Doom

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 93rd out of 1,681 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the top 5.5% of all configurations. This is a striking result for a combination that pairs a mid-range 2021 CPU with a flagship 2022 GPU, suggesting the game's engine scales well with the hardware. The rank implies that while the RTX 4090 is doing most of the heavy lifting, the i5-11400F is not holding things back dramatically, at least within the context of this specific title. The 75th percentile standing of the CPU and the 91st percentile of the GPU among all parts individually help contextualize the combo's overall position, showing that the GPU's strength is more dominant in this pairing.

How This Combo Ranks

The data places this specific configuration at rank 93 out of 1,681 combos, which is a strong showing for a system built around a 6-core, 12-thread processor. The i5-11400F itself has an average benchmark score of 17,181, sitting at the 75th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with a delta of 0%, the Intel Core i7-1260P at -0.2%, and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U also at -0.2%. This tight grouping indicates that the 11400F's compute capabilities are essentially on par with those mobile and low-power parts, which makes its high combo rank in Doom particularly interesting. The RTX 4090, with an average score of 66,473 and a 91st percentile standing, is the clear performance anchor, and the 93rd position out of 1,681 suggests that the game is heavily GPU-bound, allowing the CPU to keep pace. The deltaPct values between the CPU and its rivals are all within 0.2%, meaning that swapping in any of those near-identical chips would likely produce a negligible change in this game's frame rates. The benchmark results indicate that the 11400F, despite being end-of-life and from the Rocket Lake architecture, still offers enough single-thread headroom to complement the 4090 in this title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this analysis, and its specifications explain why the combo performs so well. It features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s, which is more than sufficient for Doom's textures and geometry at any resolution. The GPU's boost clock is 2520 MHz, with a base of 2235 MHz, and it houses 16,384 shading units. The data shows that the GPU's 91st percentile ranking among all GPUs is reflected in the measured frame rates, which remain high even at 4K. The 4090's memory clock of 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective) ensures that the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is a non-issue for this game. In the measured results, the GPU's power is evident when comparing settings at the same resolution; for instance, at 2560x1440, the average FPS only drops from 269.2 on Low to 211.9 on High, a 21% reduction, which is a modest penalty for a significant visual upgrade. The RTX 4090's transistor count of 76,300 million on a 5 nm process from TSMC gives it the raw compute to push Doom's Vulkan-based engine to its limits, and the data suggests that the GPU is rarely the bottleneck until the highest settings are enabled.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo rank overall in Doom?

A: It ranks 93rd out of 1,681 tested combinations, placing it in the top 5.5% of all configurations tested for this game.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average FPS drops from 313.7 on Low to 259.2 on Ultra, a difference of 54.5 frames per second, representing a 17% performance hit for the highest visual quality.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary limiter at 3840x2160, as the average FPS at Ultra settings is 91.7, which is above the 60 FPS threshold but shows a significant drop from the 158.9 FPS seen at Low settings, indicating that the GPU's workload scales heavily with resolution.

Q: How does the i5-11400F compare to its closest CPU rivals?

A: The i5-11400F has an average benchmark score of 17,181, which is essentially identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (17,189, delta 0%), the Intel Core i7-1260P (17,212, delta -0.2%), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (17,215, delta -0.2%).

Q: What is the RTX 4090's memory bandwidth and how does it affect performance?

A: The RTX 4090 has a memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s across a 384-bit bus with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory, which is more than adequate for Doom, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at 4K High settings where the average is 118 FPS.

Q: What is the frame rate at 1440p with High settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the combo achieves an average of 211.9 FPS, which is a 79% increase over the 4K High result, showing that the GPU has ample headroom at this resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how this combo scales across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are exceptionally high, starting at 313.7 FPS on Low and climbing down to 259.2 FPS on Ultra, with Medium at 295.9 FPS and High at 282.3 FPS. This is a narrow spread of just 54.5 FPS between the lowest and highest settings, indicating that at 1080p, the CPU's single-thread performance is adequate to feed the RTX 4090. Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain competitive, with Low at 269.2 FPS, Medium at 254 FPS, High at 211.9 FPS, and Ultra at 174.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 94.5 FPS, showing that the GPU begins to feel the load more noticeably. At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop significantly, with Low at 158.9 FPS, Medium at 137.2 FPS, High at 118 FPS, and Ultra at 91.7 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra here is 67.2 FPS, but the key observation is that even at Ultra 4K, the combo maintains an average above 90 FPS. The data reveals a pattern where the performance gap between Low and Ultra grows from 1080p to 1440p, then narrows slightly at 4K, suggesting that the GPU's compute resources are being saturated at the higher resolutions, reducing the relative impact of settings changes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its benchmark scores show a balanced profile: a single-thread score of 868 in 3dmark and 2,029 in Cinebench R23, which are modest figures compared to modern high-end chips. The CPU's L3 cache is 12 MB shared, and it supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus, resulting in a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. In Doom, this CPU's role appears to be to provide enough single-thread throughput to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4090, and the data confirms this is largely successful. The combo's 93rd rank out of 1,681 suggests that the CPU is not a major liability, as the frame rates at 1080p Low (313.7 FPS) are incredibly high, indicating that the CPU can keep up with the GPU's output. The 3dmark_2_threads score of 1,691 and the 3dmark_single_thread score of 868 are relevant, as Doom's engine is known for relying on a few heavily loaded threads. The CPU's 75th percentile standing among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17,181, places it near the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and Intel Core i7-1260P, but in this game, the data shows no visible bottleneck at 1080p, where the frame rates are among the highest recorded for this resolution.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal setting depends on the target resolution and refresh rate. For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 259.2 FPS, which is only a 17% reduction from the Low preset's 313.7 FPS. Given that most 1080p monitors cap at 240 Hz or 360 Hz, the Ultra setting at 259.2 FPS is still above the 240 Hz threshold, making it the best choice for visual quality without sacrificing high refresh rate performance. At 2560x1440, the High preset at 211.9 FPS is the sweet spot, as it provides a substantial visual upgrade over Medium (254 FPS) while still exceeding 144 Hz and coming close to 240 Hz. The Ultra preset at 174.7 FPS is also viable for 144 Hz displays, but the 37.2 FPS drop from High to Ultra is a significant trade-off for marginal visual gains. For 3840x2160, the High preset at 118 FPS is the recommended choice, as it stays above 60 FPS with a comfortable margin and offers a better visual experience than Medium (137.2 FPS) without the steep performance cost of Ultra (91.7 FPS). Overall, the data suggests that High settings provide the best balance of visual fidelity and performance across all three resolutions, with the frame rates remaining above 118 FPS even at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 282.3, which drops to 211.9 at 2560x1440 (a 25% reduction) and further to 118 at 3840x2160 (a 58% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the CPU's performance headroom is ample at lower resolutions, but the GPU's workload increases quadratically with pixel count. The data shows that the RTX 4090's 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth and 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are being fully utilized at 4K, as evidenced by the 118 FPS average at High settings. In contrast, the i5-11400F's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to maintain high frame rates at 1080p, where the 313.7 FPS Low result suggests the CPU is the limiting factor at that point, but the GPU takes over as the bottleneck as resolution increases. The 58% drop from 1080p High to 4K High is larger than the 25% drop from 1080p to 1440p, indicating that the GPU's performance scales non-linearly with resolution, which is expected for a rasterization-heavy title like Doom. The fact that the combo still achieves 91.7 FPS at 4K Ultra demonstrates that the RTX 4090 is so powerful that even the most demanding settings leave the CPU relatively unburdened, with the data pointing to the GPU as the primary performance constraint in this configuration.