Doom

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's rank in Doom?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 584th out of 2,930 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the top 20% of all configurations.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The Core Ultra 9 275HX posts an average benchmark score of 67,469, which is 0.3% lower than the Intel Xeon w5-3525 (67,673) and 0.5% lower than the AMD EPYC 4484PX (67,822), but 0.7% higher than the Intel Xeon 6515P (67,006).

Q: What is the GPU's closest competitor in average benchmark performance?

A: The RTX 5090's average benchmark score is 79,842, sitting 0.3% above the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605) and 0.6% above the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396), while trailing the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80,959) by 1.4%.

Q: What frame rates does the combo achieve at 1080p with High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo delivers an average of 243 FPS, which drops to 198 FPS at Ultra settings and rises to 330 FPS at Low settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 198 FPS at 1080p to 128 FPS at 1440p and further to 70 FPS at 2160p, representing a substantial 64.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration?

A: The RTX 5090 features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth with a boost clock of 2407 MHz.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this Doom configuration, and the benchmark data makes this clear. The GPU's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus is exceptionally generous for a game released in 2016, providing 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth. This massive memory subsystem ensures that even at 4K resolution, the GPU never faces a capacity or bandwidth bottleneck. The 32 GB capacity is particularly notable because Doom's texture requirements, while demanding for its era, are nowhere near what modern titles require — the GPU has headroom to spare.

The GPU's clock behavior further reinforces its role. With a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz, the RTX 5090 maintains high frequency operation across all settings and resolutions. The 5 nm process node from TSMC, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, allows this chip to sustain these clocks while delivering 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are directly relevant to Doom's id Tech 6 engine, which relies heavily on texture sampling and pixel fill for its fast-paced rendering.

The data shows that the GPU is consistently the limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 330 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability. However, the GPU still has headroom — it's the CPU that becomes the constraint at lower resolutions. As resolution climbs to 4K, the GPU's workload increases substantially, and the frame rate drops accordingly, confirming that the RTX 5090 is doing the heavy lifting. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,728 indicate strong DirectX 12 and Vulkan performance, both APIs that Doom supports well.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear resolution scaling pattern that points to the GPU as the primary performance driver in Doom at higher resolutions. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings, the average frame rate drops from 243 FPS to 157 FPS, a reduction of 35.4%. This is a significant decrease, but the frame rates remain well above the refresh rates of most displays. The drop suggests that while the GPU is beginning to feel the load, the configuration still delivers exceptional performance.

The scaling becomes more pronounced when moving from 1440p to 4K. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 157 FPS to 85 FPS, a 45.9% reduction. This steeper decline indicates that the RTX 5090 is approaching its limits at 4K, though 85 FPS is still highly playable for a fast-paced FPS title. The Ultra setting shows the most dramatic scaling: from 198 FPS at 1080p to 128 FPS at 1440p to 70 FPS at 4K — a total reduction of 64.6% across the three resolutions.

The Low settings data tells a similar story. At Low, the combo achieves 330 FPS at 1080p, 214 FPS at 1440p, and 116 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 35.2% from 1080p to 1440p and 45.8% from 1440p to 4K, closely mirroring the High settings pattern. This consistency across settings suggests that the resolution scaling is primarily GPU-bound — the CPU's performance is not the limiting factor at these resolutions. The 24-core, 24-thread Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX with a boost clock of 5.40 GHz has ample processing power to feed the GPU at all tested resolutions, as evidenced by the near-linear scaling patterns.

The Medium settings data, which includes min and max FPS values, further illustrates the GPU's role. At 1080p Medium, the average is 287 FPS with a min of 244 and max of 331. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 186 FPS with a min of 158 and max of 214. At 4K Medium, the average is 101 FPS with a min of 86 and max of 116. The consistency of the min-max ranges relative to the averages indicates stable frame pacing, with the GPU delivering smooth performance even when heavily loaded.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this configuration shows a comprehensive picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings tiers. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers an average of 330 FPS at Low settings, 287 FPS at Medium, 243 FPS at High, and 198 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting at 1080p shows a minimum of 244 FPS and a maximum of 331 FPS, indicating that even the lowest frame rate is well above 240 Hz. This performance level suggests that the configuration is capable of driving high-refresh-rate displays at 1080p without compromise.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 214 FPS at Low, 186 FPS at Medium, 157 FPS at High, and 128 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting here shows a min of 158 FPS and a max of 214 FPS. The step-down from 1080p is noticeable but not severe — even at Ultra, the config maintains 128 FPS, which is comfortable for competitive play. The data indicates that 1440p is the sweet spot for this combination, offering high frame rates with the visual fidelity of a higher resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 116 FPS at Low, 101 FPS at Medium, 85 FPS at High, and 70 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting at 4K shows a min of 86 FPS and a max of 116 FPS. This is the first resolution where the configuration begins to show strain — 70 FPS at Ultra is playable but below the 100+ FPS territory that high-refresh-rate monitors demand. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 46 FPS, which is a significant range that gives users options depending on their preference for frame rate versus visual quality.

The progression across settings is consistent at each resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 132 FPS. At 1440p, it's 86 FPS. At 4K, it's 46 FPS. This narrowing gap at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes more constrained as pixel count increases, with settings having less relative impact on performance. The configuration's ability to maintain playable frame rates across all tested settings and resolutions confirms the RTX 5090's raw power, even in a game that is nearly a decade old.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 584 out of 2,930 tested combinations places it in the top 19.9% of all configurations tested in Doom. This is a strong showing, but it's important to contextualize this rank. The combo is not in the top tier of performance — there are 583 configurations that outperform it — but it sits comfortably above the median. The rank reflects the balance between the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, and the data suggests that the CPU-GPU pairing is well-matched for this title.

The CPU's percentile of 94 against all CPUs indicates that the 275HX is in the top 6% of processors tested, which is a strong foundation for this ranking. The GPU's percentile of 92 against all GPUs places it in the top 8%, further supporting the combo's position. However, the rank of 584 suggests that other combinations of high-end hardware — likely including more powerful desktop CPUs or GPUs with higher average benchmark scores — outperform this mobile-oriented configuration. The 275HX is a mobile processor, and while it delivers excellent performance for its class, it faces competition from desktop-class hardware in the combo rankings.

The nearest rival data for the CPU shows that the 275HX is closely matched with several workstation and server processors. Its average benchmark score of 67,469 is within 0.7% of the Intel Xeon 6515P (67,006) and within 0.6% of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5955WX (67,868). This clustering indicates that the 275HX is competitive with much larger and more power-hungry processors, which is notable given its 55 W TDP. The GPU's nearest rivals include the Tesla P100 variants, which are data-center oriented, and the Radeon RX 6850M XT, which is a mobile GPU. The RTX 5090's score of 79,842 is 1.1% above the RX 6850M XT (78,940), showing that it leads its mobile competition.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX plays a supporting role in this Doom configuration, but it's a role that's executed with high competence. The processor features 24 cores and 24 threads, operating at a base clock of 2.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This combination of high core count and high boost frequency is well-suited to Doom's engine, which can leverage multiple threads for various game systems while also benefiting from strong single-thread performance for the main game loop.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate its capability. In Cinebench R23, the 275HX scores 35,589 in multicore and 2,204 in single-core. The Geekbench scores are 20,795 in multicore and 2,458 in single-core. These numbers indicate a processor that can handle both heavily threaded workloads and lighter, single-threaded tasks with aplomb. For Doom, which is not particularly demanding on CPU resources by modern standards, this processor has significant headroom. The Passmark multithread score of 55,759 and single-thread score of 4,713 further confirm this assessment.

The 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample fast storage for game data. The 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth from dual-channel DDR5 support ensures that the CPU can feed data to the GPU without bottlenecking. The 5.40 GHz boost clock is particularly important for games like Doom that have a primary game thread that benefits from high frequency. The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration — as resolution increases and frame rates drop, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck, while the CPU maintains its frame delivery capability.

The CPU's percentile of 94 against all CPUs places it in the top 6% of all processors tested. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon w5-3525 and AMD EPYC 4484PX, which are workstation processors with much higher power envelopes. The fact that the 275HX, a mobile processor with a 55 W TDP, can compete with these processors in average benchmark score affirms the efficiency of the Arrow Lake architecture. The 3 nm process node from TSMC, with 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die, enables this performance-per-watt advantage. For Doom specifically, the CPU's role is to maintain consistently high frame rates, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU is not fully loaded — and the data shows it succeeds admirably in this capacity.