Doom

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 delivers a compelling 1080p experience in Doom, but the data reveals a clear performance ceiling as resolution climbs. This combination ranks 2540th out of 3712 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. The benchmark results show a system that handles the classic FPS title with ease at lower resolutions but begins to show its limitations when pushing 4K Ultra settings, where the average frame rate dips below 45 FPS. The measured data provides a clear picture of how these two components interact across the three primary resolutions and four quality presets.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and follows a predictable pattern across all settings. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 142 FPS at 1920x1080 to 92 FPS at 2560x1440 — a 35% reduction — and then further to 50 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 65% drop from the 1080p baseline. This scaling curve indicates that the Radeon RX 7600 is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth become increasingly stressed.

The Low preset tells a similar story. The average FPS at 1080p is 193, which drops to 125 at 1440p (a 35% decrease) and then to 68 at 4K (a 65% decrease from 1080p). The percentage drops are nearly identical between High and Low presets, which suggests that resolution scaling is governed by the GPU's fixed hardware capabilities rather than the specific rendering workload. The RX 7600's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s bandwidth appears to be the constraining factor at 4K, where fill-rate demands outpace what this mid-range card can deliver.

Interestingly, the Medium preset shows the most consistent scaling behavior. From 168 FPS at 1080p, the average drops to 109 FPS at 1440p and then to 59 FPS at 4K. The min FPS at 4K Medium is 50, which matches the average FPS of the High preset at the same resolution. This suggests that even at Medium settings, the GPU is operating near its limits at 4K, and the extra headroom from lowering quality settings is minimal once the resolution surpasses 1440p.

What the data implies is that this combo is optimized for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K being a stretch goal that requires significant settings compromises. The 65% drop from 1080p to 4K across multiple presets indicates a GPU-bound scenario where the CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads are not the bottleneck. The i5-14400F's boost clock of 4.70 GHz is more than sufficient to feed the RX 7600 at lower resolutions, but at 4K, the GPU's 1720 MHz base and 2655 MHz boost clocks simply cannot keep pace with the pixel count.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows that Medium settings offer the best balance of performance and visual quality for this combo. At 1080p Medium, the average FPS is 168, which is 26 FPS higher than High and 25 FPS lower than Low. More importantly, the min FPS at 1080p Medium is 143, which remains well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for competitive play, as it provides a significant cushion above the refresh-rate baseline without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.

At 1440p, Medium settings deliver an average of 109 FPS with a min of 92 FPS. This is arguably the best experience for this resolution, as High settings drop to 92 FPS average with no recorded min FPS, and Ultra falls to 75 FPS. The Medium preset maintains a playable frame rate even during intense scenes, as indicated by the 92 FPS minimum being identical to the High average — meaning the Medium preset's worst-case performance matches the High preset's typical performance.

For 4K, the recommendation becomes more nuanced. The High preset averages 50 FPS, which is borderline playable, but the Medium preset improves this to 59 FPS with a min of 50. The Low preset pushes the average to 68 FPS, but the visual sacrifices are substantial. Given that the Ultra preset at 4K drops to 41 FPS average, which is below the 45 FPS threshold for a smooth experience, the data suggests that players targeting 4K should stick with Medium or Low settings. The 59 FPS average at Medium 4K is the highest playable option, though it still falls short of the 60 FPS target.

The Ultra preset is the weakest option across all resolutions. At 1080p, it manages 116 FPS, which is 52 FPS lower than Medium and 77 FPS lower than Low. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 75 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 41 FPS. The performance gap between Ultra and Medium grows from 52 FPS at 1080p to 50 FPS at 1440p and 18 FPS at 4K, indicating that the additional visual effects in Ultra place a heavy burden on the GPU that is not justified by the frame rate returns.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F brings 10 cores and 16 threads to this pairing, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. This Raptor Lake architecture chip, built on Intel's 10 nm process, has a 20 MB shared L3 cache that helps feed the GPU at high frame rates. The benchmark data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in Doom, as the frame rates scale consistently with resolution changes, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound scenarios.

The CPU's performance relative to its rivals provides context for its role. The i5-14400F has an average benchmark score of 32279, which places it 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U and 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i9-11900. It trails the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS by 0.2% and beats the Intel Core i7-12800H by 0.5%. This tight grouping around the 32200-32350 score range suggests that the 14th-gen i5 is competitive with previous-generation high-end mobile and desktop parts, but it does not offer a significant computational advantage that would show up in Doom's frame rates.

The single-thread performance is particularly relevant for an FPS title like Doom. The CPU scores 3055 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 3701 in Passmark single-thread, which indicates strong per-core capability. The boost clock of 4.70 GHz is well-suited for game logic and physics calculations, and the 10-core configuration ensures that background tasks do not interfere with the primary game thread. The CPU's 65 W TDP is modest, suggesting that thermal throttling is unlikely to be an issue in a typical desktop chassis.

The data implies that upgrading the CPU would provide no measurable benefit in Doom at these settings. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent GPU bottleneck, and the CPU's 83rd percentile ranking among all tested CPUs confirms that it is more than capable of handling this game's demands. The nearest rivals all score within 0.5% of the i5-14400F, which means that any CPU swap within this performance class would yield identical results in Doom.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Doom with this CPU and GPU combo?

A: The data shows that 1080p Medium settings provide the best experience with an average of 168 FPS and a minimum of 143 FPS. The 1440p Medium preset is also excellent at 109 FPS average, but 4K performance drops below 60 FPS even at Low settings.

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

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 4K Medium settings, the average FPS is 59 with a minimum of 50, which is playable. The High preset drops to 50 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 41 FPS, which is below the smoothness threshold. Low settings at 4K achieve 68 FPS average.

Q: How does the RX 7600 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 7600's average benchmark score is 15171, which is 0.2% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM and 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon 680M. It is 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 560X and 0.7% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti. These are all very close scores, indicating similar rasterization performance.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this system?

A: The resolution scaling data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The FPS drops by approximately 65% from 1080p to 4K across presets, which is a classic GPU-bound signature. The i5-14400F's 10 cores and 16 threads are more than adequate for Doom.

Q: What settings should I use for 1440p gaming?

A: Medium settings at 1440p provide 109 FPS average with a 92 FPS minimum. This is the recommended preset for a smooth experience. High settings drop to 92 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 75 FPS, which are still playable but offer diminishing returns.

Q: Does the Ultra preset offer any advantage in Doom?

A: The Ultra preset provides the highest visual quality but at a significant performance cost. At 1080p, it averages 116 FPS, which is 52 FPS lower than Medium. At 4K, it drops to 41 FPS average, making it the least playable option. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a Navi 33 chip manufactured on TSMC's 6 nm process. The GPU features 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units, with 32 ray tracing cores. Its clock speeds range from a 1720 MHz base to a 2655 MHz boost, with a game clock of 2250 MHz. The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory operates at 2250 MHz with an 18 Gbps effective rate, delivering 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth over a 128-bit bus.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 57th percentile among all tested GPUs, with an average score of 15171. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, scores 15199, just 0.2% higher. The data shows that the RX 7600 is a solid mid-range performer, but it is not designed for high-refresh-rate 4K gaming. The 169.9 GPixel/s pixel rate and 339.8 GTexel/s texture rate are the key metrics that determine Doom's performance at various resolutions.

At 1080p, the RX 7600 demonstrates its strength. The Low preset achieves 193 FPS, which is close to the card's theoretical limits given the CPU's capability. The Medium preset at 168 FPS and High at 142 FPS show that the GPU has ample headroom at this resolution. The Ultra preset's 116 FPS still provides a smooth experience, but the gap between Ultra and Lower presets widens as the GPU processes more complex shading and lighting.

At 1440p, the GPU's limitations become apparent. The 125 FPS Low preset is still excellent, but the High preset drops to 92 FPS and Ultra to 75 FPS. The 128-bit memory bus and 8 GB capacity start to constrain performance at this resolution, as the GPU must iterate over more pixels with less bandwidth headroom. The 4K results confirm this trend, with even the Low preset failing to maintain 70 FPS.

The GPU's 21.75 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is substantial for a card in this class, but Doom's rendering engine appears to be more dependent on memory bandwidth and ROP throughput. The 64 ROPs are sufficient for 1080p but struggle at 4K, where the pixel fill rate of 169.9 GPixel/s becomes a limiting factor. The data suggests that the RX 7600 is optimized for 1080p gaming, with 1440p being a viable secondary target and 4K requiring significant settings reductions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest performance across all presets. The Low settings yield an average of 193 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium settings follow at 168 FPS average with a minimum of 143 and maximum of 193, indicating a tight frame pacing. High settings average 142 FPS, and Ultra drops to 116 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 77 FPS, which represents a 40% performance penalty for the highest visual quality preset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops noticeably. Low settings average 125 FPS, which is 68 FPS lower than at 1080p. Medium settings average 109 FPS with a minimum of 92 and maximum of 125, showing a similar range to the 1080p Medium results. High settings average 92 FPS, and Ultra drops to 75 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 50 FPS, which is a 40% penalty — the same relative drop as at 1080p, suggesting consistent scaling.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly overextended. Low settings average 68 FPS, which is below the 1440p High preset's performance. Medium settings average 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 and maximum of 68, making it the only 4K preset that stays above 50 FPS on average. High settings drop to 50 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 41 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is only 27 FPS, which indicates that the GPU is so constrained that even reducing settings cannot fully compensate for the resolution demands.

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent pattern: the Medium preset's min FPS at each resolution matches the High preset's average FPS. At 1080p, Medium min is 143 and High average is 142. At 1440p, Medium min is 92 and High average is 92. At 4K, Medium min is 50 and High average is 50. This suggests that the Medium preset provides the same worst-case frame rate as the High preset's typical performance, making it the more reliable choice for consistent gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2540th out of 3712 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the 68th percentile of all tested systems. This rank reflects the mid-range nature of both components: the i5-14400F sits in the 83rd percentile among CPUs, while the RX 7600 is in the 57th percentile among GPUs. The combination of a strong CPU with a mid-tier GPU results in a system that is better than the GPU percentile alone suggests, but not as strong as the CPU percentile would indicate.

The ranking implies that there are 2540 combos that perform better in Doom, which includes systems with higher-end GPUs that can maintain higher frame rates at 1440p and 4K. However, the data also shows that this combo outperforms 1172 tested combinations, which is a significant number. The rank is likely influenced by the fact that Doom is a well-optimized title that scales well with GPU power, meaning that systems with more powerful GPUs will naturally rank higher.

The discrepancy between the CPU's 83rd percentile and the combo's 68th percentile in-game ranking highlights the GPU-bound nature of Doom. Even though the i5-14400F is a top-tier CPU in terms of benchmark scores, the RX 7600's mid-range performance drags the overall combo ranking down. The nearest CPU rivals all score within 0.5% of the i5-14400F, confirming that CPU choice has minimal impact on Doom's performance compared to GPU selection.

The data suggests that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can achieve high frame rates at all settings. For 1440p, the system is still capable of excellent performance with Medium settings, but it falls short of the 144 FPS target that competitive players might desire. At 4K, the combo is at the edge of playability, with only Low settings providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. The rank of 2540 out of 3712 reflects a system that is competent but not exceptional for Doom, and users seeking higher resolutions should consider a more powerful GPU.