Doom

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT paired with the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 delivers exceptional performance in Doom (2016), with even the most demanding settings producing frame rates well above display refresh rate thresholds. Benchmark results show this combination ranks 669th out of 2,930 tested combos, placing it in the top 23% of all system configurations. The data indicates a system capable of exploiting the game’s Vulkan-based engine to its fullest, with the GPU emerging as the primary performance driver across all tested resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy across the four graphics presets at every resolution, with the Ultra preset providing the most demanding workload and the Low preset offering the highest frame rates. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 314 FPS, while Ultra drops to 189 FPS — a substantial 125 FPS difference. The Medium preset at 273 FPS and High at 231 FPS occupy the middle ground, suggesting that both offer a balanced experience.

For the best experience per the measured rows, the High preset at 2560x1440 stands out as the optimal choice. It delivers 149 FPS average, which comfortably exceeds the 144 Hz refresh rate common on high-end monitors, while maintaining significantly better visual fidelity than Low or Medium settings. The jump from High to Ultra at this resolution costs 27 FPS (149 to 122), a 22% reduction that may not justify the marginal visual gains in a fast-paced FPS. At 3840x2160, the High preset maintains 81 FPS, which is playable, but the Medium preset’s 96 FPS provides a safer margin above the 60 FPS threshold for smoother gameplay on 4K displays.

If maximizing frame rate is the priority, the Low preset at 1080p yields 314 FPS, but this sacrifices nearly all graphical enhancements. The data suggests that High at 1440p represents the sweet spot, offering 149 FPS with substantial visual quality improvements over lower presets. For competitive play where every frame matters, Medium at 1080p with 273 FPS provides a strong compromise, though the difference between Medium and High at this resolution (42 FPS) is notable. The Ultra preset, while visually impressive, consistently produces the lowest frame rates and is only recommended for users with 120 Hz or lower refresh rate monitors at 1440p or below.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture using the Navi 48 chip, fabricated on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 644.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU’s boost clock reaches 2970 MHz, with a game clock of 2400 MHz and a base clock of 1660 MHz. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 380.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 760.3 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 48.66 TFLOPS.

In Doom, the GPU’s role is clearly dominant, as evidenced by the scaling pattern across resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU is able to feed the GPU adequately, with frame rates reaching 314 FPS on Low settings. However, the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM ensures that even at 4K Ultra settings, there is no memory capacity bottleneck, allowing the card to maintain 66 FPS. The memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s proves sufficient for the game’s texture-heavy environments, as the frame rate drops by only 45% from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra (314 to 66 FPS), which is consistent with a GPU-bound workload.

The RX 9070 XT’s benchmark scores support its strong gaming performance. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 7,260 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 65,879 indicate robust compute capabilities that translate well to Doom’s Vulkan renderer. The PassMark G3D score of 26,795 places it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, though its nearest rivals in the database — the AMD Radeon HD 7770M, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570, NVIDIA P106-090, and AMD Radeon Pro 555 — are all substantially older or lower-tier parts, highlighting the RX 9070 XT’s significant performance advantage in this title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT achieves a rank of 669 out of 2,930 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the 77th percentile of all system configurations tested. This ranking is particularly noteworthy given the game’s age; Doom was released in May 2016, and modern hardware vastly exceeds its requirements. The high rank suggests that this combo delivers frame rates that are not only playable but exceptionally smooth, with the average FPS across all settings and resolutions never falling below 66.

The CPU component, the Intel Core Ultra 5 225, sits in the 85th percentile of all CPUs based on its average benchmark score of 36,938. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (deltaPct 0%), AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (-0.2%), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (-0.4%), and Intel Core i9-12900T (-0.5%). These negligible differences indicate that the Ultra 5 225 performs nearly identically to a wide range of mid-range and previous-generation high-end CPUs in general benchmarks. In Doom, this CPU performance is more than adequate, as the game’s engine is well-optimized for modern multi-core processors.

The GPU’s ranking, in contrast, is less impressive on a global scale — it sits in the 55th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 13,543. However, this percentile is skewed by the database’s inclusion of many workstation and entry-level cards. The RX 9070 XT’s nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark (AMD Radeon HD 7770M, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570, NVIDIA P106-090, AMD Radeon Pro 555) are all dramatically less capable parts, underscoring that the RX 9070 XT’s average score is pulled down by its performance in non-gaming workloads. In Doom, the GPU’s actual gaming performance far exceeds what its percentile might suggest, as evidenced by the measured frame rates.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 314 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 66 FPS, which is above the standard 60 FPS playability threshold.

Q: How does the CPU’s benchmark performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 has an average benchmark score of 36,938, which is within 0.5% of its nearest rivals: the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (36,945, 0% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (37,018, -0.2%), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (37,093, -0.4%), and Intel Core i9-12900T (37,112, -0.5%).

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

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 203 FPS while the Ultra preset achieves 122 FPS, a difference of 81 FPS or approximately 40%.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling: increasing resolution from 1080p to 4K at High settings drops the average FPS from 231 to 81, a 65% reduction that indicates GPU-bound performance.

Q: How much memory bandwidth does the RX 9070 XT provide?

A: The GPU has 644.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth, provided by 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data shows a clear and predictable pattern of frame rate scaling as resolution increases. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 231 at 1920x1080 to 149 at 2560x1440 and further to 81 at 3840x2160. This represents a 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 65% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is consistent with GPU-bound performance, where the number of pixels rendered directly impacts frame rate.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced in absolute terms: 314 FPS at 1080p, 203 FPS at 1440p, and 110 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low result of 110 FPS is notable because it remains highly playable despite the massive resolution increase, demonstrating the RX 9070 XT’s raw rasterization power. The Medium settings show similar proportional drops: 273, 177, and 96 FPS across the three resolutions. Ultra settings produce the steepest percentage decline, with 189 FPS at 1080p falling to 122 FPS at 1440p and 66 FPS at 4K — a 65% reduction from the lowest to highest resolution.

The consistent scaling pattern across all four settings presets indicates that the system does not encounter a CPU bottleneck at any resolution. If the CPU were limiting performance, we would expect the frame rates at 1080p to plateau regardless of settings, but the data shows that Low settings at 1080p (314 FPS) are substantially higher than High settings at 1080p (231 FPS). This suggests the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond 314 FPS, and the frame rate variations are entirely attributable to GPU workload.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The CPU features 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core, along with 192 KB of L1 cache per core. Memory support includes DDR5 in a dual-channel configuration, providing 102.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

In Doom, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic, and the data indicates it performs this task admirably. The 1080p Low setting result of 314 FPS is a strong indicator that the CPU is not a limiting factor even at very high frame rates. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 25,891 and single-core score of 3,655 demonstrate solid compute performance, while its PassMark single-thread score of 4,412 suggests strong per-core performance that benefits the game’s main thread.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in the benchmark database all show nearly identical average scores, with deltas ranging from 0% to -0.5%. This clustering indicates that the Ultra 5 225 performs on par with a wide range of CPUs in the mid-range to upper-mid-range segment. For Doom, which is not particularly CPU-intensive by modern standards, this level of performance ensures that the CPU never becomes the bottleneck. The game’s 2016 release means it was designed for CPUs with far fewer cores, so the Ultra 5 225’s 10 cores provide ample headroom for both the game and any background processes.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates across settings are as follows: Low achieves 314 FPS, Medium achieves 273 FPS (with a minimum of 232 FPS and maximum of 314 FPS), High achieves 231 FPS, and Ultra achieves 189 FPS. The difference between the lowest and highest settings is 125 FPS, representing a 40% reduction when moving from Low to Ultra. The Medium preset’s measured range of 232 to 314 FPS shows that frame pacing remains consistent, with the minimum still well above any playability threshold.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease proportionally: Low achieves 203 FPS, Medium achieves 177 FPS (range: 150 to 203 FPS), High achieves 149 FPS, and Ultra achieves 122 FPS. The 1440p results show a 40% reduction from Low to Ultra, matching the 1080p pattern. The Medium preset at 1440p still maintains a minimum of 150 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate gaming.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are: Low achieves 110 FPS, Medium achieves 96 FPS (range: 81 to 110 FPS), High achieves 81 FPS, and Ultra achieves 66 FPS. Even at 4K Ultra, the average of 66 FPS remains above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset’s minimum of 81 FPS indicates that even the most demanding scenes at this resolution stay comfortably playable. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at each setting shows a consistent reduction of approximately 65% across all presets, confirming that the GPU is the sole performance limiter and that the CPU maintains its ability to feed the GPU at all resolutions and settings combinations.