Doom

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the Intel Arc B370 lands at rank 2696 out of 2930 tested combos in Doom. That places this configuration in the bottom 8% of all systems tested, a striking result for a CPU that otherwise sits in the 89th percentile among all processors. The data suggests a profound imbalance: the i7-13700K is a top-tier compute component, while the Arc B370 is an integrated graphics solution with a 5th-percentile standing among all GPUs. The combination produces a system that is severely GPU-limited, and the benchmark results reflect that reality.

The gap between the CPU's potential and the GPU's delivery is stark. The i7-13700K's average benchmark score of 46881 puts it within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX and the Intel Xeon w3-2535, while trailing the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 by just 0.2%. Yet in Doom, this combo's rank suggests the GPU is the bottleneck at nearly every resolution and setting. The Arc B370's benchmark score of 1184 is nearly identical to the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, deltaPct -0.2) and the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, deltaPct -0.5), placing it in territory occupied by decade-old discrete GPUs. This is not a match made for modern FPS gaming at high framerates.

The measured FPS data reinforces this interpretation. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 96 FPS average, which is playable but far from the high-refresh experience the CPU alone could enable. At 4K Ultra, the system drops to 20 FPS average, which is essentially unplayable for a fast-paced FPS. The ranking position of 2696 out of 2930 combos is consistent with these numbers—this is a system that can technically run Doom but does so with significant compromises. The data implies that any user considering this pairing for Doom should expect to make substantial settings and resolution concessions to achieve acceptable performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves in Doom, and at what settings?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 96, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next best is 84 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 71 FPS at 1080p High.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems in Doom?

A: It ranks 2696 out of 2930 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations. This low rank is primarily attributable to the GPU's limited performance, as the CPU is in the 89th percentile of all processors.

Q: Is the Intel Arc B370 better or worse than its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B370 scores 1184 on the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark. This is 0.2% lower than the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186), 0.5% lower than the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190), and 1.4% higher than the AMD FirePro M2000 (1168). Performance is essentially neck-and-neck with these older cards.

Q: Does the i7-13700K perform well relative to its CPU rivals?

A: The i7-13700K's average benchmark score is 46881, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (46971), 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 (47022), 0.5% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX (46654), and 0.5% higher than the Intel Xeon w3-2535 (46653). It is effectively at parity with all four rivals.

Q: What is the largest FPS drop when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 96 at 1080p to 34 at 4K, a reduction of 62 FPS or roughly 65%. At High settings, the drop is from 71 FPS at 1080p to 25 FPS at 4K, a reduction of 46 FPS.

Q: Which settings preset provides the most balanced experience at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings deliver 54 FPS average with a minimum of 46 and maximum of 62. This is the only 1440p preset where the minimum FPS stays above 45, making it the most playable option at this resolution.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process node. It operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz, with system-shared memory meaning there is no dedicated VRAM allocation. The memory bus width and bandwidth are both listed as "System Shared" and "System Dependent," respectively, indicating that performance will vary based on the host system's memory configuration. This is a critical limitation for Doom, a game that benefits from dedicated graphics memory bandwidth.

The GPU's compute resources are modest: 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, 20 raster output units, and 10 ray tracing cores. The pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s, delivering 6.144 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The TDP is just 25 W, which explains why this is an IGP solution with no power connectors and a slot width of "IGP." The Arc B370 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is not the issue.

The benchmark data shows the Arc B370 scoring 1184 on the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, placing it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all legacy cards: the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD Radeon HD 7650M, and AMD FirePro M2000. The deltas are all within 1.4%, meaning the Arc B370 performs essentially identically to these older parts. In Doom, this translates to sub-60 FPS at 1440p High and below 30 FPS at 4K High, which aligns with the GPU's low percentile standing. The system-shared memory architecture further compounds the issue, as the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth, which is a particular disadvantage in a fast-paced FPS where texture streaming is constant.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 96 FPS average on Low, 84 FPS average on Medium (with a minimum of 71 and maximum of 96), 71 FPS average on High, and 58 FPS average on Ultra. The 1080p results show a clear progression: each step up in settings costs roughly 12-13 FPS on average, except for the jump from High to Ultra which costs 13 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the numbers drop significantly. Low settings produce 62 FPS average, Medium produces 54 FPS average (minimum 46, maximum 62), High produces 46 FPS average, and Ultra produces 37 FPS average. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 25 FPS, which is proportionally similar to the 38 FPS gap at 1080p but represents a larger percentage loss. The minimum FPS at 1440p Medium is 46, which is the same as the average FPS at 1440p High, indicating that the Medium preset offers more consistent framing.

At 3840x2160, performance degrades substantially. Low settings yield 34 FPS average, Medium yields 29 FPS average (minimum 25, maximum 34), High yields 25 FPS average, and Ultra yields 20 FPS average. None of the 4K presets reach 60 FPS, and even the best case (4K Low) is just over half of the 1080p Low result. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 25, which is below the 30 FPS threshold often considered the minimum for playable frame rates in action games.

The data shows that the combo's sweet spot is 1080p, where even High settings maintain 71 FPS average. At 1440p, only Low and Medium presets stay above 50 FPS average. At 4K, all presets fall below 35 FPS average, making the resolution impractical for competitive or fast-paced play. The measured rows are consistent across resolutions, with no anomalies or outliers that would suggest driver issues or thermal throttling.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and revealing. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 96 at 1080p to 62 at 1440p to 34 at 4K. This represents a 35% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a further 45% drop from 1440p to 4K, for a total reduction of 65% from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the progression is 71 FPS at 1080p, 46 FPS at 1440p, and 25 FPS at 4K—a 65% total drop as well, though the intermediate step shows a 35% decline from 1080p to 1440p and a 46% decline from 1440p to 4K.

This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound system. When the GPU is the limiting component, FPS should scale roughly with the number of pixels, and the measured data approximates that relationship. Moving from 1080p (2.07 million pixels) to 1440p (3.69 million pixels) represents a 78% increase in pixel count, yet the FPS drops by only 35% at Low settings. This suggests the system is not purely pixel-limited; there is some headroom that allows the GPU to maintain performance better than a linear pixel scaling would predict. However, the drop from 1440p to 4K (8.29 million pixels, a 125% increase) results in a 45% FPS reduction at Low settings, which is closer to the linear expectation.

The data implies that at 1080p, the CPU is partially able to feed the GPU, allowing the system to achieve near-100 FPS at Low settings. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck, and the FPS scales more predictably with pixel count. The fact that the 4K results are uniformly low (20-34 FPS across all presets) indicates that the Arc B370 simply does not have the fill rate or memory bandwidth to handle 4K rendering in Doom. The system-shared memory architecture likely exacerbates this, as the GPU must access main system memory for texture data, which adds latency and reduces effective bandwidth at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings preset depends heavily on the target resolution and the user's tolerance for frame rate dips. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset offers the best balance: 84 FPS average with a minimum of 71 and maximum of 96. This keeps the frame rate above 60 FPS at all times, which is the minimum threshold for smooth play in a fast FPS. The High preset at 1080p yields 71 FPS average, which is still playable but with less headroom for demanding scenes. Ultra at 1080p drops to 58 FPS average, which may cause noticeable stutter in intense combat sequences.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is the only one that maintains an average above 50 FPS (54 FPS) with a minimum of 46. The Low preset at 1440p produces 62 FPS average, but the visual quality trade-off may not be worth the 8 FPS gain over Medium. High at 1440p falls to 46 FPS average, which is borderline for a game like Doom that rewards rapid target acquisition. Ultra at 1440p is not recommended, as the 37 FPS average is below the 40 FPS threshold generally considered the floor for acceptable action game performance.

At 3840x2160, no preset is truly recommended for smooth gameplay. The Low preset yields 34 FPS average, which is below 60 FPS and below the 40 FPS threshold. Medium yields 29 FPS, High yields 25 FPS, and Ultra yields 20 FPS. If a user insists on 4K, Low is the only option that approaches playability, but even then the frame rate is marginal. The data suggests that 1080p Medium or 1440p Low/Medium are the only configurations that deliver a consistently playable experience, with 1080p Medium being the single best combination of visual fidelity and performance across all measured rows.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process node. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, with ECC memory support, and connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes. This is a high-end desktop processor with a launch MSRP of $409, and its benchmark scores confirm its strength: Cinebench R23 multicore score of 30745, Geekbench multicore score of 19429, and a Passmark multithread score of 45887.

In the context of Doom, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics calculations, and game logic. The i7-13700K's 16 cores and 24 threads are far more than Doom requires, as the game is not heavily multithreaded. The single-thread performance is also strong, with a Passmark single-thread score of 4333 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2529. This means the CPU is never the bottleneck in this configuration—at any resolution or setting, the GPU is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the FPS scaling patterns.

The CPU's nearest rivals all have similar average benchmark scores: the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (46971, deltaPct -0.2), AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 (47022, deltaPct -0.3), AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX (46654, deltaPct 0.5), and Intel Xeon w3-2535 (46653, deltaPct 0.5). The i7-13700K's score of 46881 is within 0.5% of all four, meaning any of these CPUs would perform identically in Doom when paired with the Arc B370. The data implies that upgrading the CPU would yield zero measurable benefit in this game, as the GPU is so far behind that even a significantly slower CPU would produce the same FPS. Conversely, pairing the i7-13700K with a more capable GPU would unlock its full potential, but that is outside the scope of this combo's measured results. The CPU's 3DMark scores—10717 for 16 threads, 8193 for 8 threads, and 1136 for single-thread—further confirm that it has ample processing headroom for Doom's demands, making the GPU the clear and only constraint on performance.