Doom

# Doom Performance Analysis: Intel Core Ultra 5 245 + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

This combination pairs Intel's newer Arrow Lake architecture with AMD's flagship RDNA 3.0 GPU, producing a system that absolutely crushes Doom at every resolution tested. The measured frame rates are so high across the board that the question shifts from "can it run well" to "which settings actually matter when you're already past 200 FPS at 1440p." The data suggests a machine built for high-refresh displays, with the RX 7900 XTX's massive 24 GB frame buffer and the Core Ultra 5 245's 14 cores working in concert to eliminate any conceivable bottleneck in this 2016 title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows clearly indicate that Ultra settings deliver the most visually complete experience while still maintaining frame rates that exceed 144 Hz at 1080p and approach it at 1440p. At 1080p Ultra, the system averages 220 FPS, which is still above the refresh rate of most high-end gaming monitors. At 1440p Ultra, the average drops to 143 FPS, which is right at the threshold for 144 Hz displays — making it the sweet spot for users who want maximum visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness.

For those with 4K displays, High settings at 94 FPS average represents the best balance. The step from High to Ultra at 4K costs 17 FPS (from 94 to 77), a drop of roughly 18%, while the visual difference between High and Ultra in Doom is often subtle. Medium at 4K does push the average to 112 FPS, but the visual compromises in texture quality and shadow detail are noticeable on larger screens. If you have a 120 Hz+ 4K panel, Medium at 112 FPS is the only way to get close to that refresh rate, but High at 94 FPS is the more visually coherent choice for most.

Interestingly, Low settings provide diminishing returns at lower resolutions. At 1080p, Low hits 366 FPS, which is nearly 67% higher than Ultra's 220 FPS — but no display on the market can show that difference. At 1440p, Low reaches 237 FPS, still well beyond what any monitor can display. The only scenario where Low makes sense is 4K, where 128 FPS is meaningfully higher than High's 94 FPS and could justify the visual downgrade for competitive play. For the vast majority of users, Ultra at 1080p or 1440p, and High at 4K, are the recommendations that emerge from this data.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Doom at 4K with maximum settings?

A: Yes, but barely at 60+ FPS standards. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 77, which is well above the 60 FPS baseline for smooth gameplay but below what you'd want for high-refresh 4K monitors. For 4K gaming, High settings at 94 FPS is the more comfortable option.

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p and 4K at the same settings?

A: At High settings, the system delivers 269 FPS at 1080p versus 94 FPS at 4K — a 65% reduction. At Low settings, it's 366 FPS at 1080p versus 128 FPS at 4K, a 65% drop as well. The scaling is remarkably consistent across settings, suggesting a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the RX 7900 XTX's 24 GB VRAM necessary for Doom?

A: No. Doom is a 2016 title with modest texture requirements; even at 4K Ultra, the game would likely use only a fraction of the available 24 GB. The 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 384-bit bus are more relevant to performance than the capacity itself, as they enable the high fill rates needed for 4K.

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested configurations in the database?

A: The combo ranks 500th out of 3,712 tested combinations, placing it in the top 13.5% of all configurations. This is a strong result, though not top-tier — the ranking suggests that some higher-end CPUs or GPUs in the database achieve even better frame rates in Doom.

Q: What is the impact of the CPU's 14 cores on Doom's performance?

A: Doom is not a heavily multi-threaded game, so the Core Ultra 5 245's 14 cores (14 threads) are more than sufficient. The CPU's 3.50 GHz base and 5.10 GHz boost clocks are what matter most, as the game benefits from high single-thread performance. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4394 supports this.

Q: Is there a significant difference between Medium and High settings?

A: At 1080p, Medium averages 319 FPS versus High's 269 FPS — a 19% difference. At 1440p, it's 206 versus 174 FPS, an 18% difference. At 4K, Medium hits 112 FPS versus High's 94 FPS, a 19% difference. The consistent gap suggests Medium reduces GPU load in a predictable way, but the visual trade-off is often worth avoiding.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear pattern of GPU limitation at higher resolutions. At High settings, the system produces 269 FPS at 1080p, 174 FPS at 1440p (a 35% drop), and 94 FPS at 4K (a 46% drop from 1440p, 65% from 1080p). This progressive decline is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario — the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at 1080p, but the RX 7900 XTX's rendering workload increases exponentially with pixel count.

At Low settings, the scaling is steeper: 366 FPS at 1080p, 237 FPS at 1440p (35% drop), and 128 FPS at 4K (46% drop from 1440p, 65% from 1080p). The fact that the percentage drops are nearly identical between Low and High suggests that the limiting factor at higher resolutions is the GPU's raw pixel throughput, not texture or shader complexity. The RX 7900 XTX's 479.6 GPixel/s pixel rate and 959.2 GTexel/s texture rate are being fully utilized at 4K, while at 1080p, the system is likely hitting engine-level frame caps or CPU limitations.

The Medium settings row provides additional insight: at 1080p, Medium averages 319 FPS with a minimum of 271 FPS and maximum of 367 FPS. The 96 FPS spread between minimum and maximum indicates some scene-to-scene variability, but the averages are stable. At 1440p Medium, the range is 176 to 237 FPS (61 FPS spread), and at 4K Medium, it's 95 to 129 FPS (34 FPS spread). The narrowing spread at higher resolutions further confirms that the GPU is becoming the bottleneck — variance decreases as the GPU works closer to its limit.

The data implies that for users targeting 4K, the CPU headroom is nearly irrelevant; the RX 7900 XTX is the sole determinant of performance. At 1080p, however, the Core Ultra 5 245's 5.10 GHz boost clock ensures that the GPU is never starved, keeping frame rates in the 220–366 FPS range depending on settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full measured dataset covers four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) across three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160). Here is the complete breakdown:

1920x1080:

• Low: 366 FPS average
• Medium: 319 FPS average (minimum 271, maximum 367)
• High: 269 FPS average
• Ultra: 220 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 237 FPS average
• Medium: 206 FPS average (minimum 176, maximum 237)
• High: 174 FPS average
• Ultra: 143 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 128 FPS average
• Medium: 112 FPS average (minimum 95, maximum 129)
• High: 94 FPS average
• Ultra: 77 FPS average

The pattern is consistent: each settings tier reduces performance by roughly 15–20% over the previous tier at the same resolution. From Low to Medium, the drop is approximately 13–15%; from Medium to High, it's another 15–16%; from High to Ultra, it's another 18–22%. This linear scaling suggests that Doom's settings have a predictable and additive GPU load, with Ultra being the most demanding tier by a clear margin.

The minimum FPS data points are only available for Medium settings, but they show that the system maintains acceptable frame times even in demanding scenes. At 1080p Medium, the minimum of 271 FPS is 85% of the average, indicating minimal stuttering. At 1440p Medium, the minimum of 176 FPS is 85% of the average. At 4K Medium, the minimum of 95 FPS is 85% of the average. This consistent 85% ratio suggests that Doom's engine scales uniformly, and the RX 7900 XTX handles scene complexity without sudden spikes in rendering time.

For users with 144 Hz displays, 1440p Ultra at 143 FPS is borderline — you'd want to drop to High (174 FPS) for a comfortable margin. For 60 Hz displays, 4K Ultra at 77 FPS is more than sufficient, and even 4K High at 94 FPS provides headroom. The system is overkill for 1080p in every scenario, with even Ultra settings delivering 220 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 500th out of 3,712 tested combinations in Doom, placing it in the top 13.5% of all configurations in the database. This is a strong showing, but it's not at the very top — the ranking suggests that there are 499 other combos that achieve higher average FPS in this game. Given that the RX 7900 XTX is a high-end GPU and the Core Ultra 5 245 is a mid-range to upper-mid-range CPU, the 500th position reflects the fact that Doom is a well-optimized title that doesn't require top-tier hardware to run at extreme frame rates.

The percentile rank of 500/3712 means this combo outperforms roughly 86.5% of all tested systems. This is notable because the CPU's own percentile is 90 (in the top 10% of all CPUs), while the GPU's percentile is 64 (in the top 36% of all GPUs). The combo ranking being lower than the CPU's percentile but higher than the GPU's suggests that Doom's performance is more sensitive to GPU than CPU, but the RX 7900 XTX is still a strong performer in absolute terms.

Interestingly, the GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB (deltaPct 0.4) and the NVIDIA TITAN Xp (deltaPct 1.2), which are much older cards. This indicates that the RX 7900 XTX's average benchmark score of 19,410 is being compared against a wide range of GPUs, and its percentile of 64 shows that it sits above the median but not at the top — likely because the benchmark suite includes many modern high-end cards that score higher. In Doom specifically, the combo's 500th rank out of 3,712 is a solid result, but not exceptional for the hardware involved.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process. With a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, it delivers strong single-thread performance, which is critical for Doom's game engine. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4394 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4648 confirm that it handles lightly-threaded workloads with ease.

In Doom, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The 14 cores are more than enough; Doom's engine typically uses fewer than 8 threads effectively. The 5.10 GHz boost clock ensures that the game's main thread runs at maximum speed, which is evidenced by the 1080p frame rates: at Low settings, 366 FPS means the CPU is processing frames in under 2.7 milliseconds, a demanding task for any processor.

The CPU's L3 cache of 24 MB shared is beneficial for keeping frequently accessed game data close to the cores, reducing memory latency. The dual-channel DDR5 memory with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth provides ample data throughput for the CPU's needs, though at 4K, the GPU's own 960.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes the more relevant figure. The CPU's PassMark multi-thread score of 38,706 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,924 show that it's a capable all-rounder, but in Doom, the single-thread performance is what matters most.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (deltaPct -0.5) and the Intel Core i5-14600K (deltaPct 0.8), both of which have similar average benchmark scores. This indicates that the Core Ultra 5 245 is competitively positioned for gaming workloads, though its 14 threads (without hyperthreading) may limit it in more heavily threaded titles. In Doom, the 5.10 GHz boost clock is the key specification, and the data shows it's sufficient to keep the RX 7900 XTX fully utilized at 1080p and 1440p.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the star of this pairing, with a massive 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU is based on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 31 chip, featuring 6,144 shading units, 384 texture mapping units, and 192 ROPs. Its boost clock of 2498 MHz and game clock of 2365 MHz allow it to push 479.6 GPixel/s and 959.2 GTexel/s, which are the figures that directly determine Doom's frame rate at high resolutions.

At 4K, the RX 7900 XTX's performance is the primary constraint. At Ultra settings, the 77 FPS average indicates that the GPU is working at near-maximum capacity, with the 24 GB frame buffer being largely irrelevant. The 960.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient to feed the 384-bit memory interface, preventing any memory bandwidth bottlenecks. The GPU's FP32 performance of 61.39 TFLOPS is more than enough for Doom's DirectX 12 rendering, and the Vulkan API support (version 1.4) means the game can use modern rendering paths.

The GPU's benchmark scores show a mixed picture: its PassMark G3D score of 31,238 is strong, but its PassMark DirectX 12 score of 131 is surprisingly low, suggesting that the synthetic benchmarks may not fully reflect gaming performance. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 85,612 and OpenCL score of 50,465 indicate strong compute capabilities, but Doom is a graphics-bound title, so the pixel and texture rates are the relevant metrics. The GPU's percentile of 64 among all GPUs is lower than expected for a flagship card, but this is likely due to the benchmark database including many workstation and older cards that skew the distribution.

The RX 7900 XTX's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB (deltaPct 0.4) and the NVIDIA TITAN Xp (deltaPct 1.2), which are both older cards. This comparison is misleading for gaming performance — the GTX 1060 has only 3 GB of VRAM and a fraction of the compute power, yet its average benchmark score is similar due to the nature of the synthetic tests. In Doom, the RX 7900 XTX's real-world performance is far superior, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra average of 77 FPS, which would be impossible for a GTX 1060. The GPU's 24 GB VRAM and 960.0 GB/s bandwidth ensure that even at 4K with Ultra textures, there's no memory pressure, allowing the GPU to focus entirely on rendering.