Doom

# Doom: Intel Core i5-14400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

This combination delivers a thoroughly playable Doom experience across all tested resolutions, with the data showing a clear pattern: the RTX 3060 Ti is the dominant performance driver, while the Core i5-14400F provides ample headroom. The combo ranks 1206th out of 1681 tested combinations, placing it in the 28th percentile of all pairings — a solid mid-pack result for a game that scales well with GPU horsepower.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Doom with this hardware?

A: At 1920x1080, every settings preset exceeds 115 FPS, with Low reaching 194.3 FPS. At 2560x1440, High delivers 91.4 FPS and Ultra drops to 72.7 FPS. For 3840x2160, only Low (67.4 FPS) and Medium (57.8 FPS) remain comfortably playable, while Ultra falls to 39.3 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core i5-14400F's average benchmark score of 32508 is virtually identical to the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513, 0% delta), Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32446, +0.2%), and Ryzen 7 250 (32584, -0.2%). This indicates the CPU is not a bottleneck in this pairing.

Q: Is the GPU's 8 GB VRAM sufficient for Doom's Ultra settings?

A: The data shows Ultra at 4K yields 39.3 FPS, suggesting the 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth handle the texture load but the GPU's compute limits performance. At 1080p Ultra (115.6 FPS), VRAM capacity is clearly adequate.

Q: What settings preset provides the best balance of quality and performance?

A: Medium at 1440p (109.5 FPS) or High at 1080p (143.8 FPS) offer the best experience. Ultra at 1440p (72.7 FPS) is playable but drops below the 100 FPS threshold that High and Medium maintain.

Q: How does the GPU rank against its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 3060 Ti's average score of 25120 is within 0.7% of the AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25180, -0.2%), RX 6600 (25235, -0.5%), and Radeon 890M (25246, -0.5%). The RX 580 2048SP (25287) leads by 0.7%.

Q: Does the CPU support overclocking?

A: No — the multiplier is locked. The 10-core, 16-thread configuration with a 4.70 GHz boost clock runs at stock settings, and the data shows no need for manual tuning in Doom.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows show a consistent hierarchy across all three resolutions: Low > Medium > High > Ultra. At 1920x1080, the gap between Low (194.3 FPS) and Ultra (115.6 FPS) is 78.7 FPS, meaning the Ultra preset costs roughly 40% of the Low preset's performance. This is a significant penalty for visual gains that are often subtle in fast-paced combat.

For competitive play, Low at 1080p delivers 194.3 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end monitors. However, Medium at 166.1 FPS still provides a substantial advantage while improving visual fidelity. High at 143.8 FPS remains above 144 Hz territory, making it the recommended preset for gamers with 144 Hz displays.

At 2560x1440, High (91.4 FPS) is the sweet spot — it maintains fluid gameplay on 90 Hz monitors while preserving most visual features. Ultra (72.7 FPS) is borderline, and the 36.8 FPS drop from High to Ultra at this resolution is hard to justify. Medium (109.5 FPS) is the best choice for 100 Hz+ displays.

For 3840x2160, the data becomes more restrictive. Low (67.4 FPS) and Medium (57.8 FPS) are playable, but High (49.7 FPS) and Ultra (39.3 FPS) fall below the 50 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for a fast-paced FPS. The recommendation is Low or Medium at 4K, with Medium providing the better visual experience without sacrificing playability.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent. At High settings, the FPS falls from 143.8 at 1080p to 91.4 at 1440p (a 36.4% reduction) and then to 49.7 at 4K (a 65.4% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario — the RTX 3060 Ti's 16.20 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the limiting factor as pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K.

The Low preset tells a similar story: 194.3 FPS at 1080p, 123.6 at 1440p, and 67.4 at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K (45.5% reduction) is nearly identical to the drop from 1080p to 1440p (36.4%), confirming that the GPU's rasterization throughput, not memory bandwidth, is the constraint. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient; the 133.2 GPixel/s pixel rate and 253.1 GTexel/s texture rate are what scale with resolution.

The CPU's role in resolution scaling is minimal. The Core i5-14400F's 10 cores and 16 threads, with a 4.70 GHz boost clock, provide more than enough processing power to feed the GPU at any resolution. The consistent FPS deltas between settings presets at each resolution indicate no CPU bottleneck emerges as pixel count increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: Low leads at 194.3 FPS, followed by Medium at 166.1 FPS, High at 143.8 FPS, and Ultra at 115.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 78.7 FPS, and every preset exceeds the 60 FPS threshold by a wide margin. Even Ultra, the most demanding preset, maintains 115.6 FPS, which is smooth for a game like Doom that rewards high frame rates.

2560x1440: Low achieves 123.6 FPS, Medium drops to 109.5 FPS, High comes in at 91.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 72.7 FPS. The 50.9 FPS spread between Low and Ultra is proportionally similar to 1080p, but the absolute values are lower. High (91.4 FPS) and Ultra (72.7 FPS) both remain above 60 FPS, making 1440p viable for all presets.

3840x2160: Low is the only preset to exceed 60 FPS, hitting 67.4 FPS. Medium follows at 57.8 FPS, High at 49.7 FPS, and Ultra at 39.3 FPS. The 28.1 FPS spread between Low and Ultra is the smallest absolute gap of any resolution, but the relative penalty is the largest — Ultra delivers only 58.3% of Low's performance.

GPU Role

The RTX 3060 Ti is clearly the performance arbiter in this setup. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which the data shows is adequate for Doom's textures at all settings. The bottleneck is raw compute: 16.20 TFLOPS of FP32, 4864 shading units, and 80 ROPs determine how quickly the game can rasterize frames.

The GPU's 69th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it above average, and its nearest rivals all score within 0.7% — the RX 6700M, RX 6600, Radeon 890M, and RX 580 2048SP. This tight clustering suggests the RTX 3060 Ti is operating at the expected performance tier for its specifications.

The boost clock of 1665 MHz and base clock of 1410 MHz, combined with a 200 W TDP, indicate a mid-range power envelope. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2626 and Passmark G3D score of 20349 confirm the GPU's DirectX 12 capability, which is essential for Doom's modern rendering pipeline. The 38 RT cores and 152 tensor cores are present but not heavily utilized in this title, as the game's performance scales more with traditional rasterization.

CPU Role

The Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 per core provide ample data locality for game logic and AI processing. The CPU's 88th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32508, places it in the top 12% of processors — far more than this game requires.

Synthetic benchmarks reinforce this: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914, single-core of 3093, and Geekbench multi-core of 11209 with single-core of 2333. Passmark single-thread of 3723 indicates strong per-core performance, which is what matters most for game engine threads. The 65 W TDP and locked multiplier mean the CPU runs at stock clocks, and the data shows no thermal or power-related performance dips in Doom.

The nearest rival comparison is telling: the Core i7-12800H (0% delta), Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (+0.2%), Ryzen 7 250 (-0.2%), and Core i7-13705H (-0.2%) all perform within 0.2% of the i5-14400F. This indicates the CPU is not a differentiator in this game — any of these processors would produce nearly identical FPS results with the same GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ranks 1206th out of 1681 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the 72nd percentile from the bottom (or 28th percentile from the top). This mid-pack ranking is consistent with the hardware's individual standings: the CPU at the 88th percentile and the GPU at the 69th percentile.

The ranking suggests that Doom is more sensitive to GPU performance than CPU performance in this pairing. The CPU's high percentile (88th) does not translate into a top-tier combo ranking because the GPU (69th percentile) is the limiting factor. If the CPU were paired with a higher-performing GPU, the combo ranking would likely improve substantially, as the i5-14400F has demonstrated it can feed frames far faster than the RTX 3060 Ti can render them.

The data indicates this combo is well-balanced for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K requiring settings reductions. The 1681 total combos tested show a wide performance spectrum, and this pairing sits comfortably in the upper-middle range — capable of delivering excellent Doom experiences without being among the elite high-end configurations.