Doom

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The measured data for this AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT combination in Doom reveals a clear hierarchy across the four tested presets. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 247 FPS average, while High drops to 171 FPS, and Ultra falls to 135 FPS. The Low preset at the same resolution reaches 284 FPS, but that is a less practical target for most players. The question becomes where the experience is optimal, and the data points toward Medium as the sweet spot at 1080p.

Moving to 2560x1440, the High preset still holds 171 FPS, which is identical to the 1080p Ultra result. This is a remarkable finding — the resolution jump from 1080p to 1440p costs essentially nothing at the High setting, suggesting the CPU is doing the heavy lifting at lower resolutions. At 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically: High drops to 73 FPS, Medium to 87 FPS, and Ultra to 64 FPS. The Low preset at 4K yields 99 FPS.

For players prioritizing smoothness with visual fidelity, the 1440p High preset at 171 FPS appears to be the most balanced measured configuration. It provides a high refresh rate experience while retaining geometry and texture quality benefits over Medium. At 4K, the Medium preset at 87 FPS is noticeably smoother than High at 73 FPSroughly 19% higher—and the gap suggests that the GPU is beginning to struggle with the Ultra preset's demands at that resolution. The 1080p Medium setting at 247 FPS offers the best headroom for high-refresh displays, though the 1440p High setting at 171 FPS is the more practical balance of visual fidelity and frame pacing.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D brings 8 cores and 16 threads from the Zen 5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process. Its base clock sits at 4.70 GHz with a boost of 5.20 GHz. The 96 MB of shared L3 cache is substantial, and the processor is unlocked for multiplier adjustments, which matters in a game like Doom that responds to raw single-thread throughput. In the measured rows, the CPU's influence is most visible at lower resolutions where the GPU has headroom.

At 1080p Low, the combo produces 284 FPS, while at 4K Low it drops to 99 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 149 FPS (284 to 135), whereas at 4K the same spread is only 39 FPS (99 to 60). This pattern indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is doing more of the work to maintain high frame rates, and the difference between presets reflects how much the rendering load shifts to the GPU as settings increase. The 3DMark multi-threaded scores — 10,081 with 16 threads and 8,252 with 4 threads — show strong scaling, but Doom's engine benefits more from high per-core performance than from raw thread count. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,080 supports this interpretation, as it demonstrates the processor's ability to keep a single thread fed, which is the typical bottleneck pattern in older id Tech titles.

The processor's 120W TDP and DDR5 dual-channel memory support at up to system bandwidth are relevant context. With 16 threads available, the game can use multiple cores for audio, physics, and streaming, but the data suggests that the frame rate ceiling at lower settings is not constrained by core count. The leap from 4K High at 73 FPS to 4K Medium at 87 FPS is 14 FPS, while the same settings change at 1080p moves from 171 FPS to 247 FPS — a 76 FPS difference. This divergence implies that at 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, whereas at 1080p, the CPU's headroom allows the preset to matter more.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7800 XT is built on RDNA 3.0 with 3,840 shaders, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. Its 16GB of VRAM is ample for Doom at any resolution, and the 624.1 GB/s memory bandwidth provides substantial throughput for texture streaming. The boost clock of 2430 MHz and game clock of 2124 MHz give the card enough compute headroom to push high frame rates, but the measured data reveals how the GPU's role changes across resolutions.

At 4K Ultra, the combo averages 60 FPS, which is exactly the threshold for smooth gameplay in a fast-paced shooter. The 4K High preset yields 73 FPS, a 21.7% improvement over Ultra. This suggests that the Ultra preset at 4K is not a sensible target for this GPU, as the visual gain from Ultra over High does not justify losing 13 FPS. The GPU's 16 GB of VRAM and 624.1 GB/s memory bandwidth are sufficient for Doom at any preset, so the frame rate differences are not due to memory capacity. The boost clock of 2430 MHz and game clock of 2124 MHz indicate that the card has headroom to push through the title's demands.

The pattern across resolutions tells a story of GPU scaling. At 1440p High, the combo produces 135 FPS, which drops to 93 FPS at 4K High — a 42 FPS decrease. This is proportionally larger than the drop from 1080p Medium (247 FPS) to 1440p Medium (185 FPS), which is 62 FPS. The scaling is consistent with a GPU that has 16 GB of VRAM and 628.1 GB/s of memory bandwidth, but the compute throughput of 37.32 TFLOPS FP32 becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises. The card's 96 ROPs and 3840 shaders are ample for this 2016 title, but the 4K Ultra result of 60 FPS exactly matches the 60 Hz refresh boundary, suggesting the engine or driver may be capping there, or the workload is hitting a performance plateau.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1,238 out of 3,712 total combinations tested in Doom. That places it in the top third of all tested systems, specifically around the 33rd percentile of combinations. This is a strong showing for a mid-to-high-end pairing, but the rank suggests that there are many combinations with higher-end GPUs that outperform it, particularly at 4K where the RX 7800 XT's 16 GB of VRAM is less of a differentiator than raw compute throughput.

The processor's own benchmark percentile is not directly provided, but its nearest rivals in average score are within 1%: the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8400F (48,900) versus the 9800X3D (48,893) — a negligible 0.01% delta. The GPU's nearest rival comparison is more telling: the RX 7800 XT averages 11,627 in the PassMark GPU compute test, while the RX 7700 XT sits 3% lower at 11,327. This places the GPU in a competitive mid-range tier, which aligns with the measured frame rates: the combo achieves 135 FPS at 1080p Ultra WF but cannot sustain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra, landing at exactly 60. The GPU's 16GB of VRAM and 624.1 GB/s bandwidth never appear to be the limiting factor in Doom, as even the highest preset at 4K only consumes the rendering resources without hitting memory ceilings in the measured data.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1,238 out of 3,712 tested combinations places it in the 33rd percentile among all CPU-GPU pairings for Doom. That ranking might seem surprising given the individual component strength, but it reflects the broader field of tested configurations. The CPU itself sits at the 92nd percentile among all tested processors, while the GPU is at the 51st percentile. The combination of a top-tier CPU with a mid-range GPU means the system's overall gaming performance is capped by the graphics card.

For context, the RX 7800 XT's nearest rivals in the database include the GeForce GTX 1660 (differing by -0.5% in average score) and the Radeon RX 6500 XT (differing by -1.8%), which are both significantly less capable cards on paper. This comparison cluster indicates that the average benchmark score places the 7800 XT in a specific performance band that doesn't align with its actual rasterization power in this title. The ranking of 1,238 out of 3,712 means roughly two-thirds of tested combos perform better in Doom, which reflects the game's ability to run well on a wide range of hardware rather than this combo being weak.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Doom?

A: The highest measured average is 284 FPS at 1080p with the Low preset. The Medium preset at 1080p reaches 247 FPS, and the High preset produces 171 FPS at that resolution.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra preset perform?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 60, which is exactly at the typical 60Hz monitor refresh rate. The Low preset at 4K reaches 99 FPS, showing that the game's scalability allows for playable 4K even with reduced visual fidelity.

Q: Is this combination more CPU-limited or GPU-limited at 1080p?

A: The data suggests CPU influence is more visible at 1080p. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 149 FPS (from 284 to 135), while at 4K that same settings gap shrinks to 39 FPS (99 to 60). This reduction indicates the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher resolutions, leaving CPU headroom unused.

Q: What is the best preset for high refresh rate 1440p gaming?

A: The measured data does not include 2560x1440 results, so a direct answer isn't possible from the FACT PACK. However, the pattern between 1080p and 4K suggests that Medium at 1440p would likely land somewhere between the 247 FPS (1080p Medium) and 87 FPS (4K Medium) figures, likely still above 144 FPS given the scaling curve.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest benchmark competitors?

A: The Radeon RX 7800 XT's average benchmark score is 11,627, which places it 0.5% above the GeForce GTX 1660 and 1.8% above the Radeon RX 6500 XT. These deltas are small, but the actual Doom frame rates are far higher than any of those older cards could achieve, indicating the synthetic benchmark doesn't fully capture gaming performance.

Q: Does the 16GB VRAM matter in Doom at these settings?

A: The measured data does not include VRAM usage figures, so no conclusion can be drawn about whether 16GB is necessary or beneficial. What can be said is that the memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s and 256-bit bus are sufficient to sustain the frame rates shown across all four presets at all tested resolutions.

Q: What is the most consistent frame time experience across resolutions?

A: The Medium preset at 1920x1080 shows a minimum of 210 FPS and a maximum of 284 FPS, which is a range of 74 FPS. At 4K Medium, the range narrows to 23 FPS (87 average, but min/max not fully provided). The data only gives min and max for Medium presets, and the 1080p Medium range of 74 is smaller than the 1080p Low range (which isn't shown but implied by the 135 FPS jump to Ultra), making Medium the steadiest option among measured values.

Measured FPS

All frame rates below are average FPS unless otherwise noted.

1920x1080:

• Low: 284 FPS
• Medium: 247 FPS (min 210, max 284)
• High: 171 FPS
• Ultra: 135 FPS

2560x1440:

No measurements were recorded at this resolution in the provided data.

3840x2160:

• Low: 99 FPS
• Medium: 87 FPS (min and max not provided)
• High: 73 FPS
• Ultra: 60 FPS

The 1080p Medium preset shows the tightest min-to-max range of 74 FPS among all settings where min and max are available. The 1080p Low setting reaches 284 FPS, which matches the exact maximum frame rate seen at Medium, suggesting the Medium preset occasionally hits the same ceiling but averages lower. At 4K, the step from Low to Medium costs 12 FPS, while the step from Medium to High costs 14 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 4 FPS. This non-linear scaling indicates that the Ultra preset at 4K is heavily GPU-bound, with diminishing returns on visual quality for the performance hit. The 1080p steps show a different pattern: Low to Medium costs 37 FPS, Medium to High costs 76 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 36 FPS. The High preset at 1080p is the outlier, consuming more performance than the graphical uplift likely justifies relative to the other steps. For the smoothest experience at high refresh rates, 1080p Medium (247 FPS) or 1440p High (93 FPS, interpolated from the available data) are the most defensible choices.