Doom

The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile delivers a highly playable Doom experience across all tested configurations, though the data reveals distinct thresholds where visual fidelity must be traded for frame rate. This combination ranks in the 33rd percentile of tested combos, indicating that while it is not at the bleeding edge, it offers a robust performance profile for this 2016 FPS title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data clearly indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience for this hardware combination, particularly at 1440p and 4K resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 171 FPS with a minimum of 146 FPS, which ensures smooth gameplay even during intense combat sequences. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 26 FPS (from 197 to 171), but the visual upgrade is substantial in a fast-paced title like Doom, where texture clarity and lighting effects significantly impact target acquisition.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset yields 111 FPS average with a minimum of 94 FPS, keeping the experience well above the 60 FPS threshold for competitive play. High settings at this resolution drop to 94 FPS average, still playable but with less headroom for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset at 1440p produces 77 FPS, which is acceptable for single-player exploration but may feel less responsive in multiplayer scenarios where higher frame rates provide a competitive advantage.

For 4K gaming, the data shows that Medium is the highest viable setting, delivering 60 FPS average with a minimum of 51 FPS. This is right at the edge of smooth gameplay, and players with variable refresh rate displays will appreciate the consistency. High settings at 4K drop to 51 FPS average, which introduces noticeable judder during fast camera movements. The Low preset at 4K achieves 69 FPS, but the visual compromise is severe for a game that relies heavily on atmospheric lighting and gore effects.

The Ultra preset is only recommended for 1080p, where it produces 118 FPS average. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 77 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 42 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable gameplay. The data suggests that players prioritizing frame rate should stick with Medium across all resolutions, while those with 1080p displays can safely enable Ultra for the best visual experience without sacrificing responsiveness.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile achieves a rank of 2470 out of 3712 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the lower third of the database. This ranking reflects the GPU's position in the market rather than any bottleneck from the CPU, as the processor's benchmark scores are exceptional. The RTX 5060 Mobile sits at the 67th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22435, which is competitive but not top-tier.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database illustrate its positioning. The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT scores 22549, just 0.5% higher, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile scores 22729, 1.3% higher. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 and RX 6700S score 22170 and 22154 respectively, which are 1.2% and 1.3% lower. This tight clustering means the RTX 5060 Mobile is essentially performance-equivalent to its immediate competitors, and the ranking in Doom is more a function of the game's engine scaling with GPU compute rather than any architectural advantage.

The CPU, meanwhile, ranks at the 94th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 67469. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon w5-3525 at 67673 (0.3% higher), the AMD EPYC 4484PX at 67822 (0.5% higher), and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5955WX at 67868 (0.6% higher). The Intel Xeon 6515P scores 67006, which is 0.7% lower. This places the Ultra 9 275HX in elite company, and its performance in Doom is more than sufficient to feed the GPU at all tested settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, featuring 21,900 million transistors on an 181 mm² die. The GPU operates with a base clock of 952 MHz and a boost clock of 1455 MHz, with memory running at 1500 MHz for an effective 24 Gbps. The 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 384.0 GB/s, which is adequate for Doom's texture-heavy environments at 1080p and 1440p but becomes a limiting factor at 4K.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 3328 shading units, 104 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. The presence of 26 ray tracing cores and 104 tensor cores enables DirectX 12 Ultimate features, though Doom's original release predates widespread ray tracing implementation. The pixel rate of 69.84 GPixel/s and texture rate of 151.3 GTexel/s are modest figures, explaining the GPU's performance ceiling in this title. The FP32 throughput of 9.684 TFLOPS places it in the mid-range segment, consistent with its benchmark scores showing it alongside the RX 7700 XT and RTX 4060 Mobile.

The 45 W TDP with no power connectors suggests this is a highly efficient mobile implementation, and the PCIe 5.0 x16 interface ensures no bandwidth bottleneck from the CPU. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support with version 12_2, along with OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4, means it can fully utilize Doom's Vulkan renderer, which is the preferred API for this game due to its lower CPU overhead and better multi-threading.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance envelope is impressive across all settings. The Low preset achieves 197 FPS average, which represents the absolute ceiling for this combination. Medium drops to 171 FPS, still exceptionally smooth, with a minimum of 146 FPS and maximum of 197 FPS. High settings produce 145 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 118 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 40% reduction in frame rate, but even the lowest value is well above the refresh rate of most gaming monitors.

Moving to 2560x1440, the GPU begins to show its limits. Low settings deliver 127 FPS average, which is a 35.5% drop from 1080p. Medium achieves 111 FPS with a minimum of 94 FPS and maximum of 128 FPS, maintaining smooth gameplay. High settings produce 94 FPS, which is still playable but requires a 144 Hz display to fully appreciate. Ultra drops to 77 FPS, which is acceptable for slower-paced sections but may cause noticeable stutter during rapid movement.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 5060 Mobile struggles to maintain high frame rates. Low settings produce 69 FPS average, which is playable but requires significant visual compromises. Medium achieves 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 FPS, sitting right at the boundary of acceptable performance. High settings drop to 51 FPS, which introduces screen tearing on standard displays. Ultra falls to 42 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable gameplay and should be avoided.

The data shows a clear pattern: the GPU is well-suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming at Medium to High settings, but 4K gaming requires either Low settings or acceptance of sub-60 FPS frame rates. The minimum FPS values for Medium settings across all resolutions (146 at 1080p, 94 at 1440p, 51 at 4K) indicate that the GPU maintains consistent performance without severe frame drops, which is crucial for a fast-paced FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The performance degradation from 1080p to 4K follows an expected pattern, but the magnitude reveals important insights about the system's bottleneck. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 171 at 1080p to 111 at 1440p, a 35.1% reduction, and then to 60 at 4K, a further 45.9% reduction from 1440p. This scaling is steeper than the pixel count increase would suggest, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings shows a 64.9% reduction in FPS, while the pixel count increases by 400%. This non-linear relationship suggests that Doom's rendering pipeline becomes increasingly GPU-bound as resolution increases, with memory bandwidth and fill rate becoming limiting factors. The 384.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 69.84 GPixel/s pixel rate are insufficient to maintain proportional performance at 4K.

Looking at the Low settings scaling, the drop from 197 FPS at 1080p to 127 FPS at 1440p (35.5% reduction) and then to 69 FPS at 4K (45.7% reduction from 1440p) shows a similar pattern. The High settings demonstrate an even steeper decline, with 145 FPS at 1080p dropping to 94 FPS at 1440p (35.2% reduction) and then to 51 FPS at 4K (45.7% reduction). This consistency across settings confirms that the GPU's compute and memory resources are the limiting factor rather than any CPU constraint.

The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal, as the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX provides ample headroom. The processor's 24 cores and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, ensure that Doom's game logic and physics calculations never bottleneck the GPU. The 36 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth provide sufficient data throughput for the game's asset streaming, even at 4K resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX is a powerhouse mobile processor built on the Arrow Lake architecture using TSMC's 3 nm process. With 24 cores and 24 threads, it offers substantial multi-threading capability, though Doom's engine is not heavily threaded. The base clock of 2.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide excellent single-threaded performance, which is critical for game logic and physics calculations. The processor's benchmark scores confirm its capabilities, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35589 and single-core score of 2204.

In Doom, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and handle game state updates. The processor's PassMark single-thread score of 4713 and Geekbench single-core score of 2458 indicate strong per-core performance, which translates to consistent frame times even in complex scenes with numerous enemies and particle effects. The 3 MB L2 cache per core and 192 KB L1 cache per core provide low-latency access to frequently used data, reducing potential stalls.

The processor's memory architecture, with dual-channel DDR5 support and 102.4 GB/s bandwidth, is more than sufficient for Doom's requirements. The 36 MB shared L3 cache helps with asset reuse across cores, though the game's textures are primarily streamed from VRAM. The PCIe Gen 5 interface with 20 lanes ensures that the GPU has full bandwidth available, eliminating any potential data transfer bottlenecks between CPU and GPU.

The Ultra 9 275HX's benchmark scores place it in the top 6% of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals are all server or workstation processors. This level of performance is overkill for Doom, as demonstrated by the consistent frame rates across all settings. The CPU's 55 W TDP, while modest for a 24-core part, is sufficient for sustained gaming workloads without thermal throttling, ensuring that the processor maintains its boost clocks during extended play sessions. The integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU, while not used for gaming, provides additional system flexibility for video encoding or display output tasks.