Doom

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers a dominant 1080p and 1440p experience in Doom, but the data reveals that the game's performance ceiling shifts decisively toward the GPU as resolution climbs. At 4K, the combination still produces triple-digit frame rates, though the scaling pattern makes it clear that this 2016 shooter, running on a modern high-end platform, becomes progressively more pixel-bound at higher resolutions. The measured frame rates across all settings and resolutions indicate a system that is rarely the bottleneck below 4K, with the CPU's substantial core count and high boost clocks providing ample headroom for the game's engine.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At 1080p with High settings, the average frame rate is 295 FPS; moving to 1440p drops that to 191 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 104 FPS. This represents a 65% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at High settings, which is a substantial scaling factor. The drop from 1440p to 4K (191 FPS to 104 FPS) is a 45% reduction, while the drop from 1080p to 1440p (295 FPS to 191 FPS) is a 35% reduction. This non-linear scaling indicates that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor at higher resolutions, with the pixel throughput demand growing faster than the GPU's ability to fill those pixels.

The pattern is consistent across all settings. At Low settings, the sequence is 401 FPS at 1080p, 260 FPS at 1440p, and 141 FPS at 4K. At Ultra settings, the sequence is 241 FPS at 1080p, 156 FPS at 1440p, and 85 FPS at 4K. In every case, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is proportionally smaller than the drop from 1440p to 4K, confirming that the RTX 4080's pixel processing capabilities are the primary constraint at 4K. The scaling behavior suggests that at 1080p, the CPU and GPU are both contributing to frame generation, but by 4K, the GPU's rasterization and memory bandwidth are the dominant factors.

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. Its base clock is 3.40 GHz and it boosts to 5.60 GHz, with a 33 MB shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache. These specifications provide substantial single-thread and multi-thread performance. The benchmark data shows a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33440.5 and a single-core score of 2160, placing the CPU in the 94th percentile against all tested processors. Its average benchmark score is 69355, which is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515, -0.2% delta) and slightly ahead of the AMD EPYC 9115 (69288, +0.1% delta).

For Doom, a game released in 2016, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates. The measured frame rates at 1080p Low (401 FPS) and 1080p Medium (350 FPS) indicate that the CPU is capable of generating frame rates far above typical display refresh rates. The game's engine is known to be well-optimized for multi-threading, and the i7-14700K's 20 cores and 28 threads provide ample parallelism. The Passmark multi-thread score of 52392 and the Geekbench multi-core score of 20767 further confirm the CPU's ability to handle demanding workloads, though Doom at these settings is unlikely to stress all cores simultaneously. The single-core performance, with a Passmark single-thread score of 4472, is more relevant for the game's main thread, and the 5.60 GHz boost clock ensures that this thread is not a bottleneck at any resolution tested.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD103 chip, fabricated on TSMC's 5 nm process. It features 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output pipelines, along with 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores. The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. Its clock speeds are 2205 MHz base and 2505 MHz boost, with memory running at 22.4 Gbps effective. The FP32 performance is rated at 48.74 TFLOPS, and the pixel fill rate is 280.6 GPixel/s.

These specifications are more than sufficient for Doom at 1080p and 1440p, as evidenced by the measured frame rates. However, at 4K, the GPU's workload increases significantly. The 4K Ultra average of 85 FPS represents a 65% drop from the 1080p Ultra average of 241 FPS, which is consistent with the 4x pixel count increase (1920x1080 = 2.07 million pixels, 3840x2160 = 8.29 million pixels). The GPU's memory bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s is likely the limiting factor at 4K, as the texture and geometry data required for higher resolution rendering exceeds what the memory subsystem can efficiently supply. The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 34457 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6567 place it in the 86th percentile against all GPUs, with its nearest rival, the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, scoring nearly identically (54209 vs 54247, +0.1% delta).

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are as follows: Low settings produce 401 FPS, Medium produces 350 FPS, High produces 295 FPS, and Ultra produces 241 FPS. The Medium setting shows a minimum of 297 FPS and a maximum of 402 FPS, indicating some frame-time variance but generally consistent performance. The gap between Low and Ultra is 160 FPS, or a 40% reduction, which shows that the GPU is not fully saturated at 1080p even with maximum settings.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 260 FPS, Medium at 226 FPS, High at 191 FPS, and Ultra at 156 FPS. The Medium setting shows a minimum of 192 FPS and a maximum of 260 FPS. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 35% for each setting, which is less than the theoretical 78% increase in pixel count (2.07M to 3.69M pixels), suggesting that the GPU has headroom to spare at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low at 141 FPS, Medium at 123 FPS, High at 104 FPS, and Ultra at 85 FPS. The Medium setting shows a minimum of 104 FPS and a maximum of 141 FPS. The reduction from 1440p to 4K is approximately 45% for each setting, which is close to the 55% increase in pixel count (3.69M to 8.29M pixels). This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is approaching its performance ceiling, and the frame rates are increasingly dependent on the GPU's raw throughput.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achievable with this combo at 1080p?

A: The highest measured average at 1920x1080 is 401 FPS, achieved with Low settings. At Ultra settings, the average drops to 241 FPS.

Q: How does the frame rate scale from 1440p to 4K at High settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the average is 191 FPS. At 3840x2160 with High settings, the average is 104 FPS, representing a 45% reduction.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary constraint at 4K. The frame rate drops by approximately 45% from 1440p to 4K across all settings, which aligns with the increased pixel count, while the CPU's performance (Cinebench R23 multi-core 33440.5) remains well above the threshold needed for this game.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate recorded at 1440p Medium?

A: The minimum recorded at 2560x1440 with Medium settings is 192 FPS, with a maximum of 260 FPS and an average of 226 FPS.

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations for Doom?*

A: This combo ranks 215th out of 3712 tested configurations in the game's benchmark database, placing it in the top 6% of all tested systems.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Low settings produce 141 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 85 FPS. The difference is 56 FPS, or a 40% reduction from Low to Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience per the measured rows, the data indicates that High settings at 1440p offer an excellent balance. The average of 191 FPS at 2560x1440 High is well above the refresh rate of most high-end monitors, and the visual quality improvement over Medium (226 FPS) is typically noticeable. At 4K, High settings produce 104 FPS, which is still smooth for most displays, but Ultra settings drop to 85 FPS, which may be noticeable on 120 Hz or higher refresh rate displays.

If the user prioritizes maximum frame rates, Low settings at 1080p provide 401 FPS, which is ideal for competitive play. However, for a single-player experience like Doom, the jump from High to Ultra at 4K (104 FPS to 85 FPS) is a 22% reduction in frame rate, which may not be worth the marginal visual improvements. The Medium setting at 4K (123 FPS) offers a middle ground, with a 18% improvement over High while maintaining a higher average than Ultra. Based on the data, High settings at 1440p or Medium settings at 4K are the most balanced choices, depending on the display resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination ranks 215th out of 3712 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the top 5.8% of all configurations. This high ranking is consistent with the measured frame rates, which exceed 100 FPS at 4K Ultra and approach 300 FPS at 1080p High. The CPU's position in the 94th percentile (average benchmark score 69355) and the GPU's position in the 86th percentile (average benchmark score 54247) indicate that both components are well above the median for their respective categories. The nearest rivals for the CPU are the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515, -0.2% delta) and the AMD EPYC 9115 (69288, +0.1% delta), while the GPU's nearest rival is the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209, +0.1% delta), all of which are within 1% of this combo's component scores. The ranking suggests that for Doom, this combo is near the top of its class, with only a small fraction of more powerful or better-tuned systems achieving higher frame rates.