Doom

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 delivers a playable but stratified experience in Doom, with frame rates that scale predictably with resolution and settings. The data shows a system that can comfortably handle 1080p and 1440p gaming, but which begins to strain at 4K, where the GPU’s 6 GB frame buffer and Turing architecture become the primary bottlenecks. This combination ranks in the 22nd percentile of tested combos, placing it firmly in the mid-range tier for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern as resolution increases, with the most dramatic drops occurring between 1440p and 4K. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 175 FPS, which falls to 113 FPS at 1440p and then to 61 FPS at 4K—a 65% reduction from 1080p to 4K. This steep decline indicates that the RTX 2060's rendering throughput, not the CPU, is the limiting factor at higher pixel counts.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly punishing across all settings. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 83 at 1440p to 45 at 4K, a 46% loss. At Medium, the drop is from 99 to 53 FPS, and at Ultra, from 68 to 37 FPS. These consistent percentage losses—roughly 45-46% across presets—suggest that the GPU is hitting a hard compute or memory bandwidth ceiling at 4K, rather than a settings-specific limitation.

Conversely, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is much gentler. At Low settings, the drop is from 175 to 113 FPS, a 35% reduction. At High, it goes from 129 to 83 FPS, a 36% reduction. This smaller delta indicates that at 1080p, the system has enough headroom that the CPU begins to play a more significant role, though the RTX 2060 still dominates the performance curve. The fact that 1440p High (83 FPS) is nearly double the 4K High (45 FPS) underscores that 1440p is the effective sweet spot for this GPU, where it can still deliver high refresh rates without being overwhelmed by pixel count.

Settings Recommendations

For users targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data shows that the RTX 2060 can achieve this at 4K only on Low settings, where it hits 61 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 53 FPS with a minimum of 45 FPS, which will produce noticeable stutter in fast-paced combat. At 4K High and Ultra, the averages of 45 and 37 FPS respectively are below the threshold for smooth play in a FPS title.

At 1440p, the situation improves significantly. High settings deliver 83 FPS, which is well above 60 FPS and provides a smooth experience. Medium settings push this to 99 FPS, and Low to 113 FPS. Even Ultra at 68 FPS remains comfortably playable. The data suggests that 1440p High is the optimal balance for visual fidelity and performance, as it maintains a 60+ FPS average while retaining the higher-quality textures and effects that the High preset implies.

At 1080p, all settings are viable for competitive play. Low hits 175 FPS, Medium 152 FPS, High 129 FPS, and even Ultra maintains 105 FPS. For esports-style play on high refresh rate monitors, Low or Medium would be preferable to push frame rates toward the 144-175 Hz range. However, for a single-player experience, Ultra at 105 FPS is entirely acceptable and offers the best visual quality without sacrificing playability.

The measured minimum FPS data is sparse, but the Medium preset at each resolution provides the only recorded minimums: 130 FPS at 1080p, 84 FPS at 1440p, and 45 FPS at 4K. These minimums suggest that Medium offers a more stable frame time distribution than the other presets, which lack recorded minimums, making it a safer choice for users sensitive to frame pacing issues.

GPU Role

The RTX 2060, built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip, is the dominant component in this pairing. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p but becomes a constraint at 4K. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective), and the GPU has a base clock of 1365 MHz with a boost clock of 1680 MHz.

The GPU's compute capabilities—1920 shading units, 120 TMUs, 48 ROPs, and 30 RT cores—are modest by modern standards. Its FP32 performance of 6.451 TFLOPS is the theoretical peak, but the measured results show that real-world performance in Doom is heavily influenced by the 6 GB VRAM capacity. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 37 is likely limited by both texture memory and fill rate, as the 80.64 GPixel/s pixel rate struggles with the 8.3 million pixels of a 4K frame.

The GPU's 58th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15290, places it near the GeForce GTX 580 (15283, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon 680M (15270, 0.1% delta) in synthetic tests. This clustering indicates that the RTX 2060's raw compute is competitive with those parts, but its advantage in Doom comes from its modern feature set and driver optimization rather than raw throughput. The 0.8% delta to the AMD Radeon RX 7600 (15171) suggests that within this performance class, the differences are minimal.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings produce an average of 175 FPS, Medium reaches 152 FPS with a minimum of 130 FPS, High achieves 129 FPS, and Ultra manages 105 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 70 FPS, indicating that the GPU has enough headroom at this resolution to absorb the increased load of higher presets without collapsing.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop but remain playable. Low hits 113 FPS, Medium 99 FPS with a minimum of 84 FPS, High 83 FPS, and Ultra 68 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra is 45 FPS, showing that the GPU is starting to feel the pressure of additional pixels but still has room to maneuver. The minimum FPS of 84 at Medium is notably higher than the 45 FPS minimum at 4K Medium, reinforcing that 1440p is a comfortable operating point.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly overextended. Low produces 61 FPS, which is the only preset to cross the 60 FPS threshold. Medium drops to 53 FPS with a minimum of 45 FPS, High to 45 FPS, and Ultra to 37 FPS. The 24 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is the smallest of any resolution, indicating that the GPU is saturated and settings changes have diminishing returns. The minimum FPS of 45 at Medium is concerning for a fast-paced FPS, as it will result in visible hitches during intense scenes.

The data shows a linear progression within each resolution: Low > Medium > High > Ultra in terms of FPS, with Medium consistently sitting roughly 15-20% above High and 25-30% below Low. This consistency suggests that the game's settings scale predictably with GPU load, and there are no anomalous performance cliffs or driver issues at any preset.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2294 out of 2930 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the bottom 22% of all systems. This ranking reflects the RTX 2060's age and the CPU's mid-range positioning. The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 has an 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938, placing it near the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (36945, 0% delta) and AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (37018, -0.2% delta).

The CPU's strong synthetic scores—such as 25891 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 3655 in single-core—indicate that it is not the bottleneck in this pairing. The GPU's 58th percentile ranking and the combo's 22nd percentile ranking in Doom suggest that the game is heavily GPU-bound, and the CPU's relative strength is underutilized. In fact, the data implies that pairing the Ultra 5 225 with a more powerful GPU would yield significantly better results in Doom, as the CPU has ample headroom to feed a faster graphics card.

The rank of 2294 out of 2930 means that 78% of tested combos outperform this one in Doom. This is consistent with the RTX 2060 being an entry-level to mid-range GPU from 2019, now three generations old, while the CPU is a current-generation part. The mismatch in performance tiers is evident: the CPU is capable of 4K-class workloads in productivity, but the GPU caps the gaming experience at 1440p.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of 4K gaming in Doom?

A: Only at Low settings, where it achieves 61 FPS. At Medium, High, and Ultra, the averages drop to 53, 45, and 37 FPS respectively, with the Medium preset recording a minimum of 45 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for this system?

A: 2560x1440 provides the best balance, with High settings delivering 83 FPS and Medium 99 FPS. At 1080p, all settings exceed 105 FPS, but 4K is only playable on Low.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 2060 scores 15290 on average, which is nearly identical to the GeForce GTX 580 (15283, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon 680M (15270, 0.1% delta). It is 0.6% ahead of the RTX 3050 OEM and 0.8% ahead of the Radeon RX 7600.

Q: What is the CPU's performance ranking?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 ranks in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938. It is statistically tied with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (0% delta) and slightly behind the Ryzen 5 5500X3D (-0.2%).

Q: Does the 6 GB VRAM limit performance at 4K?

A: The data suggests yes. The 4K Ultra preset drops to 37 FPS, which is the lowest measured result, and the 336.0 GB/s memory bandwidth may be insufficient for the texture loads at that resolution.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 129 at 1080p to 83 at 1440p and then to 45 at 4K, representing a 65% reduction from the lowest to highest resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225, with 10 cores and 10 threads, is a modern mid-range processor that is clearly not the limiting factor in this Doom configuration. Its base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.90 GHz, combined with 20 MB of shared L3 cache, provide ample single-thread and multi-thread performance for the game's engine. The CPU's Cinebench R23 scores—25891 multicore and 3655 single-core—place it well above the threshold needed to keep the RTX 2060 fed.

The CPU's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938, is significantly higher than the GPU's 58th percentile. This disparity suggests that in Doom, the GPU is the bottleneck at all resolutions above 1080p. At 1080p Low, the 175 FPS result approaches the upper limit of what the RTX 2060 can produce, and the CPU's 10 threads are likely sufficient to maintain that frame rate without becoming a constraint.

The CPU's memory support for DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and 102.4 GB/s bandwidth is more than adequate for gaming, as Doom does not require high memory bandwidth. The 10 cores and 10 threads (no hyperthreading) are also sufficient for the game's multi-threaded rendering tasks, though the lack of SMT may show in heavily CPU-bound scenarios—which are not present in this data.

In comparison to its nearest rivals, the CPU is statistically identical to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (0% delta) and only 0.5% behind the Intel Core i9-12900T. This means that swapping the Ultra 5 225 for any of these parts would produce no measurable difference in Doom, reinforcing that the GPU is the sole determinant of performance in this pairing. Users seeking higher frame rates in Doom would benefit more from a GPU upgrade than a CPU swap, as the CPU has demonstrated it can deliver 175 FPS at 1080p without breaking a sweat.