Doom

The Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 7700 combination delivers a strong 1080p and 1440p experience in Doom, with the GPU acting as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The measured data shows this pairing ranks 1724th out of 3712 tested combinations in this title, placing it in the upper half of all configs. At 1080p, the system exceeds 145 FPS even at Ultra settings, while 4K remains playable but requires a settings reduction to maintain smooth frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU/GPU combo in Doom?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 as the sweet spot, with High settings delivering 115 FPS average and Low settings reaching 156 FPS. At 1920x1080, the system hits 178 FPS on High and 241 FPS on Low, but 1440p offers a significant visual upgrade while staying well above 60 FPS at all tested settings.

Q: How does this system perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the combo produces 62 FPS on High settings, 74 FPS on Medium, and 85 FPS on Low. Ultra settings drop to 51 FPS, which is below the ideal 60 FPS threshold. The GPU becomes the limiting factor at this resolution, as the frame rate drops by roughly 42% from High to Ultra.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-10400F a bottleneck in this game?

A: Benchmark results indicate the CPU is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions. The CPU's 3dmark single-thread score of 688 and passmark single-thread score of 2541, combined with 6 cores and 12 threads, are sufficient to feed the GPU. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows only a 35% drop on High settings, suggesting the GPU handles the increased load effectively.

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

A: At 1080p, Low settings produce 241 FPS while Ultra produces 145 FPS, a 66% advantage for Low. At 1440p, the gap narrows to 156 FPS versus 94 FPS (66% advantage). The Medium preset at 4K produces 74 FPS, which is 45% faster than Ultra's 51 FPS at the same resolution.

Q: How does the RX 7700 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 7700's average benchmark score of 15852 is 0.1% below the AMD Radeon R9 370X, 1% below the AMD Radeon RX 9060, and 1.7% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. It sits 1.1% above the AMD Radeon Pro W5500. These small deltas suggest near-parity with these competing cards in raw compute.

Q: Does the game run smoothly at Medium settings across all resolutions?

A: Yes, the measured data shows Medium settings deliver 210 FPS at 1080p, 136 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K. The minimum FPS values recorded for Medium are 179 at 1080p, 116 at 1440p, and 63 at 4K, indicating consistent frame delivery without major stutters.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F brings 6 cores and 12 threads to this pairing, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. This Comet Lake processor operates on the Intel Socket 1200 platform with a 65 W TDP and 14 nm process node. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache, which provides adequate data locality for the game's streaming assets.

Benchmark data places this CPU in the 68th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 14185. Its nearest rivals show remarkable parity: the Intel Xeon 6756E scores 14163 (0.2% lower), the Intel Core 7 160UL scores 14232 (0.3% higher), and the AMD EPYC 7552 scores 14115 (0.5% lower). The AMD Ryzen 3 7320C trails by 0.6% with a score of 14277. This clustering indicates the i5-10400F delivers competitive multi-threaded performance for its class.

In Doom specifically, the CPU's 12 threads handle the game's simulation and AI workloads without becoming a limiting factor. The 3dmark results show scaling from 1350 in 2-thread tests to 4748 in 16-thread tests, while the max-threads score of 4735 closely matches the 16-thread result, confirming the processor effectively utilizes its available thread count. Cinebench R23 scores of 10283 multi-core and 1451 single-core further demonstrate balanced performance across both lightly-threaded and heavily-threaded scenarios.

The passmark suite reveals the CPU's strengths: integer math scores 41471, floating point math scores 25956, and extended instructions hit 12500. The data compression score of 185944 and random string sorting score of 23185 indicate strong memory subsystem performance. However, the physics score of 696 and find prime numbers score of 35 suggest the CPU prioritizes throughput over latency-sensitive operations, which aligns with the observed frame rates in Doom where the GPU dominates.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. This Navi 32 chip runs on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC, packing 28,100 million transistors on a 346 mm² die. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1900 MHz, a game clock of 2041 MHz, and a boost clock of 2459 MHz, with memory running at 2438 MHz (19.5 Gbps effective).

The GPU's 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output pipelines deliver a pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s. Floating point performance reaches 25.18 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16, while 40 ray tracing cores provide hardware acceleration for modern rendering features. The card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, ensuring full API compatibility with Doom's rendering requirements.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7700 scores 20974 in passmark G3D and 2865 in 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12. The passmark DirectX 11 score of 186 and DirectX 12 score of 96 show the card's API-specific performance varies, with older APIs performing relatively better. The GPU's percentile ranking of 58 places it slightly above the midpoint of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15852.

The measured frame rates in Doom reveal the GPU's scaling behavior. At 1080p, the card delivers between 145 and 241 FPS depending on settings, showing it has ample headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors. Moving to 1440p, the GPU maintains 94 to 156 FPS across settings, still comfortably above 60 FPS. At 4K, the GPU's load becomes more apparent, with Ultra settings dropping to 51 FPS while Low settings achieve 85 FPS. The 16 GB VRAM capacity ensures the game's textures never exceed available memory, even at 4K with Ultra settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings deliver 241 FPS average, Medium produces 210 FPS with a minimum of 179 and maximum of 242, High reaches 178 FPS, and Ultra achieves 145 FPS. These numbers indicate the combo can drive high-refresh-rate monitors at 1080p even with maximum quality settings.

At 2560x1440, performance remains strong but shows the expected resolution penalty. Low settings yield 156 FPS, Medium delivers 136 FPS with a minimum of 116 and maximum of 156, High produces 115 FPS, and Ultra drops to 94 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 62 FPS at this resolution, compared to 96 FPS at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is becoming more load-bound.

At 3840x2160, the system still maintains playable frame rates. Low settings hit 85 FPS, Medium delivers 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 and maximum of 85, High produces 62 FPS, and Ultra falls to 51 FPS. The minimum FPS of 63 at Medium settings shows the system rarely dips below the 60 FPS threshold, making this preset the safest choice for 4K gaming.

The data shows a consistent pattern: each settings tier costs roughly 15-20% performance at a given resolution. Moving from Low to Medium reduces frame rates by 13% at 1080p (241 to 210 FPS), 13% at 1440p (156 to 136 FPS), and 13% at 4K (85 to 74 FPS). The step from Medium to High costs a further 15% at 1080p (210 to 178 FPS), 15% at 1440p (136 to 115 FPS), and 16% at 4K (74 to 62 FPS). The final step to Ultra costs 19% at 1080p (178 to 145 FPS), 18% at 1440p (115 to 94 FPS), and 18% at 4K (62 to 51 FPS).

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals the system's bottleneck characteristics. At High settings, the system drops from 178 FPS at 1080p to 115 FPS at 1440p (a 35% reduction), then to 62 FPS at 4K (a 46% reduction from 1440p). This scaling pattern indicates the GPU becomes progressively more saturated as pixel count increases, while the CPU maintains sufficient headroom to avoid limiting performance.

The Low settings data shows a similar trend: 241 FPS at 1080p drops to 156 FPS at 1440p (35% reduction) and 85 FPS at 4K (45% reduction from 1440p). Medium settings follow the same pattern with 210, 136, and 74 FPS respectively. Ultra settings produce 145, 94, and 51 FPS across the three resolutions.

The consistent 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p across all settings suggests the scaling is primarily resolution-driven rather than settings-driven. However, the 4K step shows slightly steeper drops, with reductions ranging from 45% to 46% depending on settings. This indicates the GPU's memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s becomes a factor at 4K, particularly at higher settings where texture loads increase.

The limiting component analysis points to the GPU as the primary constraint at 4K. The RX 7700's 96 ROPs and 236.1 GPixel/s pixel rate must process over 8 million pixels per frame at 3840x2160, which explains the 51 FPS result at Ultra settings. At 1080p and 1440p, the GPU still has performance headroom, as evidenced by the high frame rates that far exceed the CPU's potential bottleneck threshold.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual quality and performance, Medium settings provide the most consistent experience across all resolutions. The measured data shows Medium delivers 210 FPS at 1080p, 136 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K, with minimum frame rates of 179, 116, and 63 respectively. This preset maintains a minimum FPS above 60 even at 4K, ensuring smooth gameplay without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.

High settings are the recommended choice for 1440p and 1080p gaming. At these resolutions, High produces 115 FPS and 178 FPS respectively, which are well above the 60 FPS threshold. The visual improvements over Medium are substantial, particularly in texture detail and shadow quality, while the performance cost of 15% is acceptable for most users. However, at 4K, High drops to 62 FPS, which is technically playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes.

Ultra settings are only advisable at 1080p, where the system achieves 145 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra produces 94 FPS, which is still smooth but represents a 18% performance hit over High. At 4K, Ultra's 51 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it unsuitable for competitive play or fast-paced action sequences where frame consistency matters.

Low settings are unnecessary for most users given the system's capabilities. Even at 4K, Low achieves 85 FPS, which is only 15% faster than Medium. The visual downgrade from Low to Medium is significant, and the performance benefit is marginal. For users prioritizing maximum frame rates at 1080p, Low's 241 FPS can drive 240 Hz monitors, but the visual compromise is substantial.

The optimal configuration depends on the user's display and priorities. For 4K displays, Medium settings offer the best balance with a 74 FPS average and 63 FPS minimum. For 1440p displays, High settings provide an excellent experience at 115 FPS. For 1080p displays, users can choose between High at 178 FPS or Ultra at 145 FPS, with the latter offering the full visual experience while still maintaining high frame rates.