07-06) and the game (released 2016-05-12). The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all CPUs (avg score 34260) and the GPU's 92nd percentile (avg score 77712) combine to produce a system that is well above average for this game.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (score 34222, +0.1% relative to the 3700X), AMD EPYC 4244P (34220, +0.1%), Intel Core i5-13450HX (34333, -0.2%), and Intel Core Ultra 7 165H (34083, +0.5%). These rivals span different generations and market segments, yet all perform within 0.5% of the 3700X in average benchmark score. This suggests that the 3700X remains competitive in general compute tasks, though its age shows in single-threaded tests: Cinebench R15 single-core score of 204 and Geekbench single-core of 1593 are modest by modern standards.

The combination rank of 254 indicates that most of the 2930 tested combos are either using newer CPUs or more balanced GPU-CPU pairings. The RTX 5090 D is a 2025 GPU (release date 2025-01-29), while the Ryzen 7 3700X is from 2019. This generational gap could explain why the combo doesn't rank higher — the CPU may bottleneck the GPU in CPU-limited scenarios, particularly at lower resolutions and settings where the measured FPS exceeds 250. However, the top 8.7% placement still demonstrates that this pairing delivers excellent performance in Doom, with the GPU's massive compute resources compensating for the CPU's relative age.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1080p, all presets exceed 230 FPS average, so the choice comes down to whether the user prefers maximum visual quality or absolute maximum frame rates. The Ultra preset at 1080p delivers 232 FPS average, which is only 16.5% lower than Low (278 FPS). Given that 232 FPS is already far beyond most display refresh rates, Ultra at 1080p is the recommended choice for visual fidelity without sacrificing playability.

At 1440p, the Ultra preset delivers 189 FPS average, while High delivers 216 FPS. The difference of 27 FPS (12.5%) may matter for users with high-refresh-rate displays (240 Hz or higher), where the High preset's 216 FPS is closer to saturating the display's capability. For users with 144 Hz displays, Ultra at 189 FPS is more than sufficient, and the visual quality improvement over High is worth the slight FPS reduction. Medium at 229 FPS is also viable, but the min FPS of 195 shows that frame pacing can dip, suggesting High or Ultra may provide more consistent experiences.

At 4K, the recommendation shifts decisively toward Medium or High. The Medium preset delivers 148 FPS average with a minimum of 126 FPS, which is excellent for 4K gaming. High drops to 125 FPS average, still playable but with less headroom. Ultra at 102 FPS average is borderline for high-refresh displays; it is playable but may not deliver the smoothest experience on 120 Hz or 144 Hz panels. The Low preset at 170 FPS is unnecessarily sacrificing visual quality for frame rates that most 4K displays cannot show. Therefore, Medium at 4K offers the best balance: 148 FPS average, a minimum of 126 FPS, and substantially better visuals than Low.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset provides the most consistent frame pacing, as evidenced by its documented min/max values. The measured min FPS values for Medium are 225 (1080p), 195 (1440p), and 126 (4K), all of which are well above the corresponding Ultra average FPS at the same resolution. This suggests that Medium is the safest choice for users who prioritize frame consistency over absolute visual quality.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X provides 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This Zen 2 architecture processor, codenamed Matisse, has a 32 MB L3 cache and uses a 7 nm process node from TSMC. Its multi-threaded performance is solid: Cinebench R15 multicore score of 2092, Geekbench multicore of 8899, and Passmark multithread of 22458. The CPU's single-threaded scores (Cinebench R15 single-core 204, Geekbench single-core 1593, Passmark single-thread 2656) are more modest, which matters for older games like Doom that may not fully utilize many cores.

In Doom, the CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 278 FPS average, which is likely approaching the CPU's limit for draw call submission and game logic updates. The fact that increasing resolution to 1440p at Low only drops FPS to 240 (a 13.7% reduction) while increasing to 4K drops to 170 (a 38.8% reduction from 1080p) indicates that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, but the GPU takes over as the bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all CPUs (avg score 34260) places it in the upper tier of processors, but its nearest rivals are all newer designs: the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350, AMD EPYC 4244P, Intel Core i5-13450HX, and Intel Core Ultra 7 165H. These rivals have similar average scores (within 0.5%), indicating that the 3700X's multi-threaded performance remains competitive, but its age (release date 2019-07-06) shows in single-threaded workloads. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR4 is a potential bottleneck for the RTX 5090 D, which has 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth; the CPU must feed the GPU with data at a rate that is far lower than what the GPU can consume.

The benchmark data reveals that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck in most scenarios. At 4K Ultra, the combo maintains 102 FPS average, which is a GPU-limited scenario. However, at 1080p Low, the 278 FPS average likely approaches the CPU's maximum frame submission rate. The CPU's 16 threads help with the game's threading model, but the relatively low single-thread performance (2656 Passmark single-thread) means that frame rates above 280 FPS are probably unattainable regardless of GPU capability. For this game, the Ryzen 7 3700X provides sufficient CPU performance to keep the RTX 5090 D well-fed at 4K and 1440p, with the CPU becoming a limiting factor only at 1080p with the lowest settings.