Doom

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and Intel Arc B580 pairing delivers a highly playable Doom experience across the board, though the data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution increases. At 1080p, the system pushes well past 100 FPS on every preset, but at 4K, even the Medium preset dips below the 60 FPS threshold. The measured results show a classic CPU-bound scenario at lower resolutions that transitions into a GPU-bound one at 4K, with the Arc B580’s 12 GB frame buffer and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth becoming the primary constraint.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 186, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low settings preset. This is the peak performance point in the measured data, showing the system’s ceiling when the GPU load is minimized.

Q: Can this system run Doom at 4K with a stable 60 FPS experience?

A: No, not according to the measured results. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 57 FPS with a minimum of 48 FPS, and the High preset averages 48 FPS. Only the Low preset at 4K breaks the 60 FPS barrier with an average of 65 FPS, but the Medium preset falls short of the 60 FPS target.

Q: How does the Arc B580 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B580’s average benchmark score is 23021, placing it at the 68th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, scores 23061, which is a 0.2% difference, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 scores 22895, putting it 0.6% behind. The data shows the B580 sits in a tightly contested performance cluster.

Q: What is the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K at the High settings preset?

A: The average FPS drops from 137 at 1920x1080 to 88 at 2560x1440, and finally to 48 at 3840x2160. This represents a 65% reduction in average FPS from 1080p to 4K, indicating a significant performance scaling penalty at higher resolutions.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9900X perform in single-threaded versus multi-threaded workloads?

A: The CPU scores 2253 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 32172 in multi-core, showing strong single-thread performance that is critical for game logic. In 3DMark’s single-thread test, it scores 1286, while the max-threads test yields 13929, highlighting a 10.8x scaling factor across its 12 cores and 24 threads.

Q: Which settings preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance at 1440p?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 averages 88 FPS, providing a solid 60+ FPS experience with improved visual fidelity over Medium. The Ultra preset drops to 72 FPS, which is still playable, but the High preset offers a more comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining significant graphical upgrades.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the High settings preset provides the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, High averages 137 FPS, which is only 25 FPS below the Low preset’s 186 FPS but offers substantially better visual quality. The jump to Medium at 1080p yields 162 FPS, but the incremental gain of 25 FPS over High does not justify the visual compromise for most users, as High still comfortably exceeds 120 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the High preset becomes the clear recommendation, averaging 88 FPS. This maintains a smooth experience above the 60 FPS target while the Ultra preset drops to 72 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. The Medium preset at 105 FPS is viable for competitive play, but High provides the best visual uplift without sacrificing the 60 FPS floor.

For 4K gaming, the recommendations shift. The Low preset averages 65 FPS, which is the only 4K option that maintains a 60+ FPS average. However, the Medium preset at 57 FPS is still within a playable range for slower-paced titles, and its minimum of 48 FPS suggests occasional dips. The data indicates that for a locked 60 FPS experience at 4K, users should select the Low preset, while Medium is acceptable for those prioritizing visual quality over absolute frame rate stability.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a pronounced GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions. At the High settings preset, the average FPS drops from 137 at 1920x1080 to 88 at 2560x1440, a 35.8% reduction, and then plummets to 48 at 3840x2160, a further 45.5% reduction. This steep decline indicates that the Arc B580 struggles to maintain throughput as pixel count increases, with the 4K resolution nearly tripling the workload compared to 1080p.

The same pattern holds across all settings presets. The Low preset at 1080p averages 186 FPS, which drops to 120 at 1440p and 65 at 4K, representing a 65% total decline. The Ultra preset falls from 112 FPS at 1080p to 72 at 1440p and 39 at 4K, a 65.2% decrease. The consistency of this scaling across presets strongly suggests that the GPU’s rendering capabilities, rather than the CPU or memory subsystem, are the limiting factor at 4K.

The 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on the Arc B580, paired with a 192-bit bus and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth, appears sufficient for 1440p but becomes strained at 4K. The data shows that the Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12 cores and 5.60 GHz boost clock, maintains high frame rates at 1080p where the GPU is less taxed, but the GPU’s 13.67 TFLOPS FP32 throughput cannot keep pace with the 4K pixel workload. This behavior is typical of a mid-range GPU being pushed beyond its optimal resolution range.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers exceptional performance across all presets. The Low preset leads with an average of 186 FPS, followed by Medium at 162 FPS with a minimum of 137 FPS and maximum of 186 FPS. High averages 137 FPS, while Ultra drops to 112 FPS. Every preset at 1080p exceeds the 100 FPS mark, indicating that the Ryzen 9 9900X’s strong single-thread performance, evidenced by its 1286 3DMark single-thread score, keeps the CPU from becoming a bottleneck at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but begin to show the GPU’s influence. Low averages 120 FPS, Medium averages 105 FPS with a minimum of 89 FPS and maximum of 120 FPS, and High averages 88 FPS. Ultra is the only preset that falls below 90 FPS, averaging 72 FPS. The 1440p results show a clear hierarchy where each step up in settings costs roughly 15-20 FPS, reflecting the Arc B580’s balanced performance profile at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly. Low averages 65 FPS, Medium averages 57 FPS with a minimum of 48 FPS and maximum of 65 FPS, and High averages 48 FPS. Ultra falls to 39 FPS, which is below the playable threshold for a fast-paced FPS. The 4K data shows that the Medium preset’s 57 FPS average is the best balance of quality and speed, while the High preset’s 48 FPS average indicates the GPU is saturated. The 1080p to 4K scaling penalties are consistent across all presets, reinforcing the GPU-bound nature of 4K gaming with this hardware.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580, based on the Xe2-HPG architecture and BMG-G21 chip, is the primary determinant of performance at higher resolutions. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming but becomes a limiting factor at 4K. The GPU’s 2560 shading units and 80 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s, which explains the steep FPS drop when resolution increases.

The B580’s boost clock of 2670 MHz, which matches its base clock, indicates a fixed operating point that does not dynamically scale. This is unusual for a modern GPU and may contribute to its performance ceiling. The 13.67 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 427.2 GTexel/s texture rate are mid-range figures, consistent with its 68th percentile ranking among all GPUs. The benchmark data shows it sits within 1% of the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, making it a competitive option in its class.

The 20 ray tracing cores (RT cores) are present on the B580, but Doom’s measured results do not indicate whether ray tracing is enabled. The GPU’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support and 12_2 feature level ensure compatibility with modern titles, but the 4K performance data suggests that the B580 is better suited for 1440p gaming. The 190 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate a power-efficient card that does not require excessive cooling, but the performance scaling shows that its 12 GB frame buffer is the key asset for maintaining playable frame rates at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, provides ample computational headroom for Doom. Its 4.40 GHz base clock and 5.60 GHz boost clock deliver strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by the 2253 Cinebench R23 single-core score and 3010 Geekbench single-core score. This is crucial for game logic and physics calculations, which are typically single-threaded in older titles like Doom from 2016.

The CPU’s 64 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth ensure that data can be fed to the GPU efficiently. The 3dmark_16_threads score of 12552 and max_threads score of 13929 show that the CPU scales well with multithreaded workloads, but the 1080p results in Doom indicate that the CPU is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions. The fact that FPS drops from 186 at 1080p Low to 65 at 4K Low, while the CPU performance remains constant, confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor.

The Ryzen 9 9900X’s 92nd percentile ranking among all CPUs places it well above the Arc B580’s 68th percentile GPU ranking. This mismatch suggests that the CPU is overqualified for the GPU in this pairing, allowing the GPU to operate at its full potential without CPU-induced frame pacing issues. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-14900, scores 58115 in average benchmarks, just 1.1% higher than the 9900X’s 57498, indicating that the CPU choice has minimal impact on Doom’s performance compared to the GPU. The data clearly shows that users seeking higher frame rates at 4K would benefit more from a more powerful GPU than a CPU upgrade.