Doom

The pairing of AMD's Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1050 Ti in Doom (2016) presents a striking imbalance. The data reveals a system where a top-tier 12-core processor is held firmly in check by a graphics card whose performance ranking sits in the 30th percentile of all GPUs. The measured frames per second (FPS) across resolutions and settings tell a story of a component bottleneck that is both consistent and dramatic.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, underscoring the GPU as the primary limiting factor. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 73.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 46.0 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 27.3 FPS. The descent to 3840x2160 is even more punishing, landing at just 24.5 FPS, which represents a 66.6% decrease from the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is a classic indicator of a GPU-bound scenario.

The trend is equally pronounced at High settings, where the 53.5 FPS at 1080p drops to 36.8 FPS at 1440p and then plummets to 19.2 FPS at 4K. The frame rate roughly halves with each step up in resolution, which aligns perfectly with the pixel count increase. The data suggests that the GTX 1050 Ti's processing capacity is being saturated well before the Ryzen 9 7900X can even begin to flex its computational muscles.

The fact that the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows at higher resolutions further confirms this. At 1080p, the difference between Low (73.3 FPS) and Ultra (45.4 FPS) is 27.9 FPS. At 4K, that gap shrinks to just 7.7 FPS (24.5 vs 16.8). When the GPU is overwhelmed by pixel count, the relative cost of graphical effects becomes less significant. The rendering pipeline is so congested that there is little headroom for the additional work that higher settings demand.

GPU Role

The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is a Pascal-architecture GPU with 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its memory configuration is a 4 GB GDDR5 buffer on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 112.1 GB/s. The card's base clock is 1291 MHz with a boost of 1392 MHz. These specifications, while modest by modern standards, are the fundamental drivers behind the measured FPS results.

The 4 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor in this game's performance. At 3840x2160, the GPU is likely hitting its memory limit, which contributes to the sub-25 FPS averages at Low and Medium settings. The card's FP32 performance of 2.138 TFLOPS and texture rate of 66.82 GTexel/s are simply not sufficient to maintain fluid frame rates at 4K in a fast-paced FPS. The data shows the card is out of its depth, struggling to push even 20 FPS at Ultra 4K.

The GPU's overall benchmark score is 5316, placing it in the 30th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce 940M and AMD Radeon R7 240, which are decidedly low-end parts. This context makes the 1080p results more understandable. The 73.3 FPS at Low settings is a respectable figure for a card that is statistically on par with mobile and entry-level desktop solutions.

Settings Recommendations

For a playable experience, the data strongly indicates that 1920x1080 is the only viable resolution. At 4K, even the lowest preset yields an average of only 24.5 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. At 2560x1440, the Low preset manages 46.0 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a competitive shooter.

The measured rows show that the Low preset at 1080p offers the highest frame rate at 73.3 FPS. This provides the most headroom for maintaining a stable frame rate during intense action sequences. The Medium preset at 1080p delivers 66.8 FPS, a 6.5 FPS drop from Low, which might be a worthwhile trade-off for some visual improvements. However, the jump to High at 1080p results in a significant reduction to 53.5 FPS, indicating that the cost of High settings is substantial.

The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as it yields the lowest average FPS across the board, including 45.4 FPS at 1080p. The data suggests that the best experience per the measured rows is achieved by using the Low or Medium preset at 1920x1080. This combination balances the need for a responsive frame rate with the visual fidelity that the GPU can actually handle.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo can achieve?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 73.3, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

*Q: Is this system capable of 4K gaming in Doom?*

A: No. The best 4K result is 24.5 FPS at Low settings, which is not smooth. The Ultra preset at 4K only produces 16.8 FPS.

Q: How much of a performance difference is there between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 73.3 FPS, while Ultra delivers 45.4 FPS, a difference of 27.9 FPS in favor of Low.

Q: Which component is the primary bottleneck for this setup?

A: The GPU. The FPS drops dramatically with resolution scaling, which is a classic sign of a graphics card being the limiting factor. The CPU has 12 cores and a high boost clock, but it is never given the chance to be the constraint.

Q: What is the average FPS at 1440p on Medium settings?

A: The measured average FPS for the Medium preset at 2560x1440 is 42.6.

Q: How does the GTX 1050 Ti's overall performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: Its average benchmark score is 5316, which is within 0.8% of its nearest rivals, including the NVIDIA GeForce 940M and AMD Radeon R7 240.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 9 7900X and GTX 1050 Ti ranks 1653 out of 1681 tested combos for Doom. This placement in the bottom 1.7% of all configurations is a direct consequence of the severe GPU bottleneck. The data indicates that this pairing is exceptionally inefficient for this title.

The CPU itself is a powerhouse, with an average benchmark score of 50556 and a percentile ranking of 93 against all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT, with score deltas of less than 1%. This processor is clearly capable of far more than what the GTX 1050 Ti can deliver. The combo's low rank is not a reflection of the CPU's capability, but rather proof of how profoundly the graphics card limits the entire system's gaming performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, is a Zen 4 architecture part with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its multi-threaded performance is exceptional, scoring 43695 in Cinebench R23 and 51406 in Passmark's multithread test. The data shows that in a game like Doom, which is often GPU-bound, this processing power is largely underutilized.

The CPU's role in this specific pairing is to feed the GPU with enough data to keep it busy. With a single-core Cinebench R23 score of 6168, the 7900X has immense per-thread performance that would easily handle the game's logic and physics. However, the benchmark results show that the GPU is the limiting factor at all tested resolutions and settings. The FPS does not improve at lower resolutions, which would be the expected outcome if the CPU were the bottleneck.

The l3 cache, at 64 MB shared, is substantial and would help in scenarios where game data needs to be accessed quickly. But the measured FPS data makes it clear that the CPU's advanced features and high clock speeds are not the determining factor in this game's performance. The GPU's 30th percentile ranking and its 2.138 TFLOPS of compute power are the definitive constraints.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: the Low preset averages 73.3 FPS, the Medium preset averages 66.8 FPS, the High preset averages 53.5 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 45.4 FPS. This shows a clear degradation of performance as graphical fidelity increases.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages decrease across the board: Low at 46.0 FPS, Medium at 42.6 FPS, High at 36.8 FPS, and Ultra at 31.4 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is significant, with the Low preset losing 27.3 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates become marginal: Low at 24.5 FPS, Medium at 24.2 FPS, High at 19.2 FPS, and Ultra at 16.8 FPS. The data shows that at 4K, the difference between Low and Medium is negligible, at just 0.3 FPS. This suggests that the GPU is so constrained that the settings have a minimal impact on performance. The progression from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent and predictable collapse in frame rate, confirming the GPU as the definitive performance ceiling for this combination.