Doom

Doom, released in May 2016, remains a demanding benchmark for modern hardware, particularly at higher resolutions. This analysis examines the measured performance of the Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions. The data shows a wide spread of frame rates, from a highly playable 82.7 FPS at 4K Ultra to a very high 253.3 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating significant headroom and a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution and settings change.

FAQ

Q: What is the overall rank of this CPU and GPU combination for Doom?

A: The combo ranks 378th out of 1681 tested combinations, placing it in the top 22.5% of all tested systems for this specific game.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its closest rival in raw GPU compute?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 53610, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT's score of 53489. It also leads the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, which scores 52086, by 2.9%.

Q: What is the performance delta between the i5-9400 and its closest CPU rival?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305. Its closest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305, scores 2300, making the i5-9400 just 0.2% faster. The Intel Core i7-8809G scores 2319, which is 0.6% faster than the i5-9400.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p Low and 4K Ultra settings?

A: The measured average frame rate drops from 253.3 FPS at 1080p Low to 82.7 FPS at 4K Ultra. This represents a substantial decrease of 170.6 FPS, or 67.4%, when moving to the most demanding resolution and settings.

Q: Does the GPU have enough memory bandwidth for 4K gaming?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. This high bandwidth, combined with the 82.7 FPS average at 4K Ultra, indicates the memory subsystem is not a limiting factor in this configuration.

Q: What is the CPU's single-core performance in Cinebench R23?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 scores 1125 points in the Cinebench R23 single-core benchmark. Its multi-core score in the same test is 7969 points.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination achieves a rank of 378 out of 1681 tested combos in Doom. This position, within the top 22.5% of all systems, suggests a strong pairing for this title. However, the ranking alone doesn't tell the full story of the performance dynamic. The data indicates that while the GPU is exceptionally powerful, its potential is not fully realized at lower resolutions due to CPU limitations.

The CPU's average benchmark score is 2305, placing it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i3-10305 and Intel Core i3-1125G4, are within 0.2% of its score, indicating that the i5-9400 is a mid-pack performer. In contrast, the GPU's average benchmark score is 53610, placing it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. This significant disparity in relative strength—a 50th percentile CPU paired with an 88th percentile GPU—is the defining characteristic of this combo, leading to the FPS scaling patterns observed in the measured data.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing. Built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and the AD103 chip, it features 10240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 ROPs. Its high pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s are key to handling the detailed environments of Doom at high resolutions. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2295 MHz and can boost up to 2550 MHz.

The 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This is crucial for 4K gaming, as the data shows the GPU is still able to push an average of 82.7 FPS at 4K Ultra settings. The FP32 compute performance of 52.22 TFLOPS provides immense raw processing power. This is reflected in its benchmark scores, such as a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6600 and a Passmark G3D score of 34245. The GPU's performance is 2.1% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7700S, which scores 52505, and 0.4% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M, which scores 53414.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of the combo's performance across different settings at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are exceptionally high, ranging from 213.2 FPS at Ultra to 253.3 FPS at Low. The Medium setting yields 241.7 FPS, and High produces 229.8 FPS. These numbers are well beyond the refresh rate of most monitors, indicating the system is heavily CPU-limited at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain very high but show more variation between settings. The Low preset achieves 221.9 FPS, while Medium produces 209.5 FPS. High settings drop to 190.7 FPS, and the Ultra preset yields 153.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 68 FPS, showing an increased impact of GPU load as resolution rises.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck. The frame rates drop significantly, with the Ultra preset averaging 82.7 FPS. High settings produce 105.2 FPS, Medium achieves 122.4 FPS, and Low reaches 138 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 55.3 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU's workload is now the defining factor in performance.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear trend in how performance scales with resolution. At 1080p, the average FPS across all settings is 234.5. Moving to 1440p, the average drops to 194.0 FPS, a decrease of 17.3%. At 4K, the average falls further to 112.1 FPS, a 52.2% drop from the 1080p average.

This scaling pattern is a classic indicator of a CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU is unable to feed the GPU enough frames to reach its maximum potential, as evidenced by the small FPS gap between Low (253.3 FPS) and Ultra (213.2 FPS) settings. The performance is capped by the CPU's processing speed. As resolution increases to 4K, the GPU's rendering workload grows, allowing it to become the limiting factor. This is why the gap between settings widens at 4K, with the GPU's power being more fully utilized. The 138 FPS at 4K Low versus 82.7 FPS at 4K Ultra shows the GPU is now working harder, and the CPU is no longer the primary constraint.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 and 256 KB of L2 per core, with a shared 9 MB L3 cache. Memory support is for DDR4 in a dual-channel configuration, providing a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s.

In the context of Doom, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls. Its performance in Cinebench R23 is 1125 points for single-core and 7969 points for multi-core. The single-core score is particularly relevant for gaming. The data indicates that at 1080p, this CPU is the limiting factor. The high frame rates of 213.2 FPS at Ultra and 253.3 FPS at Low are close together, suggesting the CPU is delivering frames at its maximum rate, and the GPU is waiting for more work. The CPU's 50th percentile ranking and near-parity with rival chips like the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.2% faster) and Intel Core i3-1125G4 (0.2% faster) confirms its mid-range standing.

The bottleneck shifts as the resolution increases. At 4K, the GPU's workload becomes so demanding that the CPU has enough time to prepare frames. This is why the RTX 4080 SUPER can achieve 82.7 FPS at Ultra, a result that is far below its 1080p performance but still very playable. The 6-core, 6-thread configuration is sufficient for this game, as the data shows it does not completely hold back the GPU at higher resolutions, but its limitations are clear at 1080p where frame rates are capped.