Doom

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination delivers exceptional performance in Doom, positioning this pairing in the top quartile of tested configurations with a rank of 416 out of 1681 combos. The measured results show a system capable of maintaining high refresh rates across all resolutions, with the data indicating that the choice of settings is more about display capabilities and preferences than about achieving playable frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy across the four available presets. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 190.4 FPS, which is already far beyond the refresh rate of most displays. However, the High preset at 231.9 FPS and Medium at 272.3 FPS show diminishing returns in visual fidelity for the performance gain. The data suggests that for 1080p users, the Ultra preset is the optimal choice, as the 190.4 FPS result still comfortably exceeds 144Hz displays while providing the maximum visual quality.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Ultra preset maintains 120.7 FPS, which is just above the 120Hz threshold for high-refresh monitors. The High preset at 149.2 FPS offers more headroom for variable refresh rate displays, while the Medium preset at 179.1 FPS provides substantial performance for competitive play. For 1440p, the High preset represents the best balance, delivering 149.2 FPS with a significant visual improvement over Medium, while still being nearly 30 FPS faster than Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes markedly. The Ultra preset drops to 64.3 FPS, which is playable but falls short of high-refresh targets. The High preset at 83.4 FPS is the recommended choice for 4K, as it provides a smooth experience for most displays while retaining most of the visual quality. The Medium preset at 96.9 FPS is viable for those prioritizing frame rate, but the data indicates that High offers the best overall experience for 4K gaming.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070's specifications explain its strong performance in this title. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1920 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with 5888 shading units. The 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for Doom's engine at all tested resolutions.

The GPU's memory configuration is particularly relevant at 4K, where the data shows a 29% performance difference between High and Ultra settings (83.4 vs 64.3 FPS). This suggests that the Ultra preset's additional memory pressure and shading demands impact the GPU's throughput. The RTX 4070's 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores indicate hardware capable of handling advanced rendering features, though the measured data focuses on traditional rasterization performance.

The GPU's 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 455.4 GTexel/s texture rate align with the observed scaling. At 1080p, the GPU is clearly not the limiting factor, as the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads provide ample processing power. The data shows that the RTX 4070 maintains its performance advantage even at 4K, where the 83.4 FPS High result indicates the GPU is still delivering strong throughput.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals consistent scaling patterns as resolution increases. At High settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p shows a 55.7 FPS drop (231.9 to 149.2, a 24% reduction), while moving from 1440p to 4K results in a 65.8 FPS drop (149.2 to 83.4, a 44% reduction). This non-linear scaling indicates that the GPU becomes increasingly dominant as the pixel count grows.

The Low settings show the most extreme scaling, with 311.9 FPS at 1080p dropping to 205.8 FPS at 1440p (34% reduction) and then to 112.8 FPS at 4K (45% reduction from 1440p). The consistent pattern across all settings suggests that the RTX 4070's rendering pipeline handles the resolution increase efficiently, with the 192-bit memory bus and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth proving adequate for the texture and fill-rate demands.

The Ultra settings exhibit the steepest scaling curve, from 190.4 FPS at 1080p to 120.7 FPS at 1440p (37% reduction) and 64.3 FPS at 4K (47% reduction from 1440p). This indicates that at Ultra, the GPU's compute resources are more heavily taxed, likely due to increased shading and post-processing effects. The data shows that the CPU's role diminishes as resolution increases, with the Ryzen 7 7700X's single-thread performance of 4281 in Cinebench R23 proving more than sufficient even at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset provides a comprehensive view of performance across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the results range from 311.9 FPS at Low to 190.4 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset delivers 272.3 FPS, while High achieves 231.9 FPS. The 121.5 FPS spread between Low and Ultra highlights the GPU's headroom at this resolution, where even the most demanding preset maintains frame rates far above typical display refresh rates.

At 2560x1440, the spread narrows but remains substantial: Low produces 205.8 FPS, Medium 179.1 FPS, High 149.2 FPS, and Ultra 120.7 FPS. The 85.1 FPS difference between the lowest and highest presets indicates that the GPU is still not fully saturated at this resolution, with the RTX 4070's 158.4 GPixel/s pixel rate handling the increased pixel count effectively.

The 3840x2160 results show the most constrained performance envelope: Low yields 112.8 FPS, Medium 96.9 FPS, High 83.4 FPS, and Ultra 64.3 FPS. The 48.5 FPS spread demonstrates that even at 4K, the GPU maintains playable performance across all settings. The data reveals that the transition from Medium to High at 4K costs 13.5 FPS, while High to Ultra costs 19.1 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset imposes a disproportionate performance penalty at this resolution.

When comparing to the CPU's benchmark performance, the Ryzen 7 7700X's 3DMark 16-thread score of 8859 and single-thread score of 1090 indicate strong processing capability. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-13500, shows a 0.4% higher average score, while the AMD EPYC 4244P trails by 0.8%. This CPU performance ensures that even at 1080p Low settings with 311.9 FPS, the processor is not creating a bottleneck.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming with this hardware?

A: The High preset at 3840x2160 delivers 83.4 FPS, which is the recommended choice. Ultra drops to 64.3 FPS, a 23% reduction, while Medium provides 96.9 FPS with reduced visual quality.

Q: Can this system maintain 144 FPS at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves 149.2 FPS and Medium produces 179.1 FPS, both exceeding 144 FPS. Ultra falls short at 120.7 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 compare to its nearest rivals in this context?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 37283 is 0.6% below the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 and 1.9% below the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A, while being 2.5% above the AMD Radeon RX 5300M.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the CPU's single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 score of 4281) is sufficient to drive 311.9 FPS at Low settings. The GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher presets, with Ultra still delivering 190.4 FPS.

Q: What is the performance difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium produces 179.1 FPS while High achieves 149.2 FPS, showing a 29.9 FPS (16.7%) reduction for improved visual quality.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 7700X's multi-threaded performance support this game?

A: The CPU's Cinebench R23 multicore score of 30325 and 3DMark max-threads score of 8852 indicate robust multi-threading capability. Doom's engine utilizes this effectively, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates even at 1080p where CPU load is highest.