Doom

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 delivers a playable but uneven experience in Doom, with performance scaling that clearly identifies the GPU as the primary constraint at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the combination produces excellent frame rates, but the drop-off towards 4K is steep, showing that the 8 GB graphics card cannot maintain the same headroom when pixel count rises. Benchmark results place this pairing in the 57.5th percentile of all tested combinations for this title, which is respectable but not exceptional, and the data shows that users should adjust their expectations based on their display target.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a predictable but pronounced decline as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 211 FPS, which drops to 137 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 74 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 65% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K at the lowest settings, which is a substantial hit that points directly at the GPU's limitations. The RX 9060's 128-bit memory bus and 8 GB VRAM configuration simply cannot feed the rasterizer enough data at 4K to keep pace with the CPU's capabilities.

Looking at High settings, the pattern holds: 155 FPS at 1080p falls to 101 FPS at 1440p and then plummets to 54 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is barely above the 45 FPS floor seen at Ultra settings, suggesting that the graphics card is nearing its architectural ceiling at this resolution. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is roughly 35% across all settings, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is between 44% and 47%, indicating that the scaling penalty accelerates as resolution grows.

The data suggests the system is CPU-limited at 1080p Low, where 211 FPS likely approaches what the i7-14700K can feed, but becomes increasingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions. The i7-14700K, with its 20 cores and 28 threads boosting to 5.60 GHz, has ample headroom for this engine. The RX 9060, however, ranks in the 59th percentile among all GPUs, which is modest for a modern card, and this mid-pack positioning explains why 4K Ultra drops to 45 FPS — a figure that falls below the 60 FPS target most players expect from a fast-paced shooter.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Doom with this combo?

A: The measured data shows 2560x1440 as the sweet spot. At Medium settings, it delivers 119 FPS with a minimum of 101 FPS, which keeps the experience fluid without the steep 4K penalty. The 4K results, ranging from 45 to 74 FPS depending on settings, are playable but do not offer the same margin of comfort.

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 16014 places it 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, and 1% ahead of both the AMD Radeon R9 370X and the AMD Radeon RX 7700. It sits 2.1% above the AMD Radeon Pro W5500. These are tight margins, indicating the card performs in a well-established mid-range band.

Q: Is the Core i7-14700K a bottleneck at any resolution?

A: The CPU's 94th percentile ranking among all processors and its nearest rivals (all within 0.9% of its average score) suggest it is not a limiting factor. The 1080p Low result of 211 FPS is likely near the engine's practical ceiling, but the GPU is the clear constraint at 1440p and above, where frame rates drop by over 35% from 1080p.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: The spread is 84 FPS, from 211 FPS at Low to 127 FPS at Ultra. This is a 40% performance hit for the highest quality preset, which is a significant visual-to-performance trade-off. Medium lands at 184 FPS, offering a balanced middle ground.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM cause issues in Doom?

A: The data does not show VRAM-related stutters or crashes in the measured results, but the steep scaling at 4K suggests memory bandwidth is a factor. The 288.0 GB/s bandwidth on a 128-bit bus is a likely contributor to the 45 FPS result at 4K Ultra, as the card struggles to maintain throughput at higher resolutions.

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

A: It ranks 1686th out of 2930 combinations, placing it in the 42.5th percentile from the bottom or 57.5th from the top. This is a solidly mid-pack result, consistent with a strong CPU paired with a mid-range GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame of 1686 out of 2930 tested combinations places this pairing in the upper-middle tier of all systems evaluated for Doom. This ranking is driven primarily by the GPU's modest standing rather than the CPU's strength. The i7-14700K ranks in the 94th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69355, and its nearest rivals — the AMD EPYC 9115, Ryzen 9 7950X, Ryzen 9 7940HX, and Ryzen 7 9700F — are all within 0.9% of its score. This means the processor is providing top-tier compute capability for the game's logic and draw calls.

The RX 9060, conversely, sits in the 59th percentile among all GPUs with an average score of 16014. Its nearest rivals include the RTX 3060 Ti, which is 0.7% faster, and the RX 7700, which is 1% slower. This mid-range positioning drags the overall combo ranking down, as the GPU cannot fully exploit the CPU's headroom at higher resolutions. The 57.5th percentile overall ranking reflects this imbalance: the system excels at 1080p where the CPU can dominate, but falls behind more balanced combinations at 1440p and 4K.

The delta between the CPU's 94th percentile and the GPU's 59th percentile is substantial, and it shows in the measured results. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 211 FPS, which is a strong result, but at 4K Ultra it drops to 45 FPS — a figure that would rank poorly against systems with more balanced components. Users with this pairing should treat 1080p and 1440p as the primary targets, as the data indicates the GPU becomes the limiting factor beyond those resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete matrix of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the results are uniformly strong: Low delivers 211 FPS, Medium delivers 184 FPS with a minimum of 156 and maximum of 212, High delivers 155 FPS, and Ultra delivers 127 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 84 FPS, which is a 40% reduction, but even the lowest 1080p result remains well above any playability threshold.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops but remains comfortable. Low delivers 137 FPS, Medium delivers 119 FPS with a minimum of 101 and maximum of 137, High delivers 101 FPS, and Ultra delivers 82 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is consistent at roughly 35% across all settings, indicating that the GPU is handling the additional pixel load in a linear fashion. The minimum FPS of 101 at Medium settings shows that even in demanding scenes, the system maintains a 100+ FPS experience.

At 3840x2160, the results highlight the GPU's limitations. Low produces 74 FPS, which is playable but not smooth by competitive standards. Medium drops to 65 FPS with a minimum of 55 and maximum of 74, showing notable frame-time variance. High falls to 54 FPS, and Ultra drops to 45 FPS. The 4K results are consistent with a GPU that is running out of memory bandwidth, as the 128-bit bus and 8 GB GDDR6 configuration at 18 Gbps effective are not sufficient for the higher pixel counts. The minimum FPS figures for 4K Medium and 1440p Medium reveal that the card can dip below its average, but the overall experience remains stable enough for single-player play.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is the defining component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the measured performance profile. The GPU is built on RDNA 4.0 architecture with a 4 nm process from TSMC, featuring 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. Its boost clock of 2990 MHz is high, but the card is constrained by its memory subsystem: 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This configuration is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K results show a clear bottleneck.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 59th percentile among all GPUs, with a PassMark G3D score of 17631 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3322. Its nearest rival, the RTX 3060 Ti, is 0.7% faster, which is a negligible margin in real-world terms. The 3DMark scores and the measured FPS data align: the card performs well at lower resolutions but falls off sharply as pixel count rises. The 21.43 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 334.9 GTexel/s texture rate are respectable, but the memory bandwidth is the limiting factor in this game.

The 4K Medium result of 65 FPS with a minimum of 55 FPS shows that the GPU can handle moderate settings at high resolution, but the drop to 45 FPS at Ultra indicates that the card's 64 ROPs and 128-bit memory interface cannot sustain the fill rate required for maximum quality. The pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s is theoretically sufficient, but the memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s creates a practical ceiling. Users should note that the GPU's 132 W TDP and single 8-pin power connector make it a modest power draw, but the performance is what matters here.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K provides an exceptionally strong foundation for this pairing, and the data shows it is never the limiting factor in Doom. The CPU features 20 cores and 28 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. It is built on Intel's 10 nm process with a die size of 257 mm², and its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3. This configuration places it in the 94th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69355.

The CPU's nearest rivals are all within 0.9% of its average score, including the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, which is 0.2% slower, and the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, which is 0.7% slower. In Cinebench R23, the i7-14700K scores 33440.5 in multi-core and 2160 in single-core, which demonstrates strong performance in both threaded and single-threaded workloads. For Doom, which is a modern engine that scales well with multiple cores, the 28 threads provide ample parallel processing power for physics, AI, and draw call submission.

The fact that the 1080p Low result reaches 211 FPS suggests the CPU can feed the GPU at very high frame rates, but the GPU cannot reciprocate at higher resolutions. The PassMark single-thread score of 4472 and the Geekbench single-core score of 2569 indicate that even in lightly threaded scenarios, the CPU has headroom. The system's 94th percentile CPU ranking versus the GPU's 59th percentile ranking creates a mismatch that becomes apparent at 1440p and 4K, where the GPU's limitations dominate the frame rate. The CPU is not the bottleneck; the data clearly shows the GPU is.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing the experience with this combo. For 1920x1080 users, the Medium preset at 184 FPS offers the best balance, as it maintains a minimum of 156 FPS while delivering a significant visual upgrade over Low. The Ultra preset at 127 FPS is still excellent and represents the highest quality option without any playability concerns, but Medium is the recommended default due to the 57 FPS gap between the two.

For 2560x1440 users, the Medium preset at 119 FPS is the clear winner. The minimum of 101 FPS ensures that even in intense combat scenarios, the frame rate stays above 100, which is critical for a fast-paced FPS. High at 101 FPS is also viable, but the 18 FPS drop from Medium to High is noticeable, while the visual difference is often minimal in Doom's fast-moving scenes. Ultra at 82 FPS is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding moments.

For 3840x2160 users, the Low preset at 74 FPS is the only setting that provides a comfortable experience. Medium at 65 FPS with a minimum of 55 FPS is borderline, as the frame rate can dip into the 50s during heavy action. High at 54 FPS and Ultra at 45 FPS are not recommended for competitive play, as they fall below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider smooth. The data suggests that 4K users should either accept Low settings or consider lowering the resolution to 1440p, where the Medium preset delivers a far more consistent experience.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently offers the best performance-to-quality ratio, with 184 FPS at 1080p, 119 FPS at 1440p, and 65 FPS at 4K. The minimum FPS figures for Medium — 156 at 1080p, 101 at 1440p, and 55 at 4K — show that the preset maintains acceptable frame pacing even in demanding scenes. The data does not show any benefit to mixing settings, so the recommendation is to use the Medium preset as the default and adjust only if the specific display and refresh rate require it.