Doom

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Doom, with the benchmark data showing that the Ultra preset is the most demanding tier measured, costing roughly 36% of the performance headroom available at Low settings in 4K. The measured results reveal that this combination is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the CPU's substantial single-thread performance becomes a factor only at lower settings and resolutions. For most users, the High preset at 1440p represents the sweet spot, delivering 141.8 FPS average, which is comfortably above the 100 FPS threshold that competitive players typically target, while the 4K High setting at 74.9 FPS remains playable for slower-paced exploration.

Settings Recommendations

The data shows a clear hierarchy across all three resolutions, with Low settings yielding the highest frame rates and Ultra producing the lowest. At 1080p, Low produces 289.8 FPS, while Ultra drops to 173.7 FPS, a difference of 116.1 FPS that represents a 40% reduction. The High preset at 1080p offers 215.3 FPS, which is only 74.5 FPS below Low but provides substantially better visual quality. At 1440p, High delivers 141.8 FPS, Medium produces 164.1 FPS, and Low reaches 188.6 FPS, while Ultra falls to 115.9 FPS. The 4K results show High at 74.9 FPS, Medium at 91.2 FPS, Low at 99.5 FPS, and Ultra at 63.4 FPS.

The optimal preset depends heavily on the target display refresh rate. For 1080p owners with 240Hz displays, Medium at 253.2 FPS is the best choice, as it maintains a high frame rate while offering better fidelity than Low. For 1440p users with 165Hz monitors, High at 141.8 FPS is the recommended preset, as it stays within 14% of the refresh rate ceiling while providing the best visual balance. At 4K, the choice narrows to either Low at 99.5 FPS for maximum smoothness or High at 74.9 FPS for visual quality, with Medium at 91.2 FPS serving as a compromise. Ultra is only viable at 1080p where 173.7 FPS remains playable, but the visual gains over High are marginal according to the data.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF features 14 cores and 20 threads based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The processor's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4643 places it in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, indicating exceptional single-threaded performance that is directly relevant to Doom's engine. The multi-core score of 32889 in the same test shows strong scaling across the 14 cores, though the game's FPS results suggest that this parallel capacity is not the primary driver of performance.

The data reveals that the CPU becomes a limiting factor only at 1080p with Low settings, where the 289.8 FPS average indicates the engine is pushing against the processor's instruction throughput. At 1440p and 4K, the GPU's rendering workload dominates, and the CPU's headroom ensures that frame times remain consistent. The processor's PassMark single-thread score of 4273 and Geekbench single-core score of 2778 corroborate its ability to feed the GPU efficiently. Compared to its nearest rivals, the i5-14600KF sits 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i5-14600K and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X in average benchmark scores, while trailing the AMD EPYC 4345P by 0.5% and leading the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H by 1.4%.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combination?

A: The data shows that 1440p High delivers 141.8 FPS, which is the best balance of visual quality and frame rate. At 1080p the CPU begins to limit performance, while at 4K the GPU becomes the bottleneck, reducing High preset performance to 74.9 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Low to Ultra settings?

A: Across all resolutions, Ultra consistently produces the lowest frame rates. At 1080p, the drop from Low to Ultra is 116.1 FPS (289.8 to 173.7), at 1440p it is 72.7 FPS (188.6 to 115.9), and at 4K it is 36.1 FPS (99.5 to 63.4).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the primary bottleneck?

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, where frame rates scale closely with settings changes. At 1080p Low, the 289.8 FPS result suggests CPU limitations, as the GPU would theoretically render faster if unconstrained by processor throughput.

Q: Can this combination handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, but with caveats. The data shows 4K High at 74.9 FPS and 4K Medium at 91.2 FPS, both of which are playable. For 60 FPS targets, even 4K Ultra at 63.4 FPS meets the threshold, though just barely.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its direct predecessor?

A: The i5-14600KF is 0.4% ahead of the i5-14600K in average benchmark scores, with an average score of 49367 versus 49166. This indicates the KF variant offers effectively identical performance despite the lack of integrated graphics.

Q: What is the expected frame rate at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 215.3 FPS, which is 74.5 FPS lower than Low settings but 41.6 FPS higher than Ultra. This makes High the most sensible choice for 1080p users with high refresh rate displays.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT ranks 579th out of 1681 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the 65th percentile of all configurations. This ranking reflects the hardware's strong but not elite positioning within the benchmark database. The GPU's percentile ranking of 87th among all GPUs combined with the CPU's 93rd percentile suggests that the processor is slightly more capable than the graphics card, which aligns with the observed bottleneck behavior at lower resolutions.

Within the context of the database, this combo outperforms configurations with lesser GPUs but falls short of those pairing the RX 6800 XT with higher-end CPUs like the Core i9 series or Ryzen 9 parts. The 4K High result of 74.9 FPS places this combination in a range where many competing setups achieve 80-100 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiter at that resolution. Conversely, the 1080p Low result of 289.8 FPS demonstrates that this CPU can drive the GPU to very high frame rates, and only the most powerful GPUs would show a meaningful improvement at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a predictable pattern of frame rate reduction as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly by settings preset. At High settings, the frame rate falls from 215.3 FPS at 1080p to 141.8 FPS at 1440p (a 34% reduction) and then to 74.9 FPS at 4K (a 47% reduction from 1440p). This steepening decline indicates that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become increasingly taxed as pixel count grows, with the RX 6800 XT's 512.0 GB/s bandwidth being a likely constraint at 4K.

At Low settings, the scaling is more linear: 289.8 FPS at 1080p, 188.6 FPS at 1440p, and 99.5 FPS at 4K. The 1080p result suggests partial CPU limitation, as the gap between 1080p and 1440p (101.2 FPS) is larger than the gap between 1440p and 4K (89.1 FPS), which would not occur if the GPU were the sole bottleneck. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic 4K drop, falling to 63.4 FPS from 115.9 FPS at 1440p, a 45% reduction that confirms the GPU's rendering load at maximum quality is substantial.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured averages provides a comprehensive view of performance across all nine tested configurations. At 1080p, the results range from 289.8 FPS (Low) to 173.7 FPS (Ultra), with Medium at 253.2 FPS and High at 215.3 FPS. The 1440p results show Low at 188.6 FPS, Medium at 164.1 FPS, High at 141.8 FPS, and Ultra at 115.9 FPS. At 4K, the spread narrows considerably: Low produces 99.5 FPS, Medium produces 91.2 FPS, High produces 74.9 FPS, and Ultra produces 63.4 FPS.

The data reveals that the performance gap between settings narrows at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 116.1 FPS, but this shrinks to 72.7 FPS at 1440p and 36.1 FPS at 4K. This convergence indicates that resolution scaling imposes a hard limit on frame rate that settings adjustments cannot overcome. The High preset at 1440p (141.8 FPS) is particularly notable as it exceeds the 4K Low result (99.5 FPS) by 42.3 FPS, demonstrating that resolution choice has a greater impact on performance than settings within the same resolution tier.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with 4608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1825 MHz with a boost clock of 2250 MHz and a game clock of 2015 MHz, delivering 20.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which appears sufficient for Doom's texture-heavy environments at 4K.

The GPU's benchmark performance places it in the 87th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49982. Compared to its nearest rivals, it trails the NVIDIA RTX A1000 by 1.7% and leads the Intel Arc A550M by 0.5%, the NVIDIA CMP 50HX by 1.9%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER by 2.6%. The measured FPS data shows the GPU's capabilities are well-matched to this game's engine, with the 4K High result of 74.9 FPS representing a demanding but achievable workload. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3689 and PassMark G3D score of 24980 indicate solid DirectX 12 performance, which is the primary graphics API used by Doom. The GPU's 72 ray tracing cores are present but unused in this title, as the game's original release predates widespread RT adoption, and the benchmark data does not indicate any RT-specific workload.