Doom

# Doom — Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers a benchmark profile that is heavily GPU-limited at lower resolutions and progressively more balanced as resolution climbs. Across all measured settings, this combination produces average frame rates ranging from 71 FPS at 4K Ultra to 338 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating that the RX 7900 XT is the dominant performance driver, with the Core Ultra 5 225 providing sufficient headroom to avoid becoming the primary constraint until pixel counts rise.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data reveals a predictable but steep decline in average FPS as resolution increases, with the magnitude of the drop varying by settings preset. At High settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 reduces average FPS from 249 to 161, a drop of 88 FPS (35.3%). Moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at High further reduces average FPS to 87, another 74 FPS (46.0%) decline. This pattern indicates that the GPU's rendering load scales nearly linearly with pixel count, which is typical for a game like Doom where fill-rate and memory bandwidth become increasingly critical at higher resolutions.

The Low settings preset shows a similar trend but with larger absolute numbers. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo achieves 338 FPS average. Dropping to 2560x1440 Low yields 219 FPS, a 119 FPS (35.2%) reduction. At 3840x2160 Low, the average falls to 119 FPS, a 100 FPS (45.7%) decline from 1440p. The consistency of these percentage drops across settings — roughly 35% from 1080p to 1440p and 45-46% from 1440p to 4K — strongly suggests that the RX 7900 XT's pixel throughput, not the CPU, is the limiting factor throughout.

The Medium preset provides the most complete data with min and max FPS values recorded. At 1080p Medium, the average is 295 FPS with a min of 251 and max of 339. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 191 FPS with a min of 162 and max of 219. At 4K Medium, the average is 103 FPS with a min of 88 and max of 119. The gap between min and max FPS widens slightly at higher resolutions (88 FPS spread at 1080p, 57 FPS at 1440p, 31 FPS at 4K), which could indicate that frame-time consistency improves as the GPU becomes more saturated, reducing CPU-induced stutter.

Ultra settings show the steepest resolution scaling curve. From 203 FPS at 1080p, the average drops to 132 FPS at 1440p (35.0% reduction) and then to 71 FPS at 4K (46.2% reduction from 1440p). The 4K Ultra result of 71 FPS is the only measured average below 80 FPS across the entire dataset, suggesting that this preset pushes the RX 7900 XT to its practical limit at 2160p. The consistent percentage reductions across all four settings presets reinforce that resolution scaling in Doom is governed by GPU rasterization and shading throughput rather than CPU or memory subsystem limitations.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the clear performance anchor in this configuration. With 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus delivering 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, the card has ample memory resources for Doom's textures and geometry at any resolution tested. The effective memory clock of 20 Gbps and a game clock of 2025 MHz (boost up to 2394 MHz) provide the raw throughput needed to sustain the high frame rates observed at 1080p and 1440p. The GPU's 5376 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 192 ROPs, combined with a pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s, explain why the card can push 338 FPS at 1080p Low without breaking a sweat.

The RDNA 3.0 architecture, built on a 5 nm process with 57,700 million transistors across a 529 mm² die, delivers 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This raw compute power is directly relevant to Doom's Vulkan-based rendering path, which can leverage async compute and explicit multi-GPU features. The 84 ray accelerators are less relevant for Doom (a 2016 title that does not use hardware ray tracing), but the GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support ensures full feature compatibility. The 300 W TDP and dual-slot cooler design indicate this is a high-power part, though the measured FPS results show the thermal and power headroom is being used effectively.

At 1080p, the RX 7900 XT is likely bottlenecked by the CPU in low-detail settings, as evidenced by the 338 FPS average at Low versus 249 FPS at High. The 89 FPS gap between Low and High at 1080p suggests that while the GPU has more to give, the Core Ultra 5 225's single-thread performance (3,655 in Cinebench R23 single-core) becomes a limiting factor at extreme frame rates. However, at 4K, the GPU's memory bandwidth and pixel fill rate dominate, with the Ultra preset (71 FPS) sitting 48 FPS below the Low preset (119 FPS), showing that the GPU's compute and memory resources are fully utilized at 2160p.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K gaming, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance. The measured 103 FPS average at 3840x2160 Medium, with a minimum of 88 FPS, keeps the experience comfortably above 60 FPS while maintaining acceptable image quality. The High preset at 87 FPS is also playable, but the 16 FPS penalty (from Medium to High) may not justify the visual improvement for competitive play. The Ultra preset at 71 FPS is borderline for fast-paced FPS gameplay, and the Low preset at 119 FPS sacrifices too much visual quality for the 16 FPS gain over Medium.

At 2560x1440, the High preset provides an excellent experience at 161 FPS average, which is well above the refresh rate of most 1440p monitors. The Ultra preset at 132 FPS is also viable, but the 29 FPS penalty over High is significant. The Medium preset at 191 FPS offers a smoother experience for high-refresh-rate displays, and the Low preset at 219 FPS is only recommended for competitive play where maximum frame rate trumps visual fidelity. The data suggests that High is the sweet spot at 1440p, balancing the 132 FPS Ultra result against the 191 FPS Medium result.

At 1920x1080, all presets exceed 200 FPS average, making the choice purely about visual preference. The Ultra preset at 203 FPS is the most visually demanding option and still delivers excellent frame rates. The High preset at 249 FPS offers a 46 FPS improvement over Ultra with modest visual compromises. The Medium preset at 295 FPS and Low preset at 338 FPS are increasingly competitive-oriented, with the Low preset providing the highest possible frame rate for esports-style play. For most users, the High preset at 1080p is recommended, as it offers a 46 FPS advantage over Ultra while maintaining strong image quality.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K with max settings?

A: No. The measured average at 3840x2160 Ultra is 71 FPS, which does exceed 60 FPS, but the margin is thin. The data shows no minimum FPS recorded for Ultra at 4K, so frame dips below 60 cannot be ruled out. The Medium preset at 4K provides a safer margin with an 88 FPS minimum.

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo can achieve?

A: The highest measured average is 338 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The Medium preset at 1080p reaches 295 FPS, and High reaches 249 FPS. All 1080p presets exceed 200 FPS average.

Q: Does the Core Ultra 5 225 bottleneck the RX 7900 XT at 1080p?

A: The data suggests partial CPU limitation at 1080p Low, where the 338 FPS average likely approaches the CPU's frame delivery ceiling. The 89 FPS gap between Low (338 FPS) and High (249 FPS) at 1080p indicates that the GPU is not fully utilized at Low settings, whereas the smaller gaps at higher resolutions suggest GPU-bound behavior.

Q: How does the Medium preset's minimum FPS compare across resolutions?

A: At 1080p Medium, the minimum FPS is 251. At 1440p Medium, it drops to 162. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 88. These min FPS values represent 85.1%, 84.8%, and 85.4% of their respective average FPS, showing consistent frame-time stability across resolutions.

Q: Is the RX 7900 XT's 20 GB VRAM necessary for Doom?

A: The 20 GB VRAM capacity is far beyond what Doom requires, even at 4K Ultra. The measured performance degradation from Low to Ultra at 4K (119 to 71 FPS) is more indicative of compute and bandwidth limits rather than VRAM capacity. The 800.0 GB/s bandwidth is the more relevant memory metric for this title.

Q: What is the performance gap between Ultra and Low settings at each resolution?

A: At 1080p, Ultra (203 FPS) is 135 FPS lower than Low (338 FPS), a 39.9% reduction. At 1440p, Ultra (132 FPS) is 87 FPS lower than Low (219 FPS), a 39.7% reduction. At 4K, Ultra (71 FPS) is 48 FPS lower than Low (119 FPS), a 40.3% reduction. The consistent ~40% penalty demonstrates that Ultra settings impose a uniform overhead regardless of resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT combination ranks 533rd out of 2,930 tested combos for Doom, placing it in the top 18.2% of all configurations. This percentile ranking reflects the GPU's strong performance in this title, as the RX 7900 XT's nearest rivals in the general benchmark database include the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (1.5% faster average score) and the AMD Radeon 660M (0.5% slower). The RX 7900 XT's 55th percentile ranking among all GPUs is modest, but its 29,009 Passmark G3D score and 12,756 Geekbench OpenCL score indicate solid rasterization performance that translates well to Doom's Vulkan rendering.

The Core Ultra 5 225's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36,938, places it in the upper tier of desktop processors. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (0% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (-0.2%), and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (-0.4%). The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 25,891 and single-core score of 3,655 demonstrate strong thread scaling for a 10-core, 10-thread part, which contributes to the combo's ability to feed the GPU at high frame rates.

The rank of 533 out of 2,930 combos indicates that this pairing is well above average for Doom, though not in the top tier. The data suggests that the RX 7900 XT is the primary driver of this ranking, as the GPU's performance at 4K (71-119 FPS depending on preset) is competitive with higher-end configurations. The Core Ultra 5 225's role is supportive, providing enough single-thread performance to avoid severe bottlenecks at 1080p while not contributing significantly to the 4K results where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225, with 10 cores and 10 threads running at a base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.90 GHz, serves as a capable but not dominant partner to the RX 7900 XT in Doom. The CPU's 20 MB of L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide adequate data locality for game logic and draw call processing. The 3 nm process node, built by TSMC with 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die, delivers strong power efficiency at 65 W TDP, which is notably lower than the GPU's 300 W TDP, indicating the CPU is not the thermal or power bottleneck in this system.

The CPU's benchmark results show balanced performance: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 25,891 and single-core score of 3,655, with Passmark single-thread score of 4,412 and multithread score of 30,459. These scores suggest that the Core Ultra 5 225 can process game logic and render thread commands efficiently, but the measured FPS data at 1080p Low (338 FPS average) hints at a potential CPU ceiling. The 89 FPS difference between Low and High at 1080p, versus only a 48 FPS difference at 4K, indicates that the CPU's frame delivery capability is strained at extremely high frame rates, though it remains sufficient for all but the most competitive 1080p scenarios.

The 10-core, 10-thread configuration (no Hyper-Threading) is adequate for Doom's multi-threaded rendering engine, which typically scales well with physical cores. The CPU's 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth via dual-channel DDR5 support provides sufficient data throughput for game assets, though the GPU's 800.0 GB/s bandwidth is eight times higher, underscoring that the GPU memory subsystem is the critical path for high-resolution rendering. The Core Ultra 5 225's non-unlocked multiplier and active production status indicate it is a mainstream part, but its performance in this combo shows it does not hold back the RX 7900 XT at resolutions above 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers the following average FPS by preset: Low 338, Medium 295 (min 251, max 339), High 249, Ultra 203. The Medium preset shows the only min/max data at this resolution, with a 251 FPS minimum representing 85.1% of the average, indicating consistent frame delivery. The spread from Low to Ultra is 135 FPS, with each preset step (Low→Medium→High→Ultra) costing roughly 43-46 FPS on average.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are: Low 219, Medium 191 (min 162, max 219), High 161, Ultra 132. The Medium preset's minimum of 162 FPS is 84.8% of the average, showing similar frame-time consistency to 1080p. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 87 FPS, with preset steps costing approximately 28-30 FPS each. The 1440p results show a 35% reduction from 1080p across all presets, confirming the GPU scaling pattern.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are: Low 119, Medium 103 (min 88, max 119), High 87, Ultra 71. The Medium preset's minimum of 88 FPS is 85.4% of the average, maintaining the frame-time consistency seen at lower resolutions. The spread from Low to Ultra is 48 FPS, with preset steps costing 16 FPS (Low→Medium), 16 FPS (Medium→High), and 16 FPS (High→Ultra), showing a perfectly linear scaling of settings impact at 4K. The 4K results represent a 65% reduction from 1080p across all presets, highlighting the significant pixel-count penalty on the RX 7900 XT.