Doom: The Dark Ages benchmark shows RX 9070 XT matches RTX 5080 as AMD takes lead
The latest entry into the legendary Doom FPS series, Doom: The Dark Ages, is set to land on May 15th. Our review is already out, and, for the most part, Doom: The Dark Ages delivers. However, this time around, ID Software has mandated ray tracing-capable hardware for Doom: The Dark Ages. So, there are bound to be questions about the title's performance.
In our review, we looked at the game’s performance on different gaming laptops, including the Asus ROG Strix G16 with the RTX 5080 laptop GPU. Our desktop GPU comparison is still being worked on. In the meantime, TechPowerUp has measured the performance of Doom: The Dark Ages using a bunch of different GPUs, both new and old.
Interestingly, TechPowerUp’s measurements show a clear edge for AMD Radeon RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT over their respective Nvidia counterparts.
At 1080p using the “Ultra Nightmare” graphics preset, Doom: The Dark Ages runs at:
- 178 FPS on the RTX 5090
- 129.9 FPS on the RTX 5080
- 128.5 FPS on the RX 9070 XT
- 118.9 FPS on the RTX 5070 Ti
- 115 FPS on the RX 9070
- 97.7 FPS on the RTX 5070
The RX 9070 XT matching the RTX 5080 and the RX 9070 matching the RTX 5070 Ti is a huge win for Team Red as the Radeon GPUs compete at a lower pricing tier. Finally, Nvidia’s new RTX 5060 Ti 16 and 8 GB run the game at only 76 FPS.
Increasing the resolution to 1440p understandably makes the title harder to run. Here, the RX 9070 XT and the RTX 5080 are, once again, neck and neck with 91.8 and 96.2 FPS, respectively. The RTX 5070 Ti now sits relatively closer to the RX 9070 XT than at 1080p with 86.7 FPS.
However, there is still a massive performance difference of around 19% between the RX 9070 (81.1 FPS) and the RTX 5070 (68.3 FPS). This makes the RX 9070 more in line with the RTX 5070 Ti than its actual price competitor, the RTX 5070. The RTX 5060 Ti, 8 and 16 GB, fail to deliver 60 FPS at 1440p using the highest quality settings. This is quite disappointing since we are effectively talking about $400+ GPUs here.
Finally, Doom: The Dark Ages is a demanding title at 4K, as even the RTX 4090 is barely above 60 FPS. So, it is not a surprise that the RTX 5080, the RTX 5070 Ti, and the RX 9070 XT all play the game at less than 60 FPS.
That said, the RX 9070 XT now performs identically to the RTX 5070 Ti at 49 FPS, while the RX 9070 and the RTX 5070 still perform noticeably differently. The RX 9070 manages to hit 42.9 FPS, whereas the RTX 5070 can only manage 37.6 FPS.
All in all, Doom: The Dark Ages is a fairly difficult game to play at 4K. However, if you have relatively modern, mid-range/high-end hardware, the game should run fine at 1440p and great at 1080p.
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