DOOM Eternal PC Performance Analysis – Rip And Tear Without A Care!

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)

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• 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.

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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.

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.

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.

Graphics Card Results

1080p

Ultrawide 1080p

1440p

Ultrawide 1440p

UHD 4K

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.