Doom

# FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 in Doom?

A: This combination ranks 45th out of 2,930 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the top 1.5% of all configurations tested. The rank reflects the measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 79,842. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB, scores 79,605, which is 0.3% lower. The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT trails by 1.1% with a score of 78,940, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X is 1.4% ahead at 80,959.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the RTX 5090?

A: The RTX 5090 has a launch MSRP of 1,999 USD. This is the only pricing detail available in the data.

Q: What are the core and thread counts of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225?

A: The CPU has 10 cores and 10 threads, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. It features 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 192 KB of L1 cache per core.

Q: What is the best average FPS achieved at 4K in Doom?

A: At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS is 159, achieved at Low settings. The Medium preset delivers 139 average FPS, High delivers 117, and Ultra drops to 96 average FPS.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 5090 have and what memory type does it use?

A: The RTX 5090 features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed.

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves a rank of 45 out of 2,930 tested combos in Doom. This places the configuration in the 98.5th percentile of all tested systems — a position that reflects the combination of a high-end Blackwell GPU with a capable Arrow Lake CPU.

The ranking is notable because the CPU itself sits at the 85th percentile among all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 36,938. Its nearest rivals — the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F at 36,945 (0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D at 37,018 (-0.2% delta), and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 at 37,093 (-0.4% delta) — are all extremely close in synthetic CPU performance. This indicates that the Ultra 5 225 is not an outlier in CPU compute; rather, the excellent combo rank is driven substantially by the GPU.

The RTX 5090 sits at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 79,842. Its closest rivals in the GPU benchmark hierarchy are the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605, 0.3% behind) and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396, 0.6% behind). The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT trails at 78,940, which is 1.1% lower. The only nearby competitor ahead is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X at 80,959, which is 1.4% faster in synthetic GPU benchmarks.

The gap between the 45th rank and the GPU's 92nd percentile suggests that the CPU is not fully limiting performance in Doom, but it also isn't maximizing the GPU's potential. The combination of a 10-core, 10-thread processor with a 32 GB VRAM GPU produces frame rates that are competitive with the best systems tested, yet the 45th spot out of 2,930 implies there are 44 configurations that achieve higher measured performance. Given that the CPU's percentile (85th) is lower than the GPU's (92nd), the bottleneck likely lies partially with the processor in this title.

# Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured FPS data across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently provides the best balance between visual quality and performance. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 396 average FPS, which is 42 FPS lower than Low (454) but 62 FPS higher than High (334) and 123 FPS higher than Ultra (273). The Medium preset also provides the only min/max FPS data in the dataset: a minimum of 336 FPS and a maximum of 455 FPS at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset achieves 256 average FPS with a minimum of 218 and a maximum of 295. This represents a 38 FPS drop from Low (294) but a 40 FPS improvement over High (216) and a 79 FPS advantage over Ultra (177). The spread between min and max at Medium (218–295) indicates smooth frame pacing with no severe dips.

At 3840x2160, Medium produces 139 average FPS with a minimum of 118 and a maximum of 160. The Low preset reaches 159 average FPS, while High drops to 117 and Ultra falls to 96. For 4K gaming, Medium is the recommended setting because it maintains an average above 120 FPS while providing better visuals than Low.

Across all three resolutions, Ultra settings consistently yield the lowest frame rates: 273 at 1080p, 177 at 1440p, and 96 at 4K. The delta between Medium and Ultra grows with resolution — from 123 FPS at 1080p to 79 FPS at 1440p and 43 FPS at 4K — suggesting that Ultra's additional graphical load scales more heavily with pixel count.

For players prioritizing maximum refresh rate, Low at 1080p (454 FPS) or 1440p (294 FPS) is the choice. For a balanced experience, Medium across all resolutions offers the best combination of playability and fidelity.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080:

• Low: 454 average FPS — the fastest setting measured in the entire dataset.
• Medium: 396 average FPS, with a minimum of 336 and maximum of 455.
• High: 334 average FPS.
• Ultra: 273 average FPS — a 40% reduction from Low.

The 1080p results demonstrate that this combination is heavily GPU-limited at lower resolutions. The delta from Low to Ultra is 181 FPS, which is the largest absolute drop across any resolution tier. The Medium setting's maximum of 455 FPS nearly matches Low's average, indicating that frame times remain tight even with increased graphical load.

2560x1440:

• Low: 294 average FPS.
• Medium: 256 average FPS, minimum 218, maximum 295.
• High: 216 average FPS.
• Ultra: 177 average FPS.

At 1440p, the scaling pattern is consistent: each settings tier costs roughly 40–60 FPS. The Medium range (218–295) shows a 77 FPS spread, which is proportionally similar to the 1080p Medium spread (336–455, a 119 FPS gap). The average FPS at Medium (256) is still far above any 144 Hz display's refresh ceiling.

3840x2160:

• Low: 159 average FPS.
• Medium: 139 average FPS, minimum 118, maximum 160.
• High: 117 average FPS.
• Ultra: 96 average FPS.

At 4K, the performance envelope shifts downward. Low at 159 FPS becomes the only setting that clears a 144 Hz refresh rate, while Medium at 139 FPS stays above 120 FPS. Ultra at 96 FPS is the only setting that falls below 100 average FPS across the entire measured dataset. The Medium preset's minimum of 118 FPS ensures that even the lowest frame rates remain above the 100 FPS threshold.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using the GB202 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The GPU contains 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, with a transistor density of 122.9 million per mm². These physical characteristics place it at the top of the GeForce 50-series lineup.

The GPU operates with a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz. Memory runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth across a 512-bit bus. The 32 GB GDDR7 frame buffer is the largest memory allocation in the dataset, and in Doom, this capacity is never a limiting factor — even at 4K Ultra settings, the average FPS of 96 indicates that compute and rasterization throughput, not VRAM capacity, are the constraining factors.

The RTX 5090's compute resources are substantial: 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, 176 ROPs, 170 RT cores, and 680 tensor cores. The FP32 throughput is 104.8 TFLOPS, with FP16 also at 104.8 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio). Pixel rate reaches 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate is 1,636.8 GTexel/s. These specifications translate into the measured frame rates: at 1080p Low, the GPU produces 454 average FPS, and even at 4K Ultra, it maintains 96 average FPS.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark scores — 39,650 in Passmark G3D, 18,355 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 334,370 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 376,728 in Geekbench Vulkan — corroborate the gaming results. The Passmark GPU Compute score of 26,756 indicates strong general compute performance, though Doom's workload is primarily rasterization-focused.

The RTX 5090's thermal design power is 575 W, requiring a 950 W suggested PSU and a single 16-pin power connector. The dual-slot cooler is 304 mm long, 137 mm high, and 40 mm wide. These physical requirements are substantial but consistent with the performance tier.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, based on the Arrow Lake architecture (Arrow Lake-S). It is manufactured on a 3 nm process at TSMC, containing 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. The CPU runs at a base clock of 3.30 GHz and boosts to 4.90 GHz, with a 65 W TDP.

The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 over a dual-channel bus, providing 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The CPU connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes and includes integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 16 execution units.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Ultra 5 225 achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 25,891 and a single-core score of 3,655. The Cinebench R20 results are 6,317 multi-core and 891 single-core, while R15 shows 2,609 multi-core and 368 single-core. Passmark results include a multi-thread score of 30,459, single-thread of 4,412, and a physics score of 2,342.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 36,938 places it at the 85th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, scores 36,945 — a 0% delta. The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D is 0.2% behind at 37,018, and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 is 0.4% behind at 37,093. The Intel Core i9-12900T rounds out the rival group at 37,112, which is 0.5% ahead.

In Doom, the CPU's role is to feed the RTX 5090 with draw calls and game logic. The 10-thread configuration is sufficient to avoid major bottlenecks at 1080p, where the GPU generates 454 average FPS at Low settings. However, the fact that the combo ranks 45th out of 2,930 — rather than higher — suggests that some configurations with stronger CPUs achieve even higher frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios.

The CPU's single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,655, Passmark single-thread of 4,412) is solid but not class-leading. In a game like Doom, which relies on strong single-thread performance for frame generation, this could explain why the combo doesn't rank higher. The 4.90 GHz boost clock helps, but the 10-core/10-thread configuration (without hyperthreading) may limit performance in heavily threaded scenarios.

# Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how performance scales from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 across all four settings presets. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 454 average at 1080p to 294 at 1440p and 159 at 4K. This represents a 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 65% reduction from 1080p to 4K — a scaling pattern that indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

At Medium settings, the progression is 396 → 256 → 139 average FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 35%, and from 1080p to 4K is 65% — nearly identical ratios to Low settings. This consistency suggests that the GPU's workload scales proportionally with pixel count, with minimal CPU interference.

At High settings, the values are 334 → 216 → 117 average FPS. The 1440p result is 35% lower than 1080p, while 4K is 65% lower. Ultra settings produce 273 → 177 → 96 average FPS, with a 35% drop to 1440p and 65% drop to 4K.

The consistent 35%/65% reduction pattern across all settings is the key analytical finding. This uniformity indicates that the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is not introducing a resolution-dependent bottleneck — the frame rate scaling is purely driven by the RTX 5090's rendering load. If the CPU were limiting, the scaling curve would flatten at lower resolutions, with the 1080p-to-1440p drop being smaller than the 1440p-to-4K drop.

The absolute FPS values at 1080p (273–454 average) are well above the CPU's ability to maintain frame pacing, suggesting that at 1080p Low, the system may be partially CPU-limited. However, the fact that 1080p Low (454 FPS) is exactly 15% higher than 1080p Medium (396 FPS) — and the same 15% ratio appears at 1440p (294 vs 256) — indicates that the CPU is still keeping pace with the GPU across the entire resolution range.

The 4K results are the most revealing for the limiting component analysis. At 4K Ultra, the 96 average FPS is the lowest measured value, and the 4K Medium minimum of 118 FPS ensures playability. The drop from 1080p Ultra (273) to 4K Ultra (96) is 65%, which aligns precisely with the pixel-count increase (4K has 4 times the pixels of 1080p, but the 65% drop reflects the GPU's diminishing returns at higher resolutions). This pattern confirms that the RTX 5090 is the determining factor in Doom's performance, with the Ultra 5 225 providing sufficient CPU throughput to avoid becoming the primary constraint.