Doom

# Doom with Intel Core i5-11400F + AMD Radeon RX 7700

The Intel Core i5-11400F pairs with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 to deliver a remarkably consistent experience in Doom, with the benchmark data showing a combo that scales cleanly across resolutions and settings. With 6 cores and 12 threads on the CPU side and 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on the GPU, this pairing lands at rank 1314 out of 2930 tested combos in this game, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. The measured frames-per-second figures reveal a system that is clearly GPU-bound at higher resolutions but shows signs of CPU influence at 1080p, making this a fascinating case study in balanced versus imbalanced hardware pairings.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a predictable but informative drop in average FPS as resolution climbs from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the system delivers 178 FPS at 1920x1080, falls to 115 FPS at 2560x1440, and bottoms out at 62 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 35% reduction moving from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 46% drop from 1440p to 4K. The scaling pattern suggests the Radeon RX 7700's 25.18 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is being progressively saturated as pixel count rises, with the 624.1 GB/s memory bandwidth becoming an increasingly important factor at higher resolutions.

At Low settings, the resolution scaling is even more dramatic, with 241 FPS at 1080p dropping to 156 FPS at 1440p and then to 85 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop of 35% mirrors the High preset, but the 1440p-to-4K drop of 45% is slightly shallower, suggesting that at Low settings the GPU's compute units are less of a bottleneck and the memory subsystem plays a larger role. The fact that 4K Low (85 FPS) outperforms 4K High (62 FPS) by 37% indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at this resolution, with pixel fill rate and shader work dominating the performance equation.

The Medium preset tells a similar story, with 210 FPS at 1080p, 136 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K. The min FPS values at Medium settings are available in the data: 179 FPS at 1080p, 116 FPS at 1440p, and 63 FPS at 4K. These minimums are all within 15% of their respective averages, which suggests the frame pacing remains stable even as the resolution increases. The 4K Medium minimum of 63 FPS is particularly telling, as it sits just above the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the floor for smooth gameplay, indicating the system is right at the edge of its comfort zone at this resolution.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which preset offers the best experience. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 178 FPS average, which is more than sufficient for any display, while Ultra drops to 145 FPS — a 19% penalty for what is likely a modest visual gain. The Medium preset at 210 FPS offers the highest average among the more visually demanding settings, but the data shows that High is the sweet spot: it maintains a 178 FPS average while presumably offering substantially better visuals than Medium's 210 FPS. The difference between Medium and High is 32 FPS, or about 15%, which is a reasonable trade-off for improved image quality.

At 2560x1440, the High preset's 115 FPS average is comfortably above the 100 FPS mark, making it the recommended choice for high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors. Ultra drops to 94 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices 18% of the High preset's performance. The Low preset at 156 FPS is available for competitive play, but the data suggests it is unnecessary given that High already clears the 100 FPS threshold. For 4K, the situation is more constrained: High manages 62 FPS average, while Medium achieves 74 FPS and Low reaches 85 FPS. Given that 4K High dips to 62 FPS — just above the 60 FPS line — players seeking a safety margin should consider Medium, which provides a 19% average FPS improvement over High while likely maintaining acceptable visual fidelity.

The Ultra preset is consistently the worst performer at every resolution, with 145 FPS at 1080p, 94 FPS at 1440p, and 51 FPS at 4K. At 4K, Ultra's 51 FPS average falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it the only tested configuration that cannot sustain smooth gameplay at that resolution. The data clearly indicates that Ultra is not a viable option at 4K for this combo, and players should stick to High or Medium for the best balance of visual quality and performance.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain much of the observed performance. With 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs, the GPU is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process. The boost clock of 2459 MHz and game clock of 2041 MHz provide the raw compute throughput of 25.18 TFLOPS FP32, which the benchmark data shows is sufficient to push Doom to 178 FPS at 1080p High settings. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth, which becomes increasingly critical as resolution scales to 4K.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 20974 places it at the 58th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon R9 370X (deltaPct -0.1%), the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (deltaPct -1%), the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (deltaPct 1.1%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (deltaPct -1.7%). These deltas are all within 2% of the RX 7700's average benchmark score of 15852, suggesting that this GPU sits in a tightly contested performance tier. The fact that the RX 7700 is within 1.7% of the RTX 3060 Ti in average benchmark score is notable, though the Doom-specific results may differ from these synthetic benchmarks.

The VRAM capacity of 16 GB is never likely to be a limiting factor in Doom, given the game's 2016 release date, but the memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s does appear to matter at 4K. The 4K High average of 62 FPS versus the 4K Low average of 85 FPS represents a 37% difference, and while some of this is due to shader complexity, the memory subsystem's role in feeding the ROPs and TMUs is evident. The pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s provide the theoretical ceilings, and the measured 4K Medium minimum of 63 FPS suggests the GPU is operating near its practical limits at this resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 7700 achieves a rank of 1314 out of 2930 combos tested in Doom, placing it in the 55th percentile of all tested systems. This rank is somewhat lower than what the individual component percentiles might suggest — the CPU sits at the 71st percentile of all CPUs, and the GPU at the 58th percentile of all GPUs — indicating that this particular pairing may not extract the full potential from either component in this specific game. However, the measured FPS data tells a more nuanced story, with the combo delivering exceptionally high frame rates at 1080p and playable performance at 4K.

The rank of 1314 out of 2930 means that roughly 45% of tested combos outperform this pairing in Doom, which is a reasonable outcome given that the GPU is not a top-tier part. The CPU's nearest rivals in the database include the AMD EPYC 7H12 (deltaPct 0.3%), the Intel Core i5-12450H (deltaPct -0.4%), the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G (deltaPct -0.6%), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (deltaPct 0.6%). These delta values are all within 0.6% of the i5-11400F's average benchmark score of 17177, indicating that the CPU is performance-competitive with a wide range of other processors, though none of these are direct gaming-focused comparisons.

The GPU's nearest rivals, as mentioned earlier, are all within 1.7% of the RX 7700's average score, which means the combo's rank is more heavily influenced by the GPU's position in the hierarchy than the CPU's. The fact that the combo lands at 1314 out of 2930 suggests that in Doom, the GPU is the primary determinant of overall ranking, and the CPU's contribution is secondary. This is consistent with the resolution scaling analysis, which showed the GPU becoming the limiting factor as resolution increases.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F brings 6 cores and 12 threads to the pairing, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This Rocket Lake-S architecture processor is built on Intel's 14 nm process and features 12 MB of shared L3 cache, with 80 KB of L1 and 512 KB of L2 per core. The CPU's memory support is limited to DDR4 in dual-channel configuration, providing 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth, and it connects to the system via PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes. The PassMark multithread score of 16908 and single-thread score of 2981 indicate solid performance for a mid-range desktop processor.

In the context of Doom, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The 3DMark scores provide insight into thread scaling: 1691 for 2 threads, 3171 for 4 threads, 4691 for 8 threads, and 5652 for max threads. This shows that performance scales well up to 8 threads, but the jump from 8 to 12 threads (5652 versus 4691) is only 20%, suggesting diminishing returns beyond 8 threads. Doom is known to be well-optimized for multi-core CPUs, but the data indicates that the i5-11400F's 6 cores are sufficient to avoid becoming a bottleneck at most settings.

The CPU's Cinebench R23 scores of 14340 multicore and 2024 single-core further characterize its capability. The single-core score of 2024 is particularly relevant for gaming, as many game engines still rely heavily on single-threaded performance for main game logic. The fact that the combo achieves 241 FPS at 1080p Low settings suggests the CPU is capable of handling high frame rates without limiting the GPU, but the 1080p Ultra score of 145 FPS versus the 1080p High score of 178 FPS indicates that the GPU's workload scaling is the primary factor in this difference, not CPU limitations.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and 14 nm process node are modest by modern standards, but the benchmark data shows it can sustain the performance needed for high-refresh-rate gaming. The Geekbench scores of 7737 multicore and 1777 single-core reinforce the picture of a capable mid-range processor that, while not top-tier, provides sufficient headroom for the RX 7700 at most resolutions and settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. The Low preset achieves 241 FPS average, Medium reaches 210 FPS with a minimum of 179 FPS and maximum of 242 FPS, High hits 178 FPS, and Ultra drops to 145 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 96 FPS, or 40%, which shows the significant performance cost of maximum visual fidelity at this resolution. The Medium preset's maximum of 242 FPS nearly matches the Low preset's average, indicating that the GPU is capable of even higher output when the scene allows.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low averages 156 FPS, Medium averages 136 FPS with a minimum of 116 FPS and maximum of 156 FPS, High averages 115 FPS, and Ultra averages 94 FPS. The 1440p Medium maximum of 156 FPS exactly matches the 1440p Low average, suggesting that the Medium preset's maximum frame rate is constrained by the same factors that limit the Low preset's average. The High preset at 1440p still exceeds 100 FPS, which is important for players with 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitors.

At 3840x2160, the system is clearly GPU-bound. Low averages 85 FPS, Medium averages 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS and maximum of 85 FPS, High averages 62 FPS, and Ultra averages 51 FPS. The 4K Medium maximum of 85 FPS matches the 4K Low average, mirroring the pattern seen at 1440p. The Ultra preset's 51 FPS average is the only result below 60 FPS in the entire dataset, making it the sole configuration that fails to maintain smooth gameplay. The 4K Medium minimum of 63 FPS provides a small but important safety margin over the 60 FPS threshold, making Medium the recommended preset for 4K play.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1920x1080 delivers the highest frame rates, with 178 FPS at High settings and 241 FPS at Low. At 2560x1440, High still achieves 115 FPS, while 3840x2160 High drops to 62 FPS. The 1440p High preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for most players.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Doom?

A: Yes, but with caveats. The Medium preset at 4K averages 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS, which is playable. High averages 62 FPS, and Ultra drops to 51 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. Players should stick to Medium or Low at 4K for consistent performance.

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

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7700 has an average benchmark score of 15852, placing it within 1.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129), 1% of the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (16014), and 1.1% of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679). The AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862) is nearly identical at -0.1% delta.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at any resolution or setting?

A: The data suggests the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K, where even Low settings drop to 85 FPS. At 1080p, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads appear sufficient, as the combo achieves 241 FPS at Low settings. The CPU sits at the 71st percentile of all CPUs, indicating it is not a weak link in this pairing.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at Medium settings?

A: The measured minimum and maximum FPS values at Medium settings show good consistency. At 1080p, the range is 179 to 242 FPS around a 210 FPS average. At 1440p, the range is 116 to 156 FPS around a 136 FPS average. At 4K, the range is 63 to 85 FPS around a 74 FPS average, with the minimum staying above 60 FPS.

Q: How does the combo's rank in Doom compare to its individual component percentiles?

A: The combo ranks 1314 out of 2930 tested systems in Doom, which is around the 55th percentile. This is slightly below the CPU's 71st percentile and roughly in line with the GPU's 58th percentile, indicating that the GPU is the primary determinant of this combo's in-game ranking.