Doom

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB places at rank 1532 out of 1681 tested combos in Doom. This is a bottom-9% placement, signaling that this configuration is heavily constrained by its graphics subsystem in this particular title. The ranking is not a reflection of the CPU's capabilities — the i7-14700K sits in the 96th percentile against all CPUs — but rather a direct consequence of the GPU's modest standing at the 50th percentile against all GPUs.

The data indicates a fundamental imbalance. The CPU is a top-tier part, while the GPU is a mid-pack performer. In Doom, a game known for its scalability, this combination produces playable but not exceptional frame rates. The 1532nd rank out of 1681 combos means that roughly 91% of tested pairings deliver higher average FPS. This is not a competitive setup for high-refresh-rate displays, but it remains functional for standard 60Hz gaming at certain settings.

Benchmark results show that the strongest result for this combo is at 1920x1080 with Low settings, achieving 133.2 FPS. The weakest is at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, dropping to 29.7 FPS. Between those extremes, the system exhibits predictable scaling behavior tied directly to GPU load. The CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads are effectively idle headroom in this scenario; the RTX 3050 4 GB becomes the singular bottleneck across all tested resolutions and settings.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average FPS is 133.2, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the only configuration that exceeds 120 FPS in the measured data.

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

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 29.7 on Ultra to 44.8 on Low. The Low setting result is technically playable, but the Ultra setting falls below 30 FPS, which is generally considered the minimum threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the CPU's benchmark score place it against its nearest rival?

A: The i7-14700K has an average benchmark score of 70074, which is virtually identical to the Intel Core i7-14700KF at 70104 (0% delta). It trails the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X by 0.5% and leads the AMD EPYC 9115 by 0.3%.

Q: What is the most significant performance drop between settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, moving from High (66.3 FPS) to Ultra (52 FPS) represents a 14.3 FPS drop. The jump from Low (90.3 FPS) to Medium (77.2 FPS) is a 13.1 FPS reduction.

Q: Does the GPU's 4 GB VRAM become a limiting factor in this game?

A: The data suggests yes. At 3840x2160, the maximum average FPS is 44.8 on Low, and increasing settings to Ultra drops performance to 29.7. The combination of high resolution and higher settings likely exceeds the 4 GB frame buffer, causing significant performance degradation.

Q: Is there a settings preset that delivers over 60 FPS at all tested resolutions except 4K?

A: Yes. At 1920x1080, all settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) exceed 78 FPS. At 2560x1440, Low (90.3 FPS), Medium (77.2 FPS), and High (66.3 FPS) all exceed 60 FPS, but Ultra drops to 52 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process node. Its base clock is 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, and it carries a 125 W TDP. The CPU features a 33 MB shared L3 cache, with 2 MB L2 and 80 KB L1 per core. These specifications place it in the top tier of desktop processors, as evidenced by its 96th percentile ranking against all CPUs.

In Doom, the CPU's role is largely perfunctory. The game is not particularly demanding on processor resources compared to modern titles, and the i7-14700K's single-core performance — a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6287 — is more than sufficient to feed the GPU. The multi-core score of 44534 in Cinebench R23 indicates that the CPU has massive headroom for background tasks or streaming, but this does not translate into higher FPS in this game.

The benchmark data shows that the CPU is never the limiting factor. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 133.2 FPS, but that number is capped by the GPU's rendering capabilities, not by CPU processing. The CPU's PassMark multithread score of 52392 and single-thread score of 4472 confirm its strength, but these numbers do not correlate with Doom's frame rates. The CPU's 96th percentile standing versus the GPU's 50th percentile makes the imbalance clear: the processor is waiting on the graphics card at every measured point.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data spans three resolutions and four settings presets, providing a complete picture of this combo's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low settings deliver 133.2 FPS, Medium delivers 116.2 FPS, High delivers 98.3 FPS, and Ultra delivers 78.7 FPS. This represents a 54.5 FPS difference between Low and Ultra, showing that the GPU's performance scales significantly with graphical load even at the lowest resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers drop predictably. Low settings produce 90.3 FPS, Medium produces 77.2 FPS, High produces 66.3 FPS, and Ultra produces 52 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra here is 38.3 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that the GPU is still capable of maintaining playable framerates at most settings, but the Ultra preset falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes marginal. Low settings yield 44.8 FPS, Medium yields 42.5 FPS, High yields 32.7 FPS, and Ultra yields 29.7 FPS. None of these results reach 60 FPS, and only the Low and Medium presets exceed 40 FPS. The 4K data confirms that this combo is not suited for high-resolution gaming in Doom, regardless of settings.

The progression across resolutions shows a consistent pattern: each step from 1080p to 1440p to 4K reduces FPS by roughly 30-40%, depending on the settings preset. The 4K results are particularly telling, as the difference between Low (44.8) and Ultra (29.7) is only 15.1 FPS, suggesting that at 4K, the GPU is so overwhelmed that settings changes have diminishing returns.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is substantial across all settings. At Low settings, the drop is from 133.2 FPS to 44.8 FPS, a 66.4% reduction. At Medium settings, the drop is from 116.2 FPS to 42.5 FPS, a 63.4% reduction. At High settings, the drop is from 98.3 FPS to 32.7 FPS, a 66.7% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 78.7 FPS to 29.7 FPS, a 62.3% reduction.

These percentages are remarkably consistent, hovering around 63-67% across all settings. This uniformity indicates that the limiting component is the GPU, as the scaling pattern remains stable regardless of the graphical workload. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a smaller percentage drop when moving from 1080p to 4K at lower settings, because the CPU would be less stressed at higher resolutions where the GPU takes on more work.

The data suggests that the RTX 3050 4 GB is the sole limiting factor. At 1080p, the GPU is already working near its maximum capacity, and increasing resolution to 4K quadruples the pixel count, which overwhelms the 4 GB frame buffer and the 192.0 GB/s memory bandwidth. The CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads have no bearing on this scaling behavior; the i7-14700K could be replaced with a much weaker processor and the FPS results at 4K would likely be similar, as the GPU saturates first.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience, the measured data points to 1920x1080 with High settings as the optimal balance. This configuration delivers 98.3 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and retains most of the visual quality. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 78.7 FPS, which is still playable but offers diminishing returns in visual fidelity for the 19.6 FPS loss.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts to Medium settings, which produce 77.2 FPS. The High preset at this resolution delivers 66.3 FPS, which remains above 60 FPS but leaves less headroom for frame time spikes. The Ultra preset at 1440p should be avoided, as the 52 FPS result falls below the 60 FPS threshold and may result in noticeable stuttering.

At 3840x2160, the data clearly indicates that this combo is not suitable for 4K gaming. The best result is Low settings at 44.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. If 4K is mandatory, Low settings are the only viable option, but the experience will be suboptimal. The Medium preset at 42.5 FPS and High preset at 32.7 FPS are increasingly poor choices.

The overall recommendation is to play at 1920x1080 with High settings for the best combination of visual quality and performance. For players with 1440p monitors, Medium settings provide the closest match to the 60 FPS target. The Ultra preset should be reserved for 1080p only, where it still maintains playable framerates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB is an Ampere-architecture GPU built on Samsung's 8 nm process, with a die size of 200 mm² and 8,700 million transistors. It features 2048 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output pipelines. The GPU's base clock is 1545 MHz with a boost clock of 1740 MHz. Memory consists of 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

The GPU's specifications directly explain the measured FPS results. The 4 GB frame buffer is insufficient for 3840x2160 gaming with high texture detail, which is why the 4K results plateau between 29.7 and 44.8 FPS regardless of settings. The 128-bit memory bus and 192.0 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for 1080p but become a bottleneck at higher resolutions where the GPU must fetch more texture data per frame.

With a 90 W TDP and a 250 W suggested PSU, the RTX 3050 4 GB is a low-power part. Its pixel rate of 55.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 111.4 GTexel/s are modest figures that align with the observed performance. The FP32 throughput of 7.127 TFLOPS places it in the mid-range of the GeForce 30-series, and its 50th percentile ranking against all GPUs confirms this positioning.

The GPU's 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores are present but largely irrelevant for Doom, which does not heavily utilize ray tracing or DLSS in the measured configurations. The data shows that the GPU's raw rasterization performance, not its specialized cores, determines the FPS numbers. At 1080p, the GPU can sustain over 78 FPS at all settings, but at 4K, it falls below 45 FPS even at Low settings. This is the signature of a GPU that is outmatched by the resolution demands, with the 4 GB VRAM acting as the primary constraint.