Doom

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the Intel Arc B580 delivers a highly capable, if occasionally demanding, experience in Doom. The data shows a configuration that excels at 1080p and 1440p, offering triple-digit frame rates at most settings, but it requires careful tuning to maintain smooth gameplay at 4K. The benchmark results indicate a system where the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher resolutions, while the 14-core processor provides ample headroom.

Settings Recommendations

The measured results point to High as the optimal preset for this combination, striking the best balance between visual fidelity and performance across all tested resolutions. At 1080p, the High preset delivers 132.9 FPS, which is more than sufficient for a fast-paced FPS, while only the Ultra preset dips below the 120 FPS threshold at 112.1 FPS. Moving to 1440p, High maintains an excellent 88.4 FPS, keeping gameplay fluid on high-refresh-rate monitors without requiring a drop in visual quality.

For users prioritizing maximum frame rates at 1440p, the Low preset offers a substantial jump to 116.7 FPS, a 32% improvement over High. However, this comes at a significant visual cost that is unlikely to be worth the gain for most players, as the High preset already clears the 85 FPS mark. At 4K, the situation changes dramatically. The High preset produces 45.1 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for competitive play. Here, the Medium preset becomes a more attractive option, delivering 56.1 FPS—an 11 FPS improvement over High—while retaining more visual detail than Low. The Low preset at 4K yields 64.6 FPS, which is the only way to approach 60 FPS at this resolution, but the visual compromise is substantial.

The Ultra preset is generally not recommended for this combo. At 4K it produces 40.9 FPS, which falls below the smoothness threshold for a game like Doom. Even at 1080p, Ultra's 112.1 FPS is only marginally lower than High's 132.9 FPS, suggesting that the extra graphical features may not justify the 15% performance penalty. The data suggests that players should stick with High for the best overall experience, or drop to Medium when targeting 4K.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580's specifications play a decisive role in these results. With 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, the card provides 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for Doom's texture-heavy environments at 1080p and 1440p. The 80 ROPs and 2560 shading units, running at a boost clock of 2670 MHz, deliver the raw fill rate needed to sustain high frame rates. The GPU's FP32 throughput of 13.67 TFLOPS is a key indicator of its ability to handle the game's lighting and particle effects.

The GPU's role becomes most apparent in the scaling from 1440p to 4K. The 45.1 FPS at 4K High represents a 49% drop from the 88.4 FPS at 1440p High, a steep decline that clearly identifies the B580 as the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The card's 190 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it is positioned as a mainstream performer, and the data confirms this, as it excels at 1080p but struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K on higher presets. The 19 Gbps effective memory speed and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for the game's data streaming requirements, but they cannot compensate for the raw compute demands of 4K rendering.

Interestingly, the GPU's benchmark scores show it sitting at the 66th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23021. This places it in a competitive tier, but the measured game results show it performing admirably in Doom specifically, suggesting the game's Vulkan API implementation suits the Xe2-HPG architecture well.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and Intel Arc B580 ranks 1318th out of 1681 tested combos for Doom, placing it in the lower 22% of all configurations in the database. This ranking may seem modest, but it reflects the fact that Doom is a highly optimized title that runs well on a wide range of hardware, meaning many lower-tier CPUs paired with high-end GPUs can achieve excellent frame rates.

The ranking context is important when considering the CPU's overall standing. The i5-14600K sits at the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49166. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, which scores 49062 (a 0.2% delta), and the Intel Core i5-14600KF at 49367 (-0.4% delta). This indicates the processor is performing at an elite level, but the GPU's 66th percentile standing (average score 23021) drags the combo's overall ranking down. The B580's nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, scores 23181, just 0.7% higher, showing the two cards are closely matched in synthetic benchmarks.

What the ranking reveals is that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this system. The i5-14600K's 20 threads and 24 MB of L3 cache provide more than enough processing power for Doom's engine. The GPU is clearly the limiting factor, which is why the combo ranks lower than systems pairing this CPU with higher-tier graphics cards.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the data shows excellent performance across all presets. The Low preset achieves 182.3 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium follows at 159.8 FPS, representing a 12% drop from Low. High delivers 132.9 FPS, a further 17% reduction, while Ultra bottoms out at 112.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 70.2 FPS, or 38.5%, illustrating the significant performance cost of maximum graphical settings.

At 1440p, the pattern repeats with lower absolute numbers. Low produces 116.7 FPS, which is still highly playable on 120Hz displays. Medium achieves 101.7 FPS, High drops to 88.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 74.2 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows an average FPS reduction of approximately 35% across all presets, with Low dropping 36% (from 182.3 to 116.7) and Ultra dropping 34% (from 112.1 to 74.2).

At 4K, the numbers become more challenging. Low yields 64.6 FPS, which is the only preset to clear the 60 FPS mark. Medium produces 56.1 FPS, High drops to 45.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 23.7 FPS, a 37% difference. Notably, the 4K Low result of 64.6 FPS is nearly identical to the 1440p Ultra result of 74.2 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is being pushed to its limits regardless of resolution when settings are maximized.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals critical insights about the system's balance. At High settings, the frame rate drops from 132.9 FPS at 1080p to 88.4 FPS at 1440p (a 33% reduction) and then to 45.1 FPS at 4K (a 49% reduction from 1440p). This accelerating decline indicates that the GPU is increasingly unable to keep up with the pixel count as resolution increases.

At Low settings, the scaling is more linear: 182.3 FPS at 1080p drops to 116.7 FPS at 1440p (36% reduction) and then to 64.6 FPS at 4K (45% reduction). This suggests that even at the lowest graphical settings, the Arc B580's rendering capabilities are the limiting factor at 4K, as the 4K resolution demands four times the pixel throughput of 1080p.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend: 159.8 FPS at 1080p, 101.7 FPS at 1440p (36% reduction), and 56.1 FPS at 4K (45% reduction). The Ultra preset exhibits the most severe scaling, with 112.1 FPS at 1080p dropping to 74.2 FPS at 1440p (34% reduction) and then to 40.9 FPS at 4K (45% reduction).

This scaling pattern strongly indicates that the Intel Arc B580 is the dominant bottleneck at higher resolutions. The CPU, with its high single-thread and multi-thread performance, is not the constraint—the consistent ~35% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~45% drop from 1440p to 4K across all presets points squarely at the GPU. For players using this combo, the practical takeaway is that 1080p and 1440p are the sweet spots, while 4K requires either Low settings or acceptance of sub-60 FPS gameplay.