Doom

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER delivers a robust 1080p and 1440p experience in Doom, but the data reveals a clear transition at 4K where the GPU becomes the primary constraint. At 1920x1080, the combination produces frame rates well above the 144 Hz threshold for competitive play, while 2560x1440 remains highly playable. The 3840x2160 results show a significant drop, indicating that the RTX 2060 SUPER’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256-bit bus are sufficient for the game’s demands, but the rendering load at 4K exceeds the card’s comfortable operating range.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a predictable and steep decline as resolution increases, but the rate of decline varies by settings preset. From 1080p to 1440p, the average frame rate drops by roughly 35-40% across all settings. For instance, at High settings, the average falls from 143.5 FPS at 1920x1080 to 92.2 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of approximately 35.7%. The same preset at 4K drops further to 49.4 FPS, representing a further 46.4% decrease from the 1440p figure. This pattern is consistent across Low, Medium, and Ultra presets, though the absolute numbers differ.

The scaling behavior suggests that at 1080p, the i5-10400F’s six cores and twelve threads are more than capable of feeding the GPU, as the frame rates exceed 117 FPS even at Ultra settings. The 194.9 FPS result at Low settings indicates the CPU is not a bottleneck at this resolution. As resolution climbs to 1440p, the GPU workload increases, but the combo still manages 76.4 FPS at Ultra, which is respectable for a demanding title. The 4K results tell a different story: the gap between settings narrows significantly in relative terms, with Ultra at 42.6 FPS and Low at 67.4 FPS. This compression indicates that the RTX 2060 SUPER is the limiting component, as lowering settings cannot fully compensate for the pixel-pushing requirements of 3840x2160.

The data implies that the system is balanced for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where the CPU and GPU complement each other well. At 4K, the GPU’s raw compute throughput—7.181 TFLOPS FP32—becomes the deciding factor, and the frame rates reflect that hardware ceiling rather than any inefficiency in the processor.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the TU106 chip using a 12 nm process from TSMC, with 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die. Its memory configuration includes 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The card’s base clock is 1470 MHz, with a boost clock of 1650 MHz, and it houses 2176 shading units, 136 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. These specifications place it in the upper mid-range tier, and the benchmark data confirms its position.

In Doom, the GPU’s role is most evident in the 4K measurements. The average FPS at 3840x2160 ranges from 42.6 FPS at Ultra to 67.4 FPS at Low, with Medium at 58.6 FPS and High at 49.4 FPS. The spread of roughly 24.8 FPS between the lowest and highest settings at 4K shows that the GPU is the primary driver of performance, as the CPU is unlikely to be the bottleneck at such high resolutions. The card’s 64 ROPs and texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s are adequate for the game’s geometry, but the sheer pixel count at 4K overwhelms the fill rate.

The RTX 2060 SUPER’s overall benchmark percentile of 63 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19774, places it in direct competition with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, which scores 19680 (a deltaPct of 0.5% in favor of the 2060 SUPER). This near-parity is reflected in the game’s performance, where the 2060 SUPER demonstrates that it can handle Doom’s Vulkan-based engine efficiently, but only up to a point. The 8 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor in this title, as the game’s texture demands at 4K Ultra are met without memory-related stutters, based on the stable average FPS figures.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a Comet Lake processor with six cores and twelve threads, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. It has 12 MB of shared L3 cache, with 64 KB L1 and 256 KB L2 per core. The processor uses a 14 nm process and supports DDR4 memory on a dual-channel bus, providing a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. Its benchmark scores, including a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10297 and a single-core score of 1453, indicate solid mainstream performance.

In Doom, the CPU’s contribution is most apparent at 1080p, where frame rates are high enough that any processor limitation would surface. The 194.9 FPS result at Low settings suggests that the i5-10400F can push the engine to its limits without becoming a constraint. The 3dmark scores support this: the 4-thread score of 2560 and 8-thread score of 3929 show that the processor scales well with the game’s thread usage. Doom’s id Tech 6 engine is known for efficient multi-threading, and the 12 threads of the i5-10400F are more than sufficient.

At 1440p, the CPU continues to hold up, with the 127.1 FPS Low setting result indicating no bottleneck. The processor’s 73rd percentile versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168, places it near the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (score 14277, deltaPct -0.8%) and Intel Core i5-8500 (score 14332, deltaPct -1.1%). This competitive positioning means that in a GPU-bound scenario like 4K, the CPU’s performance headroom is irrelevant, but at lower resolutions, it ensures the GPU is fully utilized.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive picture across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the average FPS is 194.9 for Low, 167.3 for Medium, 143.5 for High, and 117.6 for Ultra. These numbers indicate that the system delivers a highly responsive experience, with even the Ultra preset exceeding 115 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 77.3 FPS, showing that the GPU has ample headroom at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages drop to 127.1 FPS for Low, 110.5 FPS for Medium, 92.2 FPS for High, and 76.4 FPS for Ultra. This represents a reduction of roughly 35% across all presets compared to 1080p. The Ultra setting at 76.4 FPS is still above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, making 1440p a viable option for most users. The Low setting at 127.1 FPS offers a competitive advantage for those prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 67.4 FPS for Low, 58.6 FPS for Medium, 49.4 FPS for High, and 42.6 FPS for Ultra. The Ultra preset falls below the 45 FPS mark, which may be noticeable for some players, while Low setting provides a playable 67.4 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows a further 46-47% drop, reinforcing the GPU-bound nature of these settings. The data is consistent and measured, with no anomalous spikes or dips in the figures.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader context of tested system combinations for Doom, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 1130th out of 1681 total combinations. This places it in the 67th percentile of all tested combos, indicating that it outperforms a majority of systems but is not at the top tier. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s mid-range performance and the GPU’s upper mid-range capability, which together produce strong results at 1080p and 1440p, but fall short of the highest-end configurations at 4K.

The combo’s rank is consistent with the individual component benchmarks. The CPU’s percentile of 73 and the GPU’s percentile of 63 suggest that the system is slightly CPU-heavy in its balance, but the game’s results show that this does not hinder performance in Doom. The nearest rivals for the CPU, such as the AMD EPYC 7552 (deltaPct 0.4%) and AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (deltaPct -0.8%), have similar average scores, indicating that the processor is well-matched to its peers. For the GPU, the RTX 2070’s near-identical average score (deltaPct 0.5%) means that this combo would perform nearly indistinguishably from a system with that card.

Overall, the measured data shows that this combination is a capable performer for Doom, particularly at 1080p and 1440p, where it delivers high frame rates across all settings. The 4K results are playable at lower settings, but the GPU’s limits are clear. The ranking of 1130 out of 1681 places it in the upper-middle tier, which aligns with its component specifications and benchmark scores.