Doom

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT delivers a high-refresh-rate experience in Doom at 1080p and 1440p, but the data shows a definitive shift toward GPU limitation as resolution increases. The measured FPS rows reveal a clear pattern of scaling that separates the CPU-bound lower resolutions from the GPU-bound 4K tier.

Resolution Scaling

At 1920x1080, the combination produces extremely high frame rates that are almost certainly limited by the CPU's ability to feed the GPU. The Low preset achieves 264 FPS, Medium reaches 230 FPS, High drops to 194 FPS, and Ultra settles at 159 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 105 FPS, which represents a 40% reduction in performance from the lowest to the highest settings. This spread indicates that the graphics card is not the bottleneck at this resolution; the rendering pipeline is being fed faster than the GPU can process at lower settings, but the CPU is still able to keep up with the frame generation demands.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but begin to show more GPU influence. Low produces 171 FPS, Medium 149 FPS, High 126 FPS, and Ultra 103 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra here is 68 FPS, a 40% drop, but the absolute values are lower. The scaling from 1080p Low to 1440p Low shows a 93 FPS reduction, while the same resolution jump on Ultra settings only costs 56 FPS. This suggests that at Ultra settings, the GPU is becoming a more significant factor, as the pixel count increase is having a proportionally smaller impact on the frame rate than it does at Low settings.

At 3840x2160, the GPU limitation becomes unambiguous. Low produces 93 FPS, Medium 81 FPS, High 68 FPS, and Ultra 56 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 37 FPS, a 40% reduction, which is consistent with the other resolutions, but the absolute numbers are much lower. The jump from 1440p to 4K costs 78 FPS on Low, but only 47 FPS on Ultra. This inversion of the scaling pattern—where higher settings show smaller absolute drops when moving to 4K—proves that the RX 7700 XT is the limiting component at this resolution. The CPU has ample headroom, as evidenced by the 1080p results, so the frame rate is now dictated entirely by the GPU's fill rate and shading throughput.

The data indicates that the transition point where the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck lies between 1440p and 4K. At 1080p, the CPU is clearly the limiting factor, as the frame rate scales almost linearly with setting changes. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, as the frame rate is constrained regardless of the setting. The 1440p tier appears to be a balanced zone where both components share the load, but the CPU still has enough headroom to push frame rates above 100 FPS even on Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear picture of the trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate. For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the Ultra preset at 4K barely meets this threshold with an average of 56 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS mark, but the margin is thin, and any demanding scene could cause dips below that target. The High preset at 4K offers 68 FPS, which is a more comfortable margin above 60 FPS, and the Medium preset at 81 FPS provides even more headroom.

For 1440p displays, the High preset delivers 126 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Ultra preset at 103 FPS also provides an excellent experience, and the data shows that this is the highest setting that maintains a triple-digit average. The Medium preset at 149 FPS and Low at 171 FPS are options for players with 144Hz or 165Hz displays who want to maximize frame rates, but the visual quality loss may not be worth the additional frame rate.

At 1080p, the situation is reversed. The CPU limitation means that even the Ultra preset at 159 FPS is well above the refresh rate of most displays. The Low preset at 264 FPS is only useful for competitive players with 240Hz or higher monitors. The Medium preset at 230 FPS and High at 194 FPS both offer excellent experiences. For most 1080p users, the Ultra preset is the best choice because the frame rate is still high enough to exceed 144Hz, and the visual quality is maximized.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the display's refresh rate. For 60Hz displays, the 4K Ultra preset at 56 FPS is slightly below the ideal, so High at 68 FPS is the recommended setting. For 144Hz displays, the 1440p Ultra preset at 103 FPS is the best balance, as it provides high visual quality and a frame rate that approaches the display's maximum. For 240Hz displays, the 1080p High preset at 194 FPS is the sweet spot, as it offers high visual quality and a frame rate that is still well above the refresh rate threshold.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combination run Doom at 4K with maximum settings?*

A: The data shows the Ultra preset at 3840x2160 averages 56 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS target that most players consider smooth, so while it is technically playable, the High preset at 68 FPS is a safer choice for a consistent experience.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the frame rates range from 159 FPS on Ultra to 264 FPS on Low. The fact that lower settings produce such high frame rates indicates the CPU is the limiting component, as the GPU has enough headroom to render these frames quickly.

Q: What is the best preset for a 144Hz monitor at 1440p?

A: The Ultra preset at 2560x1440 averages 103 FPS, which is below 144 FPS. The High preset achieves 126 FPS, which is closer to the refresh rate target, but still not at the full 144 FPS. The Medium preset at 149 FPS exceeds the 144Hz threshold and is the recommended setting for this display.

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

A: On the Low preset, the frame rate drops from 264 FPS at 1080p to 93 FPS at 4K, a reduction of 171 FPS. On the Ultra preset, the frame rate drops from 159 FPS to 56 FPS, a reduction of 103 FPS. The percentage drop is 65% for Low and 65% for Ultra.

Q: Does the RX 7700 XT have enough memory for this game at 4K?

A: The GPU has 12 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 192-bit bus. The measured data shows that the 4K Ultra preset averages 56 FPS, which suggests that the memory capacity is sufficient, as the GPU is able to render the frame without memory-related stutters or performance collapses.

Q: Is the 1080p Low preset worth using for competitive play?

A: The Low preset at 1080p averages 264 FPS, which is the highest measured frame rate in the dataset. This is beneficial for players with high-refresh-rate monitors, but the visual quality reduction may not be necessary if the display's refresh rate is lower than 240Hz.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combination produces its highest frame rates. The Low preset averages 264 FPS, with no minimum or maximum recorded. The Medium preset averages 230 FPS, with a minimum of 196 FPS and a maximum of 265 FPS. The High preset averages 194 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 159 FPS. The data shows a clear step-down pattern, with each settings tier costing roughly 30-35 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease but remain high. The Low preset averages 171 FPS. The Medium preset averages 149 FPS, with a minimum of 127 FPS and a maximum of 171 FPS. The High preset averages 126 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 103 FPS. The step-down pattern continues, with each tier costing roughly 25 FPS, but the absolute values are lower than at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop significantly. The Low preset averages 93 FPS. The Medium preset averages 81 FPS, with a minimum of 69 FPS and a maximum of 93 FPS. The High preset averages 68 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 56 FPS. The step-down pattern is smaller, with each tier costing roughly 12 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor and the settings have a reduced impact on the final frame rate.

The Medium preset rows provide the only complete min/max data in the dataset. At 1080p, the minimum is 196 FPS and the maximum is 265 FPS, a range of 69 FPS. At 1440p, the minimum is 127 FPS and the maximum is 171 FPS, a range of 44 FPS. At 4K, the minimum is 69 FPS and the maximum is 93 FPS, a range of 24 FPS. This decreasing range with increasing resolution further confirms that the GPU becomes the bottleneck, as the frame time variance is reduced when the GPU is fully saturated.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is based on the Navi 32 chip with RDNA 3.0 architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process. It has 3456 shading units, 216 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units. The GPU clock operates at a base frequency of 1435 MHz, with a boost clock of 2544 MHz and a game clock of 2171 MHz. The memory is 12 GB of GDDR6 running at 2250 MHz, with an effective speed of 18 Gbps across a 192-bit bus, providing 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

The GPU's performance in Doom is directly tied to its fill rate and shading capabilities. The pixel rate is 244.2 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 549.5 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 35.17 TFLOPS. At 4K, the GPU is the limiting factor, as the 56 FPS on Ultra demonstrates. The 12 GB memory capacity is sufficient for this game, as the data shows no signs of memory-related performance degradation at 4K.

The GPU's benchmark scores provide context for its position. The PassMark G3D score is 22547, with a percentile rank of 67 among all GPUs. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 3316, and the Geekbench Vulkan score is 46443. The nearest rivals in terms of average benchmark score include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile at a 0.5% difference, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile at -0.8%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 at -1.5%. These scores indicate that the RX 7700 XT sits in a competitive position, but the measured FPS in Doom shows that it is capable of handling the game at high frame rates up to 1440p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, built on Arrow Lake Refresh architecture with a 3 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3. The processor supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and 115.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

The CPU's benchmark performance is exceptional. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 51731, and the single-core score is 7303. The PassMark multi-thread score is 60860, with a single-thread score of 4823. The CPU's percentile rank is 96 among all CPUs, placing it in the top 4% of processors. The nearest rivals in terms of average benchmark score include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at a 0.2% difference and the AMD EPYC 4584PX at 1.1%.

In Doom, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates on Low settings reach 264 FPS. This high frame rate indicates that the CPU can generate frames faster than the GPU can render them. The 24 cores and 24 threads, combined with the 5.80 GHz boost clock, provide ample single-thread performance for game logic and draw call processing. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s is sufficient to feed the GPU without creating a bottleneck.

At 1440p, the CPU still has enough headroom to maintain frame rates above 100 FPS on all settings, with the Ultra preset averaging 103 FPS. This suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor at this resolution, but the GPU is starting to become more significant. At 4K, the CPU's role is minimal, as the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, with the frame rate constrained by the GPU's rendering capabilities.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT ranks 1054 out of 2930 tested combinations in Doom. This places it in the 36th percentile of all tested combos, meaning that 64% of combinations perform better in this specific game. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU's exceptional performance and the GPU's mid-range positioning.

The CPU's percentile rank of 96 is significantly higher than the GPU's percentile rank of 67. This disparity is reflected in the measured FPS data, where the CPU is clearly not the limiting factor at any resolution. The GPU's position in the 67th percentile among all GPUs means that there are many faster graphics cards available, and this is what holds the combo's rank back.

Within the context of the 2930 combos, the rank of 1054 indicates that this is a solid mid-range to upper-mid-range pairing. The Doom engine is known for being well-optimized, and the data shows that this combination can deliver high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, with playable performance at 4K. The combo's rank would likely be higher in games that are more CPU-intensive, given the CPU's top-tier standing, but in Doom, the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions cap the overall performance. The data shows that the combination is well-balanced for 1440p gaming, where the CPU and GPU work together to produce frame rates above 100 FPS on Ultra settings.