Doom

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 63173 puts it nearly level with the Intel Core i7-13790F, which scores 63080 (a 0.1% difference). It trails the AMD Ryzen AI 7 450G by 0.2% (63331 score) and sits ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P185 by 0.5% (62839 score) and the Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX by 0.7% (62738 score).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile sits in the 73rd percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 27435 is essentially identical to the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (27425, 0% delta), while it lags the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 by just 0.5% (27565 score) and beats the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell by 1.1% (27135 score).

Q: What is the best preset for 4K gaming with this combo?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers an average of 69 FPS with minimum and maximum frames of 59 and 80 respectively. This is the only 4K setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS while also providing frame time data, making it the recommended choice for smooth 4K play.

Q: How much performance headroom does the CPU have in single-threaded workloads?

A: The CPU scores 5737 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 4500 in Passmark single-thread tests. Its Passmark single-thread result of 4500, combined with a 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, indicates strong per-core performance that supports high frame rates in less demanding scenes.

Q: What are the memory specifications that influence this gaming performance?

A: The CPU supports DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth. The GPU pairs 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These memory subsystems work together to feed the game's data requirements.

Q: Does the combo rank well among all tested configurations for Doom?

A: The combo ranks 2033 out of 3712 tested combinations, placing it in the 55th percentile of all tested combos for this game. This mid-pack position reflects the balance between the CPU's strong synthetic scores and the GPU's mid-range standing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy across presets at every resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 227 FPS average, Medium reaches 198 FPS, High drops to 167 FPS, and Ultra sits at 137 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum frame rate of 168 FPS and maximum of 228 FPS show that even at this mid-tier setting, the game rarely dips below the refresh rates of most high-frequency displays.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern continues with Low at 147 FPS, Medium at 128 FPS (minimum 109, maximum 148), High at 108 FPS, and Ultra at 89 FPS. The Medium preset again provides the best balance, maintaining an average well above 120 FPS while the minimum stays above 100 FPS. This suggests that for competitive play at 1440p, Medium offers both speed and stability.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes dramatically. Ultra drops to 48 FPS average, High manages 59 FPS, Medium achieves 69 FPS (minimum 59, maximum 80), and Low reaches 80 FPS. The Medium preset is the only setting that stays above the 60 FPS threshold for average frame rates, making it the sensible choice for 4K displays. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is only 11 FPS, which suggests diminishing returns from dropping settings further.

The data indicates that Medium is the sweet spot across all three resolutions. At 1080p, it delivers nearly 200 FPS with tight frame pacing. At 1440p, it maintains 128 FPS with a minimum above 100. At 4K, it's the only preset that clears the 60 FPS average bar. The High preset at 4K just misses 60 FPS, so users prioritizing smoothness over visual fidelity should step down one notch. Conversely, the Ultra preset's 48 FPS at 4K makes it viable only for slower-paced exploration rather than intense combat sequences.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, containing 22,900 million transistors on a 188 mm² die. Its base clock of 1395 MHz boosts to 1695 MHz, with memory running at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective). The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves adequate for Doom's texture streaming at 1080p and 1440p but becomes a limiting factor at 4K Ultra.

The GPU's shading capacity includes 4608 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output pipelines. It also features 36 ray tracing cores and 144 tensor cores, though Doom's 2016 engine does not utilize ray tracing. The pixel rate of 81.36 GPixel/s and texture rate of 244.1 GTexel/s help explain the frame rate progression across resolutions. At 4K, the GPU must process four times the pixels of 1080p, and the measured FPS drop of roughly 70% from Low 1080p to Low 4K reflects this fill rate pressure.

Comparing the GPU to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks shows it trading blows with desktop-class hardware. The Passmark G3D score of 19587 places it within 0.5% of the RTX 3090's 27565 average benchmark score, though those aggregate scores include compute workloads. In gaming-specific terms, the 73rd percentile ranking indicates this mobile GPU punches near desktop mid-range territory. The 115 W TDP suggests this is a full-power mobile implementation rather than a power-limited variant.

At 1080p Low, the GPU delivers 227 FPS, showing that Doom's id Tech 6 engine scales well with raw GPU throughput. The 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes relevant at 4K Ultra, where the game's high-resolution textures likely approach or exceed this limit, contributing to the 48 FPS average. The 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth also explains why 4K Medium (69 FPS) outperforms 4K High (59 FPS) by a larger margin than the settings difference alone would suggest.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile ranks 2033 out of 3712 tested combos for Doom. This places the configuration in the upper-middle tier of all tested systems, which aligns with the individual component rankings: the CPU sits in the 93rd percentile while the GPU occupies the 73rd percentile. The combo rank being lower than both component percentiles suggests that game-specific optimization or driver characteristics matter more than raw synthetic scores.

The gap between the CPU's strong 93rd percentile and the combo's 55th percentile position indicates that Doom is not primarily CPU-bound with this processor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the combo rank to sit closer to the CPU's percentile. Instead, the GPU's 73rd percentile more closely predicts the final ranking, suggesting the RTX 4070 Mobile is the limiting factor in most scenarios.

Looking at the measured FPS across all resolutions and settings, the combo demonstrates consistent scaling. At 1080p, even Ultra settings produce 137 FPS, which is well above playable thresholds. The 1440p Ultra result of 89 FPS remains smooth, while 4K Ultra drops to 48 FPS. This progression indicates that the combo has sufficient CPU headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions but becomes GPU-limited at higher pixel counts.

The rank of 2033 out of 3712 means roughly 45% of tested combos perform better in Doom. Many of those superior configurations likely pair stronger desktop GPUs with similar or less capable CPUs. The data suggests that for this specific game, the GPU choice matters more than CPU selection, as evidenced by the combo rank closely tracking the GPU's percentile rather than the CPU's higher standing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX features 20 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This Arrow Lake-HX architecture chip is manufactured on TSMC's 3 nm process, containing 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. The 30 MB shared L3 cache and 3 MB L2 cache per core provide substantial on-die storage for game data.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 40642 and Passmark multithread score of 47985. Single-threaded results are equally impressive: 5737 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 4500 in Passmark single-thread tests. These scores place the CPU in the 93rd percentile of all processors, with its nearest rival being the Intel Core i7-13790F at a 0.1% advantage.

For Doom specifically, the CPU's role becomes apparent when examining frame rates across settings at the same resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low (227 FPS) and Ultra (137 FPS) is 90 FPS, indicating that the GPU handles the extra graphical load while the CPU maintains high frame delivery. The fact that 1080p Low produces 227 FPS suggests the CPU can sustain frame rates well beyond what the GPU can render at higher settings.

The 20-core, 20-thread configuration without hyperthreading provides dedicated cores for game logic and background tasks. The 5.30 GHz boost clock helps with latency-sensitive single-threaded workloads, which Doom's engine relies on for physics and AI calculations. The 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth over dual-channel DDR5 ensures the CPU can feed data to the GPU without creating a bottleneck at lower resolutions.

At 4K, the CPU's influence diminishes. The difference between 4K Low (80 FPS) and 4K Ultra (48 FPS) shows the GPU becoming the primary constraint. If the CPU were limiting performance, we would expect the 4K Low result to be closer to the 1080p Low result. The 147 FPS gap between these two settings confirms that the RTX 4070 Mobile's rendering capacity, not the CPU, dictates performance at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 227 FPS, while Medium achieves 198 FPS with a minimum of 168 and maximum of 228. High settings drop to 167 FPS average, and Ultra settles at 137 FPS. The 90 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p demonstrates the GPU's scaling capability, with each settings tier costing roughly 30 FPS on average.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show the expected resolution penalty. Low settings yield 147 FPS average, Medium reaches 128 FPS (minimum 109, maximum 148), High produces 108 FPS, and Ultra drops to 89 FPS. The 58 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is smaller than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is starting to feel the pixel count pressure.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens. Low settings manage 80 FPS average, Medium achieves 69 FPS (minimum 59, maximum 80), High delivers 59 FPS, and Ultra falls to 48 FPS. The 32 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is the smallest of any resolution, suggesting that the GPU's rendering limits compress the settings scaling at this pixel density.

The Medium preset shows consistent frame pacing across all resolutions, with minimum frame rates that stay within 10-12% of the average. At 1080p Medium, the minimum of 168 FPS is 85% of the average. At 1440p Medium, the minimum of 109 FPS is 85% of the average. At 4K Medium, the minimum of 59 FPS is 86% of the average. This consistency suggests the combo handles Medium settings without stuttering or frame time spikes.

Comparing High settings across resolutions reveals a clearer bottleneck picture. The jump from 1080p High (167 FPS) to 1440p High (108 FPS) represents a 35% drop, while the jump from 1440p High to 4K High (59 FPS) is a 45% drop. This increasing percentage decline with each resolution step indicates the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are progressively limiting performance.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K follow a distinct pattern that reveals the limiting component. At Low settings, the progression goes from 227 FPS at 1080p to 147 FPS at 1440p to 80 FPS at 4K, representing 35% and 46% drops respectively. At Medium settings, the progression is 198 FPS to 128 FPS to 69 FPS, with drops of 35% and 46%. This consistent scaling across Low and Medium suggests a predictable GPU-bound behavior.

The High settings show a slightly different pattern: 167 FPS at 1080p, 108 FPS at 1440p, and 59 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 35%, matching the Low and Medium patterns, but the 1440p to 4K drop is 45%, indicating the GPU hits a harder wall at 4K with higher quality settings. Ultra settings follow a similar trend: 137 FPS at 1080p, 89 FPS at 1440p, and 48 FPS at 4K, with drops of 35% and 46%.

The theoretical pixel count between 1080p and 1440p is 78% more pixels, yet the FPS drops only 35%. Between 1440p and 4K, the pixel count increases by 125%, and the FPS drops by roughly 45-46%. This non-linear relationship indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth (256.0 GB/s) becomes a more significant constraint as resolution increases, since the texture fetch requirements grow faster than the raw pixel throughput.

The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal. With a 93rd percentile ranking and 5.30 GHz boost clock, the 265HX has ample headroom to maintain frame delivery at all tested resolutions. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the 1080p Low result to be capped at a lower value, since the CPU must process game logic and submit draw calls regardless of resolution. The fact that 1080p Low reaches 227 FPS proves the CPU can handle far more frames than the GPU can render at higher settings.

The 4K Medium result of 69 FPS (minimum 59) represents the best balance for 4K displays, while 1440p Medium at 128 FPS offers the smoothest experience for high-refresh-rate monitors. The data suggests that users with 1080p 144Hz displays can comfortably use High settings, while 4K 60Hz display owners should stick to Medium or Low to maintain consistent frame rates above the display's refresh threshold.