Doom

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT delivers a decisively GPU-bound experience in Doom across the measured resolution scale. At 1080p, the combination produces frame rates that approach the practical ceiling for high-refresh displays, while the transition to 4K reveals the graphics card as the primary limiting factor, with average frame rates dropping by more than half depending on the quality preset selected. The data indicates a system that is exceptionally well-balanced for high-refresh 1440p gaming but which cedes ground to the demands of 4K Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is the expected behavior for a system where the GPU is the bottleneck. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo reaches an average of 292 FPS. Moving to 1440p at the same settings, the average drops to 189 FPS, a reduction of approximately 35%. At 4K Low, the average falls further to 102 FPS, which is a 65% drop from the 1080p baseline.

This scaling behavior is less severe at higher quality presets, which is a classic indicator of a shift in the limiting factor. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate goes from 176 FPS at 1080p to 114 FPS at 1440p (a 35% drop) and then to 62 FPS at 4K (a 65% drop from 1080p). The proportional consistency of the drops across all presets suggests that the CPU is delivering a stable frame-time budget, and the GPU's rendering workload is scaling predictably with pixel count.

The data strongly indicates that the limiting component at 1080p and 1440p is not the CPU, but rather the GPU's ability to process the increasing pixel load. At 1080p Low, the 292 FPS average is likely approaching the point where CPU draw-call submission becomes a factor, but the fact that the Ultra preset at 1080p still manages 176 FPS suggests the Core Ultra 5 225 has ample headroom. The most telling statistic is the 4K Ultra result: 62 FPS. This is a substantial drop from the 1080p Ultra figure, showing that the Radeon RX 6800 XT is working at its limits to maintain playable frame rates at the highest resolution and quality.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combo in Doom?

A: The highest recorded average frame rate is 292 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K with the High preset?

A: At 3840x2160 with High settings, the system produces an average frame rate of 75 FPS, which is suitable for a smooth experience on a 60Hz display.

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

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset yields an average of 189 FPS, while the Ultra preset yields an average of 114 FPS. This represents a 75 FPS difference, or about a 40% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: The data shows that the GPU is the limiting component at 4K. The frame rates scale inversely with resolution and settings, with the 4K Ultra average of 62 FPS being substantially lower than the 1080p Ultra average of 176 FPS, indicating that the GPU is saturated.

Q: Does the combo maintain 60 FPS at all tested settings and resolutions?

A: No. The average frame rate falls below 60 FPS only at 4K Ultra, where it averages 62 FPS. All other tested combinations of resolution and settings produce average frame rates above 60 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for maximizing frame rate on a high-refresh monitor?

A: For refresh rates above 144Hz, the 1920x1080 resolution is the only option that consistently delivers average frame rates above 215 FPS across all settings presets, with the Low preset reaching 292 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the High settings preset at 2560x1440 offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance. At this configuration, the combo achieves an average of 139 FPS, which is well above the 114 FPS of the Ultra preset and provides a meaningful improvement in smoothness. The difference between High and Ultra at this resolution is 25 FPS, a significant margin that justifies the slight reduction in graphical effects for competitive play or high-refresh displays.

For users with a 4K display, the Medium preset is the most sensible choice. It delivers an average of 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS, ensuring that frame times remain consistent and above the 60 FPS threshold for most of the experience. The High preset at 4K drops to 75 FPS, and while still playable, it offers less headroom for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset at 4K, with its 62 FPS average, is not recommended for a consistently smooth experience, as it leaves little margin above the 60 FPS target.

At 1080p, the High preset is the optimal choice for high-refresh gaming. It produces 215 FPS, which is sufficient to saturate most 240Hz monitors. The Low preset at 292 FPS offers no practical benefit for the vast majority of displays, while the Ultra preset at 176 FPS still provides an excellent experience. The High preset at 1080p is the sweet spot for visual quality and speed, as it is only 39 FPS slower than the Low preset but offers significantly better image quality.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 866th out of 2930 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. This percentile position indicates that while the hardware is not at the absolute top of the performance charts, it outperforms a significant majority of other system configurations for this specific game. The rank reflects the combination's strong 1080p and 1440p performance, as well as its respectable 4K capabilities.

The ranking is consistent with the individual component scores. The CPU holds an 85th percentile ranking against all CPUs, and the GPU also holds an 85th percentile ranking against all GPUs. The synergy between these two components is evident: neither is so weak that it cripples the other, nor is either so powerful that it is clearly wasted in this pairing. The result is a well-rounded system that performs admirably across the board, though it does not threaten the top-tier combinations that likely feature more recent flagship hardware.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. Its benchmark results, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 25891 and a single-core score of 3655, position it as a capable mid-range desktop part. In the context of Doom, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations.

The data suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this game. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 292 FPS, which is an extremely high frame rate that would stress even the fastest processors. The fact that the CPU can sustain this throughput indicates that its single-thread performance is more than adequate for Doom's engine. Furthermore, the proportional scaling of frame rates with resolution shows that the CPU is not limiting performance at higher resolutions; the GPU is simply taking longer to render each frame.

The processor's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache are likely sufficient for the game's data sets. The benchmark data shows a PassMark single-thread score of 4412, which is a strong result for gaming workloads that rely on high IPC. The CPU's 65W TDP also suggests it is a power-efficient part that will not cause thermal throttling in a standard desktop chassis, ensuring consistent performance over long gaming sessions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers outstanding performance across all presets. The Low preset yields an average of 292 FPS, which is the highest figure recorded for this combo. The Medium preset produces 254 FPS with a minimum of 216 FPS and a maximum of 292 FPS, showing a tight frame-time distribution. The High preset averages 215 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 176 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 116 FPS, demonstrating the significant impact of graphical settings on this GPU at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains high but shows the expected drop-off. The Low preset averages 189 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 165 FPS with a minimum of 140 FPS and a maximum of 189 FPS. The High preset averages 139 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 114 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 75 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p, but the relative reduction is similar, indicating that the GPU is becoming the primary constraint.

At 3840x2160, the combo transitions from high-refresh territory to standard 60Hz territory. The Low preset averages 102 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS. The High preset averages 75 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 62 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K is the only one that maintains a minimum frame rate above 60 FPS, making it the safest choice for a consistent experience. The Ultra preset, with its 62 FPS average, is the only tested configuration that dips below the 60 FPS threshold, showing that the GPU is at its absolute limit.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is a high-end graphics card based on the RDNA 2.0 architecture, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with a bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s. Its boost clock is 2250 MHz, and it has a pixel rate of 288.0 GPixel/s. These specifications make it a formidable GPU for 1440p and 4K gaming, and the Doom benchmark results confirm this.

The GPU's role as the primary performance limiter becomes evident when analyzing the resolution scaling. The card's 16 GB of VRAM is likely sufficient for all settings tested, even at 4K Ultra, so the frame rate drops are attributable to raw compute and fill-rate limits rather than memory capacity. The FP32 performance of 20.74 TFLOPS provides the raw shader processing power needed for Doom's lighting and particle effects, but the 4K Ultra result of 62 FPS shows that this is a near-maximum workload.

The GPU's benchmark data, such as a PassMark G3D score of 24980 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 136875, indicates a strong DirectX 12 and Vulkan performer. The nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, has an average score that is only 3% higher, placing the RX 6800 XT in a competitive position within its performance class. The 512.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth is a critical asset for 4K textures, and the data shows that the card can handle them without major frame-time spikes, as evidenced by the Medium preset's minimum FPS of 76 at 4K.