Doom

The Intel Core i5-14400F pairs a 10-core, 16-thread Raptor Lake-R design with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its 20 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4/DDR5 memory position it as a modern mid-range desktop part. For a game like Doom, which is not particularly thread-hungry despite its fast-paced action, the processor's single-core performance is the primary driver. The benchmark data confirms this: at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 146.9 FPS, while at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 91.9 FPS. The relatively modest spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p suggests that the CPU is able to feed the GPU effectively even at lower settings, but the GPU becomes the bottleneck as visual fidelity increases. The processor's Raptor Lake architecture, built on a 10 nm process, delivers strong per-core throughput, which is essential for maintaining high frame rates in a game where reaction time matters. The CPU's 88th percentile ranking among all tested processors further underscores that this is not the limiting factor in most scenarios; its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and single-core score of 3093 reflect a capable part that can handle the game's logic and physics without introducing stutter.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, the Medium preset is the clear choice across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 129.2 FPS, which is only 17.7 FPS below the Low preset's 146.9 FPS but provides a substantial upgrade in visual fidelity. The High preset at 1080p still maintains 109.4 FPS, which is playable, but the jump from Medium to High costs 19.8 FPS, a more significant drop than the 16.8 FPS gain from Low to Medium. At 2560x1440, Medium produces 84.4 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while High drops to 69.9 FPS and Ultra falls to 56.8 FPS, which begins to feel less fluid. The data indicates that Ultra is not a viable option for this combo unless the user prioritizes visuals over smoothness, as it only achieves 91.9 FPS at 1080p and 29.5 FPS at 4K. For a consistent experience, Medium at 1080p or 1440p offers the most headroom, ensuring that frame times remain stable even during intense combat sequences. The High preset is acceptable for those who want better shadows and textures, but the performance cost is steep relative to the visual improvement, especially at higher resolutions. Ultimately, the measured rows suggest that Medium is the sweet spot, providing a 129.2 FPS experience at 1080p and 84.4 FPS at 1440p, both of which are well above the minimum playable threshold for a fast-paced FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario, with the processor's role diminishing as resolution increases. At Medium settings, the average frame rate drops from 129.2 FPS at 1920x1080 to 84.4 FPS at 2560x1440, a 34.7% reduction, and then to 45.4 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 46.2% reduction from the 1440p figure. This steep decline indicates that the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the primary limiting component at higher resolutions, as the workload shifts from CPU-bound logic to GPU-bound pixel shading. The GTX 1660 SUPER, with its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth, is simply not equipped to handle the pixel throughput required at 4K, where even Low settings only yield 55 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 25.5 FPS, which is proportionally smaller than at 1080p, where the gap is 55 FPS. This compression of frame rates at 4K confirms that the GPU is saturated, and the CPU's headroom is irrelevant at that resolution. At 1080p, the scaling from Low (146.9 FPS) to Medium (129.2 FPS) to High (109.4 FPS) shows a more gradual degradation, suggesting the CPU can still keep up, but the GPU's fill rate limits the higher presets. The data clearly shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming, with 4K being a stretch that requires lowering settings to Low or Medium to achieve acceptable frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 1477 out of 1681 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the bottom 12% of all configurations. This low ranking is primarily due to the GPU's modest performance relative to modern standards, as the CPU itself is far more capable. The combo's overall standing is dragged down by the GTX 1660 SUPER, which sits at the 55th percentile of all GPUs and has an average benchmark score of 14286. The GPU's nearest rivals in the broader benchmark database include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11, which has a deltaPct of -0.2, and the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics, also at -0.2, indicating that the GTX 1660 SUPER is barely above integrated graphics solutions in raw compute power. In contrast, the CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-12800H and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645, have deltaPct values of 0 and 0.2, respectively, showing that the i5-14400F is competitive with higher-tier mobile and desktop parts. The disparity between the CPU's 88th percentile ranking and the GPU's 55th percentile ranking explains why the combo ranks so poorly; the processor is essentially wasted in this pairing for a game like Doom, which relies heavily on GPU throughput. Benchmark results indicate that if the GPU were upgraded, the combo's rank would improve dramatically, as the CPU has ample headroom to drive faster graphics cards.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the decisive factor in this combo's performance, and its characteristics directly explain the measured frame rates. With a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz, the TU116 chip delivers a peak FP32 throughput of 5.027 TFLOPS, which is adequate for 1080p gaming but struggles at higher resolutions. The 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, a figure that becomes a bottleneck at 4K, where the texture and geometry data exceed what the memory subsystem can efficiently feed. The GPU's 1408 shading units and 48 ROPs are the fundamental limits, as seen in the 4K Ultra result of 29.5 FPS, which is unplayable. The GTX 1660 SUPER's percentile ranking of 55 places it in the lower half of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 and Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics, both of which have deltaPct values around -0.2, highlighting that this GPU is only marginally better than integrated solutions in some tests. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1278 further confirms its modest standing. For Doom, the GPU's lack of dedicated ray tracing cores is irrelevant, as the game does not use them, but the raw rasterization performance is what dictates the results. The GPU's 12 nm process node and 125 W TDP are older, but they are not the issue; rather, the limited memory bandwidth and compute units are. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the GPU can push 146.9 FPS, but at 4K Low, it drops to 55 FPS, a 62.6% reduction, which is a direct consequence of the pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth constraints. This GPU is a capable 1080p performer, but its role in this combo is to hold the system back at higher resolutions, making it the primary target for any upgrade path.