Doom

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The 290K Plus delivers an average benchmark score of 84,003, which places it 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (83,807) and 1.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX (83,090). It trails the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3% (85,072).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 sits in the 58th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15,290. Its closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 at 15,283 (0% delta), followed by the AMD Radeon 680M at 15,270 (0.1% delta).

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking in Doom among all tested combinations?

A: This CPU-GPU pair ranks 2,294th out of 2,930 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the lower portion of the tested field.

Q: What is the best average FPS measured at 1080p for this combo?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 175 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The Medium preset at the same resolution yields 152 FPS, while High produces 129 FPS and Ultra drops to 105 FPS.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 2060 have, and what is its memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 2060 features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock is 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective transfer rate.

Q: What is the CPU's multithreaded performance in Cinebench R23?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus scores 51,731 points in Cinebench R23 multi-core, and 7,303 points in single-core. Its PassMark multithread score is 60,860.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a Turing-architecture part built on TSMC's 12 nm process, with 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory provides 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which becomes the primary constraint for this game at higher resolutions. The GPU's base clock is 1365 MHz, boosting to 1680 MHz, and it maintains a pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s alongside a texture rate of 201.6 GTexel/s. The FP32 compute throughput is 6.451 TFLOPS.

In Doom, the measured FPS data reveals that the GPU is the dominant limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 175 FPS; at 2560x1440 the same settings yield 113 FPS (a 35% drop); and at 3840x2160 the average falls to 61 FPS (a 46% drop from 1440p). This scaling pattern shows the GPU struggling to maintain frame rates as pixel count multiplies. The RTX 2060's 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are present, but Doom's rendering workload primarily stresses the traditional raster pipeline, where the 1,920 shading units and 48 ROPs do the heavy lifting.

The GPU's benchmark scores contextualize its position: a PassMark G3D score of 14,111 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 65,846. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result of 1,242 is modest, reflecting the card's mid-range standing. The RTX 2060 ranks in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals — the GTX 580, Radeon 680M, RTX 3050 OEM, and RX 7600 — all score within 0.8% of each other, indicating a tightly clustered performance tier. The GPU's 160 W TDP and dual-slot cooler are adequate for this class, but the 6 GB VRAM capacity becomes a notable constraint for texture-heavy presets at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS degradation from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent with a GPU-bound scenario. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 175 FPS at 1920x1080 to 113 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 61 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 35% loss from 1080p to 1440p and a further 46% loss from 1440p to 4K. At Medium settings, the progression is 152 FPS → 99 FPS → 53 FPS, with the 4K figure dropping to roughly one-third of the 1080p result. The Ultra preset shows 105 FPS at 1080p, 68 FPS at 1440p, and just 37 FPS at 4K — a 65% total reduction from the lowest resolution.

The pattern indicates that the RTX 2060's memory bandwidth (336.0 GB/s) and shading throughput are insufficient to maintain playable rates at 3840x2160 for anything above Low settings. At 4K Ultra, the 37 FPS average falls below the 45 FPS minimum seen at 4K Medium (where the min FPS is 45), suggesting that the GPU is saturating its compute and memory resources. The 6 GB VRAM capacity likely contributes to this, as higher preset levels at 4K increase texture and buffer demands.

Conversely, at 1920x1080, the frame rates are high enough (105-175 FPS depending on preset) that the CPU's role becomes more relevant. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, with its 24 cores and 24 threads, provides ample headroom; the data shows no sign of CPU capping at 1080p, as the FPS scales almost linearly with GPU workload reductions. This combo behaves predictably: the GPU is the bottleneck from 1440p upward, while at 1080p the system delivers smooth, high-refresh-rate performance across all presets.

How This Combo Ranks

In Doom, this combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 2,294th out of 2,930 tested combos, placing it in the 22nd percentile of all tested systems. That low ranking is driven entirely by the GPU's mid-range capabilities; the CPU is a top-tier part with a 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs. The disparity between the CPU's 96th percentile and the GPU's 58th percentile creates an imbalanced pairing — the processor is capable of far more than this graphics card can feed it.

The CPU's synthetic scores reinforce this imbalance. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,731 and PassMark multithread score of 60,860 are elite-tier results, while the GPU's PassMark G3D score of 14,111 is merely average. The combo rank reflects the weakest link in the chain: Doom's frame rates are bound by the RTX 2060's output, so the 290K Plus's computational power goes largely underutilized in this game. In a dataset where the CPU alone outperforms 96% of all processors, the combo still lands in the bottom quarter of tested gaming configurations, underscoring that GPU selection matters more than CPU muscle for this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce an average of 175 FPS, Medium drops to 152 FPS with a minimum of 130 FPS, High yields 129 FPS, and Ultra averages 105 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 70 FPS (40%), showing that even at 1080p, the GPU's limits appear at higher presets. The Medium preset's min FPS of 130 indicates stable frame pacing, with no severe dips.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages fall to 113 FPS (Low), 99 FPS (Medium, with min 84 and max 113), 83 FPS (High), and 68 FPS (Ultra). The Medium preset's min-max range of 84-113 shows a wider variance than at 1080p, reflecting increased GPU load. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 35% for Low, 35% for Medium, 36% for High, and 35% for Ultra — a uniform scaling that confirms consistent GPU-bound behavior.

At 3840x2160, the performance collapses. Low averages 61 FPS, Medium averages 53 FPS (with min 45 and max 61), High averages 45 FPS, and Ultra averages just 37 FPS. The Medium preset's min FPS of 45 matches the High preset's average, indicating that frame times become erratic under 4K load. The 4K Low result of 61 FPS is barely playable, while any preset above Low fails to maintain 60 FPS. The total scaling from 1080p Low (175 FPS) to 4K Low (61 FPS) represents a 65% reduction, and the Ultra preset shows an even steeper 65% decline from 105 FPS to 37 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The data points to 1920x1080 as the sweet spot for this combo. At that resolution, even Ultra settings maintain 105 FPS, which is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset offers 152 FPS with a minimum of 130 FPS, providing a balance between visual quality and headroom. For competitive play where frame rate matters most, Low at 175 FPS is the optimal choice, though the visual trade-off may not be worth the extra 23 FPS over Medium.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts to Medium or High. Medium averages 99 FPS with a minimum of 84 FPS, keeping gameplay fluid, while High drops to 83 FPS — still acceptable but closer to the edge. Ultra at 68 FPS is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. Low at 113 FPS is viable but sacrifices too much visual fidelity for the modest gain over Medium.

At 3840x2160, only Low settings (61 FPS) approach playability, and even then the margin is thin. Medium (53 FPS) and High (45 FPS) fall below 60 FPS, and Ultra (37 FPS) is not recommended for serious play. The 6 GB VRAM and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for 4K at this card's class. For the best overall experience, the data suggests 1440p Medium or High as the sweet spot, balancing visual quality with consistent frame rates above 80 FPS. At 1080p, Ultra is viable for those prioritizing image quality over raw speed.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is an Arrow Lake Refresh part built on TSMC's 3 nm process, with 24 cores and 24 threads. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz, boosting to 5.80 GHz, and it carries 36 MB of shared L3 cache alongside per-core L2 of 3 MB and per-core L1 of 192 KB. The CPU supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with 115.2 GB/s bandwidth, and its integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU provides a fallback display output. The chip's 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier position it as a high-end desktop processor.

In Doom, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU. The measured FPS at 1080p (175 FPS on Low) approaches levels where CPU performance could become a factor, but the 290K Plus's single-core strength — evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7,303 and PassMark single-thread score of 4,823 — ensures no bottleneck emerges. The CPU's multi-core might (51,731 in Cinebench R23, 21,727 in R20, 5,214 in R15) is largely irrelevant for this game, which scales primarily with single-thread performance and GPU throughput.

The 24-core configuration is overkill for Doom's engine, which typically utilizes a handful of threads. The PassMark physics score of 3,315 and find-prime-numbers score of 503 indicate strong integer performance, but these capabilities go untapped in this title. The CPU's 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs contrasts sharply with the combo's 2,294th place in Doom, proving that the processor is not the limiting component. This pairing represents a significant mismatch: the 290K Plus could comfortably support a much faster GPU, and the RTX 2060 holds back the system's potential in this game. For users with this CPU, upgrading the graphics card would yield far larger gains in Doom than any processor change.