Doom

# Doom — Intel Core i5-12400F + AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT delivers a compelling 1080p experience in Doom, with frame rates ranging from 115 FPS at Ultra to 192 FPS at Low. The data shows a system that is firmly GPU-limited at higher resolutions, while at 1080p the balance shifts toward the CPU's 6-core/12-thread configuration becoming more relevant. This pairing ranks 2660th out of 3712 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database, yet the measured performance indicates a highly playable setup for most settings tiers.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 141 FPS at 1080p to 91 FPS at 1440p, a 35.5% reduction, and then further to 49 FPS at 4K, representing a 65.2% decline from the 1080p baseline. This steep drop-off is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario where the Radeon RX 6600 XT's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth become the limiting factors at higher pixel counts.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K at Low settings shows a similar pattern: 124 FPS drops to 67 FPS, a 46.0% reduction. This indicates that even at the lowest quality preset, the GPU's compute resources—2048 shading units and 64 ROPs—cannot maintain the same throughput when pixel count quadruples. At Medium settings, the 1080p to 1440p transition (167 FPS to 108 FPS) represents a 35.3% decrease, while the 1440p to 4K transition (108 FPS to 59 FPS) is a 45.4% drop. The consistency of these percentages across settings tiers suggests the limiting component remains the GPU throughout the resolution range.

Interestingly, the Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling penalties. At 1080p, Ultra averages 115 FPS, but this falls to 75 FPS at 1440p (−34.8%) and then to 40 FPS at 4K (−65.2%). The 4K Ultra result of 40 FPS is the lowest measured figure in the entire dataset, emphasizing that this combination cannot sustain high-fidelity 4K gameplay. The data indicates that the CPU's 2.50 GHz base clock and 4.40 GHz boost clock are sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p, but at 4K the GPU's 2589 MHz boost clock and 10.60 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are simply insufficient for Ultra settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2660 out of 3712 tested combinations places this system in the 28th percentile of all tested pairings for Doom. This ranking reflects the mid-range positioning of both components: the Core i5-12400F sits in the 73rd percentile among all CPUs, while the Radeon RX 6600 XT ranks in the 70th percentile among all GPUs. The combined rank is lower than either individual percentile would suggest, indicating that Doom's engine places specific demands that this pairing does not fully satisfy compared to other combinations in the database.

When examining the CPU's nearest rivals, the data shows that the i5-12400F's average benchmark score of 19039 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS (19047, 0% delta), the Intel Core 3 201E (19056, −0.1% delta), and the Intel Core i5-1335U (18982, 0.3% delta). This clustering suggests that the i5-12400F's 6-core/12-thread configuration with 18 MB of shared L3 cache delivers performance that is broadly comparable to other mid-range processors, despite differences in architecture and power characteristics.

On the GPU side, the RX 6600 XT's average benchmark score of 24442 places it slightly above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (24277, 0.7% delta) and GTX 780 Ti (24236, 0.8% delta), while trailing the Intel Arc A350M (24647, −0.8% delta) by a narrow margin. The most notable comparison is with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (24170, 1.1% delta), which the RX 6600 XT edges out in aggregate benchmarks despite the RTX 2080 SUPER typically being considered a higher-tier product. This suggests the RX 6600 XT's RDNA 2.0 architecture with 32 ray accelerators and 128 TMUs provides strong raw compute for its class, though Doom's specific rendering paths may not fully exploit these capabilities.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combination in Doom?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 192, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. The next highest is 167 FPS at 1080p with Medium settings, followed by 141 FPS at 1080p with High settings.

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

A: At 4K, only the Low preset (67 FPS average) and Medium preset (59 FPS average) come close to or exceed 60 FPS. High settings average 49 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 40 FPS, both below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Ultra averages 75 FPS while High averages 91 FPS, a difference of 16 FPS or roughly 17.6%. Both are playable, but High offers a more comfortable margin above 60 FPS.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in the dataset?

A: The only min FPS values provided are for Medium settings: 50 FPS at 4K, 92 FPS at 1440p, and 142 FPS at 1080p. The 4K Medium min of 50 FPS is the lowest recorded minimum.

Q: How does the CPU's benchmark score compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-12400F's average benchmark score of 19039 is within 0.3% of all four nearest rivals listed, ranging from 18979 (AMD EPYC 7773X) to 19056 (Intel Core 3 201E). This indicates performance parity within a narrow band.

Q: What GPU benchmark scores are available for the RX 6600 XT?

A: The GPU's strongest benchmark results include 88720 in Geekbench Metal, 80503 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 72417 in Geekbench Vulkan. In Passmark tests, it scores 16461 in G3D and 7520 in GPU Compute.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a full range of playable frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 192 FPS, which is the highest measurement in the entire dataset. Medium settings average 167 FPS with a minimum of 142 FPS and maximum of 192 FPS, indicating consistent performance. High settings average 141 FPS, while Ultra settings average 115 FPS. All 1080p configurations exceed the 60 FPS threshold by a substantial margin, with even the most demanding preset delivering nearly double that baseline.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show the expected decline. Low settings average 124 FPS, Medium averages 108 FPS with a range of 92 to 124 FPS, High averages 91 FPS, and Ultra averages 75 FPS. The 1440p results demonstrate that this combination can handle high-refresh-rate gaming at this resolution for all but the most demanding presets, with Ultra still maintaining a comfortable 75 FPS average.

At 3840x2160, the limitations of the GPU become apparent. Low settings average 67 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold. Medium settings average 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and maximum of 67 FPS, placing it slightly below ideal smoothness. High settings average 49 FPS, and Ultra drops to 40 FPS. The 4K results indicate that this combination is only suitable for 4K gaming at Low settings, and even then, the margin above 60 FPS is minimal.

The progression across resolutions reveals that the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 77 FPS (192 vs 115). At 1440p, this gap narrows to 49 FPS (124 vs 75). At 4K, the gap is 27 FPS (67 vs 40). This narrowing indicates that at higher resolutions, the GPU's pixel throughput becomes the dominant constraint, and settings adjustments have diminishing returns.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 7 nm process, with 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1968 MHz, a game clock of 2359 MHz, and a boost clock of 2589 MHz. This clock configuration allows the GPU to deliver 10.60 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, with texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s.

The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, and the memory runs at 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective speed. This bandwidth proves sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming in Doom, as evidenced by the strong frame rates at those resolutions. However, at 4K, the combination of memory bandwidth and shader throughput becomes insufficient for maintaining high frame rates, particularly at Ultra settings where the 40 FPS average indicates a significant bottleneck.

The GPU's 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs are complemented by 32 ray accelerators, though Doom's release in 2016 predates widespread ray tracing adoption. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility are relevant to Doom's Vulkan renderer, which the data suggests scales well with this hardware. The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 16461 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1804 provide additional context for its computational capabilities.

The GPU's nearest rival comparisons show interesting results. The RX 6600 XT outperforms the GTX 1630 by 0.7% in average benchmark score, yet the GTX 1630 is a much lower-tier product. More notably, the RX 6600 XT edges out the RTX 2080 SUPER by 1.1%, indicating that raw compute benchmarks do not always correlate with real-world gaming performance. The GPU's percentile rank of 70 among all GPUs suggests it sits comfortably in the upper-mid range of the database.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F features 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process with a die size of 163 mm². The processor operates with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. This power efficiency is notable for a desktop processor, and the L3 cache of 18 MB shared across cores provides adequate data locality for gaming workloads.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate strong multi-threaded performance for its class. In Cinebench R23, it scores 12380 in multicore and 1680 in singlecore tests. The Geekbench scores of 9472 multicore and 1964 singlecore confirm this pattern. In Passmark, the multithread score is 19433, while single-thread performance is 3481. These scores place the CPU in the 73rd percentile among all CPUs, indicating solid mid-range positioning.

In Doom, the CPU's role becomes more pronounced at 1080p where frame rates are highest. The 192 FPS average at Low settings and 167 FPS at Medium settings suggest that the CPU can feed the GPU sufficiently at these frame rates. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz provides the single-thread performance that Doom's engine requires, while the 6-core/12-thread configuration handles background tasks and engine overhead without becoming a bottleneck.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS (19047, 0% delta), Intel Core 3 201E (19056, −0.1% delta), Intel Core i5-1335U (18982, 0.3% delta), and AMD EPYC 7773X (18979, 0.3% delta). The near-zero deltas indicate that the i5-12400F's performance is closely matched by processors from both mobile and server segments, though the desktop platform advantages in thermal headroom and sustained boost clocks may provide real-world benefits that aggregate benchmarks do not fully capture.

The CPU's memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5, with dual-channel configuration, offers flexibility in system building. The PCIe Gen 5 support with 20 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the GPU, though the RX 6600 XT utilizes PCIe 4.0 x8 interface. The lack of integrated graphics is irrelevant for this gaming configuration, as the discrete GPU handles all rendering tasks.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combination depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, all settings tiers provide excellent performance, with even Ultra averaging 115 FPS. However, the data suggests that High settings at 141 FPS offer the best balance between visual quality and performance, as the jump from High to Ultra only improves visuals marginally while costing 26 FPS on average.

For 2560x1440 gaming, High settings at 91 FPS provide the best experience for high-refresh-rate displays. Medium settings at 108 FPS offer even higher frame rates for competitive play, while Ultra at 75 FPS remains playable but approaches the threshold where frame-time consistency becomes a concern. The data indicates that 1440p High is the sweet spot for this combination, delivering smooth gameplay without sacrificing significant visual fidelity.

At 3840x2160, the options are more constrained. Low settings average 67 FPS, which is the only preset that consistently exceeds 60 FPS. Medium settings average 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS, which may result in noticeable stuttering during intense scenes. High and Ultra settings at 49 and 40 FPS respectively are not recommended for 4K gaming, as the frame rates fall below what most players would consider smooth.

For players with variable refresh rate monitors, the Medium preset at 1440p offers a compelling option with a 92 FPS minimum that stays well above the 60 FPS threshold. At 1080p, the Medium preset's minimum of 142 FPS ensures no frame drops below the refresh rate of most high-refresh displays. The data consistently shows that Medium settings provide the most consistent frame delivery across all resolutions, as evidenced by the min FPS values being closest to the averages.

The overall recommendation is to prioritize High settings at 1080p or 1440p for the best balance of visual quality and performance. Players seeking maximum frame rates can drop to Low settings at 1440p for 124 FPS, while those with 4K displays should accept Low settings and 67 FPS as the practical ceiling for this combination. The Ultra preset is only recommended at 1080p, where the 115 FPS average remains highly playable despite being the lowest measured at that resolution.