Doom

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination delivers a robust experience in Doom, with performance scaling predictably across resolutions and presets. The measured data shows this pairing is capable of high refresh rate play at 1080p, smoothly exceeding 60 FPS at 4K on High settings, and maintaining excellent frame pacing throughout. The analysis below breaks down the optimal configurations, component roles, and how this specific pairing ranks against the broader database of tested combos.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific hardware combination, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the most balanced experience, delivering an average of 128 FPS with a minimum of 109 FPS. This configuration provides a substantial performance buffer above standard 60 Hz displays while maintaining enough visual fidelity for a fast-paced shooter. The 128 FPS average represents a 19 FPS improvement over High settings at the same resolution, which drops to 108 FPS, while the minimum frame rate of 109 FPS ensures consistent gameplay without noticeable hitches.

At 1920x1080, the High preset is the recommended choice for competitive play. The measured 167 FPS average leverages the high refresh rate potential of most modern monitors, while the 228 FPS ceiling on Low settings suggests the engine has headroom for esports-level responsiveness if the user prioritizes frame rate over visuals. The High preset at 1080p retains significant detail while still providing a 30 FPS advantage over Ultra settings, which average 137 FPS.

For users with 4K displays, the High preset at 3840x2160 is the best experience, averaging 59 FPS. This is right at the cusp of smooth 60 Hz gameplay, and the slight drop to Medium (70 FPS) provides a more comfortable margin if frame pacing is a concern. The Ultra preset at 4K falls to 48 FPS, which introduces noticeable judder in a game requiring rapid camera movement, making it less suitable despite the visual gains. The Low preset at 4K, while hitting 80 FPS, sacrifices too much visual clarity for the resolution to be worthwhile.

FAQ

Q: Can this combination run Doom at 4K with high visual settings?

A: Yes, the data shows a 59 FPS average at 3840x2160 on High settings. This is adequate for most displays, though the Medium preset at 70 FPS provides a safer margin for maintaining a locked 60 FPS experience.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate achievable at 1080p?

A: The highest measured average is 228 FPS on Low settings at 1920x1080. The Medium preset still achieves 198 FPS, indicating the RTX 4060 is not the limiting factor at this resolution unless pushing for maximum competitive frame rates.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1440p?

A: Ultra settings at 2560x1440 average 89 FPS, while High settings average 108 FPS. This 19 FPS difference (approximately 17.6% lower performance) is the cost of the highest visual fidelity preset.

Q: Is the RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM sufficient for Doom's highest settings?

A: The benchmark data indicates no issue, as the Ultra preset at 4K still runs at 48 FPS average. The game's engine appears well-optimized for the 8 GB memory capacity, with no observed frame drops suggesting VRAM limitations.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: Low settings average 80 FPS, while Ultra averages 48 FPS. This represents a 32 FPS drop (a 40% reduction) when moving from the lowest to the highest preset, highlighting the significant GPU load increase at 4K.

Q: Does the Ryzen 9 9900X3D bottleneck the RTX 4060 in this game?

A: Benchmark results suggest no bottleneck at standard resolutions. The 228 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low indicates the CPU can feed frames well above the GPU's capability, and the consistent scaling across resolutions points to GPU-bound performance in most scenarios.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is the primary driver of frame rate variance in Doom across the tested configurations. The GPU's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for the game's texture streaming at all tested settings. The Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process, operates at a base clock of 1830 MHz and boosts to 2460 MHz, delivering 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power.

The measured FPS data clearly shows the GPU scaling with workload. At 1080p, the RTX 4060 produces 137 FPS on Ultra and 228 FPS on Low, a 91 FPS spread that demonstrates the game's sensitivity to pixel shading and texture filtering. The 48 ROPs and 96 TMUs handle the rasterization demands efficiently, as evidenced by the smooth minimum frame rates recorded on Medium settings (168 FPS at 1080p, 109 FPS at 1440p, 59 FPS at 4K). The GPU's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are not particularly stressed in this title, as Doom's Vulkan-based engine primarily relies on traditional rasterization.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 61 against all tested GPUs places it in the upper-mid range, and its nearest rivals show minimal performance deltas. The AMD Radeon HD 7790 scores 0.2% higher, while the AMD Radeon 780M is 0.3% lower, indicating the RTX 4060's synthetic benchmark average of 17639 is tightly clustered with these competitors. However, in actual gaming scenarios, the RTX 4060's modern feature set and driver optimization provide a clear advantage over these older or integrated alternatives.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 4060 delivers exceptional performance. The Low preset achieves 228 FPS average, with Medium at 198 FPS (minimum 168 FPS), High at 167 FPS, and Ultra at 137 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 91 FPS drop, approximately 39.9% lower performance at the highest settings. All presets comfortably exceed 120 FPS, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh-rate displays.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows expected scaling. Low settings average 147 FPS, Medium 128 FPS (minimum 109 FPS), High 108 FPS, and Ultra 89 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 58 FPS, a 39.5% reduction. The minimum frame rate on Medium (109 FPS) suggests the GPU maintains consistent frame pacing even under load, with no severe dips.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limits become apparent. Low settings average 80 FPS, Medium 70 FPS (minimum 59 FPS), High 59 FPS, and Ultra 48 FPS. The 32 FPS difference between Low and Ultra represents a 40% drop, consistent with the scaling observed at lower resolutions. The Medium preset's minimum of 59 FPS indicates that even at 4K, the GPU avoids catastrophic frame drops, though Ultra's 48 FPS average falls below the threshold for smooth gameplay on standard displays.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the RTX 4060's pixel throughput limitations. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 167 at 1080p to 108 at 1440p, a 35.3% reduction, and further to 59 at 4K, a 64.7% reduction from the 1080p baseline. This scaling is roughly proportional to the pixel count increase, confirming that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The Low preset shows similar behavior: 228 FPS at 1080p, 147 FPS at 1440p (35.5% drop), and 80 FPS at 4K (64.9% drop). The consistent percentage drops across presets indicate that the game's rendering workload scales linearly with resolution, and the RTX 4060's 272.0 GB/s memory bandwidth becomes increasingly strained as pixel count rises. The 128-bit memory bus is a notable constraint at 4K, where texture fetch demands exceed what lower resolutions require.

Interestingly, the Ultra preset shows the smallest absolute drop from 1080p to 1440p (48 FPS, a 35% reduction) but the largest from 1440p to 4K (41 FPS, a 46.1% reduction). This suggests that the additional shading work at Ultra settings compounds the memory bandwidth pressure at 4K, making the GPU's 15.11 TFLOPS compute capability secondary to memory throughput in this scenario.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D provides ample processing headroom for Doom, ensuring the GPU remains the performance limiter in nearly all tested configurations. The CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads, based on the Zen 5 architecture, run at a base clock of 4.40 GHz and boost to 5.50 GHz. The 128 MB of L3 cache is particularly beneficial for game workloads, as it reduces memory latency for frequently accessed data.

Synthetic benchmarks confirm the CPU's capability. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 47737 and single-core score of 6739 place it firmly in the high-performance tier, while the 3DMark 16-thread score of 12490 indicates strong multi-threaded gaming performance. The CPU's 91st percentile ranking against all tested CPUs demonstrates its position among the fastest processors available, with its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF, scoring only 0.6% higher on average.

In Doom specifically, the CPU's performance is more than adequate. The 228 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low settings suggests the game engine is well-optimized for multi-threaded execution, and the CPU's 24 threads handle the game's physics and AI workloads without becoming a bottleneck. The 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth of the dual-channel DDR5 interface also supports the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and vertex data efficiently. Even at 4K, where GPU load is highest, the CPU never appears to limit frame rates, as evidenced by the smooth minimum FPS values recorded.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 1540 out of 2930 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the 47.4th percentile of all system configurations. This mid-pack ranking reflects the balance between a high-end CPU and a mid-range GPU, where the CPU's substantial processing power is paired with a GPU that limits overall gaming performance.

The rank is primarily determined by the RTX 4060's position in the GPU hierarchy. With a percentile rank of 61 against all GPUs, the RTX 4060 sits in the upper-mid range, but its performance in Doom is constrained by its 8 GB memory capacity and 128-bit bus width at higher resolutions. The CPU's 91st percentile ranking does not boost the combo's position significantly, as Doom's frame rates are overwhelmingly GPU-bound in the measured scenarios.

The data shows that this pairing is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where the RTX 4060 can fully utilize the CPU's frame-generating capacity. At 4K, the combo's rank would likely be lower than the overall 1540, as the GPU struggles to maintain high frame rates. For users prioritizing high refresh rate esports titles at 1080p, this combination offers excellent performance, but for 4K enthusiasts, a more powerful GPU would be necessary to complement the 9900X3D's capabilities. The mid-pack ranking reflects this nuanced performance profile, where the CPU's strength is somewhat underutilized by the GPU in demanding scenarios.