Doom

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Doom with the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 shows a clear and predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combination produces an average of 190 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same High preset drops the average to 123 FPS, representing a 35% reduction in frame rate. The jump to 3840x2160 High yields only 67 FPS, which is a further 46% decrease from the 1440p result. This scaling behavior indicates that the rendering load is expanding faster than the GPU's pixel throughput can accommodate as resolution rises.

The relationship between resolution and frame rate is not linear, and the data confirms that the RTX 3070 becomes the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. Between 1080p High and 4K High, the average FPS falls from 190 to 67, a total drop of 123 FPS or approximately 65%. In contrast, the CPU's influence on this scaling is minimal, as the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has ample headroom to feed the GPU at all tested resolutions. The measured results suggest that at 1080p, the system is likely approaching a balance where both components contribute to the frame rate, but at 4K, the GPU's rendering capabilities are clearly the bottleneck.

Looking at the Low preset across resolutions reveals a similar trend. At 1920x1080 Low, the average FPS reaches 258, which drops to 167 at 2560x1440 and further to 90 at 3840x2160. The percentage reductions are 35% from 1080p to 1440p and 46% from 1440p to 4K, closely mirroring the High preset's scaling. This consistency suggests that the resolution-dependent workload scales uniformly regardless of quality settings, reinforcing that pixel count is the dominant factor in frame rate variation for this configuration.

The Medium preset provides additional insight with minimum FPS values recorded. At 1920x1080 Medium, the average is 225 FPS with a minimum of 191 FPS. At 2560x1440 Medium, the average falls to 145 FPS with a minimum of 124 FPS. At 3840x2160 Medium, the average is 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is equal to the average FPS at 4K High, which indicates that even the lowest frame times at Medium settings outperform the High preset's typical performance. This suggests that the Medium preset offers a more stable experience at 4K compared to High, where average frame rates are already lower.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, and it features 36 MB of shared L3 cache alongside 192 KB of L1 cache per core and 3 MB of L2 cache per core. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303, placing it in the 96th percentile among all CPUs tested. Its average benchmark score is 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and 1.1% higher than the AMD EPYC 4584PX.

For a game like Doom, which is a fast-paced FPS released in 2016, the CPU's role is to maintain high frame rates by feeding the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates. The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus's high boost clock of 5.80 GHz is particularly relevant for single-threaded performance, which is often the limiting factor in older game engines. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303 indicates strong per-thread performance, and the PassMark single-thread score of 4823 corroborates this. In the measured FPS data, the CPU's capability is evident at 1080p Low, where the system reaches 258 FPS average—a frame rate that would stress most processors' ability to keep up with rendering requests.

The 24-core configuration provides substantial multi-threaded headroom, but Doom's engine does not typically scale perfectly across that many cores. The PassMark multi-thread score of 60860 shows the CPU's raw parallel capability, yet the game's performance is more likely bounded by the GPU at higher resolutions. At 1080p, however, the CPU's single-thread performance becomes more critical. The data shows that the system achieves 190 FPS at 1080p High and 258 FPS at 1080p Low, which suggests that the CPU can sustain frame rates well above 200 FPS when the GPU is not saturated. This indicates that the CPU is not the bottleneck at 1080p for this game, as the frame rates are already high and the GPU has more work to do per frame as resolution increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process. It has 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units, along with 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1500 MHz and a boost clock of 1725 MHz, with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its FP32 performance is rated at 20.31 TFLOPS, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 3070 scores 22214 in PassMark G3D and achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3162, placing it in the 61st percentile among all GPUs.

The GPU's memory configuration is a key factor in Doom's performance at higher resolutions. With 8 GB of VRAM, the RTX 3070 has sufficient capacity for 1080p and 1440p gameplay, but at 4K, texture data and frame buffers can strain this limit. The measured FPS data shows that at 3840x2160 Ultra, the average frame rate drops to 54 FPS, which is the lowest result across all tested configurations. This suggests that both the rendering load and memory bandwidth are being pushed to their limits. The 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is adequate for the game's needs at lower resolutions but becomes a constraining factor as pixel count increases.

The GPU's boost clock of 1725 MHz is relatively modest compared to newer cards, but its 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 compute provides solid raw performance for a game like Doom, which relies heavily on fill rate and shading. The texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s are the specifications that directly influence how quickly the GPU can process the game's visual elements. At 1080p High, the GPU delivers 190 FPS, which is well within its capability. At 4K High, the 67 FPS average shows that the GPU is working harder, and the Ultra preset at 4K reduces the frame rate to 54 FPS, indicating that the most demanding settings exceed what this GPU can deliver smoothly at that resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers high frame rates across all settings. The Low preset produces an average of 258 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium settings reduce the average to 225 FPS, with a minimum of 191 FPS and a maximum of 258 FPS. High settings yield 190 FPS on average, and Ultra settings drop to 155 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the system has substantial performance headroom, and even the most demanding Ultra preset maintains an average above 150 FPS, which is well above typical display refresh rates.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show a clear step down. Low settings achieve 167 FPS average, which is still very high for competitive play. Medium settings produce 145 FPS average, with minimum and maximum values of 124 FPS and 167 FPS respectively. High settings average 123 FPS, and Ultra settings average 100 FPS. The 1440p results show that the RTX 3070 can handle this resolution comfortably, with even Ultra settings staying above the 100 FPS threshold. The minimum FPS at Medium (124 FPS) is higher than the average FPS at Ultra (100 FPS), which indicates that the Medium preset provides a more consistent experience while still offering high frame rates.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly, and the frame rates become more variable. Low settings produce an average of 90 FPS, which is playable but not as fluid as lower resolutions. Medium settings average 79 FPS, with a minimum of 67 FPS and a maximum of 91 FPS. High settings average 67 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 54 FPS. The 4K data reveals that the Ultra preset at this resolution is the most demanding configuration tested, and the 54 FPS average is below the 60 FPS target that many players prefer. The Medium preset at 4K offers the best balance, with an average of 79 FPS and a minimum of 67 FPS that keeps frame times relatively stable.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 ranks 1226 out of 2930 tested combos in Doom, placing it in the 58th percentile of all configurations evaluated. This rank reflects the system's overall capability in this specific game, considering both CPU and GPU contributions. The CPU's percentile ranking of 96 among all CPUs indicates that it is a top-tier processor, while the GPU's percentile of 61 among all GPUs shows that the RTX 3070 is a mid-range performer in the current landscape. The combination of a high-end CPU with a mid-range GPU results in a system that is CPU-limited at lower resolutions but GPU-limited at higher resolutions.

In comparison to other tested combos, this system's rank of 1226 suggests that there are many configurations that achieve higher frame rates in Doom. The gap between the CPU's strong synthetic benchmark scores and the GPU's more modest performance means that the overall combo rank is constrained by the GPU. The nearest GPU rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT (0.7% higher average score), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (1% higher), and AMD Radeon HD 7970M (1.1% higher), while the NVIDIA Tesla K40c is 1.5% lower. These comparisons are based on average benchmark scores, not in-game FPS, but they provide context for where the RTX 3070 sits relative to its peers.

The combo rank of 1226 out of 2930 means that approximately 58% of tested configurations perform better than this system in Doom. This is a reasonable result given the GPU's mid-range positioning, but it also highlights that the CPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios. Upgrading the GPU would likely improve the combo rank significantly, while the CPU's contribution is already near the top of the performance spectrum.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this system achieves in Doom?

A: The highest average FPS is 258, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 225 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 190 FPS at 1080p High.

Q: How does the system perform at 4K resolution with Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the system achieves an average of 54 FPS. This is the lowest measured result across all tested configurations, indicating that the Ultra preset at 4K is too demanding for smooth gameplay.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this system for Doom?

A: At 1080p, the frame rates are high (up to 258 FPS), suggesting that the CPU has sufficient headroom and the GPU is likely the limiting factor even at lower resolutions. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as frame rates drop significantly while the CPU's performance remains unchanged.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between 1440p High and 1080p High?

A: At 2560x1440 High, the average FPS is 123, while at 1920x1080 High, the average FPS is 190. This represents a 67 FPS difference, or approximately 35% lower performance at 1440p compared to 1080p.

Q: How does the RTX 3070 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 3070 has an average benchmark score of 17208. The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is 0.7% higher, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 is 1% higher, and the AMD Radeon HD 7970M is 1.1% higher. The NVIDIA Tesla K40c is 1.5% lower.

Q: What is the system's ranking among all tested combos in Doom?

A: The system ranks 1226 out of 2930 tested combos, placing it in the 58th percentile. This means that approximately 58% of tested configurations achieve higher performance in Doom than this system.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, all settings provide playable frame rates, but the Medium preset offers the best balance between visual quality and performance, with an average of 225 FPS and a minimum of 191 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p still delivers 155 FPS on average, which is suitable for high-refresh-rate monitors, but Medium provides a more consistent experience with a higher minimum frame rate relative to its average.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is again the recommended choice, delivering an average of 145 FPS with a minimum of 124 FPS. This provides a smooth experience for most players. The High preset at 1440p averages 123 FPS, which is also acceptable, but the Medium's higher minimum FPS suggests better frame pacing. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 100 FPS, which is still playable but may not be ideal for competitive play where higher frame rates are preferred.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset is the best option, with an average of 79 FPS and a minimum of 67 FPS. This is the only 4K preset that maintains an average above 75 FPS, providing a reasonable experience on a 60 Hz display. The High preset at 4K averages 67 FPS, which is borderline, and the Ultra preset at 54 FPS is not recommended for smooth gameplay. The Low preset at 4K achieves 90 FPS, but the visual quality reduction may not be worth the performance gain. Overall, the Medium preset at each resolution provides the best balance of performance and visual fidelity, with the data showing that it consistently outperforms High and Ultra in minimum frame rates while maintaining high averages.