Doom

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 presents a striking contrast: a flagship 2024 processor driving an end-of-life 2017 graphics card. In Doom, the benchmark results are a clear demonstration of GPU-bound performance, where the RX 580 becomes the definitive bottleneck regardless of the CPU’s immense headroom.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a steep and predictable decline as resolution increases, confirming that the Radeon RX 580 is the limiting component. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 75.5 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops the average to 48.7 FPS, a reduction of roughly 35%. The most severe impact is at 3840x2160, where the average plummets to 24.8 FPS—a 67% drop from the 1080p figure.

This scaling behavior is a textbook example of pixel-throughput saturation. The RX 580’s 32 ROPs and 256.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth are simply overwhelmed as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K. The data indicates that the GPU’s raw fillrate limits performance far before the CPU’s capabilities become relevant. Even at the lowest settings, the 4K average of 34.2 FPS remains below playable thresholds, while the 1080p Low average of 103.3 FPS shows the card can deliver high refresh rates only at its native resolution sweet spot.

The scaling pattern also reveals that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s performance is never a factor in these results. The FPS deltas across resolutions are entirely consistent with a GPU that is running out of shading units and texture units, not a CPU that is being strained. The 144 TMUs of the RX 580 produce a texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s, which is insufficient for 4K workloads in this title.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the primary determinant of the frame rates measured in this dataset. Its Polaris 20 chip, built on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries, operates with a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz. The 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s, which is a critical resource for Doom’s texture-heavy environments.

The GPU’s compute capabilities are modest by modern standards, with an FP32 throughput of 6.175 TFLOPS. This figure, combined with the 2304 shading units, explains why the card struggles to maintain high averages at 1440p and above. The benchmark results show that at 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 37.6, which is barely playable for a fast-paced FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 23.6 FPS is a clear indication that the card’s architecture is not designed for such resolutions.

The RX 580’s percentileVsAllGpus score of 53 places it in the middle of the pack historically, but its nearest rivals in the synthetic benchmarks—such as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 with a deltaPct of 0.1 and the AMD Radeon Pro 455 with a deltaPct of 1.1—show that it is firmly in the entry-level performance tier of its era. The GPU’s DirectX 12 support (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3 API compatibility are present, but the raw hardware limits its ability to leverage these APIs effectively in Doom’s demanding scenes.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), built on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It features a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.20 GHz, with a substantial 96 MB of shared L3 cache. Its synthetic benchmark scores are exceptional: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 34004 and a single-core score of 4800, alongside a Geekbench multicore score of 18413.

Despite this immense processing power, the CPU role in this specific game configuration is minimal. The measured FPS data shows no scenario where the CPU becomes the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the average of 103.3 FPS is likely the practical ceiling for the RX 580, not a limit imposed by the CPU. The 3DMark tests for the CPU, such as the 16-thread score of 10081 and the single-thread score of 1212, further confirm that the processor has ample headroom for frame generation.

The CPU’s percentileVsAllCpus score of 90 and its nearest rivals—including the Intel Core i9-13900HK with a deltaPct of -0.6 and the Intel Core i5-13600KF with a deltaPct of -0.7—demonstrate that it is a top-tier part. However, in this pairing, its capabilities are entirely latent. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s 120W TDP and DDR5 memory support are irrelevant to the frame rates, as the RX 580’s 185W TDP and PCIe 3.0 x16 interface are the real constraints. The data clearly shows a CPU that is overqualified for the task, leaving its performance on the table.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset provides 12 distinct measurements across three resolutions and four quality settings. At 1920x1080, the averages range from 103.3 FPS at Low to 64.3 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting yields 87.0 FPS, while High produces 75.5 FPS. This spread of roughly 39 FPS between the lowest and highest settings indicates that the GPU responds well to reduced graphical load, but even at Ultra, the frame rate is sufficient for a smooth experience.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop significantly. Low settings achieve 66.8 FPS, which is still respectable, but High falls to 48.7 FPS and Medium to 55.9 FPS. Ultra at this resolution is the weakest link, producing just 37.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 29.2 FPS, showing that the quality presets have a pronounced effect on the GPU’s workload.

The 3840x2160 results are uniformly low. Low settings manage 34.2 FPS, Medium drops to 31.2 FPS, and High falls to 24.8 FPS. Ultra is the lowest at 23.6 FPS. None of these averages approach a playable threshold for a fast-paced shooter, confirming that this combination is not viable for 4K gaming. The data shows a consistent pattern: the RX 580’s performance degrades linearly with resolution, and the quality settings have a diminishing impact as the pixel count increases.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall benchmark database for Doom, this specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 1575 out of 1681 tested combos. This places the pairing in the bottom 6% of all configurations, which is a direct consequence of the GPU’s limitations. The CPU’s high percentile ranking does little to boost the overall result, as the frame rates are dictated almost entirely by the graphics card.

The ranking reflects the reality that Doom is a title that scales well with GPU power, and the RX 580 is an older part that cannot keep up with modern high-refresh-rate expectations. The combo’s position near the bottom of the list is not surprising given the 4K averages that fall below 35 FPS and the 1440p Ultra average of 37.6 FPS. Even at 1080p, where the card performs best, the Ultra average of 64.3 FPS is outclassed by many mid-range GPUs.

The data suggests that this pairing is only suitable for 1080p gaming with medium-to-high settings, where it can deliver a playable experience. For any higher resolution or more demanding settings, the RX 580 becomes a severe bottleneck, wasting the potential of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The rank of 1575 out of 1681 serves as a clear warning that this is a mismatched configuration, where the processor’s strengths are overshadowed by the graphics card’s age and performance ceiling.