Doom

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for Doom with the Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 show a clear hierarchy across presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 202 FPS, Medium 176 FPS, High 149 FPS, and Ultra 122 FPS. At 2560x1440, the spread narrows: Low produces 131 FPS, Medium 114 FPS, High 96 FPS, and Ultra 79 FPS. At 3840x2160, the differences compress further, with Low reaching 71 FPS, Medium 62 FPS, High 52 FPS, and Ultra 43 FPS.

The data indicates that the High preset provides the most balanced experience across resolutions. At 1080p, High still exceeds 144 Hz with 149 FPS, which suits high-refresh displays. At 1440p, High maintains 96 FPS, comfortably above 60 FPS for smooth gameplay. At 4K, High drops to 52 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The Medium preset at 4K offers 62 FPS, a more consistent frame time for demanding scenarios.

For competitive play, the Low preset at 1080p is the performance pick, yielding 202 FPS. That leaves substantial headroom for display refresh rates above 144 Hz. The Medium preset at 1080p, with 176 FPS average and a minimum of 150 FPS, also sustains high refresh rates without the visual compromises of Low. The Ultra preset, while visually richest, costs 27 FPS versus High at 1080p (122 vs 149 FPS) and 17 FPS at 1440p (79 vs 96 FPS). Given that Doom is a fast FPS, the visual gain from Ultra does not justify the frame rate loss.

The best experience per the measured rows is the High preset at 1440p. It delivers 96 FPS, which balances visual quality with responsiveness. At 4K, High preset is the ceiling for a consistent 50+ FPS experience; players targeting 60 FPS should use Medium, which averages 62 FPS. The 1080p High preset remains the safest recommendation for high-refresh monitors, as it clears 144 FPS with margin.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this combo?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 202, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. The Medium preset at 1080p follows closely with 176 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Doom?

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 62 FPS, while High averages 52 FPS and Ultra averages 43 FPS. For a 60 FPS target, Medium is the highest playable preset.

Q: How does the RTX 5050's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 5050 has an average benchmark score of 21035, which is 1.6% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (20713). It trails the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL by 0.6% (21153), the AMD Radeon HD 8970M by 1% (21237), and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile by 1.6% (21379).

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low averages 131 FPS, while Ultra averages 79 FPS. This is a 52 FPS difference, representing a 40% reduction from Low to Ultra.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The data shows 202 FPS at 1080p Low, which is very high. The CPU's single-thread score of 1043 in 3DMark and 1850.5 in Cinebench R23 suggests it has ample headroom. The GPU's 66th percentile ranking versus all GPUs indicates it is the more likely constraint at higher settings.

Q: What is the minimum FPS observed across all tested configurations?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 52, which appears at 3840x2160 with Medium settings (min FPS) and as the average at 3840x2160 High. The 1440p Medium configuration shows a minimum of 97 FPS, and 1080p Medium shows a minimum of 150 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 320.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The boost clock is 2572 MHz, with a base clock of 2317 MHz. The GPU contains 2560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, along with 20 RT cores and 80 tensor cores. Its FP32 performance is measured at 13.17 TFLOPS.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Doom, a 2016 title. At 4K Ultra, the game averages 43 FPS, suggesting that memory bandwidth and capacity are not the primary bottlenecks at that resolution. The 320.0 GB/s bandwidth is modest by current standards, but the game's engine does not appear to saturate it heavily. The GPU's pixel rate of 82.30 GPixel/s and texture rate of 205.8 GTexel/s are adequate for the game's geometry and texture workloads.

Benchmark results for the RTX 5050 show a Passmark G3D score of 17326 and a Passmark GPU Compute score of 9184. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 2502. The GPU's percentile rank is 66, meaning it outperforms 66% of all GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score of 21035 places it near the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (20713, 1.6% slower) and the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (21153, 0.6% faster). This context helps explain the 4K performance: the RTX 5050 is a mid-range GPU that can handle 4K in older, well-optimized titles like Doom, but not at maximum settings.

The measured FPS data indicates that the GPU's performance scales predictably with resolution. At 1080p High, the GPU produces 149 FPS; at 1440p High, it drops to 96 FPS; at 4K High, it falls to 52 FPS. This scaling is roughly linear with pixel count, suggesting the GPU is the dominant factor in these results.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data covers three resolutions and four settings presets, yielding twelve data points. All results are average FPS, with minimum and maximum values only recorded for the Medium preset at each resolution.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 202 FPS average. The Medium preset averages 176 FPS, with a minimum of 150 FPS and a maximum of 203 FPS. High averages 149 FPS. Ultra averages 122 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 80 FPS drop (202 to 122), which is a 40% reduction.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 131 FPS. Medium averages 114 FPS, with a minimum of 97 FPS and a maximum of 131 FPS. High averages 96 FPS. Ultra averages 79 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 52 FPS, or 40% reduction, consistent with the 1080p scaling.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 71 FPS. Medium averages 62 FPS, with a minimum of 52 FPS and a maximum of 71 FPS. High averages 52 FPS. Ultra averages 43 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 28 FPS, a 39% reduction.

The Medium preset at each resolution shows the widest recorded variance between minimum and maximum. At 1080p, the spread is 53 FPS (150 to 203). At 1440p, the spread is 34 FPS (97 to 131). At 4K, the spread is 19 FPS (52 to 71). This suggests that Medium settings produce more variable frame pacing, likely due to dynamic scene complexity.

The High preset consistently sits close to the midpoint between Medium and Ultra. At 1080p, High (149) is 27 FPS below Medium (176) and 27 FPS above Ultra (122). At 1440p, High (96) is 18 FPS below Medium (114) and 17 FPS above Ultra (79). At 4K, High (52) is 10 FPS below Medium (62) and 9 FPS above Ultra (43). This pattern indicates that the High preset offers a consistent compromise across all resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals how the system scales with pixel count. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 202 at 1080p to 131 at 1440p, then to 71 at 4K. This represents a 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p (202 to 131) and a 46% reduction from 1440p to 4K (131 to 71). From 1080p to 4K, the total drop is 65% (202 to 71).

At High settings, the progression is 149 FPS (1080p) to 96 FPS (1440p) to 52 FPS (4K). The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 36%, and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 46%. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 65%.

At Ultra settings, the progression is 122 FPS (1080p) to 79 FPS (1440p) to 43 FPS (4K). The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 35%, and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 46%. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 65%.

The consistency of these percentages across all settings is notable. Whether on Low or Ultra, the system loses approximately 35% of its FPS moving from 1080p to 1440p, and another 46% moving from 1440p to 4K. This uniform scaling strongly indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would not scale so predictably with pixel count, especially at lower settings where CPU overhead is more likely to dominate.

The fact that Low settings at 4K (71 FPS) still exceed Ultra at 1440p (79 FPS) only slightly, while Low at 1440p (131 FPS) far exceeds Ultra at 1080p (122 FPS), shows that resolution has a larger impact on performance than settings do. The pixel count difference between 1080p and 4K is 4x, but the FPS penalty is only 65%, which indicates that the GPU is not fully saturated at 4K and that memory bandwidth (320.0 GB/s) or other factors come into play.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The CPU features 25 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. Its TDP is rated at 125 W.

Benchmark results for the i7-12700K show strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 19784, while single-core scores 1850.5. In 3DMark, the 16-thread score is 9276, and the max-thread score is 9979. The single-thread score is 1043. Geekbench results show 15790 multicore and 2308 single-core. Passmark multithread scores 34404, with single-thread at 4013.

The CPU's percentile rank is 84, meaning it outperforms 84% of all CPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score is 35287, which is nearly identical to its nearest rivals: the Intel Core i5-13600T (35305, -0.1%), Intel Core i7-12700KF (35365, -0.2%), Intel Core i7-13700T (35403, -0.3%), and Intel Core 5 213PE (35428, -0.4%). These deltas are all within 0.4%, indicating that the i7-12700K is statistically tied with these competitors.

In Doom, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (202 FPS) is high enough that the CPU is unlikely to be a bottleneck. The 12 cores and 20 threads provide ample parallelism for the game's engine, which is known to scale well with multiple threads. The high single-thread performance (1850.5 in Cinebench R23) also ensures that the game's main thread has sufficient headroom.

The data shows that at 1440p and 4K, the FPS drops proportionally with pixel count, which is a GPU-bound signature. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect to see the FPS plateau at higher resolutions, particularly at Low settings where the GPU has less work to do. The fact that Low settings at 4K (71 FPS) are still substantially lower than Low at 1440p (131 FPS) confirms that the CPU is not the primary constraint at any tested resolution.

The CPU's 20 threads and 5.00 GHz boost clock are more than adequate for a 2016 FPS title. The measured data suggests that even at 1080p, the RTX 5050 is the limiting component, as the CPU has headroom to push beyond 202 FPS if the GPU could deliver.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 ranks 1766 out of 2930 tested combos in Doom. This places it in the 60th percentile of all tested combinations (1766/2930 = 60.3%). The ranking indicates that this combo performs better than the median tested system but is far from the top tier.

The CPU's strong performance (84th percentile among all CPUs) is offset by the GPU's more modest standing (66th percentile among all GPUs). The combo's rank of 1766 suggests that Doom is more sensitive to GPU performance than CPU performance, which aligns with the resolution scaling analysis. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking does not translate into a top-tier combo ranking because the GPU cannot fully utilize the CPU's capabilities at higher resolutions.

The measured FPS data supports this interpretation. At 1080p, the combo achieves 202 FPS on Low, which is excellent for a mid-range GPU. However, at 4K, the combo drops to 43 FPS on Ultra, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The combo's rank of 1766 out of 2930 suggests that many other tested combinations can achieve higher FPS at 4K, likely due to more powerful GPUs.

The nearest rivals for the CPU (all within 0.4% in average benchmark score) would likely produce nearly identical results in Doom, as the game is not CPU-bound at these settings. The GPU's nearest rivals (within 1.6% in average benchmark score) would also produce similar FPS, with the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT being 1.6% slower and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile being 1.6% faster.

The combo's rank of 1766 out of 2930 indicates that it sits in the upper-middle tier of tested systems. The data shows that this combo is well-suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming in Doom, with excellent frame rates at those resolutions. At 4K, it is playable but requires settings compromises, which is consistent with a GPU that ranks in the 66th percentile. The CPU's high percentile ranking (84th) ensures that there is no CPU-induced stuttering or frame pacing issues, as evidenced by the smooth scaling across resolutions.