Doom

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows for Doom with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti show a clear pattern across all three resolutions: Medium settings consistently deliver the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate headroom. At 1920x1080, Medium produces 165 FPS average, which is 22.1 FPS higher than High (142.9 FPS) and 48.2 FPS higher than Ultra (116.8 FPS). Low settings push to 190.1 FPS, but the jump from Low to Medium only costs 25.1 FPS while providing substantially better image quality.

At 2560x1440, Medium yields 109.8 FPS average, comfortably above the 88.6 FPS of High and the 72.5 FPS of Ultra. Low reaches 124.7 FPS, but again, Medium's 14.9 FPS sacrifice over Low is well worth the visual improvement. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p is 21.2 FPS, while the gap between Medium and Ultra is 37.3 FPS, making Medium the clear sweet spot.

The 3840x2160 results reinforce this conclusion, though absolute frame rates drop significantly. Medium averages 61.5 FPS, which is 11.0 FPS behind Low (64.9 FPS) but 11.0 FPS ahead of High (50.5 FPS) and 21.2 FPS ahead of Ultra (40.3 FPS). For a fast-paced FPS, 61.5 FPS is playable, while High dips to 50.5 FPS and Ultra falls to 40.3 FPS, both of which are below the smoothness threshold for competitive play.

The data strongly favors Medium as the recommended preset across all resolutions. It provides the largest FPS-per-setting-step gain relative to the quality loss, and it maintains frame rates that are either above 60 FPS (at 4K) or well above 100 FPS (at 1080p and 1440p). Ultra settings, while visually impressive, cost 48.2 FPS at 1080p, 37.3 FPS at 1440p, and 21.2 FPS at 4K compared to Medium—drops that are too steep for the marginal visual improvement in a game with Doom's fast motion.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is the primary performance driver in this pairing, given the game's GPU-bound nature at higher settings. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which directly influences how quickly textures and geometry are fed to the rendering pipeline. The GPU's boost clock of 1665 MHz and base clock of 1410 MHz set the execution cadence, while its 4864 shading units handle the bulk of pixel and compute work.

The RTX 3060 Ti's benchmark scores contextualize its position. Its PassMark G3D score of 20349 and average benchmark score of 25120 place it at the 69th percentile among all GPUs. The nearest rivals—the AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25180 avg, -0.2% delta), AMD Radeon RX 6600 (25235 avg, -0.5% delta), AMD Radeon 890M (25246 avg, -0.5% delta), and AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (25287 avg, -0.7% delta)—are all within 0.7% of the RTX 3060 Ti's average score. This tight clustering indicates the GPU sits in a competitive mid-range tier, and its Doom performance reflects that positioning.

In Doom specifically, the GPU's 16.20 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 253.1 GTexel/s texture rate are the specs that matter most for raw fill-rate and shader work. The 80 ROPs handle pixel output, and the 133.2 GPixel/s pixel rate sets an upper ceiling on how fast frames can be rasterized. These figures align with the measured FPS: at 4K Ultra, the GPU drops to 40.3 FPS, indicating it is fully saturated by the combination of resolution and settings. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Doom's textures at all tested presets, as no memory-related stutter or crash is evident in the data.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 reveals how workload scales with pixel count and where the bottleneck sits. At Medium settings, the frame rates are 165 FPS (1080p), 109.8 FPS (1440p), and 61.5 FPS (4K). This represents a 33.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 44.0% drop from 1440p to 4K. The pixel count increases by 77.8% from 1080p to 1440p and by 125% from 1440p to 4K, meaning the FPS drop is proportionally smaller than the pixel increase—a sign that the GPU has headroom at lower resolutions.

At High settings, the same progression is 142.9 FPS (1080p), 88.6 FPS (1440p), and 50.5 FPS (4K). The percentage drops are 38.0% (1080p to 1440p) and 43.0% (1440p to 4K). Ultra settings show 116.8 FPS, 72.5 FPS, and 40.3 FPS respectively, with drops of 37.9% and 44.4%. Low settings yield 190.1 FPS, 124.7 FPS, and 64.9 FPS, with drops of 34.4% and 48.0%.

The consistency of these drops across settings—roughly 33-38% for the first step and 43-48% for the second—indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant factor, and the GPU is the limiting component at 4K. At 1080p, even Ultra settings achieve 116.8 FPS, which is above the refresh rate of most monitors, suggesting the CPU (with its 20 cores and 5.50 GHz boost clock) is not holding back the GPU. The data shows that the RTX 3060 Ti reaches its practical limit at 4K Medium (61.5 FPS), and users targeting 60 FPS at 4K should stick to Medium or lower.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: The full settings sweep shows Low at 190.1 FPS, Medium at 165 FPS, High at 142.9 FPS, and Ultra at 116.8 FPS. The differences are 25.1 FPS (Low to Medium), 22.1 FPS (Medium to High), and 26.1 FPS (High to Ultra). This linear degradation—roughly 20-26 FPS per settings step—suggests a balanced scaling curve where each preset tier adds comparable load. The 73.3 FPS spread between Low and Ultra is the largest of any resolution, indicating that at 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom to fully express settings differences.

2560x1440: Low produces 124.7 FPS, Medium 109.8 FPS, High 88.6 FPS, and Ultra 72.5 FPS. The step differences are 14.9 FPS (Low to Medium), 21.2 FPS (Medium to High), and 16.1 FPS (High to Ultra). The spread narrows to 52.2 FPS between Low and Ultra, showing that the GPU's performance ceiling begins to compress the settings range. All presets remain above 70 FPS, so 1440p is playable at any setting, but only Low and Medium break the 100 FPS mark.

3840x2160: Low averages 64.9 FPS, Medium 61.5 FPS, High 50.5 FPS, and Ultra 40.3 FPS. The step differences shrink to 3.4 FPS (Low to Medium), 11.0 FPS (Medium to High), and 10.2 FPS (High to Ultra). The total spread is just 24.6 FPS, the smallest of all resolutions. This compression indicates the GPU is heavily load-bound at 4K, with diminishing returns from settings changes. Only Low and Medium stay above 60 FPS, while High and Ultra fall below the smoothness threshold.

The data also shows the combo's overall ranking: this CPU+GPU combination ranks 1232 out of 1681 tested combinations for Doom, placing it in the 73rd percentile of all combos. The measured data is confirmed as real (dataIsMeasured: true), lending confidence to these numbers.

FAQ

Q: What is the best setting for 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Medium settings at 3840x2160 produce 61.5 FPS average, which is the only preset above 60 FPS besides Low (64.9 FPS). High drops to 50.5 FPS and Ultra to 40.3 FPS, both below the 60 FPS target.

Q: How much FPS does Ultra cost compared to Medium at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Ultra averages 116.8 FPS versus Medium's 165 FPS, a difference of 48.2 FPS. This is the largest settings penalty in the entire measured dataset.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor at 1440p?

A: The data points to the GPU. At 2560x1440, the FPS drops by roughly 34-38% from 1080p at every settings level, which aligns with the increased pixel workload. The CPU's high benchmark scores (97th percentile, 50009 in Cinebench R23 multi-core) suggest it is not the bottleneck.

Q: How does the RTX 3060 Ti compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 25120, which is only 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25180), 0.5% behind the RX 6600 (25235), and 0.7% behind the RX 580 2048SP (25287). These are effectively performance ties.

Q: Can this combo handle 1440p at High settings?

A: Yes, High at 2560x1440 averages 88.6 FPS, which is well above 60 FPS. Even Ultra at 1440p reaches 72.5 FPS, so all settings are playable at this resolution.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K?

A: Low averages 64.9 FPS while Ultra averages 40.3 FPS at 3840x2160, a difference of 24.6 FPS. This is the smallest Low-to-Ultra spread across all resolutions, showing the GPU's 4K saturation.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K provides the processing foundation for this Doom configuration. With 20 cores and 20 threads, a base clock of 3.90 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, this Arrow Lake-S architecture processor (built on TSMC's 3 nm process) delivers substantial compute capability. Its 30 MB shared L3 cache and 3 MB L2 cache per core help keep frequently accessed data close to the execution units.

The CPU's benchmark results place it firmly in the high-end desktop tier. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 50009 and single-core score of 7060 demonstrate strong parallel and single-threaded performance. The PassMark multithread score of 58838 and single-thread score of 4904 corroborate this. The CPU's 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79102, puts it just 0.2% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF (79240) and Intel Core i9-14900KF (79245), and 0.9% behind the i9-14900K (79824).

In Doom, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics, and game logic. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo reaches 190.1 FPS, which is a high frame rate that could stress CPU single-thread performance. However, given the CPU's strong single-core scores (711 in Cinebench R15 single-core, 2965 in R20, 7060 in R23), it is unlikely to be the limiting factor. The consistent FPS drops from 1080p to 1440p to 4K are proportional to pixel count increases, which is a GPU-bound signature.

The CPU's 20 cores and 20 threads (no hyperthreading) are more than sufficient for a 2016-era game like Doom, which was designed to run on far less capable hardware. The 125 W TDP and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (102.4 GB/s bandwidth) provide ample memory bandwidth for the GPU to draw from. The PCIe Gen 5 interface with 20 CPU lanes ensures no bandwidth bottleneck between the CPU and GPU.

The data shows that this CPU+GPU combination ranks 1232 out of 1681 tested combos for Doom, which might seem modest given the CPU's high percentile ranking. This is because the RTX 3060 Ti, at the 69th GPU percentile, is the constraining component. The CPU has significant headroom—its 50009 Cinebench R23 multi-core score indicates it could drive a much faster GPU without becoming a bottleneck. For Doom specifically, the 265K is effectively overkill, but it ensures that frame rates are stable and consistent across all settings, as evidenced by the smooth FPS scaling in the measured data.