After a lengthy delay, the time has come for the DOOM Slayer to rise up to rip and tear, but if you're here to find out if the game is good then you're in the wrong place. Find our review handled by Chris over here in his Review-In-Progress. The launch of DOOM (2016) ushered in the idTech 6 engine that revolutionized the way people saw the Vulkan engine and left fans wanting even more DOOM. DOOM Eternal returns to the world of the DOOM Slayer and the Night Sentinals, but this time it's powered by the upgraded idTech 7 engine and we're here to find out if this one runs as well if not better than the last.
System Requirements
Minimum Specs (1080p / 60fps / Low Quality Settings)
- 64-bit Windows 7/64-Bit Windows 10
- Intel Core i5 @ 3.3 GHz or better, or AMD Ryzen 3 @ 3.1 GHz or better
- 8GB System RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce 1050 Ti (4GB), GTX 1060 (3GB), GTX 1650 (4GB) or AMD Radeon R9 280 (3GB), AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB) or RX 470 (4GB)
- 50 GB hard drive space
Recommended Specs (1440p / 60fps / High Quality Settings)
- 64-bit Windows 10
- Intel Core i7-6700K or better, or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X or better
- 8GB System RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB), RTX 2060 (6GB) or AMD Radeon RX Vega56 (8GB)
OR (1080p/ 60 FPS / High Quality Settings) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB), NVIDIA GeForce 970 (4GB), AMD RX 480 (8GB) - Note : On GTX 970 only - set Texture Quality to Medium
- 50 GB hard drive space
Ultra-Nightmare Specs (2160p / 60fps / Ultra-Nightmare Settings) OR (1440p / 120 FPS / Ultra-Nightmare Settings)
- 64-bit Windows 10
- Intel Core i9-9900K or better, or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or better
- 16GB System RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (11GB)
- 50 GB hard drive space
Testing Methodology
DOOM Eternal carries on the tradition of DOOM 2016 by having no built-in benchmarching utility, which is fine but makes for a creative way of testing. So because of that, you'll likely see varying results from different sites and reviews. I decided to take our run at the beginning of the Exultia level and follow through up to the first big fight. While the framerate during heavy fights will come in lower than what is being shown here these results were found fairly representative of what I saw through my first hour of gameplay but remember, the more demons and chaos the lower the frames will dip.
Once we had the results from 3 runs, after discarding an initial burner run for loading purposes, we took the average of average frame rates as well as the 99th percentile results from the run. We report our performance metrics as average frames per second and have moved away from the 1% and .1% reporting and are now using the 99th percentile. For those uncertain of what the 99th percentile is, representing is easily explained as showing only 1 frame out of 100 is slower than this frame rate. Put another way, 99% of the frames will achieve at least this frame rate.
Test System
| Components | Z370 |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i9-9900k @ 5GHz |
| Memory | 32GB Mushkin Redline DDR4 3600 |
| Motherboard | EVGA Z370 Classified K |
| Storage | Kingston KC2000 1TB NVMe SSD |
| PSU | Cooler Master V1200 Platinum |
| Windows Version | Latest verion of windows at the time of testing |
| Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling | On if supported by GPU and driver. |
Graphics Cards Tested
| GPU | Architecture | Core Count | Clock Speed | Memory Capacity | Memory Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA RTX 2080ti FE | Turing | 4352 | 1350/1635 | 11GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| NVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FE | Turing | 3072 | 1650/1815 | 8GB GDDR6 | 15.5Gbps |
| NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER FE | Turing | 2560 | 1605/1770 | 8GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| NVIDIA RTX 2060 SUPER | Turing | 2176 | 1470/1650 | 8GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| NVIDIA RTX 2060 FE | Turing | 1904 | 1365/168 | 6GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| ZOTAC Gaming GTX 1660 | Turing | 1408 | 1530/1785 | 6GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| ZOTAC GTX 1650 SUPER | Turing | 1280 | 1530/1725 | 4GB GDDR6 | 12Gbps |
| NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE | Pascal | 2560 | 1607/1733 | 8GB GDDR5X | 10Gbps |
| NVIDIA GTX 1070 FE | Pascal | 1920 | 1506/1683 | 8GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| NVIDIA GTX 1060 FE 6GB | Pascal | 1280 | 1506/1708 | 6GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| AMD Radeon RX 5700XT | Navi 10 | 2560 | 1605/1755/1905 | 8GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| AMD Radeon RX 5700 | Navi 10 | 2304 | 1465/1625/1725 | 8GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| Sapphire RX 5600 XT | Navi 10 | 2304 | 1130/1660/1750 | 6GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| AMD RX Vega 64 | Vega 10 | 4096 | 1247/1546 | 8GB HBM2 | 945Mbps |
| AMD RX Vega 56 | Vega 10 | 3584 | 1156/1471 | 8GB HBM2 | 800Mbs |
| Sapphire RX 5500 XT 4GB | Navi 14 | 1408 | 1737/1845 | 4GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| MSI RX 580 Armor 8GB | Polaris 20 | 2304 | 1366 | 8GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| Sapphire Nitro+ RX 570 4GB | Polaris 20 | 2048 | 1340 | 4GB GDDR5 | 7Gbps |
Drivers Used
| Drivers | |
|---|---|
| Radeon Settings | 20.4.1 |
| GeForce | 445.75 |
Preset Scaling At 4K
Testing presets at 4K gives us a couple of quick metrics before diving into the game too deeply. First off, it shows us how the game looks at various presets as well as how performance scales with those settings. From a visual standpoint, there is a bit to gain when going up in the setting department but there's not enough visual impact when the game is in high octane combat that I would even consider prioritizing visuals over framerates in this one. But, there's not enough of a performance hit to be too concerned. If you're not able to hit the framerates and the resolution and settings you want you can always dial in the dynamic resolution setting with a target framerate.
UHD 4K Preset Scaling
1080p settings scaling is the exact same method as the 4K settings scaling just changed to using an RX 5500 XT at 1080p. At least that would be how we normally test this, but DOOM Eternal is a bit rough on the VRAM requirement so this section is now dedicated to the RX 5500XT 4GB, GTX 1650 SUPER, and the RX 570. None of these cards are able to allow you to select the Ultra setting at 1080 or above due to VRAM limitations.
HD 1080p Preset Scaling
Intel Core Scaling Performance
While this test won’t tell just how many cores and threads the game can and will use, it does show how the game performs as you move up in cores and threads available. These were tested at the 1080p settings that we tested the rest of the results while pairing the CPU with the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition. While this does not take into account the cache difference you would see with Intel CPUs as you move through their offering stack it does give us a better idea of how the game benefits and behaves from more cores and threads.
While DOOM Eternal makes use of system resources as you scale up the number of available cores and threads I was pleasantly surprised to see the game hold on even with just 2 cores and 2 threads active. Most modern games do not take the time to even think about running on so few resources and while I'm glad to see and end of dual cores for gamers it is nice to see that they've done such an outstanding job here that it can hold up.
Core i9-9900K Core and Thread Scaling Ultra Preset with RTX 2080Ti
Graphics Card Results
1080p
Standard 1080p Performance Ultra Preset
Ultrawide 1080p
Ultrawide 1080p Performance Ultra Preset
1440p
Standard 1440p Performance Ultra Preset
Ultrawide 1440p
Ultrawide 1440p Performance Ultra Preset
UHD 4K
UHD 4K Performance Ultra Preset
Conclusion
DOOM Eternal runs like a boss. Pretty much whatever hardware you have at your disposal, provided you have the VRAM to handle it, is going to let you lay waste to hordes of demons. Typically when a game runs this fluid on such a variety of hardware it looks, well, less than stellar. DOOM Eternal is the exception to that rule as the game looks absolutely fantastic and is a welcome and deserving iteration of the idTech engine.
DOOM Eternal scales fantastically with its engine from the lowest settings to the highest. Even setting to the low preset you quickly forget about it once the action starts, you'll be so focused on moving, juking, flanking, ripping and tearing that you'll likely never notice any graphical treats you would have given up. So, if you're on 4GB or less don't let that deter you, and if the frames drop during battles (because they will!) don't hesitate to drop the settings if needed. Remember this is just a general performance expectation and this game is rather dynamic at times.
DOOM Eternal sets the bar in graphical prowess while still beat easy to chew on by hardware, there's simply no reason a game that doesn't look as good should run worse, developers take notice and take notes on this one. Another thing others could learn from DOOM Eternal is file size, DOOM 2016 was a behemoth to say the least coming in at nearly 80GB and with games like Modern Warfare chewing up almost 200GB of your storage, it is an amazing breath of fresh air to see DOOM Eternal coming in under 40GB, fantastic work. Now, everyone, I've got some demons to slay.
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