Doom

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H paired with the AMD Radeon 8060S lands at rank 1671 out of 2930 tested combos in Doom. That places this configuration in the upper-middle tier of the database — roughly the 43rd percentile of all tested pairings. The position is respectable but not elite, suggesting a system that handles the game comfortably without dominating the leaderboard.

What makes this rank interesting is the gap between the two components' individual standings. The GPU sits at the 87th percentile among all tested GPUs, while the CPU holds the 85th percentile among all CPUs. Both are above-average parts, yet their combined rank is dragged down relative to the top combos. This hints at a pairing where neither component is the bottleneck, but the system as a whole doesn't reach the heights of the very best configurations.

The data reveals a curious pattern when examining the nearest rivals for each component. The CPU's closest competitor is the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350, with a delta of just -0.1%. That means the Core Ultra 9 185H is effectively tied with that chip in average benchmark score. The Intel Core 7 250H trails by -0.2%, and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 is -0.4% behind. Even the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, a desktop part, only beats this mobile CPU by 0.7%. The Core Ultra 9 185H is remarkably well-matched against these alternatives, all within a single percentage point.

The GPU's rival list tells a different story. The Radeon 8060S is 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, which is essentially a tie. But then the comparisons get stranger: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 leads by 0.6%, and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X trails by 1.7%. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 sits 2.8% behind. These deltas are small, but the presence of the RTX 5080 as a near-peer is notable — it suggests the 8060S punches well above what its integrated form factor might imply.

The combo rank of 1671 makes sense when you consider that Doom is a well-optimized title from 2016. The game scales across a wide range of hardware, so the middle-tier rank reflects a system that delivers smooth gameplay but doesn't push the extreme frame rates seen in top-tier desktop rigs. The rank also implies headroom — this combo isn't struggling, but it's not maxing out the game's potential either.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 8060S is the star of this pairing, built on the Strix Halo chip with RDNA 3.5 architecture. It's a mobile integrated graphics solution, but its specifications read like a discrete part. The GPU boasts 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. It also includes 40 ray tracing cores, which is substantial for an iGPU.

Clock speeds are aggressive for an integrated solution. The base clock runs at 1295 MHz, but the boost clock reaches 2900 MHz. That boost figure is particularly high, enabling the GPU to push significant throughput when the workload demands it. The pixel rate is 185.6 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 464.0 GTexel/s. Floating point performance hits 14.85 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16, indicating balanced compute capabilities.

Memory configuration is where this GPU deviates from typical designs. The 8060S uses System Shared memory — there's no dedicated VRAM. The memory type, bus width, and bandwidth are all listed as "System Shared" or "System Dependent." This means the GPU relies on the CPU's memory controller, which for the Core Ultra 9 185H is dual-channel DDR5 with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. This shared memory architecture is a double-edged sword: it allows for flexible allocation but can bottleneck performance in memory-intensive scenarios.

In Doom's measured results, the GPU's capabilities shine at 1080p but taper off at higher resolutions. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo hits 211 FPS average. That drops to 155 FPS at High settings — a 26.5% reduction. At 4K, the same settings spread shows 74 FPS at Low versus 55 FPS at High, a 25.7% drop. The consistency of these percentage drops across resolutions suggests the GPU is scaling predictably with settings, but the absolute numbers at 4K reveal its limits.

The GPU's 87th percentile ranking among all GPUs is confirmed by its average benchmark score of 55757. Its nearest rival, the RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, scores 55698 — a 0.1% difference. This places the 8060S in territory where it competes with dedicated mid-range desktop GPUs, an impressive feat for an integrated solution. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2162 and Geekbench OpenCL score of 84626 further corroborate this performance tier.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how this combo scales across resolutions. At 1080p with Medium settings, the system averages 184 FPS. Moving to 1440p at Medium drops that to 119 FPS, a 35.3% reduction. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 65 FPS, another 45.4% drop from 1440p. These steep declines indicate the GPU is the primary constraint as resolution increases.

The Low settings preset tells a similar story. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 211 FPS. At 1440p Low, it's 137 FPS — a 35.1% decrease. At 4K Low, it's 74 FPS, which is 46% lower than 1440p. The near-identical percentage drops between Low and Medium presets suggest that resolution scaling is consistent regardless of graphical complexity.

High settings produce the most dramatic scaling. From 155 FPS at 1080p to 101 FPS at 1440p, that's a 34.8% drop. Then from 1440p to 4K, it falls to 55 FPS, a 45.5% reduction. Ultra settings follow suit: 127 FPS at 1080p, 82 FPS at 1440p (35.4% drop), and 45 FPS at 4K (45.1% drop).

The pattern is remarkably uniform across all settings presets. The 1080p-to-1440p transition consistently costs about 35% of performance, while the 1440p-to-4K transition costs about 45%. This consistency indicates that the limiting component is handling resolution scaling in a predictable manner — the GPU is the bottleneck.

What does this say about the CPU's role? The Core Ultra 9 185H has 16 cores and 22 threads, with a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. In a game like Doom, which is not heavily multithreaded, the CPU has ample headroom. The consistent FPS drops across resolutions imply that the CPU is not becoming a limiting factor even at 1080p where frame rates are highest. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we'd expect the FPS drops to flatten out at higher resolutions as the GPU becomes more constrained. That's not what the data shows.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce an average of 211 FPS. Medium settings average 184 FPS, with a minimum of 156 and maximum of 212. High settings come in at 155 FPS average. Ultra settings drop to 127 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 84 FPS, representing a 39.8% performance hit from the lowest to highest quality preset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers scale down proportionally. Low settings average 137 FPS. Medium averages 119 FPS, with a minimum of 101 and maximum of 137. High settings average 101 FPS. Ultra settings hit 82 FPS. The total spread at 1440p is 55 FPS, a 40.1% reduction from Low to Ultra — nearly identical to the 1080p percentage.

At 3840x2160, performance becomes more modest. Low settings average 74 FPS. Medium averages 65 FPS, with a minimum of 55 and maximum of 74. High settings average 55 FPS. Ultra settings drop to 45 FPS. The spread here is 29 FPS, a 39.2% reduction from Low to Ultra. Again, the consistency across resolutions is striking.

The Medium preset rows provide the only min/max data in the entire set. At 1080p Medium, the range is 156 to 212 FPS, giving a variance of 56 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range is 101 to 137, a variance of 36 FPS. At 4K Medium, the range is 55 to 74, a variance of 19 FPS. The shrinking variance at higher resolutions indicates that frame pacing becomes more consistent as the GPU workload increases — a sign that the system is not experiencing CPU-related stutters.

Ultra settings at 4K produce the lowest result: 45 FPS average. This is below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the baseline for smooth gameplay. However, at 1080p Ultra, the 127 FPS average is well above that threshold. The data suggests that players targeting 4K should avoid Ultra settings, while those at 1080p can comfortably max out the game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is a 16-core, 22-thread processor based on the Meteor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. The thermal design power is 45 W, which is typical for a high-performance mobile chip. Cache configuration includes 112 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache.

In Doom, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, but it's still important. The game's engine is primarily single-threaded in its core loop, though it can utilize multiple threads for certain tasks. The Core Ultra 9 185H's single-core performance is strong — its Cinebench R23 single-core score is 1810.5, and Geekbench single-core is 1794. These figures indicate robust per-thread performance that can handle the game's main thread without becoming a bottleneck.

The multi-core scores are equally impressive. Cinebench R23 multi-core hits 17984.5, and Geekbench multi-core reaches 11657. In Passmark tests, the CPU scores 29376 in multithread, 1956 in physics, and 3697 in single-thread. The CPU's average benchmark score is 35670, placing it at the 85th percentile among all CPUs.

The nearest rival data for the CPU shows how tightly grouped this performance tier is. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 scores 35719, just 0.1% higher. The Intel Core 7 250H scores 35728, 0.2% higher. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 scores 35802, 0.4% higher. Even the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, a desktop processor, only scores 35909, 0.7% higher. The Core Ultra 9 185H is essentially at parity with these alternatives.

In the context of Doom's measured FPS, the CPU's contribution is most evident at 1080p with Low settings, where 211 FPS average is achieved. At such high frame rates, the CPU must process game logic and feed the GPU efficiently. The fact that the system maintains consistent performance across settings presets — with the same percentage drops — suggests the CPU is not limiting the GPU at any resolution.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s is relevant here, especially given the GPU's System Shared memory architecture. The dual-channel DDR5 configuration provides the bandwidth that the Radeon 8060S draws upon for its frame buffer. At 4K, where memory pressure is highest, the shared memory could contribute to the performance drop, though the GPU's compute limitations are likely the primary factor.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for optimal settings. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 127 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Even the most demanding settings at 1080p leave plenty of headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors. Players with 144 Hz displays can comfortably run Ultra at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset drops to 82 FPS average. This is still above 60 FPS, making it playable, but the margin is thinner. The High preset at 1440p delivers 101 FPS, which is a better balance for players who prioritize frame rates. The Medium preset at 119 FPS is even smoother, at the cost of some visual fidelity. For 1440p, the data suggests High settings as the sweet spot — it maintains triple-digit FPS while retaining quality.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes significantly. The Ultra preset averages 45 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold and may feel sluggish in a fast-paced FPS. The High preset averages 55 FPS, still below 60 FPS. The Medium preset hits 65 FPS, which crosses the 60 FPS line. The Low preset averages 74 FPS, providing the most comfortable margin. For 4K, the Medium preset appears to be the best trade-off — it achieves 65 FPS average while maintaining reasonable visual quality.

The min/max data from the Medium preset rows adds context. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 55 FPS and the maximum is 74 FPS. This range indicates that the game can dip below 60 FPS in demanding scenes, even at Medium settings. Players who are sensitive to frame drops might prefer the Low preset at 4K, which averages 74 FPS and likely stays above 60 FPS more consistently.

The overall recommendation is resolution-dependent. At 1080p, Ultra is the clear choice. At 1440p, High offers the best balance of quality and performance. At 4K, Medium provides the most playable experience without sacrificing too much visual detail. The data shows that this combo can handle Doom at high quality at 1080p and 1440p, but requires compromises at 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank for this system in Doom?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H with AMD Radeon 8060S ranks 1671 out of 2930 tested combos, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Radeon 8060S is 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, 0.6% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, 1.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X, and 2.8% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gameplay?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 65 FPS, which is the lowest settings level that maintains an average above 60 FPS. The Low preset averages 74 FPS for a larger margin.

Q: How does the CPU compare to the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X?

A: The Core Ultra 9 185H scores 0.7% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X in average benchmark score, with the 7700X scoring 35909 versus 35670 for the Intel chip.

Q: What is the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 155 at 1920x1080 to 101 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 34.8%.

Q: Does the system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 45, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.