Doom

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers exceptional performance in Doom, a 2016 FPS title that remains a demanding benchmark for modern hardware. This combination ranks in the top 20% of all tested configurations, with a combo rank of 329 out of 1681 total combinations. The data shows a system capable of extreme frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, with 4K performance that remains highly playable across all settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with the CPU headroom becoming apparent only at lower settings. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 339.1 FPS, which drops to 221 FPS at 1440p and 116.5 FPS at 4K. This represents a 34.8% decrease from 1080p to 1440p and a 47.3% decrease from 1440p to 4K, indicating that the RX 7900 XT is the primary limiting factor as resolution increases.

The scaling pattern shifts when looking at Ultra settings. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 206.1 FPS, dropping to 134.3 FPS at 1440p (a 34.8% reduction) and 70.7 FPS at 4K (a 47.4% reduction). The consistent percentage drops across settings suggest that Doom's engine scales predictably with resolution, and the RX 7900 XT's 20 GB of GDDR6 memory ensures that VRAM capacity never becomes a bottleneck, even at 4K Ultra.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution decreases. At 4K, the difference between Low (116.5 FPS) and Ultra (70.7 FPS) is 45.8 FPS, while at 1080p the same comparison yields a 133 FPS difference (339.1 vs 206.1). This indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU can feed the GPU more effectively, allowing the graphics card to work harder and amplifying the impact of settings changes.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K gaming, the data strongly supports using High settings as the optimal balance. High settings at 4K deliver 90.2 FPS, which is 19.5 FPS higher than Ultra (70.7 FPS) while maintaining a 19.5 FPS advantage over Medium (104.8 FPS is actually 14.6 FPS higher than High, but the visual quality difference between Medium and High is typically more significant than the frame rate gap). The 4K High result of 90.2 FPS is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while 4K Ultra dips to 70.7 FPS—still playable but with less headroom for demanding scenes.

At 1440p, the recommendation shifts toward Ultra. The 134.3 FPS at Ultra settings is more than sufficient for high-refresh-rate monitors, and the gap to High (161.2 FPS) is relatively small at 26.9 FPS. Given that Doom is a fast-paced FPS, the visual fidelity of Ultra settings at 1440p is worth the modest frame rate sacrifice. The 1080p results suggest that users with 1080p displays should also prioritize Ultra settings, as the 206.1 FPS figure remains exceptionally high.

The Medium preset represents a reasonable fallback for 4K users who want to maximize frame rates, delivering 104.8 FPS at 4K. However, the data indicates that High settings provide a better experience than Medium in most scenarios, as the 90.2 FPS at 4K High is still well within the playable range and offers superior visual quality.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured performance. The GPU features a boost clock of 2394 MHz and a game clock of 2025 MHz, with 5376 shading units and 192 ROPs. This hardware configuration produces a pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s, which translates to the high frame rates observed across all resolution and settings combinations.

The 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus provides 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for Doom's texture-heavy environments. The GPU's 82nd percentile ranking among all tested GPUs places it in the upper tier, and its average benchmark score of 38358 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (38349, 0% deltaPct). This close performance parity suggests that the RX 7900 XT is well-positioned among its peers.

The GPU's compute capabilities, including 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 103.0 TFLOPS of FP16 (2:1 ratio), support advanced rendering techniques. The 84 RT cores and DirectX 12 Ultimate API support ensure compatibility with modern graphics features, though Doom's 2016 release date means these capabilities are not fully utilized by this specific title.

How This Combo Ranks

With a combo rank of 329 out of 1681 tested configurations, this pairing sits in the top 19.6% of all combinations. This ranking reflects the synergy between the i5-14600K and the RX 7900 XT, which together deliver frame rates that exceed what either component could achieve alone in this title. The rank is particularly impressive given that Doom is a CPU-light game that heavily favors GPU performance.

The combo's ranking suggests that users seeking high-refresh-rate Doom gameplay would be well-served by this configuration. The 1080p results (247.5 FPS at High settings) indicate that this system is capable of driving 240 Hz monitors at high quality settings, while the 1440p results (161.2 FPS at High) comfortably support 144 Hz and 165 Hz displays. The 4K performance, while not matching the lower resolutions, still provides an excellent experience on high-refresh-rate 4K panels.

The data shows that this combo outperforms many configurations with more expensive CPUs or newer GPUs, likely due to the balanced nature of the pairing. The i5-14600K provides sufficient single-thread performance to avoid bottlenecking the RX 7900 XT, while the GPU's substantial memory bandwidth ensures that the CPU can feed it data efficiently.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K serves as a capable partner to the RX 7900 XT, with its 14 cores and 20 threads providing ample processing power. The CPU's boost clock of 5.30 GHz and base clock of 3.50 GHz deliver strong single-thread performance, which is critical for Doom's engine. The processor's 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49166, places it just 0.2% above the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49062) and 0.4% below the Intel Core i5-14600KF (49367).

The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which benefits game performance. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-14600K scores 32881 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4642 in single-core, demonstrating strong multi-threaded and single-threaded capabilities. The PassMark single-thread score of 4270 confirms that the CPU can handle the per-thread demands of game logic and physics calculations.

The data indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at any tested resolution. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 339.1 FPS, which pushes the limits of what the GPU can render. The fact that frame rates scale predictably with resolution and settings suggests that the CPU has headroom remaining, even at the highest settings. This is expected given that Doom's Vulkan API implementation is efficient at distributing work across multiple threads.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers exceptional performance across all settings. Low settings produce 339.1 FPS, Medium yields 295 FPS, High achieves 247.5 FPS, and Ultra reaches 206.1 FPS. The 133 FPS spread between Low and Ultra demonstrates the GPU's capability to render this title at extreme frame rates, with even the lowest preset exceeding the refresh rate of most monitors.

The 2560x1440 results show a proportional decrease across all settings. Low settings deliver 221 FPS, Medium produces 192.1 FPS, High achieves 161.2 FPS, and Ultra reaches 134.3 FPS. The 86.7 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is slightly smaller proportionally than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is beginning to become more of a limiting factor at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates remain highly playable but show a more pronounced impact from settings changes. Low settings achieve 116.5 FPS, Medium delivers 104.8 FPS, High produces 90.2 FPS, and Ultra drops to 70.7 FPS. The 45.8 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is the smallest absolute difference across all resolutions, suggesting that at 4K, the GPU is the primary constraint regardless of settings. The 4K data confirms that this combo can handle 4K gaming at High settings or above, with all presets exceeding the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.