Doom

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 produces a dataset that clearly illustrates the boundaries of this combination in Doom. The measured frames per second across resolutions and settings reveal a system where the graphics card is the primary constraint, while the processor’s substantial core and thread count provides ample headroom. This analysis examines the scaling behavior, the distinct roles of each component, and the practical settings recommendations derived from the measured rows.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 delivers a steep performance drop, confirming that pixel count is the dominant variable for this pairing. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 75 FPS at 1080p to 49 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 26 FPS, and then to 26 FPS at 4K, which is less than half of the 1080p figure. This pattern is consistent across all presets. Low settings show a drop from 102 FPS at 1080p to 66 FPS at 1440p and finally to 36 FPS at 4K. Medium settings follow with 89 FPS, 58 FPS, and 31 FPS across the same resolutions. Ultra settings, the most demanding preset, produce 62 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 22 FPS at 4K.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly punishing. For High settings, the drop from 49 FPS to 26 FPS represents a 46.9% reduction in frame rate. Low settings fare similarly, moving from 66 FPS to 36 FPS, a 45.5% decline. Medium settings lose 27 FPS, going from 58 to 31. Ultra settings fall from 40 FPS to 22 FPS, a 45% decrease. This consistent reduction of roughly 45% across all presets when moving to 4K indicates that the RX 580’s memory bandwidth and pixel throughput are saturated. The GPU’s 256.0 GB/s bandwidth and 42.88 GPixel/s pixel rate are fixed resources that cannot compensate for the fourfold increase in pixel workload from 1080p to 4K.

Conversely, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is less severe but still substantial. High settings drop from 75 to 49 FPS, a 34.7% reduction. Low settings go from 102 to 66 FPS, a 35.3% decline. Medium settings lose 31 FPS, falling from 89 to 58. Ultra settings drop from 62 to 40 FPS, a 35.5% reduction. The consistency of these percentages suggests that the limiting component scales linearly with pixel count, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. The CPU’s 24 cores and 24 threads are not the bottleneck here; if they were, the frame rates would show less variation between resolutions.

At 1080p, the highest measured average is 102 FPS on Low settings, which indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at this resolution. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 40 FPS, from 102 down to 62, showing that the GPU’s workload increases significantly with preset quality. At 4K, the gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 14 FPS, from 36 down to 22, because the GPU is already overwhelmed by the resolution, leaving little room for settings to make a difference. This data shows that Doom at 4K is entirely GPU-limited for this combo, while 1080p allows the GPU more headroom to respond to settings changes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, built on a 3 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, and it has 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor’s benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44253 and a single-core score of 2439. In PassMark, it achieves a multi-thread score of 68574 and a single-thread score of 5068. These figures place it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 93785. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon 6520P with an average score of 93786 (0% delta), the AMD EPYC 4564P at 95183 (-1.5%), the AMD EPYC 9175F at 95615 (-1.9%), and the AMD EPYC 4565P at 95764 (-2.1%). This indicates the 270K Plus performs on par with high-end server processors in synthetic tests, though those chips target different workloads.

In Doom, the CPU’s role is to prepare frames for the GPU. The measured FPS at 1080p Low settings, which is the least GPU-intensive configuration, reaches 102 FPS. This is the highest score in the entire dataset, and it demonstrates that the CPU can sustain frame rates well above what the GPU can typically render at higher settings. The fact that 1080p Ultra produces 62 FPS, while 4K Low produces 36 FPS, shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor. If the CPU were saturated, the frame rates would not scale so dramatically with resolution changes.

The processor’s 24 threads are far more than Doom requires, as this game was released in 2016 and is not known for heavy multi-threading. The high single-thread performance, evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2439 and PassMark single-thread score of 5068, ensures that the game’s main simulation thread is handled efficiently. The boost clock of 5.50 GHz provides the latency-sensitive performance needed for frame pacing, but the data shows that the GPU cannot take full advantage of this capability at higher resolutions. At 4K, even with Low settings, the RX 580 only manages 36 FPS, which is a fraction of what the CPU could theoretically support.

The CPU’s memory support for DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and 115.2 GB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient for this game. The L3 cache of 36 MB shared across cores helps with data locality, but again, the GPU’s limitations dominate the results. The 270K Plus’s percentile rank of 96 versus all CPUs confirms its top-tier status, yet in this gaming context, it is underutilized. The measured FPS data shows no scenario where the CPU becomes the bottleneck, as even the lowest frame rates at 4K are far below what the processor can deliver.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is a Polaris 20 chip from the GCN 4.0 architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. It has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The base clock is 1257 MHz with a boost clock of 1340 MHz, and memory runs at 2000 MHz with 8 Gbps effective speed. The 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s pixel rate is 42.88 GPixel/s and texture rate is 193.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 6.175 TFLOPS. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 1005, and in PassMark G3D, it scores 8813. Its percentile rank is 53 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 12928. Nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile at 12940 (-0.1% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER at 12986 (-0.4%), the AMD Radeon 740M at 12870 (+0.5%), and the AMD FirePro W5100 at 12847 (+0.6%). This places the RX 580 in the mid-range category, and the Doom results reflect this positioning.

The GPU is the clear limiting component in this pairing. At 4K High settings, the average FPS is 26, which is below the playable threshold for most users. Even at 4K Low, the GPU only achieves 36 FPS. The 8 GB of VRAM is not the issue at these settings, as Doom’s textures at 4K can be demanding, but the data shows that the GPU’s compute and bandwidth capabilities are insufficient. The memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s is a fixed constraint, and the 42.88 GPixel/s pixel rate means that filling a 3840x2160 frame takes significantly longer than a 1920x1080 frame.

The GPU’s clock speeds, with a boost of 1340 MHz, are modest compared to modern cards, but the architecture’s age is the primary factor. GCN 4.0 lacks the dedicated ray tracing cores found in newer GPUs, and its FP32 performance of 6.175 TFLOPS is limited. The measured FPS at 1080p Ultra of 62 FPS shows that the GPU can handle the game at this resolution with high settings, but it cannot maintain that performance at higher resolutions. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra settings, dropping from 62 to 40 FPS, indicates that the GPU’s fill rate and shading capacity are being taxed.

The GPU’s PassMark DirectX 12 score of 43 is low, reflecting its age, but Doom uses the Vulkan API, which is supported (version 1.3). The GPU’s Vulkan benchmark in Geekbench is 45173, which is higher than its OpenCL score of 37453. This suggests that the Vulkan path in Doom is well optimized for this architecture, but it cannot overcome the hardware limits. The RX 580’s 8 GB of VRAM is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the memory bandwidth becomes a bottleneck, as shown by the steep FPS drops.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which preset offers the best experience. At 1920x1080, Medium settings produce an average of 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS. This is the sweet spot for this resolution, as it stays above 60 FPS consistently while providing better visual quality than Low. High settings at 1080p yield 75 FPS, which is also playable, but the 14 FPS difference between Medium and High is noticeable, and the minimum FPS for High is not recorded, making Medium the safer choice for frame stability. Ultra at 1080p drops to 62 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold, but the lack of a recorded minimum FPS suggests potential dips below that level.

At 2560x1440, Medium settings average 58 FPS with a minimum of 49 FPS and a maximum of 66 FPS. This is below the ideal 60 FPS mark, but it is the most balanced option. High settings at 1440p average 49 FPS, which is playable but not smooth. Low settings at 1440p produce 66 FPS, which is better than Medium in terms of frame rate, but the visual quality trade-off may not be worth it for all users. Ultra at 1440p drops to 40 FPS, which is too low for a fast-paced FPS like Doom. For 1440p, Medium is recommended if visual fidelity is preferred, but Low offers a more fluid experience.

At 3840x2160, the highest average is 36 FPS on Low settings, which is not suitable for competitive play. Medium at 4K averages 31 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 36 FPS, indicating severe frame drops. High at 4K averages 26 FPS, and Ultra averages 22 FPS. None of these are playable for a game that requires quick reactions. The data suggests that 4K is not a viable option for this combo, and users should stick to 1080p or 1440p. The best overall experience is 1080p Medium, which offers 89 FPS average and a minimum of 76 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay without sacrificing too much visual quality.

The comparison between presets shows that the GPU’s performance scales almost linearly with settings at each resolution. At 1080p, Low to Medium is a 13 FPS increase in average (from 102 to 89), while Medium to High is a 14 FPS decrease (from 89 to 75). This indicates that the GPU is not hitting a hard limit at 1080p, and the settings have a direct impact on frame rate. At 4K, the differences are smaller, with Low to Medium dropping 5 FPS (36 to 31), and Medium to High dropping another 5 FPS (31 to 26). This shows that the GPU is saturated at 4K, and reducing settings has diminishing returns.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 2675 out of 2930 combos for Doom. This places it in the bottom 9% of all tested configurations. The rank reflects the GPU’s age and mid-range performance, despite the CPU’s top-tier status. The CPU’s percentile of 96 versus all CPUs is not enough to overcome the GPU’s percentile of 53, which drags the combo down in the rankings.

The combo rank indicates that most other tested combos achieve higher frame rates in Doom. This is expected, as the RX 580 was released in 2017 and has been superseded by multiple generations of GPUs. The CPU, on the other hand, is a high-end processor from 2026, but its performance in this game is limited by the GPU. The data shows that the combo is CPU-heavy, meaning the processor has significant headroom that is not utilized. This is a common pattern when pairing a modern CPU with an older GPU.

The rank of 2675 out of 2930 suggests that users with this combo should consider upgrading the GPU to improve Doom performance. The CPU’s capabilities would allow a much faster GPU to perform well, but the RX 580 is the bottleneck. The nearest rival GPUs, such as the GTX 1660 SUPER or RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, have similar average benchmark scores, but their performance in Doom would likely be better due to newer architectures. However, the data provided does not include their Doom-specific FPS, so the comparison is limited to the combo rank.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Doom?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 102, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this combo?

A: No, the highest average FPS at 3840x2160 is 36 on Low settings, which is below playable levels. Medium settings drop to 31 FPS, and Ultra drops to 22 FPS.

Q: Which settings preset provides the best balance at 1080p?

A: Medium settings at 1920x1080 provide an average of 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS, which is the best balance of performance and visual quality.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested combinations?

A: It ranks 2675 out of 2930 combos for Doom, placing it in the lower percentile of tested systems.

Q: What is the CPU’s benchmark percentile?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 93785.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory bandwidth?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 580 has a memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s, utilizing 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low settings yield 102 FPS, Medium settings yield 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS, High settings yield 75 FPS, and Ultra settings yield 62 FPS. The minimum and maximum values are only recorded for Medium settings, which shows a range of 27 FPS between the lowest and highest frames.

At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 66 FPS, Medium settings produce 58 FPS with a minimum of 49 FPS and a maximum of 66 FPS, High settings produce 49 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 40 FPS. The Medium preset at this resolution has a wider range of 17 FPS, indicating less consistent frame times compared to 1080p.

At 3840x2160, Low settings average 36 FPS, Medium settings average 31 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 36 FPS, High settings average 26 FPS, and Ultra settings average 22 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K has a range of 9 FPS, which is narrower than lower resolutions due to the GPU being fully saturated.

The data shows a clear progression: as resolution increases, the average FPS drops, and the differences between settings presets shrink. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 40 FPS (102 to 62). At 1440p, the gap is 26 FPS (66 to 40). At 4K, the gap is only 14 FPS (36 to 22). This confirms that the GPU is the limiting component, and its performance ceiling is reached at 4K regardless of settings. The measured FPS values are consistent with the GPU’s mid-range benchmark scores and its percentile rank of 53 among all GPUs.