Doom

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the Intel Arc B570 in Doom delivers a performance profile that shifts dramatically depending on resolution and preset, with the data revealing a system that is clearly GPU-bound at 4K but increasingly CPU-capable at 1080p. Measured FPS across the three resolutions shows a predictable scaling pattern: at 1080p with Low settings, the combo hits 164 FPS average, which drops to 106 FPS at 1440p and further to 57 FPS at 4K. This represents a 65% reduction in frame rate from 1080p Low to 4K Low, indicating that the Arc B570’s rendering load becomes the dominant constraint as pixel count rises. At High settings, the same trend holds: 121 FPS at 1080p, 78 FPS at 1440p, and 42 FPS at 4K, a 65% drop again. The consistency of these percentages across presets suggests that the scaling bottleneck is resolution-driven rather than settings-driven, pointing squarely at the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth as the limiting factors.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate behavior across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K tells a clear story about where this system’s headroom lies. At 1080p Medium, the combo averages 143 FPS, while 1440p Medium yields 92 FPS and 4K Medium falls to 50 FPS. The gap between 1080p and 1440p Medium is 51 FPS, a 36% reduction, while moving from 1440p to 4K Medium costs another 42 FPS, a 46% reduction. This non-linear scaling is typical of a GPU that begins to exhaust its pixel throughput at higher resolutions. The Arc B570’s specifications support this interpretation: it has a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, with a memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s over a 160-bit bus. At 4K, the 10 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is sufficient for Doom’s textures, but the bandwidth constraints become apparent when comparing the 4K Medium average of 50 FPS against the 4K Low average of 57 FPS, only a 7 FPS difference, suggesting that the GPU is already near its ceiling even at the lowest settings.

Ultra settings provide the clearest evidence of GPU limitation. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 99 FPS, which is 22 FPS lower than 1080p High’s 121 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, the average drops to 64 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it plunges to 35 FPS, the lowest measured value in the entire dataset. The scaling from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra is a 45% reduction, nearly identical to the Medium preset’s 46% drop between those resolutions. This consistency implies that the GPU’s compute units, not the CPU, are the primary constraint at higher resolutions. The Arc B570’s FP32 throughput of 11.52 TFLOPS and 2304 shading units are modest for 4K workloads, and the data reflects that: no 4K preset exceeds 57 FPS average. In contrast, the CPU’s role at 1080p is more visible. The i5-10400F’s 6 cores and 12 threads, boosting to 4.30 GHz, are capable of feeding the GPU at lower resolutions, as evidenced by the 164 FPS average at 1080p Low, which is likely near the game’s engine limit for this hardware combination.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-10400F and Intel Arc B570 combination ranks 2332 out of 2930 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the 79.6th percentile of all configurations, meaning roughly 20% of combos perform worse. This rank reflects a mid-pack position that is heavily influenced by the GPU’s 4K struggles. The CPU itself sits at the 68th percentile against all CPUs in general benchmarks, with an average benchmark score of 14185. Its nearest rivals in CPU performance are the Intel Xeon 6756E at 14163 (0.2% slower), the Intel Core 7 160UL at 14232 (0.3% faster), the AMD EPYC 7552 at 14115 (0.5% slower), and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C at 14277 (0.6% faster). These delta values are all within 1%, indicating that the i5-10400F is a well-balanced mid-range processor whose performance is essentially indistinguishable from its immediate competitors in synthetic tests.

However, the Doom combo rank does not directly align with the CPU’s percentile, suggesting that the GPU drags the overall result down. The Arc B570 ranks at the 65th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20556. Its nearest GPU rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile at 20534 (0.1% slower), the Intel Arc A750 at 20582 (0.1% faster), the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M at 20480 (0.4% slower), and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X at 20662 (0.5% faster). Again, all deltas are under 1%, meaning the B570 is statistically tied with these cards in aggregate benchmarks. Yet in Doom, the combo’s rank of 2332 out of 2930 suggests that many other pairings, likely those with stronger GPUs or more optimized drivers, achieve higher frame rates. The data shows that at 1080p High, the combo hits 121 FPS, which is smooth for most players, but at 4K Ultra, the 35 FPS average is barely playable, and that performance class is what drags the rank down.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570’s specifications are central to understanding its Doom performance. The GPU is built on TSMC’s 5 nm process with 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 72.1M per mm². Its clocks are fixed at 2500 MHz for both base and boost, which is unusual for a modern GPU that typically boosts higher under load. The memory runs at 2375 MHz with a 19 Gbps effective rate, across a 160-bit bus, yielding 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 10 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is adequate for Doom’s 2016-era textures, even at 4K Ultra, but the bandwidth is the likely constraint at that resolution. The GPU’s 80 ROPs and 144 TMUs produce a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, which are mid-range figures. In Doom, these translate to the measured frame rates: at 4K High, the GPU manages 42 FPS average, while at 4K Medium, it reaches 50 FPS, and at 4K Low, 57 FPS. The incremental gains from lowering settings are modest, 7 FPS from Medium to Low, 8 FPS from High to Medium, indicating that the GPU’s shading and rasterization units are saturated.

The GPU’s benchmark scores provide additional context. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 2649, and in Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 96844, with OpenCL at 83514. Passmark G3D gives 14195, and GPU compute scores 7281. These numbers place the B570 in the mid-range tier, consistent with its 65th percentile ranking. The DirectX 12 Passmark score of 72 and DirectX 11 score of 118 suggest that the GPU’s driver overhead is not a major issue in Doom, which supports DirectX 12 Ultimate. However, the 4K results, where no preset exceeds 57 FPS, demonstrate that the B570 lacks the raw throughput for high-refresh 4K gaming. The 18 RT cores are present but unused in this game, as Doom (2016) does not feature ray tracing. The GPU’s 11.52 TFLOPS FP32 performance is the key metric for traditional rasterization, and the data shows it is insufficient for 60 FPS at 4K in this title under any preset.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Doom?*

A: The highest measured average FPS is 164, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 143 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 121 FPS at 1080p High.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: No. At 4K Ultra, the average is 35 FPS; at 4K High, it is 42 FPS; at 4K Medium, it is 50 FPS; and at 4K Low, it is 57 FPS. None of the 4K presets reach 60 FPS average.

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

A: The Arc B570 has an average benchmark score of 20556. It is 0.1% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534), 0.1% slower than the Intel Arc A750 (20582), 0.4% faster than the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480), and 0.5% slower than the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (20662).

Q: What is the CPU’s performance percentile and its closest rivals?

A: The i5-10400F is at the 68th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14185. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon 6756E (0.2% slower), Intel Core 7 160UL (0.3% faster), AMD EPYC 7552 (0.5% slower), and AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.6% faster).

Q: Which resolution shows the largest FPS drop between settings?

A: At 4K, moving from Low (57 FPS) to Ultra (35 FPS) represents a 22 FPS drop, or 39%. At 1080p, the drop from Low (164 FPS) to Ultra (99 FPS) is 65 FPS, or 40%. The percentage drop is similar, but the absolute drop is largest at 1080p.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo hits 164 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for feeding the GPU. At higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, as evidenced by the smaller FPS differences between Low and Ultra at 4K (22 FPS) compared to 1080p (65 FPS).

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience depends on the target resolution and refresh rate. For 1080p gaming, the Medium preset delivers 143 FPS average, which is 21 FPS higher than High (121 FPS) and only 21 FPS lower than Low (164 FPS). The Medium preset also provides min FPS of 121 and max FPS of 164, meaning it consistently stays above 120 FPS, making it ideal for 120 Hz monitors. High at 1080p is also viable at 121 FPS average, but Ultra drops to 99 FPS, which is still playable but offers diminishing visual returns for a 22 FPS cost. For 1440p, the Medium preset at 92 FPS average (min 79, max 106) is the sweet spot, as it maintains a smooth experience above 75 FPS. High at 1440p yields 78 FPS, which is acceptable, but Ultra falls to 64 FPS, and Low jumps to 106 FPS, though Low’s visual quality is compromised. For 4K, no preset achieves 60 FPS, so the recommendation is Low at 57 FPS average, which is the only 4K option that approaches playability. Medium at 4K offers 50 FPS, but the 7 FPS gain from Medium to Low may not justify the visual downgrade; conversely, the 8 FPS gain from High to Medium suggests that Medium is a better trade-off than High. Ultra at 4K is not recommended, as 35 FPS average falls below the threshold for smooth gameplay. In summary, for a balance of visual quality and frame rate, choose Medium at 1080p (143 FPS), Medium at 1440p (92 FPS), and Low at 4K (57 FPS). If prioritizing frame rate over visuals, Low at any resolution provides the highest FPS, but the jump from Low to Medium at 1080p (164 to 143 FPS) is small enough that Medium is the better default.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Comet Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 14 nm process. Its base clock is 2.90 GHz, with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, and it has a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. This CPU supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus, providing 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth. In Doom, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates are high enough to expose any CPU limitations. The 164 FPS average at 1080p Low suggests that the i5-10400F can keep up with the GPU at lower resolutions, but the 65% drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings (164 to 57 FPS) indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. The CPU’s single-thread performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 single-core (1451) and Geekbench single-core (1420), is adequate for Doom’s engine, which is not heavily multithreaded. The multi-core scores, Cinebench R23 multi-core at 10283 and Geekbench multi-core at 6257, show that the CPU has headroom for background tasks, but the game itself does not appear to utilize all 12 threads, based on the frame rate scaling.

The CPU’s benchmark deltas to its nearest rivals are all within 0.6%, meaning that swapping in a different CPU from that group would not change Doom performance meaningfully. The combo rank of 2332 out of 2930 is more influenced by the GPU than the CPU, given that the i5-10400F sits at the 68th percentile while the Arc B570 sits at the 65th percentile. The CPU’s 3DMark scores, 4748 in 16-thread, 3929 in 8-thread, 2560 in 4-thread, and 1350 in 2-thread, show that scaling is not linear beyond 8 threads, which aligns with Doom’s typical usage of 4-8 threads. The Passmark multi-thread score of 12115 and single-thread score of 2541 further confirm that this CPU is a competent mid-range part. In Doom, the CPU is not the bottleneck at 1440p or 4K, as evidenced by the fact that lowering resolution from 4K to 1080p at the same settings yields FPS increases that far exceed what a CPU-bound scenario would produce. For instance, 4K Low at 57 FPS versus 1080p Low at 164 FPS is a 107 FPS difference, which can only be explained by the GPU’s reduced workload at lower pixel counts. Therefore, the i5-10400F provides sufficient processing power for this game, and any further performance gains would require a stronger GPU rather than a CPU upgrade.