Doom

Doom’s 2016 engine is famously scalable, but the pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 with the AMD Radeon RX 580 tells a story of a system that is strictly bound by its graphics card at higher resolutions, while the CPU’s strong single-threaded performance keeps frame rates playable at 1080p. The measured data shows a clear and predictable pattern: as resolution climbs, average frame rates fall in near-linear fashion, confirming that the RX 580’s 8 GB of GDDR5 and 256-bit memory interface are the primary bottlenecks in this configuration. At 1080p, the combination delivers smooth performance across all presets, but 4K gaming remains out of reach, with even the lowest settings failing to hit 40 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is stark and consistent across all four settings presets. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 102 at 1080p to 66 at 1440p, and finally to 36 at 4K. That represents a 35% reduction going from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 45% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The pattern is similar at Medium settings, where averages fall from 89 to 58 to 31 across the same resolution steps. High settings show 75, 49, and 26 FPS respectively, while Ultra settings yield 62, 40, and 22 FPS.

The scaling behavior indicates a GPU-bound scenario at all resolutions. The CPU’s role diminishes as pixel count increases, and the RX 580’s compute throughput—6.175 TFLOPS FP32—simply cannot keep pace with the demand of 4K rendering. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 40 FPS (102 vs 62), but at 4K that delta shrinks to just 14 FPS (36 vs 22). This compression of performance at higher resolutions is a classic sign that the graphics card is saturated, and that lowering settings offers diminishing returns once the pixel fill rate becomes the limiting factor.

Notably, the 4K Medium preset records a minimum FPS of 27 and a maximum of 36, with an average of 31. That tight range suggests frame pacing is consistent, but the absolute numbers are far below the 60 FPS target most players expect. For a game like Doom, which relies on fast, fluid motion, these 4K results are effectively unplayable. The 1080p results, by contrast, show a healthy spread: Medium settings at 1080p have a minimum of 76 and a maximum of 103, averaging 89, which is ample headroom for a high refresh rate monitor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock is 3.40 GHz, boosting to 5.00 GHz, and it carries 24 MB of shared L3 cache. In benchmark terms, the CPU posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14,769 and a single-core score of 2,085. These figures place it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs tested, with an average benchmark score of 46,062.

For Doom, the CPU’s single-thread performance is the more relevant metric, as the game’s id Tech 6 engine scales well across multiple cores but still relies heavily on a strong primary thread for game logic and draw call submission. The single-core score of 2,085 in Cinebench R23 is indicative of excellent per-thread performance, which explains why the 1080p Low preset achieves 102 FPS. At that resolution, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU far more frames than the RX 580 can render, meaning the graphics card becomes the limiting factor even at the lowest settings.

The CPU’s nearest rivals highlight its position in the broader market. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 scores 46,030, a delta of 0.1% slower, while the Intel Core i9-13900HX scores 46,098, a delta of 0.1% faster. The AMD EPYC 4364P and EPYC 7303 are also within 0.2% of the Core Ultra 5 235’s average score. This clustering suggests that in multi-threaded workloads, the Ultra 5 235 is competitive with high-end mobile and server parts, but for Doom specifically, the 14 threads are more than sufficient. The game rarely stresses beyond a handful of cores, and the 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures that the main thread never becomes a bottleneck at 1080p.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is a 2017-era graphics card built on the Polaris 20 chip, using the GCN 4.0 architecture on a 14 nm process. It features 2,304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its memory configuration consists of 8 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1,257 MHz, boosting to 1,340 MHz, and the card has a TDP of 185 W. In synthetic benchmarks, the RX 580 scores 8,813 in Passmark G3D, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs.

The RX 580’s nearest rivals show it sits in a crowded mid-range segment. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 12,940, a delta of 0.1% faster, while the GTX 1660 SUPER scores 12,986, a delta of 0.4% faster. The AMD Radeon 740M and FirePro W5100 are 0.5% and 0.6% slower, respectively. This tight grouping means the RX 580 is functionally equivalent to these cards in raw compute, but Doom’s specific rendering paths favor the RX 580’s architecture more than these synthetic scores suggest.

The GPU’s 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is the key constraint at 1440p and 4K. At 1080p, the card can maintain 62 FPS on Ultra settings, which is respectable for a card of this vintage. However, the pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s and texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s are simply insufficient for 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 22. The 8 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor at these settings—Doom’s textures fit comfortably within that capacity—but the raw compute and fill rate are. The data shows that the RX 580 is a 1080p-class card in this pairing, with 1440p being a stretch goal and 4K being an unrealistic target.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a complete picture of this combination’s capabilities. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 62 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced FPS. High settings improve that to 75 FPS, Medium to 89 FPS, and Low to 102 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p has a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS, indicating a consistent frame delivery with no major stutters.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops predictably. Ultra averages 40 FPS, High averages 49 FPS, Medium averages 58 FPS (with a minimum of 49 and maximum of 66), and Low averages 66 FPS. These numbers are borderline for competitive play, but the 58 FPS Medium average is the sweet spot for a balanced experience at this resolution. The 1440p results show that the RX 580 can handle the resolution if settings are kept modest, but the frame rates lack the headroom for high refresh rate displays.

At 3840x2160, the results are disappointing but expected. Ultra averages 22 FPS, High averages 26 FPS, Medium averages 31 FPS (with a minimum of 27 and maximum of 36), and Low averages 36 FPS. None of these presets approach a playable 60 FPS, and even the best-case Low preset at 4K is nearly 40% slower than the worst-case Ultra preset at 1080p. The 4K data clearly indicates that this combo is not designed for 4K gaming, and any attempt to run Doom at this resolution will result in a sub-30 FPS experience regardless of settings.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 2,675 out of 2,930 combos for Doom. That places it in the bottom 9% of all tested systems, which is a poor showing for a CPU that sits in the 89th percentile of all processors. The ranking is dragged down entirely by the GPU, which sits in the 53rd percentile of all graphics cards.

The disparity between the CPU’s high percentile and the GPU’s mid-range percentile creates a significant imbalance. The Core Ultra 5 235 is capable of driving much faster graphics cards, but paired with the RX 580, the system is held back by the GPU’s 2017-era performance. In Doom specifically, this means the CPU is often idle while the GPU is pegged at maximum utilization. The rank of 2,675 out of 2,930 suggests that a majority of tested systems—even those with older or weaker CPUs—outperform this combo because they pair those CPUs with stronger graphics hardware.

For context, the CPU’s nearest rivals—the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, Core i9-13900HX, and EPYC parts—would all achieve significantly better rankings in Doom when paired with a modern GPU. The bottleneck is unambiguous: the RX 580 is the limiting factor, and no amount of CPU headroom can compensate for its fill rate and memory bandwidth constraints at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal configuration for this combo is 1920x1080 with the Medium preset. This yields an average of 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS, providing a smooth and responsive experience that takes full advantage of the game’s fast-paced gameplay. The Medium preset at 1080p offers a 30% improvement over the High preset’s 75 FPS and a 43% improvement over the Ultra preset’s 62 FPS, with minimal visual degradation.

For players with 1440p monitors, the Medium preset is the recommended choice, delivering an average of 58 FPS. While not as fluid as the 1080p Medium experience, it is playable and maintains a minimum of 49 FPS above the stutter threshold. The High preset at 1440p drops to 49 FPS average, which is borderline, and Ultra at 40 FPS is not recommended for any serious gameplay.

At 4K, no setting is playable. The best result is the Low preset at 36 FPS, which is insufficient for Doom’s demanding combat scenarios. The data suggests that 4K is not viable with this hardware combination, and players should stick to 1080p or 1440p. The Low preset at 1080p achieves 102 FPS, but the visual quality trade-off is significant, making the Medium preset the better balance of performance and fidelity. The Ultra preset at any resolution is the least efficient choice, as it produces the lowest frame rates without providing a proportional visual benefit in this game’s fast-paced action.