Doom

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows for Doom with the Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 show a clear hierarchy across the four settings presets. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers 300.2 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset for this combo. Medium follows at 264.4 FPS, High at 221.3 FPS, and Ultra at 179.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is substantial — roughly 120 FPS separates the two extremes.

At 1440p, the pattern remains consistent but the margins compress. Low produces 197.1 FPS, Medium 170.2 FPS, High 145.2 FPS, and Ultra 114.9 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra at 1440p is about 82 FPS, narrower than at 1080p but still significant. At 4K, the spread tightens further: Low hits 106.6 FPS, Medium 90.1 FPS, High 77.7 FPS, and Ultra 62.7 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is roughly 44 FPS.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the target display refresh rate. For 1080p, the High preset at 221.3 FPS is the sensible choice — it clears 200 FPS while offering improved fidelity over Medium and Low. The Ultra preset at 179.7 FPS remains well above 144 Hz, so users with 144 Hz panels can safely enable Ultra at 1080p. For 1440p, High at 145.2 FPS aligns closely with a 144 Hz refresh, while Ultra at 114.9 FPS still provides a smooth experience for 120 Hz displays. At 4K, the Medium preset at 90.1 FPS represents the balanced option; Ultra at 62.7 FPS is playable but approaches the lower boundary for fast-paced FPS action. The data suggests Medium or High at 4K, High at 1440p, and Ultra at 1080p as the recommended presets for this hardware combination.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is built on the Ampere architecture with the GA102 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It contains 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1440 MHz and boosts to 1710 MHz. Memory duties are handled by 10 GB of GDDR6X across a 320-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1188 MHz, which translates to 19 Gbps effective.

In Doom, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. The 4K results show the RTX 3080 working harder relative to the lower resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 62.7 FPS, while 4K Low reaches 106.6 FPS. The difference of roughly 44 FPS between these settings at 4K indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck when pixel count rises. The 10 GB VRAM buffer does not appear to constrain performance in this title based on the measured data — the frame rates scale smoothly across settings without any anomalous dips that would suggest memory pressure.

The RTX 3080's compute capabilities include 8704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, 96 raster output units, 68 RT cores, and 272 tensor cores. Its pixel rate is 164.2 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 465.1 GTexel/s. Floating point performance is rated at 29.77 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16. These specifications support the GPU's percentile ranking at 80 among all GPUs. The nearest rivals in the aggregate benchmark data include the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (0.2% behind), AMD Radeon 880M (0.4% ahead), AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (0.9% behind), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (1% ahead). These are tight margins, but the RTX 3080's actual Doom performance is strong enough to push frame rates well beyond 60 FPS at all tested settings and resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Raptor Lake-R generation, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it uses the Intel Socket 1700.

In Doom, the CPU's influence is most visible at lower resolutions where frame rates climb high enough to expose processing overhead. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 300.2 FPS, and at 1080p Medium it stays at 264.4 FPS. These very high frame rates suggest the CPU is keeping pace with the GPU's output. If the i5-14600KF were limiting performance, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p would show a smaller frame rate drop than the measured values. Instead, the data shows 300.2 FPS at 1080p Low versus 197.1 FPS at 1440p Low — a reduction of about 103 FPS. This substantial drop indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting component as resolution climbs, while the CPU has headroom at 1080p.

The i5-14600KF's aggregate benchmarks support its capability in this role. It scores 32889 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4643 in single-core. Geekbench results are 15636 multi-core and 2778 single-core. The processor ranks at the 93rd percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals in aggregate score are the Intel Core i5-14600K (0.4% ahead), AMD EPYC 4345P (0.5% behind), AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (0.6% ahead), and Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (1.4% ahead). These deltas are minimal, meaning the i5-14600KF sits in a tightly contested performance band. The launch MSRP is $294.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 ranks 522 out of 1681 tested combos in Doom. That places it in the 69th percentile of all tested configurations — meaning roughly 31% of combos tested faster. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU's high percentile standing (93rd among CPUs) and the GPU's more moderate position (80th among GPUs). The GPU is the weaker link in this pairing, which is consistent with the resolution scaling behavior observed in the measured FPS.

The combo's rank of 522 suggests that while this is a capable pairing, many other configurations achieve higher frame rates in Doom. The RTX 3080's aggregate score of 35787 places it near the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (0.9% behind) and AMD Radeon Pro Duo (0.2% behind), while the CPU's aggregate score of 49367 puts it just ahead of the Intel Core i5-14600K (0.4% difference). The combination of a top-tier CPU with a mid-high-tier GPU yields solid but not class-leading results in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how the workload shifts between components as resolution changes. From 1080p to 1440p, the average frame rate across all settings drops by roughly 34%. From 1440p to 4K, the drop is more severe, averaging around 47% across settings. These percentages are derived from the measured values: for example, High settings go from 221.3 FPS at 1080p to 145.2 FPS at 1440p (a 34% reduction) and then to 77.7 FPS at 4K (a 47% reduction from 1440p).

The scaling pattern reveals the limiting component. At 1080p, the combo produces frame rates above 179 FPS even at Ultra, which suggests the CPU and GPU are both highly capable. The sharp declines at 4K — where Ultra drops to 62.7 FPS and Low to 106.6 FPS — indicate that the GPU's rendering throughput is the primary constraint at high pixel counts. The CPU's role diminishes at 4K because the frame rates are lower and per-frame CPU work is less demanding relative to GPU rasterization. The data points to the RTX 3080 as the component that determines the ceiling at 4K, while the i5-14600KF provides ample headroom at 1080p and 1440p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: Low 300.2, Medium 264.4, High 221.3, and Ultra 179.7. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent decrease, with the largest single-step drop occurring between Medium and High (a reduction of 43.1 FPS). The step from High to Ultra reduces frame rates by 41.6 FPS. At 1080p, even the lowest measured preset stays well above 144 Hz, making this resolution the most flexible for settings selection.

At 2560x1440, the values are: Low 197.1, Medium 170.2, High 145.2, and Ultra 114.9. The step from Low to Medium costs 26.9 FPS, from Medium to High costs 25 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 30.3 FPS. The margin between High and Ultra at 1440p is the largest among the three resolution points, suggesting that the Ultra preset demands notably more GPU resources. All 1440p presets remain above 100 FPS, with only Ultra falling below 120 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the values are: Low 106.6, Medium 90.1, High 77.7, and Ultra 62.7. The step from Low to Medium costs 16.5 FPS, from Medium to High costs 12.4 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 15 FPS. At 4K, every preset delivers playable frame rates, but only Low and Medium exceed 90 FPS. The Ultra preset at 62.7 FPS sits at the edge of what is comfortable for a fast-paced FPS, while Low at 106.6 FPS provides the smoothest 4K experience in the measured data.