Doom

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT delivers a playable but resolution-sensitive experience in Doom, with the data showing a clear transition from a CPU-bound scenario at 1080p to a GPU-bound one at 4K. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 141.3 FPS, which climbs to 189.5 FPS at Low settings, indicating substantial headroom in the processor. However, moving to 2560x1440 drops the High-setting average to 89.9 FPS, and at 3840x2160, the same settings yield only 50.8 FPS — a 64% reduction from the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern reveals that the RX 5700 XT, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises, while the CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads remain largely underutilized at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate trajectory across resolutions in Doom is steep and consistent, pointing directly at the GPU as the primary bottleneck above 1080p. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo reaches 189.5 FPS, but this falls to 120.4 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 64 FPS at 3840x2160 — a 66% drop from the lowest to highest resolution at the same settings. The pattern holds across all quality presets: High settings produce 141.3 FPS at 1080p, 89.9 FPS at 1440p, and 50.8 FPS at 4K. This consistent halving of performance as resolution quadruples suggests that the RX 5700 XT’s compute resources, rated at 9.754 TFLOPS FP32, are saturated by the increasing pixel workload.

The scaling also reveals the CPU’s diminishing role. At 1080p Low, the 189.5 FPS figure indicates the i5-12600KF is capable of feeding frames well beyond what the GPU can render at higher resolutions. The delta between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 76.4 FPS (189.5 vs 113.1), but at 4K that same delta shrinks to 22.2 FPS (64 vs 41.8). This compression of performance across quality levels at 4K is a classic sign of GPU limitation — the card is working at its maximum capacity regardless of how much graphical detail is being requested. The data shows that for users targeting 1440p or higher, the RX 5700 XT will cap the experience, while at 1080p the combo has enough headroom to push very high frame rates even on Ultra settings.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the sweet spot. At High settings, the combo delivers 141.3 FPS, and even at Ultra it maintains 113.1 FPS. At 2560x1440, High settings drop to 89.9 FPS, while 3840x2160 only manages 50.8 FPS on High, making 1080p the only resolution where the system consistently exceeds 100 FPS across all settings.

Q: How does the GPU handle 4K in this game?

A: Poorly relative to lower resolutions. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 41.8 FPS on Ultra to 64 FPS on Low. This places the RX 5700 XT below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play at 4K on Medium (59.1 FPS) and High (50.8 FPS), suggesting the card’s 8 GB VRAM and 9.754 TFLOPS are insufficient for consistent 4K performance in Doom.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The CPU is likely the limiting factor at 1080p. With Low settings producing 189.5 FPS and High settings at 141.3 FPS, the i5-12600KF’s 10 cores and 16 threads are being pushed to their frame-generation limits. The GPU has capacity to render more frames, but the processor’s per-core performance, evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 1016, caps the output.

Q: What quality setting offers the best balance at 1440p?

A: Medium settings at 2560x1440 provide the most balanced experience, yielding 109.8 FPS. High settings drop to 89.9 FPS, while Low pushes to 120.4 FPS. The 19.9 FPS gap between Low and Medium is smaller than the 19.9 FPS gap between Medium and High, indicating diminishing returns on visual quality versus frame rate.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 1254th out of 1681 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the bottom 25% of all configurations. This low ranking is primarily due to the GPU’s age, as the RX 5700 XT sits at the 68th percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU ranks at the 84th percentile of all processors.

Q: Does the GPU’s VRAM capacity affect 4K performance?

A: The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory is a likely contributor to the 4K performance drop. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the combo only manages 41.8 FPS, and the bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s appears insufficient for the higher texture and geometry demands of 4K rendering. The fact that Low settings at 4K only reach 64 FPS suggests the memory subsystem is a bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF provides strong foundational performance for Doom, though its role diminishes as resolution increases. With 10 cores and 16 threads, the processor is built on the Alder Lake architecture with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. The benchmark data shows robust multi-threaded capability: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 23,444, while the single-core test reaches 3,309. This dual strength is reflected in the CPU’s 84th percentile ranking among all processors, placing it well above the GPU’s 68th percentile.

In Doom, the CPU’s influence is most visible at 1080p. The 189.5 FPS figure at Low settings suggests the processor can generate frames faster than the GPU can render them, a scenario where the i5-12600KF’s 3DMark max-threads score of 7,952 helps maintain high minimum frame rates. However, at 4K, the CPU’s role becomes secondary. The 50.8 FPS average at High settings is far below what the processor can deliver, meaning the RX 5700 XT is the sole constraint. The CPU’s 20 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4, DDR5) are sufficient for this workload, but the data shows no scenario where the processor limits performance below 60 FPS — that distinction belongs entirely to the GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s ranking of 1254th out of 1,681 tested combinations in Doom places it in the lower quartile, a position driven by the GPU’s limitations rather than the CPU’s capabilities. The i5-12600KF’s average benchmark score of 27,827 puts it statistically tied with the Intel Core i9-10900K (27,829, 0% delta) and the Intel Core i5-12600K (27,851, -0.1% delta), showing the processor is competitive with higher-tier options. In contrast, the RX 5700 XT’s average benchmark score of 24,731 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (24,763, -0.1% delta) and slightly ahead of the Intel Arc A350M (24,647, 0.3% delta), but these rivals are either mobile parts or lower-tier desktop GPUs.

The disparity in component quality is stark: the CPU ranks at the 84th percentile of all processors, while the GPU ranks at the 68th percentile of all GPUs. This combination creates a system where the processor has significant headroom that the graphics card cannot exploit, particularly at resolutions above 1080p. The rank of 1,254 out of 1,681 reflects that many other tested combos feature more balanced pairings, where the GPU is not the sole limiting factor. The data suggests that pairing this CPU with a higher-tier GPU would likely move the combo significantly up the rankings, as the processor’s performance ceiling is far from being reached in Doom.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the defining component in this combo, and its characteristics directly explain the frame rate patterns observed in Doom. Built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture with a 7 nm process from TSMC, the GPU features 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. Its boost clock of 1905 MHz and game clock of 1755 MHz drive a peak FP32 throughput of 9.754 TFLOPS. The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p but strained at 4K.

The GPU’s performance in Doom is characterized by steep drops as resolution and settings increase. At 1080p, the card delivers 189.5 FPS on Low and 113.1 FPS on Ultra, showing it can handle high frame rates when pixel count is low. At 1440p, these figures fall to 120.4 FPS and 75.3 FPS respectively, and at 4K they plummet to 64 FPS and 41.8 FPS. The 22.2 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K, compared to 76.4 FPS at 1080p, indicates the GPU is hitting its compute ceiling regardless of settings. The card’s 68th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24,731, places it near the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (24,763) and Intel Arc A350M (24,647), but these are not desktop-class peers. For Doom specifically, the RX 5700 XT’s 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient to maintain 60 FPS at 4K on any setting above Low, making it the clear bottleneck for this combination.