Doom

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers a commanding performance in Doom, with the data indicating a system that scales predictably across resolutions and settings. The measured frame rates show a clear narrative: at 1080p, the combination produces exceptionally high numbers that suggest the CPU is doing the heavy lifting, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the primary limiter, though still maintaining highly playable results. This analysis walks through the raw data to explain what the numbers mean for this specific pairing in this specific title.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a classic shift in system bottleneck behavior. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 336.8 FPS, but this drops to 118.1 FPS at 4K with the same settings — a reduction to about 35% of the original value. This steep decline indicates that at lower resolutions, the Intel Core i7-12700KF's 12 cores and 20 threads are sufficient to feed the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, allowing the GPU to work at its intended pace. However, as pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, the GPU's rendering workload expands dramatically, and the frame rate falls accordingly.

Looking at the High settings across the board, the scaling is consistent: 249.6 FPS at 1080p, 162.7 FPS at 1440p, and 87.2 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is about 35%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is roughly 46%. This non-linear progression is typical of GPU-bound scenarios, where the fill-rate demands of 4K (3840x2160) become the dominant factor. The data suggests that at 1080p, particularly at Low and Medium settings, the system is partially CPU-bound or at least balanced; at 4K, the GPU is unequivocally the limiting component.

The Ultra preset tells a similar story but with lower absolute numbers: 206 FPS at 1080p, 134.3 FPS at 1440p, and 72.6 FPS at 4K. The scaling here is slightly shallower, which implies that the Ultra preset's additional effects (likely shadow quality, lighting, and post-processing) add a consistent cost across all resolutions, but the core resolution scaling remains GPU-driven. For a game released in 2016, these frame rates are exceptionally high, indicating that this modern hardware combination has significant headroom.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS this combo can achieve in Doom?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 336.8, recorded at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This represents the peak performance when the GPU is least stressed.

Q: How does the Ultra preset at 4K compare to the Low preset at 1080p?

A: The Ultra preset at 3840x2160 yields 72.6 FPS, which is roughly 21.5% of the 336.8 FPS achieved at Low settings at 1920x1080. This highlights the massive impact of both resolution and settings on the GPU workload.

Q: Is the frame rate at 1440p High sufficient for high-refresh-rate monitors?

A: Yes, the measured 162.7 FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings comfortably exceeds the 144 Hz refresh rate common on many gaming monitors, providing smooth gameplay.

Q: Does the CPU become a bottleneck at any measured configuration?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the 336.8 FPS result indicates the CPU is likely reaching its limit, as the GPU has less work to do. The 12-core, 20-thread processor’s performance is sufficient for this title, but the frame rate ceiling at low resolutions appears to be set by the CPU.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Medium to Ultra at 4K?

A: The average FPS drops from 103.4 to 72.6, a reduction of 30.8 FPS or approximately 30%. This suggests that the Ultra preset’s extra graphical features are relatively expensive at high resolution.

Q: What does the combo's rank of 337 out of 1681 combos indicate?

A: This rank places the combination in the top 20% of all tested combos for Doom, indicating that this pairing is well above average for this specific game, though not at the very top of the leaderboard.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame field places this specific pairing at position 337 out of 1681 tested combinations, which puts it in the 80th percentile of all systems benchmarked. This is a strong showing, but it is not the absolute top tier. The data indicates that while the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a high-end GPU (82nd percentile among all GPUs), and the Intel Core i7-12700KF is similarly powerful (89th percentile among all CPUs), there are other combinations that score higher in Doom. The gap likely comes from the fact that this game, released in 2016, may not be fully optimized for the newer RDNA 3.0 architecture, or that some rival GPU configurations with higher memory bandwidth or different driver optimizations edge out this combo.

The nearest rivals for the GPU (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile, NVIDIA CMP 70HX, NVIDIA GeForce MX570, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile) all have average benchmark scores within 0.6% of the RX 7900 XT, suggesting that in synthetic tests, these cards are closely matched. In a real-game scenario like Doom, the actual FPS differences may be more pronounced, but the data shows this AMD card is competitive with those alternatives. For the CPU, the nearest rivals (Intel Core i5-14400, Intel Core i7-13800H, Intel Core i9-12900HX, and Intel Core i5-13600T) also cluster within 0.3% of the i7-12700KF's average score, meaning the processor choice is unlikely to be a differentiator when paired with a similarly powerful GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are consistently high across all settings. Low settings produce 336.8 FPS, Medium yields 295.8 FPS, High achieves 249.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 206 FPS. This spread of 130.8 FPS between the lowest and highest settings shows that the GPU can handle the full range of presets at this resolution without dipping below the 200 FPS mark. The difference between Low and Ultra is approximately 39%, indicating that the visual upgrades in the Ultra preset come at a measurable cost.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain elevated. Low settings deliver 219.4 FPS, Medium drops to 189.5 FPS, High is at 162.7 FPS, and Ultra sits at 134.3 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra here is about 85 FPS, which is a smaller absolute difference than at 1080p, but the percentage gap remains around 39%. This consistency suggests that the settings scaling is uniform regardless of resolution.

At 3840x2160, the GPU starts to feel the pressure. Medium settings produce 103.4 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay, but Ultra drops to 72.6 FPS. High settings land at 87.2 FPS, while Low achieves 118.1 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 45.5 FPS, and the percentage difference is roughly 38%. This indicates that the Ultra preset’s cost is consistent across resolutions, but the absolute numbers at 4K are the lowest recorded for this combo.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT features 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, providing 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a substantial amount of memory bandwidth, which is crucial for high-resolution textures and heavy post-processing effects in Doom. The card's 5 nm process node and RDNA 3.0 architecture are modern, but the game's 2016 release date means it was designed for older hardware. The GPU's boost clock of 2394 MHz and game clock of 2025 MHz are high, but the data shows that at 4K Ultra, the card is still delivering 72.6 FPS, indicating that it is handling the workload effectively without thermal or power throttling (TDP is 300 W).

The GPU's benchmark scores are strong: a Passmark G3D score of 29009 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 169834. These numbers place it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs, confirming its high-end status. However, the nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile, has an average score within 0% of the RX 7900 XT, meaning that in synthetic tests, the performance is nearly identical. In Doom, the data shows that the GPU is the primary limiter at 4K, as the frame rate drops by roughly 65% from 1080p Low to 4K Low, which is consistent with a fill-rate and bandwidth-bound scenario.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, using a 10 nm process node. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz, with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. This high boost clock is beneficial for Doom, which relies on single-threaded performance for game logic and draw calls. The CPU's benchmark scores reflect this: a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4091 and a multi-core score of 28979, along with a Geekbench single-core score of 2526. The Passmark single-thread score of 3984 is also notable.

In the measured FPS data, the CPU's influence is most apparent at 1080p with Low settings, where the 336.8 FPS result is likely hitting the CPU's limit. The fact that the frame rate does not decrease linearly with resolution from 1080p to 1440p (a 35% drop) suggests that the CPU can keep up with the GPU's demands at 1440p, but at 1080p, the CPU may be the bottleneck. The processor's 25 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 and DDR5) provide adequate data throughput for this title. With a TDP of 125 W, the CPU is efficient, and its 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that it is a top-tier processor for gaming workloads. The nearest CPU rival, the Intel Core i5-14400, has an average score just 0.1% higher, indicating that the i7-12700KF is not leaving any significant performance on the table in this pairing.