Doom

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a high-refresh-rate experience across all tested presets in Doom, with the data showing that the Ultra preset at 1080p and 1440p provides the most balanced combination of visual fidelity and performance. At 1080p, the Ultra preset achieves an average of 186.7 FPS, while High, Medium, and Low reach 231.6, 271.8, and 316 FPS respectively. At 1440p, the Ultra preset maintains an average of 124.5 FPS, which remains comfortably above the 120 FPS threshold for high-refresh displays, while High and Medium deliver 149.5 and 174.7 FPS. At 4K, the Ultra preset drops to 66.1 FPS, which is playable but below the 80 FPS mark; the High preset at 4K produces 81.9 FPS, making it the optimal choice for 4K displays. For users prioritizing frame rate over visual quality, the Low preset at 1440p yields 201.9 FPS, and at 1080p it reaches 316 FPS, indicating that the combo is capable of extreme frame rates when settings are reduced.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data presents a clear hierarchy across the four presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—at each of the three tested resolutions. At 1080p, the progression from Low to Ultra costs 129.3 FPS, dropping from 316 to 186.7 FPS, which represents a 40.9% reduction in frame rate for the highest visual quality. At 1440p, the same preset progression costs 77.4 FPS, from 201.9 down to 124.5 FPS, a 38.3% reduction. At 4K, the cost is 43.9 FPS, from 110 down to 66.1 FPS, a 39.9% reduction. These percentage drops are relatively consistent across resolutions, suggesting that the performance scaling between presets is uniform regardless of resolution. The Ultra preset at 1080p and 1440p is the recommended configuration for most users, as it maintains frame rates above 120 FPS at both resolutions, which is sufficient for competitive play and high-refresh monitors. For 4K, the High preset is the better choice, as it delivers 81.9 FPS versus 66.1 FPS on Ultra, a 23.9% improvement that brings the experience closer to 90 FPS territory. The Medium preset at 4K offers 97.1 FPS, which is a strong middle ground, but the visual difference between Medium and High typically justifies the 15.7% frame rate cost in this title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC, featuring 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. Its memory subsystem consists of 12 GB of GDDR6X across a 192-bit bus, providing 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's clocks are rated at a base of 1920 MHz and a boost of 2475 MHz, with memory operating at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). The shading units number 5888, with 184 texture mapping units and 64 raster output pipelines, producing a pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s. In terms of compute, the card delivers 29.15 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16 operations. The data shows that this GPU configuration is well-matched to Doom's engine, as the frame rates scale predictably with resolution. At 1080p, the GPU is not the limiting factor at any preset; the difference between Low and Ultra is 129.3 FPS, which is a large spread that indicates headroom. At 1440p, the spread narrows to 77.4 FPS, and at 4K it further narrows to 43.9 FPS, showing that the GPU begins to become more constrained as pixel count rises. The benchmark results for the GPU place it at the 81st percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37283. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (average score 37507, delta -0.6%), the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A (average score 38008, delta -1.9%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (average score 38135, delta -2.2%). These deltas indicate that the RTX 4070's overall compute performance is within a narrow band of these competing parts, though the in-game results here are more favorable due to the game's optimization.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the 7000 series, based on the Zen 4 architecture (codename Raphael) and manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process. It has a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a TDP of 170 W. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 64 MB L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 with a dual-channel bus, providing 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The processor's benchmark results show strong single-thread performance, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6168 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2952, while multi-threaded scores reach 43695 in Cinebench R23 and 17830 in Geekbench. The CPU's overall percentile versus all CPUs is 93, with an average benchmark score of 50556. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 (average score 50598, delta -0.1%), the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT (average score 50738, delta -0.4%), and the Intel Core i7-13850HX (average score 50827, delta -0.5%). In Doom, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is not the bottleneck at any preset, as even the Ultra preset maintains 186.7 FPS, which is far below the CPU's maximum frame-generation capability. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 10972 and the max-thread score of 12536 suggest that the CPU has ample headroom for this game's threading model. The strong single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 1093) is particularly relevant for Doom, which relies on a primary game thread; this processor's boost clock of 5.60 GHz and high IPC from Zen 4 architecture ensure that this thread is not a limiting factor in the measured results.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is ranked 437 out of 1681 tested combos for Doom. This places the combo in the top 26% of all tested configurations, which is a strong result given that the database includes many high-end combinations. The rank of 437, while not near the top, reflects that the RTX 4070 is a mid-to-high-range GPU that, when paired with a top-tier CPU like the 7900X, produces competitive frame rates. The data shows that the combo's performance is more limited by the GPU than the CPU, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling with resolution. At 1080p, the combo achieves an average of 231.6 FPS on High settings, which is well above the average for all combos, but at 4K, the same settings yield only 81.9 FPS, which is closer to the median. This suggests that the combo's rank is largely determined by its 1440p and 1080p performance, where the CPU's strength can be fully utilized. The gap between this combo's rank and the top combos is likely due to GPUs with higher memory bandwidth or more shading units, as the RTX 4070's 12 GB VRAM and 192-bit bus are sufficient for Doom but not at the level of higher-tier cards.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern of scaling from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 231.6 at 1080p, to 149.5 at 1440p, and finally to 81.9 at 4K. This represents a 35.4% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 45.2% drop from 1440p to 4K. At Ultra settings, the progression is 186.7, 124.5, and 66.1 FPS, which are drops of 33.3% and 46.9% respectively. The pattern is similar for Low settings: 316, 201.9, and 110 FPS, with drops of 36.1% and 45.5%. The consistency of these percentage drops across all presets indicates that the scaling is primarily resolution-driven, not setting-driven. The fact that the drop from 1440p to 4K is larger than the drop from 1080p to 1440p (approximately 45-47% versus 33-36%) suggests that the GPU becomes the limiting component at 4K. The pixel count from 1440p (3.7 million) to 4K (8.3 million) increases by 125%, while the pixel count from 1080p (2.1 million) to 1440p (3.7 million) increases by 76%. The frame rate drops do not perfectly mirror these pixel increases, which indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute throughput are not the only factors; the CPU's ability to maintain frame pacing at lower resolutions also plays a role. At 1080p, the CPU is likely the primary limiter at the Low preset, as the 316 FPS average is below what the CPU could theoretically push in a CPU-bound scenario, but the data does not show a clear plateau that would indicate a hard CPU cap.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming with this combo?

A: The Ultra preset at 1440p delivers an average of 124.5 FPS, which is above the 120 FPS threshold for high-refresh monitors. The High preset provides 149.5 FPS, a 20.1% improvement, but the visual fidelity difference between High and Ultra is generally worth the frame rate cost for a single-player FPS like Doom.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 the bottleneck at 4K?

A: Yes, the data indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K. The frame rate drops from 81.9 FPS at High to 66.1 FPS at Ultra, a 19.3% reduction, while the CPU has ample headroom based on its benchmark scores (e.g., Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6168). The GPU's 12 GB VRAM and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient, but the 29.15 TFLOPS compute is not enough to maintain high frame rates at this resolution.

Q: How does this combo compare to the CPU's nearest rivals in terms of overall performance?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score is 50556, which is nearly identical to its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 5 235, with a delta of -0.1%. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT and Intel Core i7-13850HX are also within 0.5% and 0.8% respectively. This indicates that the 7900X's CPU performance is effectively tied with these competitors, so the in-game differences are more attributable to the GPU.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the Low preset averages 316 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 186.7 FPS. This is a difference of 129.3 FPS, representing a 40.9% reduction in frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest visual quality setting.

Q: Does the combo support high refresh rates at 1080p with all settings maxed?

A: Yes, the Ultra preset at 1080p produces an average of 186.7 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz and 165 Hz refresh rates common on modern monitors. Even the most demanding preset in this test exceeds 180 FPS, indicating that the combo is not CPU-bound at this resolution.

Q: How does the GPU's benchmark percentile relate to its in-game performance?

A: The GPU is at the 81st percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37283. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, has a very similar average score of 37507 with a delta of -0.6%. In Doom, the combo achieves 81.9 FPS at 4K High, which is a strong result for a GPU in this percentile range, suggesting that the game is well-optimized for this architecture.