Doom

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 ranks 2281st out of 3712 tested combinations in Doom. This places the combo in the 38th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly 62% of combinations deliver higher frame rates in this title. The ranking reflects a mid-pack position, consistent with the individual components' benchmark percentiles: the CPU sits at the 85th percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks at the 66th percentile among all graphics cards.

The gap between the CPU's strong relative standing and the GPU's more modest position indicates that the graphics card is the primary constraint on overall performance in Doom. This is a classic pairing where the processor has headroom to spare, but the graphics solution limits the final output. The data suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield larger gains than upgrading the CPU for this specific game.

Compared to the GPU's nearest rivals, the RTX 5050's average benchmark score of 21035 sits within 1.6% of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (which scores 20713) and within 0.6% of the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (which scores 21153). The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile leads the group slightly at 21379, a 1.6% advantage over the RTX 5050. These tight margins suggest that the 5050's performance class is well-established, and in Doom specifically, the measured frame rates align with expectations for this tier of hardware.

# Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy across the four available settings presets at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 202 FPS average, which is the highest measured result across the entire test matrix. The Medium preset follows at 176 FPS, High at 149 FPS, and Ultra at 122 FPS. All four presets at 1080p exceed the 60 FPS threshold by a substantial margin, making this resolution forgiving regardless of the chosen settings.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low delivers 131 FPS, Medium 114 FPS, High 96 FPS, and Ultra 79 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p remains above 60 FPS, indicating that even the most demanding settings are playable at this resolution. The step from High to Ultra represents a 17 FPS drop (from 96 to 79), which is proportionally similar to the 27 FPS drop seen at 1080p (from 149 to 122).

The 3840x2160 results tell a different story. Low produces 71 FPS, Medium 62 FPS, High 52 FPS, and Ultra 43 FPS. Here, the High and Ultra presets fall below the 60 FPS threshold, while Low and Medium remain playable. The Medium preset at 4K shows a min FPS of 52 and max of 71, indicating some frame time variability even within the acceptable average range.

For the best balance of visual quality and performance, the data supports using High settings at 1440p as the sweet spot: 96 FPS average provides a smooth experience with substantially better visuals than Low or Medium. At 1080p, Ultra at 122 FPS offers the full visual experience without sacrificing fluidity. At 4K, Medium at 62 FPS is the highest preset that maintains a 60+ FPS average, making it the recommended choice for 4K displays.

# Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this pairing. At Ultra settings, the progression is 122 FPS at 1080p, 79 FPS at 1440p, and 43 FPS at 4K. This represents a 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 46% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The cumulative drop from 1080p to 4K is 65% of the original frame rate.

The Low settings show a similar pattern: 202 FPS at 1080p, 131 FPS at 1440p, and 71 FPS at 4K. The proportional drops are 35% and 46% respectively, identical to the Ultra scaling. This consistency across settings presets indicates that the performance scaling is driven primarily by resolution pixel count rather than by settings-specific effects.

The medium settings data provides additional insight. At 1080p Medium, the min/max range is 150-203 FPS, while at 1440p it narrows to 97-131 FPS, and at 4K it spans 52-71 FPS. The range compression at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU becomes more uniformly saturated as pixel count increases, reducing frame time variance.

This scaling behavior points clearly to the GPU as the limiting component. The RTX 5050's 8 GB VRAM and 320.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are the resources being stressed as resolution increases. The CPU's role remains consistent across resolutions, as indicated by the proportional FPS drops that match pixel count scaling rather than showing CPU-related plateaus.

# FAQ

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

A: The maximum measured average FPS is 202 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The highest at Ultra settings is 122 FPS at 1080p.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Doom?

A: Yes, but with limitations. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers 62 FPS average, while High drops to 52 FPS and Ultra to 43 FPS. Low settings achieve 71 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, High averages 96 FPS while Ultra averages 79 FPS, a difference of 17 FPS or roughly 18% lower performance for the Ultra preset.

Q: What is the frame time consistency at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the range is 150-203 FPS (average 176). At 1440p it spans 97-131 FPS (average 114). At 4K the range is 52-71 FPS (average 62).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more responsible for performance in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The RTX 5050 ranks at the 66th percentile among GPUs, while the Core Ultra 5 225 ranks at the 85th percentile among CPUs. Resolution scaling also shows consistent GPU-bound behavior.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded across all tested configurations?

A: The lowest average FPS is 43 at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. The lowest min FPS figure is 52 at 4K Medium settings.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB207 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm TSMC process. The GPU contains 16,900 million transistors on a 149 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 113.4M per mm². It operates at a base clock of 2317 MHz and boosts to 2572 MHz, with memory clocked at 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective).

The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 320.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This configuration is adequate for Doom at 1080p and 1440p, where the measured results show strong performance. At 4K, the VRAM capacity and bandwidth become more significant factors, as evidenced by the drop to 43 FPS at Ultra settings.

The GPU's compute resources include 2560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operation units. It also features 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores, though Doom's 2016 release predates widespread ray tracing adoption. The pixel rate is 82.30 GPixel/s and texture rate is 205.8 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 13.17 TFLOPS.

In the context of Doom's measured results, the GPU's 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs translates to playable frame rates at most settings. The 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 2502 and Passmark G3D score of 17326 reflect mid-range performance. The GPU's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, scores within 1.6% in average benchmarks, and the measured FPS results in Doom align with this competitive positioning.

# 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 TSMC process. It operates with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth, and connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes.

The cache hierarchy consists of 192 KB L1 per core, 3 MB L2 per core, and 20 MB shared L3 cache. The processor includes integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 16 execution units, though gaming workloads will rely on the discrete RTX 5050. The CPU's benchmark results show strong single-thread performance: 3655 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 4412 in Passmark single-thread. Multi-threaded performance is also robust, with 25891 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 30459 in Passmark multithread.

The CPU sits at the 85th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 36938. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, scores 36945, a negligible 0% difference. The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D trails by 0.2%, and the Intel Core i9-12900T is 0.5% behind. This places the Ultra 5 225 in a tightly contested performance band.

In Doom specifically, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU. The measured FPS scaling with resolution follows GPU-bound patterns, and the CPU's high percentile ranking suggests it is not the bottleneck. The processor's 10 cores and 10 threads handle Doom's workload without constraint, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates across settings at each resolution.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the complete results are as follows:

• Low: 202 FPS average
• Medium: 176 FPS average, with a range of 150-203 FPS
• High: 149 FPS average
• Ultra: 122 FPS average

The 1080p results show a 80 FPS spread between Low and Ultra, indicating substantial headroom at this resolution. Even the most demanding preset maintains a framerate well above display refresh rates for most monitors.

At 2560x1440, the measured results are:

• Low: 131 FPS average
• Medium: 114 FPS average, with a range of 97-131 FPS
• High: 96 FPS average
• Ultra: 79 FPS average

The 1440p results show a 52 FPS spread between Low and Ultra. All presets remain above 60 FPS, making 1440p a viable resolution for competitive play at any settings level.

At 3840x2160, the results are:

• Low: 71 FPS average
• Medium: 62 FPS average, with a range of 52-71 FPS
• High: 52 FPS average
• Ultra: 43 FPS average

The 4K results show a 28 FPS spread between Low and Ultra. Only the Low and Medium presets maintain a 60+ FPS average, while High and Ultra fall below this threshold. The Medium preset's min FPS of 52 indicates occasional dips below 60 FPS, but the average remains playable.

Across all resolutions, the step from Medium to High consistently costs less performance than the step from High to Ultra. At 1080p, Medium to High costs 27 FPS, while High to Ultra costs 27 FPS as well. At 1440p, the costs are 18 FPS and 17 FPS respectively. At 4K, they are 10 FPS and 9 FPS. The diminishing absolute costs at higher resolutions reflect the GPU becoming the limiting factor more uniformly as pixel count increases.