Doom

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT delivers a strong 1080p and 1440p experience in Doom, though 4K Ultra pushes the GPU to its limits. The measured data shows a clear hierarchy where the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as resolution and settings increase, while the CPU’s 8-core/16-thread configuration provides ample headroom for the game’s engine.

Settings Recommendations

For this combo, the High preset at 2560x1440 is the sweet spot. It delivers an average of 97.4 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play, while maintaining visual fidelity that the Low settings lack. At this resolution, High offers a 22.6% performance advantage over Ultra (79.3 FPS) but only a 16.3% penalty compared to Medium (115.8 FPS). The trade-off is clearly worth it, as the visual uplift from Medium to High is far more noticeable than the frame rate difference.

If you are targeting 1920x1080, the High preset remains the best balance, hitting 145.6 FPS average. This is fast enough for high-refresh-rate monitors and leaves the visual quality intact. Pushing to Ultra at 1080p yields 121.9 FPS, a 16.3% drop that buys marginal improvements in shadow and texture detail that are hard to spot at this resolution. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 198.8 FPS, but that performance comes at the cost of the game’s atmospheric lighting and particle effects, which are central to Doom’s fast-paced combat.

For 4K, the situation changes. The Low preset at 3840x2160 produces 72.4 FPS, which is the only 4K setting here that clears 60 FPS. Medium drops to 60.1 FPS, and High falls to 55 FPS, while Ultra is effectively unplayable at 41.6 FPS. If you own a 4K display, Low is the pragmatic choice, but the visual compromise is severe. The data suggests this combo is best treated as a 1080p/1440p performer, not a 4K machine.

GPU Role

The RX 6650 XT’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 280.3 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for Doom’s textures at 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K Ultra results indicate a clear memory and bandwidth constraint. The GPU’s boost clock of 2635 MHz and game clock of 2410 MHz allow it to push high frame rates at lower resolutions, but the 10.79 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the limiting factor when the resolution scales up.

At 1920x1080, the GPU’s role is dominant, with the average frame rate scaling nearly linearly with settings. The gap between Low (198.8 FPS) and Ultra (121.9 FPS) is 63.1%, showing that the GPU is doing the heavy lifting. At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with a narrower spread: Low hits 129.5 FPS while Ultra stays at 79.3 FPS, a 38.8% reduction. The 4K results tell a different story—the GPU is overwhelmed, with a 42.6% drop from Low to Ultra (72.4 FPS down to 41.6 FPS). This suggests that beyond 1440p, the RX 6650 XT simply does not have enough raw throughput to maintain high settings.

The GPU’s benchmark percentile of 72 places it above most tested cards, but the nearest rivals show how close the competition is. The RX 6800M scores 0% delta, meaning identical average performance, while the RX 470 is 0.1% behind and the Arc A370M is 0.5% ahead. These margins are negligible in real-world gaming, reinforcing that the 6650 XT is a mid-range card that excels at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals where the bottleneck lies. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 145.6 at 1920x1080 to 97.4 at 2560x1440, a 33.1% decline, and then to 55 at 3840x2160, a 62.2% drop from the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario—the CPU is not the limiting factor because the frame rate drops proportionally with pixel count.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more telling. The 1080p result of 198.8 FPS drops to 129.5 at 1440p (34.9% lower) and then to 72.4 at 4K (63.6% lower). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the RX 6650 XT’s fill rate and shading units are the constraint, not the Ryzen 7 5800X’s processing power. If the CPU were the bottleneck, you would expect the 1080p Low result to be capped at a lower value, but 198.8 FPS indicates the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond what the GPU can render at higher resolutions.

The 4K Ultra result of 41.6 FPS is particularly diagnostic. It is 65.8% lower than the 1080p Ultra score of 121.9 FPS, which is a larger drop than the pixel count alone would predict. This suggests that Doom’s Ultra settings include effects like high-resolution shadows and ambient occlusion that disproportionately tax the GPU’s memory bandwidth at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a full range of playable settings. Low averages 198.8 FPS, Medium 173.1 FPS, High 145.6 FPS, and Ultra 121.9 FPS. The gap between each preset is roughly 15-20%, with Low to Ultra representing a 38.7% performance spread. All four settings are above 120 FPS, meaning this combo can drive a 144Hz monitor at 1080p without dropping below the refresh rate on average.

At 2560x1440, the results remain strong but require more careful selection. Low averages 129.5 FPS, Medium 115.8 FPS, High 97.4 FPS, and Ultra 79.3 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 38.8% drop, consistent with the 1080p pattern, but the absolute numbers mean that only Low and Medium are viable for high-refresh displays. High is still smooth for 60Hz or 75Hz monitors, while Ultra is borderline for 60Hz play.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically. Low averages 72.4 FPS, Medium 60.1 FPS, High 55 FPS, and Ultra 41.6 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 42.6%, which is steeper than the lower resolutions. This is the only resolution where Low is the recommended setting for smooth gameplay, and even then, it is close to the edge of 60 FPS. Medium is just barely playable, while High and Ultra are not recommended for anything but static scenes.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1055th out of 1681 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the 62.7th percentile of all tested systems. This is a solid mid-pack result, reflecting that the RX 6650 XT is a capable 1080p card but not a high-end performer. The rank is driven primarily by the GPU’s limitations at 4K, as the CPU’s performance is well above average.

The Ryzen 7 5800X alone sits in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27606. Its nearest rivals include the Ryzen 7 5800 (0.3% higher score), the Ryzen 5 8500GE (0.4% lower), and the Core i7-13700H (0.4% lower). These differences are within noise, meaning the CPU is not the differentiator in this combo. The GPU, meanwhile, ranks in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs with an average score of 29024, and its nearest rivals are within 0.6% of its score. This suggests the combo’s overall rank is constrained by the GPU’s mid-range positioning.

For context, the 1055th rank means there are 626 tested combos that perform better in Doom, and 1054 that perform worse. This places the system in the upper half, but not the top tier. If you are building for competitive play at 1080p, this rank is more than sufficient, but for 4K enthusiasts, it falls short.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 5800X’s 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 3 architecture, are more than enough for Doom. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.70 GHz and base clock of 3.80 GHz provide strong single-thread performance, which is critical for the game’s engine. The 32 MB of L3 cache and 4.15 billion transistors on a 7 nm process contribute to the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU without creating a bottleneck.

The benchmark data confirms this. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23571 and single-core score of 3327 indicate that the CPU has both the multi-threaded grunt and the single-thread agility that modern games require. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7586 and 2-thread score of 1846 show a balanced scaling, meaning the CPU does not starve under light or heavy loads. The PassMark multithread score of 27732 further reinforces that this is a high-performing processor.

In Doom specifically, the CPU’s role is to maintain high frame rates at low resolutions where the GPU is not saturated. The 1080p Low result of 198.8 FPS is likely near the CPU’s limit for this engine, but it is still higher than what the GPU can deliver at 1440p or 4K. This means the CPU is not the constraint in any of the measured configurations. The 5800X’s 105W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 51.2 GB/s are sufficient to keep the system balanced, and the PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes ensures the GPU has full bandwidth available. The CPU’s 84th percentile rank and its proximity to the Core i7-13700H (within 0.4%) confirm that it is a modern, capable part that will not hold back the RX 6650 XT in this title.