Gaming Benchmarks Continued
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a third-person tactical shooter game. You play as a member of the Delta Company, First Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, also known as “Ghosts”, a fictional elite special operations unit of the United States Army under the Joint Special Operations Command. This game takes place in a modern-day setting and is the first in the Ghost Recon series to feature an open world with 9 different types of terrain. The benchmark was run at the beginning of the first mission in the game.
In Ghost Recon Wildlands, all results were nearly identical, and within margin of error. In 1080p, the AORUS Waterforce 2080 averaged 79 FPS while the reference and Duke OC 2080s both averaged 78 FPS. The results for 1440p were similar with both the AORUS Waterforce 2080 and the reference card averaged 63 FPS and the Duke OC averaged 62 FPS. In 4k, the AORUS Waterforce 2080 averaged 41 FPS. The reference card and the Duke OC both averaged 39 FPS. So, Ghost Recon Wildlands was too close to call a clear winner.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is set to be the third and final game of the rebooted trilogy developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, you continue your journey as Lara Croft as she attempts to finish the life work of her father. Her in a journey that takes her from Central America to the hidden city of Paititi as she attempts to stop Trinity in their attempt to gain power. Section benchmarked was near the beginning of the first section that takes place in the hidden city. This was compared to the in-game benchmark which seems to be an accurate representation of the gameplay.
Right about now, you should have started seeing the trend. The trend of the AORUS Waterforce RTX 2080 coming in first. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was more of the same. In 1080p, the AORUS Waterforce 2080 averaged 129 FPS, The reference card came in second with an average of 126 FPS and the Duke OC came in third with an average of 125 FPS. In 1440p, the AORUS Waterforce 2080 averaged 92 FPS, which again, landed it in first place. Next was the reference card with an average of 87 FPS and then the Duke OC with an average of 86 FPS. In 4k, the AORUS Waterforce 2080 averaged 50 FPS while the reference card and the Duke OC tied with an average of 46 FPS.
Shadow of War
Shadow of War is an action role-playing video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to the very successful Shadow of Mordor that released in 2014 and is based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium. The games are set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in Tolkien’s fictional Middle Earth. You play again as Talion, a Ranger of Gondor that was brought back to life with unique abilities after being killed with his entire family as the start of the last game. Monolith Studios has created a beautiful open world with amazing gameplay and visuals.
In 1080p, Shadow of War through me for a loop. The Reference card came in first with an average of 145 FPS, Next was our AORUS Waterforce 2080 with an average of 137 FPS and last was the Duke OC with an average of 134 FPS. In 1440p, the AORUS Waterforce 2080 was back on top with an average of 109 FPS. This was one of the bigger difference between any two cards in this review. Both the reference card and the Duke OC averaged 97 FPS. This gave the AORUS Waterforce 2080 a 12 FPS lead on the other two cards in 1440p, on Shadow of War at least. The 4k results were closer. The AORUS Waterforce 2080 averaged 62 FPS in 4k. The reference card and the Duke OC tied again with an average of 58 FPS in 4k.
The Witcher 3
The Witcher 3 is an action role-playing game developed and published by CD Projekt. Based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. This is the third game in the Witcher Series to date and the best so far. You play as Geralt of Rivia on his quest to save his adopted daughter from the Wild Hunt. At its release in 2015, The Witcher 3 has some of the most beautiful graphics ever seen in a game, as well as some of the most demanding. Even today, almost 4 years later, the Witcher 3 still holds up very well and brings even the most powerful systems to their knees. The game was benchmarked during the hunt for and battle with the Griffin near the start of the main story.
The Witcher three is still a very demanding game. Even four years after its release. The AORUS Waterforce 2080 came out way ahead in 1080p with an average of 144 FPS. Next was the reference card with an average of 113 FPS and the Duke OC came in last with an average of 112 FPS. In 1440p the AORUS Waterforce 2080 averaged 97 FPS. The reference card was next with an average of 89 FPS and the Duke OC averaged 88 FPS. In 4k, the reference card came in first with an average of 60 FPS. Next was the Waterforce 2080 with an average of 58 FPS. Last was the Duke OC with an average of 55 FPS.
Ray Tracing and NVIDIA DLSS
Of the games in our current suite, three of them have support for NVIDIA RTX and DLSS. These games are Battlefield V, Final Fantasy XV and the newest edition, Shadow of the Tomb Raider. For Battlefield V, we tested ray-tracing in 1440p, on the game’s ultra preset. We tested DXR in Battlefield V on low, medium, high and ultra settings, as well as with DXR off. DLSS stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling. Essentially, NVIDIA uses the power of AI and deep learning to help improve game performance, without loss of graphics quality. Ray tracing or DXR is a rendering technique that can produce realistic lighting effects and reflections in game, in real time.
On Final Fantasy XV, DLSS only works in 4k. We tested Final Fantasy XV in 4k on the game’s ultra preset. Final Fantasy XV was tested with DLSS both on and off. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested more like Battlefield V was. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested in 1440p on the games highest preset. We tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider with DXR off and DXR off, but DLSS on. We tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider with DXR on medium, high and ultra. We also tested DXR on ultra with DLSS on as well. Both the results from Battlefield V and Shadow of the Tomb Raider show how by enabling ray tracing, or DXR, your system can take a pretty big hit. Battlefield V went from an average of 111 FPS in 1440p on max setting, to an average of 56 FPS on the same setting, but with DXR enables. That’s about a 50% hit in frame rate.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider had similar results, On 1440p on the games highest preset, the average frame rate went from 92 FPS down to 68 FPS with DXR enabled. Turning on DLSS gained us back 1 FPS. However, in Final Fantasy XV, we saw a bit more of an increase. Since DLSS only works in 4k in Final Fantasy XV, we had to test it in 4k. So, on max preset, Final Fantasy XV averaged 40 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS. With DLSS enabled, the average went up to 47 FPS and the minimum went up to 43 FPS.
