Doom

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a robust 1080p experience in Doom, but the data reveals a system where the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 189.2 FPS, while Ultra settings still yield 154.4 FPS. This combination ranks 786th out of 1681 tested combos, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. The measured results indicate that this pairing excels at high refresh-rate 1080p gaming, but struggles to maintain similarly commanding performance at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K shows a clear and predictable pattern of GPU-bound scaling. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 257.1 FPS, which drops to 169.6 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 89.3 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 65.3% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that the RTX 3070’s rendering throughput is the limiting factor. The scaling at High settings tells a similar story: 189.2 FPS at 1080p falls to 123.8 FPS at 1440p and 67.1 FPS at 4K, a 64.5% total drop.

The pattern becomes more pronounced when examining the Ultra preset. At 1080p Ultra, the combo reaches 154.4 FPS, which is still highly playable. However, at 1440p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 102.8 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 56.2 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is nearly three times slower than the 1080p Low result, which strongly suggests that the GPU’s 8 GB of VRAM and 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are being saturated at higher resolutions. The data shows diminishing returns as resolution increases, with the gap between Low and Ultra settings widening from 102.7 FPS at 1080p to 33.1 FPS at 4K.

Notably, the frame rate drop from 1440p to 4K is proportionally larger than the drop from 1080p to 1440p. At High settings, moving from 1080p to 1440p costs 65.4 FPS, while moving from 1440p to 4K costs 56.7 FPS. This suggests that the RTX 3070’s pixel throughput and memory subsystem are increasingly stressed as pixel count quadruples. The 4K Low result of 89.3 FPS indicates that even with reduced graphical load, the GPU cannot overcome the raw pixel count demands of 3840x2160.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 plays the dominant role in these benchmark results, and its specifications explain the observed scaling behavior. The GPU features 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs, with a boost clock of 1725 MHz. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p but becomes a constraint at 4K, particularly with Ultra settings. The FP32 compute throughput of 20.31 TFLOPS allows for strong raw performance, yet the memory capacity is the clear limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The GPU’s benchmark scores corroborate its mid-range positioning. Its PassMark G3D score is 22214, and its average benchmark score is 28238, placing it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, scores 27985, a delta of 0.9%, meaning the RTX 3070 is marginally faster. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti is 1% behind at 27956, while the AMD FirePro S7150 is 0.6% ahead at 28409. These close deltas suggest that the RTX 3070 is a consistent performer in its class, but not an outlier.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3162 and the Geekbench Vulkan score of 120664 both indicate solid DirectX 12 and Vulkan performance, which is relevant for Doom since the game uses the Vulkan API. The RTX 3070’s support for Vulkan 1.4 ensures compatibility with the game’s rendering path. The GPU’s 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores are present but not heavily utilized in this title, as Doom (2016) does not employ ray tracing. The texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s are the key metrics driving the observed frame rates.

FAQ

*Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achievable with this combo in Doom?*

A: The highest recorded average frame rate is 257.1 FPS at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution with Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves an average of 56.2 FPS, which is the lowest result across all tested configurations.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting component. At 1080p Low, the CPU can push 257.1 FPS, but the frame rate drops dramatically as resolution increases, which is characteristic of GPU-bound performance.

Q: What is the performance delta between the RTX 3070 and its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT?

A: The RTX 3070’s average benchmark score of 28238 is 0.9% higher than the RX 6600 XT’s 27985, indicating a slight performance advantage.

Q: How does the combo’s overall ranking compare to other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 786th out of 1681 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low setting yields 169.6 FPS, while Ultra yields 102.8 FPS, a difference of 66.8 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 786 out of 1681 tested combinations places it just above the median for Doom performance. This position is consistent with the RTX 3070’s 72nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, suggesting that the GPU is the primary determinant of the combo’s standing. The CPU’s 96th percentile ranking among all processors indicates that it is not holding the system back in this title. The data shows that this pairing is competitive for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but its 4K performance is below what top-tier combos would achieve.

Compared to the CPU’s nearest rivals, the Intel Core i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70104. The Intel Core i7-14700K scores 70074 (0% delta), the AMD EPYC 9115 scores 69887 (0.3% ahead), and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X scores 70420 (0.4% behind). These differences are negligible, confirming that the CPU is not a differentiator in this game. The GPU’s rival comparison shows a similar clustering, with all four nearest rivals within 1.1% of each other. This tight grouping indicates that the RTX 3070 is a well-balanced mid-range card, and its 786th rank is a direct reflection of its memory and bandwidth constraints at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF provides ample computational headroom for Doom, as evidenced by the high frame rates at lower resolutions. The CPU features 20 cores and 28 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 cache per core ensure that game logic and draw calls are processed without stalling the GPU. The CPU’s PassMark multithread score of 52425 and single-thread score of 4480 both reflect strong performance, though Doom is not a heavily threaded title.

The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multicore score of 44557 and single-core score of 6290 are indicative of its capability, but the game’s frame rates at 1080p Low (257.1 FPS) suggest that the CPU can feed the GPU faster than the GPU can render. At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 154.4 FPS, which is still far above the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that even the most demanding settings at this resolution do not stress the CPU. The CPU’s 96th percentile ranking among all processors confirms that it is a top-tier part, and the benchmark results show no evidence of CPU-induced bottlenecks.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in the database are the Intel Core i7-14700K (0% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (-0.4% delta), which perform nearly identically. This means that swapping the CPU for an equivalent part would have no measurable impact on Doom frame rates. The CPU’s high single-thread performance, as shown by its Geekbench single-core score of 2972, is particularly relevant for a game like Doom that relies on strong per-core performance for game simulation. The data supports the conclusion that the i7-14700KF is more than sufficient for this title, and the combo’s rank is determined almost entirely by the RTX 3070’s capabilities.