Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.2212 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC EDITION 12GB, stock clocks
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28″ IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27″ IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• Nvidia GeForce 528.02 and 528.24 drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR.
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the display resolution and the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE or ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 17 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX); the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS); the latest version
• FrameView; the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing frametimes and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We use FrameView for capturing purposes only when DLSS 3 is enabled for maximum reliability.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting three usable runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 17 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 3 Non-Synthetic Tests

PC Games

DX11 Games

• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)
• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

DX12 Games

• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 v.1.61 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• The Callisto Protocol (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.6.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• UNIGINE Superposition

Nvidia Control Panel settings

Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

The value ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for the power management mode setting is set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 528.24 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 528.24 driver was released on January 24 primarily for the release of Dead Space (Remake) and Forspoken, which feature Nvidia DLSS technology. It also brings optimized support for the new DLSS 3 games, including Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Hitman 3, and Deliver Us Mars.

The download links for the latest GeForce 528.24 drivers can be found here. The release notes are here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from Nvidia’s website:

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for the latest new games supporting NVIDIA DLSS 3 technology including Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Hitman 3, and Deliver Us Mars. Additionally, this Game Ready Driver supports the launch of titles supporting NVIDIA DLSS technology including Dead Space and Forspoken.

Fixed Bugs

• • Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom instability with 528.02 [3940086]
  • Adobe Photoshop 24.1 application instability with 528.02 when using GeForce Experience [3940488]
  • Adobe Premiere Pro: ProRes RAW files appear completely black when previewing [3924753]
  • Autodesk Alias: Expected transparent window appears opaque [3891620]
  • OctaneBench 2020 fails intermittently due to render engine failure [3880988]

The GeForce 528.24 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 17 Games

Below are the summary charts of our selection of 17 games plus four hybrid and three non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 528.02 to 528.24 using the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the TUF RTX 4070 Ti OC.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the performance data tables, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 3840×2160 or 2560×1440, as specified on the charts.

Results give average framerates, and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentile (P1) below the corresponding averages in italics and a slightly smaller font. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frame time consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 528.24 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 528.24 Driver Performance

From the charts, we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for the hybrid and non-synthetic tests using our RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 3080.

For the game benchmarks, although most games show no significant differences when we move to 528.24 drivers from the 528.02 driver version using both GPUs, we see a noteworthy improvement in Doom Eternal (Vulkan Ray Pipeline API) in terms of raw performance.

Also, based on our testing, we found that the significant performance differences in Hitman 3 (DX12 & DXR) and The Callisto Protocol (DX12 & DXR) are not driver-related but game-related due to their latest title updates.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ada Lovelace and Ampere gaming rigs on Windows 11 v22H2. Although our GeForce driver recommendation can still be handy or suitable for Turing gamers, their representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ada Lovelace and Ampere users update to 528.24 drivers. Overall, although its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency are on par with our previously recommended driver 528.02 using both Nvidia GPU architectures, we see a significant gain in raw performance in Doom Eternal (Vulkan Ray Pipeline API) using both Nvidia GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 528.24. These reasons include its higher level of driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, and support for the latest Nvidia technologies.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka RodroG) is the current BTR lead reviewer and an enthusiast gamer. He is especially interested in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the Nvidia WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of an ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC EDITION (Ada Lovelace architecture) and a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) with 17 PC games using the latest GeForce 528.02 Game Ready driver. This time, we can only compare this GeForce driver versus the previous Game Ready driver 527.56 with the RTX 3080 and set our RTX 4070 Ti performance baseline using the latest driver for future analyses. We perform all tests on the same game version & OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC EDITION 12GB, stock clocks
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• Nvidia GeForce 527.56 and 528.02 drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR.
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the display resolution and the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE or ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 17 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX); the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS); the latest version
• FrameView; the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing frametimes and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We use FrameView for capturing purposes only when DLSS 3 is enabled for maximum reliability.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting three usable runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
    • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
    • P1 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 17 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 3 Non-Synthetic Tests

PC Games

DX11 Games

• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)
• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

DX12 Games

• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 v.1.61 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• The Callisto Protocol (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.6.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• UNIGINE Superposition

Nvidia Control Panel settings

Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

The value ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for the power management mode setting is set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 528.02 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 528.02 driver was released on January 5 primarily for the launch of RTX 4070 Ti GPUs. It also brings optimized support for Nvidia DLSS 3 technology in Conqueror’s Blade and Dakar Desert Rally.

The download links for the latest GeForce 528.02 drivers can be found here. The release notes are here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from Nvidia’s website:

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for the latest new games supporting NVIDIA DLSS 3 technology, including Conqueror’s Blade and Dakar Desert Rally.

Gaming Technology

• • • Introduces support for the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

The GeForce 528.02 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 17 Games

Below are the summary charts of our selection of 17 games plus four hybrid and three non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 527.56 to 528.02 using the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and our gaming driver performance baseline for the RTX 4070 Ti GPU.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the performance data tables, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 3840×2160 or 2560×1440, as specified on the charts.

Results give average framerates, and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentile (P1) below the corresponding averages in italics and a slightly smaller font. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frame time consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 528.02 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 528.02 Driver Performance

From the charts, we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for the hybrid and non-synthetic tests using our RTX 3080.

For the game benchmarks, although most games show no significant differences when we move to 528.02 drivers from the 527.56 driver version using our RTX 3080 GPU, we see a notable improvement (approximately a +8%) in The Callisto Protocol (DX12, no ray tracing) in terms of frame time consistency.

Our testing also shows that the 528.02 driver delivers approximately the same performance as the pre-RTX 4070 Ti launch 527.62 press drivers, including the significant frametime stability gain in The Callisto Protocol (DX12, no ray tracing). So, we also consider it would probably be a recommended GeForce Game-Ready driver version for Ada Lovelace users.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ada Lovelace and Ampere gaming rigs on Windows 11 v22H2. Although our GeForce driver recommendation can still be handy or suitable for Turing gamers, their representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ada Lovelace and Ampere users update to 528.02 drivers. Overall, although its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency are on par with both the previous driver 527.56 using our RTX 3080 and press driver 527.62 with the RTX 4070 Ti, we see a substantial performance gain in frame time stability in The Callisto Protocol (DX12, no ray tracing) using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 528.02. These reasons include its higher level of driver bug fixes, optimized support for the latest Nvidia technologies, and support for the RTX 4070 Ti GPU.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka RodroG) is the current BTR lead reviewer and an enthusiast gamer. He is especially interested in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the Nvidia WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

We recently received an ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB from Nvidia and we have been testing it for the past ten days by using 19 PC games plus hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks. This time, there will be no production nor distribution of Founder Edition models for its RTX 4070 Ti GPU (AD104) by Nvidia, and AIBs will be the only ones assembling and distributing custom models of this Ada Lovelace GPU. Although these GPUs arrive with multiple new features, including DLSS 3, this review will focus mainly on testing raw performance, not upscaling.

Our Plan

Nvidia touted the RTX 4070 Ti as a card delivering an outstanding efficient performance that can be up to 3x faster than the RTX 3090 Ti in specific games which offers a tremendous upgrade for GTX 1080 Ti or RTX 2080 users. Although for this review, we have not been able to use those same Pascal, Turing, and Ampere GPUs, we have been able to compare our RTX 4070 Ti versus an RTX 3080 (Ampere micro-architecture, 2nd RTX generation) and RTX 2080 Ti (Turing micro-architecture, 1st RTX generation).

We think comparing the RTX 4070 Ti’s performance against two iconic cards from Nvidia’s previous two RTX generations of GPUs may be worth it for Turing or Ampere users considering an upgrade to Ada Lovelace.

The RTX 4070 Ti features 7680 CUDA Cores, 40 Shader TFLOPS, 93 RT-TFLOPS, 641 Tensor FLOPS, and 12GB of GDDR6X memory, so we will see how it performs and compare with raster games and ray-tracing/DLSS games. We will focus on RTX 4070 Ti raw performance as well as consider whether the new RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC Edition at $850 delivers a good value as an upgrade from the RTX 3080 that launched at $700 MSRP two years ago and from the RTX 2080 Ti which launched at $1000 MSRP four years ago.

Features & Specifications

Key Features from ASUS

• Dedicated 3rd generation ray tracing cores (60)
• Dedicated 4th generation Tensor cores (240)
• NVIDIA DLSS 3 support
• Game Ready and Nvidia Studio drivers
• Nvidia GeForce Experience
• Nvidia Broadcast
• Nvidia G-Sync
• Nvidia GPU Boost
• PCI Express Gen 4
• Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate support
• Support for Vulkan RT APIs, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenGL 4.6
• HDCP 2.3 support
• DisplayPort 1.4a support: up to 4K at 240Hz or 8K at 60Hz with DSC, HDR
• HDMI 2.1a support: up to 4K 240Hz or 8K 60Hz with DSC, Gaming VRR, HDR

Specifications

Nvidia’s MSRP price for RTX 4070 Ti GPUs is $799, and ASUS’s price for the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC Edition is $849.99. This is approximately $50 over Nvidia’s MSRP price for a quality well-cooled tri-fan custom model with a factory GPU overclock of 120 MHz over the Nvidia reference 2610MHz boost clock.

According to GPU-Z, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC has the same default GPU clock of 2310MHz and boost GPU clock of 2730MHz – 120MHz higher than the reference – using both VBIOS modes, so the only difference between VBIOS modes is the fan curve.

We will show GPU-Z data and test the card using the Performance VBIOS mode only, as the factory overclock doesn’t change between VBIOS modes, and the card is silent under full-load when in Performance Mode, so it is not worth having higher GPU temperatures with slightly worse performance.

Below is the advanced general information on the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC reported by the GPU-Z tool.

As you can see from the GPU-Z screenshots above, you can even increase both power and temperature limits to some degree, so there is still some room for GPU overclocking, but not very high or extreme, at least without taking other risky modding procedures.

The Test Bed

We benchmark with CapFrameX and FrameView tools on a recent install of Windows 11 Pro Edition 22H2, at 2560×1440 and 3840×2160, using an Intel Core i9-12900K with stock clocks and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz memory on an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard. All games and benchmarks are the latest versions, and we use the latest GeForce Game-Ready 527.62 press drivers for games and hybrid and non-synthetic tests. The games tested, display driver, settings, and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we compare.

Let’s see the unboxing and take a closer look at this graphics card.

A Closer Look at the ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB

Packaging

The box cover highlights the graphics card image, adding the TUF GAMING logo, the GeForce RTX GPU name, and references to AURA SYNC, OC Edition, 12GB of GDDR6X memory, and DLSS3, ray tracing, Reflex, and Studio.

The back of the case touts the strengths of this model in terms of cooling, durability, aesthetics, and ASUS software. It also includes a list of key features like its dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores, PCI-E Gen 4, Display Port 1.4a, HDMI 2.1a, and HDCP 2.3, and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, DLSS 3, and G-Sync.

However, on the back of the box, there is no mention of the minimum system requirements. Only a QR code that leads to a table of recommended PSUs is added. The minimum system requirements are only shown on one lateral side of the cover and only mention the need for a 1*16-pin supplementary power connector.

Accessories

We open the box and note there are parts for a card stand. The card stand is height adjustable, and its thinner upper part can also be separated and become a small screwdriver for card disassembling purposes. Also, the card stand has a rubber band at one end, and the support base has a magnet to fix the card stand inside the chassis.

ASUS includes a PCIe Gen5 power cable adapter to two PCI-E 8-pin cables to connect the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC to most PSUs. While the power connector adapter requires two Molex wires from the PSU to operate, newer PSUs may offer the new PCIe Gen5 single cable connector instead of massive double cabling. They also include a Velcro cable management strap with TUF GAMING branding.

Above, you can see the card stand fully assembled. Some may not feel the need to use the card stand, given how relatively heavy the 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is. However, for safety and given the little volume it occupies inside the case, we think it is a worthwhile addition.

Also, you will find a small detachable black cardboard box, which includes the quick start guide, the warranty card, the certificate of reliability, the graphics card holder manual, an ASUS promotional detachable cardboard holder for your mobile phone, and a collectible card advertising this model.

The Card

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is a large tri-fan and three-slot graphics card with sober aesthetics and solid and quality design.

Turning it over, we see a sturdy metal backplate featuring the TUF and GeForce RTX logos and branding.

Heat pipes and heatsink fins cover the entire PCB, and there is a switch to choose between the Performance and Quiet VBIOS modes. We didn’t bother using the Quiet VBIOS mode as the card is silent anyway, and the factory overclock is the same, but it is good to have in case a flash procedure fails.

The IO panel connectors are 3 DisplayPorts and 2 HDMI connections.

Below is the other card end.

Plugged in & Inside the case

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC looks beautiful inside a case. We liked that only the TUF logo has RGB lighting to match our RGB-lite gaming rig.

The specifications look promising, and the card, itself, looks solid and quality.

Next is our testing configuration, methodology, and more.

Test Configuration

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 527.62 press drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR (disabled with RTX 2080 Ti due to the lack of full support).
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE or ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 19 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• FrameView, the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing frametimes and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We use FrameView for capturing purposes only when DLSS 3 is enabled for maximum reliability.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting three usable runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/Avg FPS > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • Avg FPS > 3% when evaluating raw performance.

Benchmark Suite: 19 Games, 6 Hybrid & 3 Non-Synthetic Tests

PC Games

DX11 Games

• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)
• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

DX12 Games

• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 v.1.61 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Spider-Man: Remastered (DX12)
• The Callisto Protocol (DX12)
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt v.4.00 (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.6.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

Synthetic Tests

• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.4.0 benchmark
• Geekbench 5
• Sandra 2021 GPGPU Benchmarks

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Extreme
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• UNIGINE Superposition

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Noise, Temperatures, and Power Consumption

Unfortunately, we did not have time to check out the overclocking potential, but temperatures were slightly higher than the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER. So BTR plans to follow this review up with a VR review – conducted by Mark Poppin, BTR’s PC VR specialist – and an overclocking and creative and pro apps performance analysis – done by the author of the current article.

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is quiet, and its fans never spin up, even under a heavy or full load, to be irritating or noticeable. It is as silent as the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER. This model also supports a 0RPM fan mode on idle or light load conditions.

This card is factory clocked 120MHz higher than the reference version at 2610MHz using both BIOS modes. According to its specifications, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC boost can clock up to 2730MHz out of the box. From our testing, we generally see it boosting even higher and typically settling in 2820MHz with peaks above 2850MHz under full or heavy load conditions.

Below is our thermal and approximate power consumption analysis on idle (Windows desktop, no user interactions) and full-load (UNIGINE Superposition Stress Test, 2160p resolution, highest settings, 10 minutes).

Idle conditions

On idle conditions, we see a maximum GPU clock of 210MHz, a Memory Clock of 50.6MHz max, a GPU temperature of 23 Celsius degrees (room temp at 19 Celsius degrees) max, an average board power draw of approximately 9.0W, average power consumption of 3%, and a maximum GPU voltage of 0.88V.

Full-load conditions

Under full-load conditions, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC peaked at a maximum clock of 2880MHz, but after some minutes running the Superposition stress test, it slowed down progressively, step by step, and stabilized at 2820MHz when GPU temp stays in the mid-60s C. Also, the maximum memory clock was 1312.7MHz, the GPU peaked at 65.50 Celsius degrees max (room temp at 21 Celsius degrees), the approximate board power draw was 272.8W max, a maximum power consumption peak of 95.7%, and the GPU voltage reached a maximum of 1.10V.

Finally, the reported PerfCap reason (performance limited by different factors) during our full-load GPU stress test was either the intended VBIOS power or reliability limits.

So taking into account all the above, we consider that our ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition sample works great and as intended in terms of frequencies, noise level, temperature, and power consumption. Overall the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is quiet, well-cooled, and power efficient.

Let’s head to the performance charts to compare the graphics performance of the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC with two other graphics cards; an RTX 3080, based on the Ampere architecture, and an RTX 2080 Ti, based on the Turing architecture.

Gaming Performance Charts

DirectX 11 Game Performance Charts

Days Gone (DX11)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

God of War (DX11)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

DirectX 12 Game Performance Charts

A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12) v.1.61

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

F1 22 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Far Cry 6 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Hitman 3 (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

The Callisto Protocol (DX12)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Vulkan Game Performance Charts

Doom Eternal (Vulkan)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Vulkan)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

DirectX Raytracing Game Performance Charts

Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

F1 22 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Far Cry 6 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Forza Horizon 5 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Hitman 3 (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

The Callisto Protocol (DXR)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Vulkan Raytracing Game Performance Charts

Doom Eternal (Vulkan Ray Pipeline)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Quake II RTX v.1.6.0 (Vulkan Ray Query)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Wolfenstein: Youngblood (RTX)

2160p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

1440p – Avg FPS & P1 FPS – Higher is better

Main Performance Gaming Summary Charts

Here are the summary charts of 19 games, six hybrid, and three non-synthetic tests. We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings on the performance summary charts below. The benches were run at 2560×1440 and at 3840×2160.

We compare three graphics cards and list them listed in order starting with the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC (yellow text), the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER, and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK. All results, except for 3D Mark Fire Strike, Time Spy, and Port Royal hybrid tests, show average framerates, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and a slightly smaller font. Minimum framerates are expressed by the 1% percentile FPS (P1), and higher is better.

Here are the hybrid and non-synthetic benchmark results.

DLSS Benchmarks

In this section, we compare the performance in some games with Quality DLSS on and off, and also compare performance with Quality DLSS 2 with our RTX 3080 and 2080 Ti cards versus Quality DLSS 3 (DLSS 2 + Frame Generation) using our RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC to check if the massive performance improvements advertised by Nvidia are real.

No DLSS vs. Quality DLSS 2

Looking at the chart above, we see substantial performance improvements in all tested games using Quality DLSS 2 with our three cards compared to not using DLSS.

At 2160p and using Quality DLSS, the 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC is the only card of our three we compare to exceed the 30FPS barrier in Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR), to reach the 60FPS one in Hitman 3 (DXR), and to exceed 60FPS avg in Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR).

No DLSS vs. Quality DLSS 2 & 3

Nvidia talks about 2x and up to 2.4x performance improvements when using DLSS 3 in games supported by the RTX 4070 Ti. In our case, we saw that their promo ads are consistent with reality.

We see an impressive +159% (2.6X) performance improvement between having DLSS 3 on and off in The Witcher 3 (DXR) v4.0, another +107% (2.1X) in F1 22 (DXR), +72% (1.7X) in Spider-Man: Remastered (DXR), and +91% (1.9X) in A Plague Tale: Requiem.

The previous results using DLSS 3 show us the notable advantage and performance leap in the most demanding and current ray-traced games, which comes from having an Ada Lovelace graphics card, especially in the case of the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC.

Considering the image quality results from a 2160p native resolution, we saw that overall, Quality DLSS 3 looks just as good as Quality DLSS 2 in all games we tested, with only some minor artifacts visible in certain situations. From a 1440p native resolution, we see similar results, except The Witcher 3 v.4.0, as the game with DLSS 3 enabled showed a blurrier image than Quality DLSS 2 in this scenario.

Averaged Framerates & Relative GPU Performance

Averaged Game Framerates

We averaged the aggregated FPS avg of all games and testing scenarios, and we represented the total game average FPS for each tested graphics card by the following chart:

On average, the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti is approximately 17% faster than the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and 66% faster than the EVGA RTX 2080 BLACK. So, although the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC offers a substantial performance improvement in games over the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK baseline performance, the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC delivers a far less impressive step up over the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER.

RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC Relative Performance

Considering the calculated total game average FPS and the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC as 100% performance, we can situate relatively the two other cards we compare. So, based on our total game average FPS of each card, the relative GPU performance of the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER is approximately 86% (14% less performance than the RTX 4070 Ti, on average), and the relative GPU performance of the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK is 60% (40% less performance than the RTX 4070 Ti, on average).

Let’s see our final thoughts and verdict on the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC.

Final Thoughts & Verdict

This has been an enjoyable exploration comparing the new ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition with the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK. The TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti is a quality card with a sober aesthetic, minimal RGB lighting, an excellent cooling system, and room for moderate additional overclocking.

The RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC performed solidly above the RTX 3080 and well above the RTX 2080 Ti. While the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC is not a notable upgrade for existing RTX 3080 users, it certainly is for RTX 2080 Ti users and any Turing users considering upgrading their gaming rig. However, at $849.99 and for users coming from an RTX 3080, the TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC is still a reasonably priced option to consider as a decent GPU refresh, especially if you want to enjoy significant performance improvements in DX12 and ray-traced games and the massive performance gains that DLSS 3 brings to gamers.

The TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition especially shines at 1440p resolution delivering high to very-high framerates in every recent game and 3D API scenario we tested, and also has the power to play most games over 60FPS at 2160p, where until now, a 3080 fell short of delivering a smooth 60 FPS experience in the most demanding games.

All in all, the ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition is a decent refresh in terms of performance for RTX 3080 owners who want to upgrade to the latest architecture to maximize its graphics power for a reasonable price or even a big step up at a good price for Turing users who also like to enjoy the ray tracing and Nvidia DLSS enhancements of the new Ada-Lovelace micro-architecture.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka RodroG) is the current BTR lead reviewer and an enthusiast gamer. He is especially interested in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) and an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK (Turing architecture) with 20 PC games using the latest GeForce 522.25 Game Ready driver. We compare this GeForce driver versus our previously recommended driver 517.48 with both cards, and we perform all tests on the same game version and OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p or (DL)DSR resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 517.48 and 522.25 drivers; ‘High Quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile-basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR.
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE or ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 20 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting three valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 20 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 5 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• Neon Noir (Benchmark)
• UNIGINE Superposition

DX11 Games

• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12)
• Borderlands 3 (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.6.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Both ‘High-Quality’ values for texture filtering-quality setting and ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for power management mode are set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 522.25 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 522.25 driver was released on October 12 primarily for the release of Gotham Knights, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, and Dakar Desert Rally, which feature NVIDIA DLSS technology. It also brings optimized support for the first new DLSS 3 games including A Plague Tale: Requiem, Justice, Loopmancer, F1 22, Bright Memory: Infinite, SUPER PEOPLE, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered.

This new driver adds support for the GeForce RTX 4090 GPU (Ada Lovelace GPU micro-architecture) and brings significant DirectX 12 performance improvements for GeForce RTX GPUs:

These improvements include shader compilation optimization, reduced CPU overhead, and Resizable BAR profiles for Forza Horizon 5 and F1 22. Many of these optimizations are most beneficial in CPU-bound scenarios, enabling your graphics card to be utilized to a greater degree. […] Our DirectX 12 optimizations apply to GeForce RTX graphics cards and laptops, though improvements will vary based on your specific system setup, and the game settings used. (Source: NVIDIA)

The download links for the latest GeForce 522.25 drivers can be found starting here. The release notes are found here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from NVIDIA’s website:

Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.

Game Ready

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for the latest new DLSS titles including Gotham Knights, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, and Dakar Desert Rally. In addition, this Game Ready Driver supports the first new DLSS 3 titles including A Plague Tale: Requiem, Justice, Loopmancer, F1 22, Bright Memory: Infinite, SUPER PEOPLE, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. This Game Ready Driver also includes significant DirectX 12 performance optimizations which can dramatically improve performance for GeForce 30 Series GPUs.

Gaming Technology

Includes support for the GeForce RTX 4090.

The GeForce 522.25 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 20 games plus 4 hybrid and 5 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 517.48 to 522.25 using the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Days Gone and Far Cry 6 tested at 3840×2160 resolution. You may click each chart to open a pop-up for the best viewing.

Results give average framerates, and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frame time consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 522.25 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 522.25 Driver Performance

From the charts, although we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for the hybrid tests using our RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti, we see a significant raw performance regression in the GPUScore: Relic of Life (Vulkan Ray Pipeline API) non-synthetic test.

For the game benchmarks, although most games show no significant differences when we move to 522.25 drivers from the 517.48 driver version using both GPUs, we see a significant performance regression in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12) in terms of frametime consistency; but substantial improvements in raw performance in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12), Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12), Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12 & RTX), DIRT 5 (DXR), Forza Horizon 5 (DX12), Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12), and Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12 & DXR).

This time, we also believe that the substantial average FPS improvement we saw in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, using both RTX graphics cards, may offset the regression in frame time stability.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ampere and Turing users update to the latest GeForce 522.25 driver. Although its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency are overall on par with our previously recommended driver 517.48, we see substantial performance gains in many DX12 games using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 522.25. These reasons include its higher level of driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, and support for the RTX 4090 GPU and latest NVIDIA technologies.

We hope to be able to compare GeForce drivers under the Ada Lovelace architecture in November, as soon as we can get our hands on a GeForce RTX 4080 16GB graphics card.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka RodroG) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) and an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK (Turing architecture) with 20 PC games using the latest GeForce 517.48 Game Ready driver. We compare this GeForce driver versus our previously recommended driver 516.94 with both cards, and we perform all tests on the same game version and OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p or (DL)DSR resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 516.94 and 517.48 drivers; ‘High Quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile-basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR.
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE or ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 20 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting three valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 20 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 5 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• Neon Noir (Benchmark)
• UNIGINE Superposition

DX11 Games

• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12)
• Borderlands 3 (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.6.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Both ‘High-Quality’ values for texture filtering-quality setting and ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for power management mode are set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 517.48 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 517.48 driver was released on September 27 primarily for the release of Overwatch 2, which features NVIDIA Reflex technology. It also brings optimized support for Microsoft Flight Simulator’s DLSS 2 Update.

This new driver adds support for 4 more displays to the G-SYNC compatible list, bringing the total to 237 (HP HyperX Armada 27 and HyperX Armada 25; and Sony INZONE M9 and INZONE M3).

The download links for the latest GeForce 517.48 drivers can be found starting here. The release notes are found here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from NVIDIA’s website:

Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.

Game Ready for Overwatch 2

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for Overwatch 2. In addition, this new Game Ready Driver offers support for the latest releases and updates including the addition of NVIDIA DLSS technology to Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The GeForce 517.48 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 20 games plus 4 hybrid and 5 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 516.94 to 517.48 using the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Days Gone and Far Cry 6 tested at 3840×2160 resolution. You may click each chart to open a pop-up for the best viewing.

Results give average framerates, and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frame time consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 517.48 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 517.48 Driver Performance

From the charts, although we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for the hybrid tests using our RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti, we see significant performance improvements in BasemarkGPU (Vulkan & DX12) non-synthetic tests.

For the game benchmarks, although most games show no significant differences when we move to 517.48 drivers from the 516.94 driver version using both GPUs, we see a significant performance improvement in frametime stability in Far Cry 6 (DXR).

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ampere and Turing gaming rigs on Windows 11 v22H2. Their representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ampere and Turing users update to the latest GeForce 517.48 driver. Its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency level are overall on par with our previously recommended driver 516.94, using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 517.48. These reasons include its higher level of driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, and support for the latest NVIDIA technologies.

We also want to let you know that we hope to be able to compare GeForce drivers under the Ada Lovelace architecture sometime next November, as soon as we manage to get our hands on a GeForce RTX 4080 16GB graphics card.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka RodroG) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

After spending many hours completing the Spider-Man Remastered main story, and being unable to tear ourselves away from the screen, BTR’s editors recommend it as a great game with a few flaws. Rodrigo, Mark, and Mario have collaborated to produce this review, each of us playing it for 20 or more hours. We cover the gameplay, updated performance with Thursday’s patch, and IQ (image quality) which includes ray tracing and testing AMD’s and NVIDIA’s upscaling solutions.

Spider-Man Remastered was released originally as a PS4 exclusive in 2018 and two years later remastered for PS5. Sony then gave it a complete makeover when they ported it to PC complete with ray traced reflections, and together with all the DLC, it was released ten days ago on August 12, 2022. Sony worked quickly to patch the game six days later, significantly improving ray traced performance while addressing bugs. We have tested the performance of 11 ray tracing capable NVIDIA and AMD cards because reflections add a lot of value to playing the game much like Control does. Since Spider-Man: Remastered is a fast-paced game, it’s important to keep framerates high.

Upscaling, Image Quality, and Performance

Spider-Man: Remastered features anti-aliasing solutions, SMAA, TAA, and NVIDIA’s DLAA as well as DLSS and AMD’s FSR 2.0 as upscaling solutions to improve framerates while maintaining image quality (IQ). DLAA is an NVIDIA-developed superior AI-enhanced form of TAA which has the best native render/display resolution visuals and is the best way to play on very powerful top RTX-powered PCs. As upscaling solutions, the Quality DLSS images are better than Quality FSR 2.0 with the camera in motion and with DLSS Quality being as good as the native 4K visuals and slightly sharper. Unfortunately, there is no sharpening slider and the overall images are too sharp.

FSR 2.0 is AMD’s latest iteration of FidelityFX Super Resolution. FSR improves performance by first rendering frames at a lower resolution and then by using an open-source spatial upscaling algorithm with a sharpening filter in an attempt to make the game look nearly as good as at native resolution. So far, there are 110+ available and upcoming games supporting FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.0. Although FSR 2.0 is a solid improvement over 1.0, it is still outclassed by DLSS, especially with the camera in motion.

More than three years ago, NVIDIA introduced real-time RTX ray tracing together with AI-powered Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS). To play at high settings requires the use of AI super-resolution or DLSS which provides better than a game’s postprocessing AA together with improved performance. Spider-Man: Remastered uses ray tracing with DLSS or FSR 2.0 to improve performance, and we will compare the current performance and IQ of eleven AMD and NVIDIA ray tracing capable cards using the latest 516.94 GeForce and 22.8.1 Adrenalin drivers.

Performance Options and Test bed

Mark’s testing platform is an Intel Core i9-12900K, an ASUS ROG Maximus Apex Z690 motherboard, and 32 GB of T-Force DDR5 at 6400MHz on a recent clean install of Windows 11 Pro Edition. He compares image quality using DLSS versus FSR 2.0 and also using native TAA (and also DLAA for RTX cards), and we chart the performance of eleven current NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon ray tracing capable cards:

• RTX 3090
• RTX 3080 Ti
• RTX 3080
• RTX 3070 Ti
• RTX 2080 Ti
• RTX 3070
• RTX 3060 Ti
• RTX 3060
• RX 6800 XT
• RX 6800
• RX 6700 XT

First, are compared ray traced reflections On versus Off in an indoor scene using completely maxed out settings and the very highest ray tracing options.

Ray Tracing On versus Off (Native 4/Maxed settings)

[twenty20 img1=”28514″ img2=”28513″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Ray traced reflections On” after=”Ray traced reflections Off”]

All of our images use maxed-out 4K settings with Very High ray tracing.

TAA vs. DLSS

Here are mostly uncompressed JPEG 4K images comparing No DLSS/Native/TAA (left) with Quality DLSS (right) using a slider.

[twenty20 img1=”28517″ img2=”28518″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Native/TAA 4K” after=”Quality DLSS 4K”]

We don’t recommend that RTX gamers play without DLSS at 4K. The DLSS image quality is equal or better/sharper than native/TAA – and especially with the camera in motion – although there are some very slight differences that can be seen with some minor DLSS specular aliasing issues visible on some surfaces and on rain drops. DLSS is perfect for 4K, but DLSS settings don’t scale well on 1440p and lower resolutions due to low GPU usage and high CPU limitation when using it.

TAA vs. DLAA

DLAA is an NVIDIA-developed superior IA-enhanced form of TAA which keeps native render/display resolution that only works on GeForce. However, DLAA comes with a small FPS cost, but the image quality is better than native 4K + TAA.

[twenty20 img1=”28518″ img2=”28519″ offset=”0.5″ before=”TAA ” after=”DLAA”]

If you have a powerful enough RTX-powered PC to run it, DLAA is the best choice for the ultimate image quality, especially at 1440p and 1080P.

DLSS vs. FSR 2.0

FSR 2.0 is AMD’s latest iteration of FidelityFX Super Resolution. FSR improves performance by first rendering frames at a lower resolution and then by using an open-source spatial upscaling algorithm with a sharpening filter. Its advantage is that it works on all cards, not just Radeons. Its disadvantage is that even the highest Quality FSR 2.0 setting does not maintain the high visual fidelity that Quality DLSS does, especially with the camera in motion.

[twenty20 img1=”28520″ img2=”28517″ offset=”0.5″ before=”4K Quality FSR 2.0″ after=”Quality DLSS 4K”]

FSR 2.0 is perfect for Radeons playing at 4K, but it doesn’t scale well on 1440p and lower resolutions due to Spider-Man: Remastered’s low GPU usage and high CPU limitation when using it.

There isn’t really a lot of visual difference that can be shown by screenshots.

Next, we check out the performance of eleven RTX cards using 3840×2160, 2560×1440, and 1920×1080 resolutions using up to three levels of DLSS with the goal of averaging close to 60 FPS while still using completely maxed-out settings.

Eleven Video Cards’ Performance Compared Using Maxed-out or the Very High Preset

First of all, no video card can play with fully maxed out settings at native 4K with TAA (or DLAA) and keep framerates above 60 FPS. The RTX 3090 cannot manage it, and most likely, neither can the RTX 3090 Ti. Here are the fully maxed-out settings (left) compared with the Very High Preset (right).

The Very High Preset uses High Reflections and Geometry details but using fully maxed-out settings they are set to Very High. In addition, the Object range increases from 6 to 10, and we also increased the Field of View. However, please note that we also increased the Anisotropic Filtering from 8X to 16X for all of our benching.

Let’s look at the performance of our 11 tested ray tracing capable video cards. All of the following charts show average framerates (FPS) in Bold and 1% FPS percentile minimums next to them in slightly smaller italized font.

4K Highest Setting Video cards – RTX 3080 Ti & RTX 3090

Only three cards can generally play at maximum settings at native 4K with TAA or DLAA.

The RTX 3090 and 3080 Ti are no-compromise video cards (together with the RTX 3090 Ti which we don’t have) that provide the best 4K Spider-Man Remastered experience. But none of them can handle fully maxed-out 4K settings without using DLSS. Quality DLSS provides an image quality experience that is arguably as good as native 4K with DLAA and better than native 4K with TAA.

We managed to play using native 4K and DLAA playing on an LG C1 120Hz G-SYNC OLED display with drops to the mid-50 FPS that did not impact our gameplay fluidity too badly. However, using Quality DLSS significantly improved the fluidity of the gameplay and did not impact the visuals during play. There is no reason to use FSR 2.0 even on its highest Quality setting with RTX cards as DLSS has better image quality with the camera in motion and the DLSS performance is a bit higher.

At maxed-out 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti also averages above 60 FPS with DLSS Performance but it drops into the lower 50s FPS for the 1% minimum lows. Dropping the settings from maximum to use the Very High preset allows RTX 3080 Ti players to enjoy framerates above 60 FPS even with native 4K/DLAA, but Quality DLSS provides a better and more fluid experience without compromising image quality.

1440p allows RTX 3090/3080 Ti gamers to enjoy even higher framerates and take advantage of 120Hz displays.

Other 4K video cards

The RTX 3080, RTX 3070 Ti, the RX 6900 XT, the RX 6800, and the RX 6800 are also able to play using the Very High preset by using DLSS or FSR 2.0. Unfortunately, we don’t have an RX 6900 XT to test.

The RTX 3080 can just manage 4K with TAA but not with DLAA which provides a superior image. It is far better to use Quality DLSS to not only enjoy superior visuals to TAA but to experience fluid framerates.

The RX 6800 XT requires Quality FSR 2.0 to achieve fluid framerates at 4K.

The RX 6800 performs similarly to the RX 6800 XT and can manage 4K/Very High above 60 FPS using FSR 2.0.

The following video cards perform well at 1440p.

1440P Video Car ds

The RTX 3070 Ti cannot play at Very High 4K without Balanced DLSS. It is best suited for 1440p since DLSS settings don’t scale well on 1440p and lower resolutions due to low GPU usage and high CPU limitations.

The RTX 3070 performs just below the RTX 3070 Ti in Spider-Man Remastered, and although it cannot play at all well at 4K/maxed, the same recommendations for 1440P apply as above.

The last generation flagship RTX 2080 Ti also can easily manage 1440P with native DLAA but it may be better to use DLSS Quality for much higher framerates and better fluidity while swinging through the city

The RTX 3060 Ti can handle native 1440p although Quality DLSS provides an IQ alternative that is equal but with more fluid framerates.

The RX 6700 XT can manage native 1440p/Very High but using Quality FSR 2.0 allows for higher framerates. It is also an excellent 1080P card since FSR 2.0 settings don’t scale well on 1440p and lower resolutions due to low GPU usage and high CPU limitations.

The RTX 3060 requires Quality DLSS to play at 2560×1440, but it is also well-suited as a 1080P card because of the same DLSS issues at lower resolutions due to low GPU usage and high CPU limitations.

DLSS and FSR 2.0 make a huge difference to the playability of Spider-Man: Remastered at either the highest visual quality settings or using the Very High preset at 4K. DLSS Quality has no IQ disadvantages whatsoever while FSR 2.0 makes minor visual differences while gaming. Both upscaling methods are highly recommended at 4K over using TAA except at 1440p and lower resolutions due to low GPU usage and high CPU limitation when using them, especially while swinging through the city.

Now let’s look at Rodrigo’s deep dive using the RTX 3080 and RX 6700 XT. The following is again in his words.

Rodrigo’s Deep Dive using the RTX 3080 and RX 6700 XT

Mark benchmarked the cards at “maxed-out” 4K and Very High 4K while I concentrated on 1440p “maxed-out” settings using an AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER, and on 1080P ‘”Very High (16xAF)” settings with a reference AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.

My testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz CL14.

I use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from our custom benchmark sequence. I always perform consecutive runs until detecting three valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:

• • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).

WQHD (1440p) Performance Analysis Using an RTX 3080

We showcase Spider-Man: Remastered performance at 2560×1440 (1440p) or WQHD display resolution using an AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER graphics card at stock clocks.

In this section our “Maxed-out” graphics settings are as follows:

When needed for testing, we set ray-tracing reflection resolution and geometry detail settings in tandem and independently of any graphics quality preset or settings.

Graphics Quality Presets – Performance scaling

The charts below show the performance of each of the game’s graphics presets in terms of average FPS numbers for the raw performance, P1 and P0.2 metrics for frametimes consistency, and the corresponding performance scaling progression when we move between presets.

The above results showed how well and progressively the game scales performance on 1440p resolution when going from “Very High” preset to “Very Low” in terms of both IQ and GPU workload levels. Although we saw significant raw performance improvements when moving from the “Very High” preset to the “Very Low” preset, the frametime consistency or stability kept similar across all graphics presets. Also, moving from the “Very High” to “High” preset gives you the highest FPS avg gain.

The following charts support these findings and show that the graphics preset with the worst frametime stability and frame-pacing is the “Very High” preset, comparatively.

We next present our ray-tracing and NVIDIA DLAA vs. TAA results using an RTX 3080 at 1440p resolution.

Ray-Tracing Performance – Settings & DLAA vs. TAA

Here we see the high FPS cost of enabling real-time ray traced reflections in Spider-Man Remastered, up to about 42% less raw performance. We also see that, while the difference when using DLAA or TAA is relatively minor when using “Maxed” settings and “Very High” ray-tracing settings, this difference increases significantly with “High” ray-tracing settings and notably when ray-tracing is off.

The charts above show that while the ray-tracing “Very High” scenarios showed the worst frametime consistency or stability, the ray-tracing “High” settings scenarios were the most consistent or stable. Besides, although the differences in frametime variances were minor, we saw that the “High” ray-tracing scenario with DLAA had overall the best frame-pacing and “very high” ray-tracing with TAA the worst.

Our NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR 2.0 results using an RTX 3080 at 1440p resolution are next.

NVIDIA DLSS Performance – Settings

We see that while the performance gain is notable when we turn on DLSS scaling (up to about 21%), the relative raw performance gains are smaller overall when we move from the “DLSS Quality” setting to “DLSS Balanced” and from “DLSS Balanced” to “DLSS Performance” mode. That’s why we consider that in terms of performance and image quality, it makes little sense to use a setting other than DLSS Quality when you play at 1440p resolution.

In this regard, our tests also showed that using any DLSS setting is consistently associated with low GPU usage and CPU-boundedness. This situation is especially noticeable when our Spider-Man is outdoors and swinging between buildings.

Based on the charts above, we also see that using DLSS with ray-tracing gives significant performance gains in frametime consistency or stability and frame-pacing.

AMD FSR 2.0 Performance – Settings

The charts above show a similar performance scaling trend as we saw with DLSS settings. While we see a notable performance boost as soon as we enable AMD FSR 2.0 scaling (up to about a 20% gain), we found minor performance changes when swapping between FSR 2.0 modes. Also, the frametime consistency or stability was better using the AMD FSR 2.0 scaling method.

The next charts support these findings and show that you get a better frame-pacing when using AMD FSR 2.0 scaling settings.

Therefore, DLSS and FSR 2.0 scaling methods can also help smooth out your gaming experience in this game.

Below are our DLSS vs. FSR 2.0 performance comparisons

DLSS vs FSR 2.0 Performance

Although the game’s performance scaling behavior is overall the same using NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR 2.0 technologies, we consider NVIDIA DLSS the best AI-enhanced scaling method in terms of IQ when using an RTX graphics card.

We also don’t see significant performance differences in frametime consistency or frame-pacing between DLSS and AMD FSR 2.0 settings.

Full HD (1080p) Performance Analysis Using a Reference RX 6700 XT

Next is our in-depth Spider-Man: Remastered performance analysis at 1080p or Full HD display resolution using a reference AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT card with stock clocks.

In this section our “Very High (16xAF)” graphics settings are as follows:

When needed for testing, we set ray-tracing reflection resolution and geometry detail settings in tandem and independently of any graphics quality preset or settings.

Graphics Quality Presets – Performance scaling

Using our reference RX 6700 XT graphics card at 1080p resolution, we see overall the same performance scaling trend as we found with our AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER. That is, a higher performance improvement when we move from the “Very High” to “High” preset, but lower average FPS gains when we move to the rest of the graphics quality presets.

“High” is the steadiest graphics quality preset, and “Very High” is the less smooth one using our reference RX 6700 XT at 1080p resolution. Also, all presets show an overall similar frame-pacing.

We next present our ray-tracing performance charts using a reference RX 6700 XT at 1080p resolution.

Ray-Tracing Performance – Settings

Here we see again the high FPS cost of enabling ray traced reflections in Spider-Man Remastered, up to about 44% less raw performance at 1080 resolution using our reference RX 6700 XT. Going from ray-tracing “High” settings to ray-tracing “Very High” shows a 17% loss in FPS avg, a 32% FPS avg decrease going from no ray-tracing to “High” ray-tracing settings, and a 44% reduction going from no ray-tracing to “Very High”ray-tracing settings.

From the charts, we also see that “High” ray-tracing is overall the steadiest testing scenario. Here the frame-pacing was similar in all tested configs.

AMD FSR 2.0 Performance – Settings

Again, the FSR 2.0 Quality setting provides the best performance and image quality benefits. Our tests using any FSR 2.0 scaling setting also showed low GPU usage and CPU-boundedness, consistently. This situation is especially noticeable when our Spider-Man is outdoors and swinging between buildings.

Here we see that using any FSR 2.0 scaling setting helps us significantly improve frametime consistency or stability and frame pacing slightly.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

Conclusion

Spider-Man: Remastered is an immersive, outstanding, and really fun game that gives a great cinematic experience while telling an extraordinary story. We are especially impressed by its visuals coupled with the large free performance increase that DLSS and FSR 2.0 brings for PC gamers.

If you like Spider-Man movies and/or the comics, Remastered is a must-play game that is better than the films. And if you are looking to play the game with the best framerates and the very highest image fidelity, then choose DLSS or FSR 2.0 depending if you are a GeForce or Radeon gamer. Spider-Man: Remastered is the kind of deeply immersive game that makes a player forget everything – food, chores, work, and even pain.

All of BTR’s three editors agree that Spider-Man: Remastered is a very good game that deserves at least an 8.0/10. Recommended!

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy Gaming!

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) and an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK (Turing architecture) with 20 PC games using the latest GeForce 516.94 Game Ready driver. We compare this GeForce driver versus our previously recommended driver 516.79 with both cards, and we perform all tests on the same game version and OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p or (DL)DSR resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 516.79 and 516.94 drivers; ‘High Quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile-basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR (why?).
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v21H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS off (why?), Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We disable hidden Xbox’s Xvdd SCSI Miniport storage controller to work around a possible hitching/stuttering/freezing when testing non-Xbox Play Anywhere games (source), except for test Xbox Play Anywhere games.
• We do not install GIGABYTE and ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 20 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting three valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • Aggregate excluding outliers:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 20 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 5 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• Neon Noir (Benchmark)
• UNIGINE Superposition

DX11 Games

• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12)
• Borderlands 3 (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.5.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Both ‘High-Quality’ values for texture filtering-quality setting and ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for power management mode are set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 516.94 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 516.94 driver was released on August 9 primarily for the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, which features NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA DLAA, NVIDIA HBAO+, and real-time ray tracing effects. It also brings optimized support for Madden NFL 23 and the upcoming SUPER PEOPLE beta.

This new driver adds support for 18 more monitors to the G-SYNC compatible list, bringing the total to 233 (ACER XB273U Z; ASUS XG256Q, XG276Q, PG48UQ; AOC Q24G2; Corsair 32UHD144; LG 32GQ850, 32GQ950,48GQ900, 49WQ95C; LG TV LX1Q; and Philips 27M1N5200PA, 27M1N5500ZA, 77OLED807/12, PHL24M1N5500Z, PHL252M1RPE, PHL27M1N3200Z, and PHL27M1N5200P).

The download links for the latest GeForce 516.94 drivers can be found starting here. The release notes are found here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from NVIDIA’s website:

Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.

Game Ready for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered which includes support for the latest gaming technologies including NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA DLAA, NVIDIA HBAO+, and upgraded ray-tracing effects. In addition, this new Game Ready Driver offers support for the latest releases and updates including Madden NFL 23 and the beta for SUPER PEOPLE.

The GeForce 516.94 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 20 games plus 4 hybrid and 5 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 516.79 to 516.94 using the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Days Gone and Far Cry 6 tested at 3840×2160 resolution. You may click each chart to open a pop-up for the best viewing.

Results give average framerates, and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frame time consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 516.94 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 516.94 Driver Performance

From the charts, we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for both the hybrid and non-synthetic tests using our RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti.

For the game benchmarks, most games show no significant differences when we move to 516.94 drivers from the 516.79 driver version using both GPUs.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ampere and Turing gaming rigs on Windows 11 v21H2. Their representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ampere and Turing users upgrade to the latest GeForce 516.94 driver. Overall, its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency level are on par with our previously recommended driver 516.79 using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 516.94. These reasons include its higher level of security and driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, and support for the latest NVIDIA technologies.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka RodroG) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

This review showcases the latest reference Radeon RX 6700 XT’s Adrenalin driver performance with 17 PC games. We benchmark the Optional Adrenalin 22.7.1 driver released a few days ago versus our previously recommended driver 22.6.1. We perform all tests using the same game version and OS build.

This latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.7.1 Optional driver was released on July 26 primarily to introduce new AMD Noise Suppression technology, expanded hardware support for Radeon Super Resolution upscaling technology, OpenGL performance optimization, and other enhancements.

Our testing platform is a recent Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition installation, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings, and hardware, are identical except for the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (Reference) 12GB, stock clocks, on loan from AMD
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• AMD Software Adrenalin 22.7.1 drivers, and 22.6.1 drivers; default AMD Radeon features and settings; AMD FreeSync ‘Disabled’ (when applicable).
• AMD SAM/Resizable BAR On
• V-Sync ‘off, unless application specifies’ in the Software Adrenalin control center; V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v21H2; High-performance power plan; Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off; Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis; Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE and ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 17 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark’s suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

Radeon Software Adrenalin Suite-related

• The minimal Radeon Adrenalin Software installation is used.
• We install the display driver.
• We enable the ‘Issue detection’ setting.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• The corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence is used.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that we can aggregate using CapFrameX and the following method:
  • ‘Aggregate excluding outliers’:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 17 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 5 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test (DXR)
• Fire Strike Extreme (DX11)
• Port Royal (DXR)
• Time Spy (DX12)

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU (Vulkan, OpenGL, DX12)
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark (DXR)
• Gravity Mark: GPU Benchmark (OpenGL) – NEW
• Neon Noir (Benchmark, DX11)
• UNIGINE Superposition (DX11, OpenGL)

DX11 Games

• Borderlands 3 (DX11)
• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DX11)
• Far Cry New Dawn (DX11)
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.5.0)
• Wolfenstein Youngblood (VK)

AMD Software Adrenalin Control Center Settings

Here are the global Adrenalin Control Center settings:

All the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin features and settings are default.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.7.1

The Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.7.1 Optional driver was released on July 26 primarily to introduce new AMD Noise Suppression technology, expanded hardware support for Radeon Super Resolution upscaling, and OpenGL performance optimization, and other enhancements.

The download links for the Adrenalin 22.7.1 Optional drivers can be found starting here. The 22.7.1 release notes can be found here.

Here are the release highlights of Adrenalin v22.7.1 from AMD Radeon’s website:

• • • Swordsman Remake.
    • Radeon Boost using Variable Rate Shading with Elden Ring, Resident Evil Village, and VALORANT.
    • Microsoft Windows 11 version 22H2.
    • Microsoft Agility SDK Release 1.602 including new minor features.
    • Microsoft Agility SDK Release 1.606 including Microsoft Shader Model 6.7.
    • Additional Vulkan extensions. Click here for more information.
    • AMD Noise Suppression
      • Our newest feature: AMD Noise Suppression reduces background audio noise from your surrounding environment using a real-time deep learning algorithm, providing greater clarity and improved concentration whether you are focused on an important meeting or staying locked in on a competitive game. To learn more, check out our blog post HERE!
    • OpenGL Optimizations
      • Up to 79% increase in performance in Minecraft @ 4k Fabulous settings, using Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.7.1 on the Radeon RX 6950XT, versus the previous software driver version 22.6.1.
      • Up to 75% increase in performance in Minecraft @ 4k Fabulous settings, using Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.7.1 on the Radeon RX 6400, versus the previous software driver version 22.6.1.
    • Radeon Super Resolution
      • Expanded support for discrete Radeon RX 5000 and 6000 series GPUs on AMD Ryzen processor notebooks with hybrid graphics.
      • RSR has been improved to provide a more seamless experience in borderless fullscreen mode with a performance/quality slider to personalize your gaming experience.

Fixed Issues

• • • • Lower than expected Folding@home compute performance with OpenCL API on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon RX 6800.
      • Auto Undervolt may disable the Zero RPM fan feature.
      • Hitman 3 may freeze when rapidly switching between windows in Fullscreen Exclusive mode.
      • Video upscaling in browsers appears blurry with some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon RX 6900 XT Graphics.
      • Enhanced Sync may cause games to lock to 15FPS with video playback on extended monitors.

The Adrenalin 22.7.1 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 17 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 17 games plus 4 hybrid and 5 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 22.6.1 to 22.7.1 using the reference AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Far Cry New Dawn, tested at 3840×2160 resolution; and Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR) and Quake 2 RTX (Vulkan Ray Tracing Pipeline) which are tested at 1920×1080 resolution.

Results give average framerates and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frametimes consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

Ad renalin 22.7.1 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on Adrenalin 22.7.1 Driver Performance – 22.7.1 vs. 22.6.1

From the charts, although we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for the hybrid tests, we see notable performance improvements in Basemark GPU (OpenGL), Gravity Mark: GPU Benchmark (OpenGL), and Superposition (OpenGL) non-synthetic tests.

For the game benchmarks, although many games show no significant differences when we upgrade to the 22.7.1 drivers from 22.6.1, we see significant improvements in Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR), Far Cry 6 (DX12 & DXR), Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12), Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR), and Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12) in terms of raw performance; Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12 & DXR) and DOOM Eternal (Vulkan Ray Pipeline) in terms of frametime consistency; but also noteworthy performance regressions in Chernobylite (DX11) and DOOM Eternal (Vulkan and Vulkan Ray Pipeline) in terms of raw performance, Days Gone (DX11), Far Cry 6 (DXR), Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR), and Watch Dogs Legion (DX12) in terms of frametime stability.

The noticeable regression in terms of frame time consistency in Days Gone (DX11) with 22.7.1 results in micro-stuttering during gameplay, and The Division 2 (DX11) still shows noticeable hitching and random crashes during gameplay. However, the annoying stuttering we saw in DOOM Eternal (Vulkan Ray Pipeline) with driver 22.6.1 is not present using the latest 22.7.1 drivers.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar RDNA 2.0 gaming rigs on Windows 11 v21H2. Its representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different AMD Radeon micro-architectures, testing benches, and Microsoft Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

The performance of the latest AMD Software Adrenalin 22.7.1 driver was like a roller coaster. Based on our previous results and findings, although we saw some significant and notable performance gains using the latest 22.7.1 driver compared to 22.6.1 drivers, we still see significant performance inconsistencies and notable performance regressions that prevent us from recommending 22.7.1 for general or global use for Radeon users. Therefore, our current recommended driver for RDNA 2.0 gamers is still the Adrenalin 22.6.1 Optional driver or WHQL AMD’s Recommended 22.5.1 drivers for the best functional stability.

Since the Adrenalin 22.7.1 driver can bring notable performance gains in OpenGL games and applications, and in certain DX12 or Vulkan games, we recommend doing your own testing to see how the Adrenalin 22.7.1 Optional driver works with your gaming rig and set of favorite games.

Some qualitative reasons may make it advisable to upgrade to version 22.7.1. These reasons include higher-level driver bug fixes, optimized support for Swordsman Remake and Windows 11 22H2, and support for the latest AMD Radeon technologies, such as AMD Noise Suppression.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka “RodroG”) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

*The featured image is from AMD.

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) and an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK (Turing architecture) with 20 PC games using the latest GeForce 516.79 Game Ready Hotfix driver. We compare this GeForce Hotfix driver versus our previously recommended driver 516.40 with both cards, and we perform all tests on the same game version and the same OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p or (DL)DSR resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 516.40 and 516.79 drivers; ‘High Quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile-basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR (why?).
• V-Sync application controlled in the control panel, V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v21H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS off (why?), Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We disable hidden Xbox’s Xvdd SCSI Miniport storage controller to work around a possible hitching/stuttering/freezing when testing non-Xbox games (source), except for testing MS/Xbox games.
• We do not install GIGABYTE and ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 20 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark’s suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• The corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence is used.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • ‘Aggregate excluding outliers’:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 20 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 5 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark
• GPUScore: Relic of Life
• Neon Noir (Benchmark)
• UNIGINE Superposition

DX11 Games

• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12)
• Borderlands 3 (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.5.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Both ‘High-Quality’ values for texture filtering-quality setting and ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for power management mode are set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 516.79 Hotfix Driver

The GeForce Hotfix display driver version 516.79, based on the latest Game Ready 516.59 drivers, was released on July 14 to address the following driver issues:

• • [Apex Legends] Improves gameplay stability [3661210]
  • [Overwatch] Game may freeze on launching a match [3696921]
  • [Dungeons 3] Game will crash on startup [3691274]
  • [Red Dead Redemption 2] Performance improvement when using DLSS is lower compared to previous drivers [3700239]
  • [Destiny 2] Game may randomly freeze after launching the game or during gameplay. [3685638]
  • [Halo Infinite] Increased stability during gameplay [3603261]

Being based on the GeForce 516.59 Game Ready driver, it also brings support for F1 22, Loopmancer, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, and the GeForce GTX 1630 GPU.

The GeForce 516.79 Hotfix Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 20 games plus 4 hybrid and 5 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 516.40 to 516.79 using both the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Days Gone and Far Cry 6 tested at 3840×2160 resolution. You may click on each chart to open a pop-up for the best viewing.

Results give average framerates and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frametimes consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 516.79 Hotfix Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 516.79 Hotfix Driver Performance

From the charts, we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for both the hybrid and non-synthetic tests using both our RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti.

For the game benchmarks, all tested games show no significant differences when we move to 516.79 drivers from the 516.40 driver version using both GPUs.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ampere and Turing gaming rigs on Windows 11 v21H2. Its representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ampere and Turing users update to the latest GeForce 516.79 Hotfix driver. Its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency level are overall on par with our previously recommended driver 516.40 using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 516.79. These reasons include its higher level of driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, and support for GTX 1630 GPUs and the latest NVIDIA technologies.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka “RodroG”) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

This review tests AMD’s fine wine theory by showcasing the latest reference Radeon RX 6700 XT’s Adrenalin driver performance with 17 PC games. We benchmark the WHQL Optional Adrenalin 22.6.1 driver released a few days ago versus our nine-month-old recommended driver 21.10.2. We perform all tests using the same game version and the same OS build.

This time, our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware, are identical except for the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (Reference) 12GB, stock clocks, on loan from AMD
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• AMD Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 drivers, and 21.10.2 drivers; default AMD Radeon features and settings; AMD FreeSync ‘Disabled’ (when applicable).
• AMD SAM/Resizable BAR On
• V-Sync ‘off, unless application specifies’ in the Software Adrenalin control center; V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v21H2; High-performance power plan; Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off; Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis; Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE and ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 17 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark’s suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

Radeon Software Adrenalin Suite-related

• The minimal Radeon Adrenalin Software installation is used.
• We install the display driver.
• We enable the ‘Issue detection’ setting.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• The corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence is used.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that we can aggregate using CapFrameX and the following method:
  • ‘Aggregate excluding outliers’:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 17 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 4 Non-Synthetic Tests

DX11 Games

• Borderlands 3 (DX11)
• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DX11)
• Far Cry New Dawn (DX11)
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.5.0)
• Wolfenstein Youngblood (VK)

Software Adrenalin Control Center Settings

Here are the global Adrenalin Control Center settings:

All the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin features and settings are default.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.6.1

This latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.6.2 Optional (WHQL) driver was released on June 29 primarily for the launch of F1 2022.

The download links for the Adrenalin 22.6.1 Optional drivers can be found starting here. The 22.6.1 release notes can be found here.

Here are the release highlights of Adrenalin v22.6.1 from AMD Radeon’s website:

Support for F1 2022:

• • • • Up to 5% increase in performance in F1 2022 @ 4k Ultra High settings, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.6.1 on the Radeon RX 6950 XT, versus the previous software driver version 22.5.2.
      • Up to 4% increase in performance in F1 2022 @ 4k Ultra High settings, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.6.1 on the Radeon RX 6800 XT, versus the previous software driver version 22.5.2.
      • Up to 6% increase in performance in F1 2022 @ 4k Ultra High settings, using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.6.1 on the Radeon RX 6750 XT, versus the previous software driver version 22.5.2.

Fixed Issues

• • • • Performance drop may be experienced while playing Fortnite with Multithreaded Rendering and DirectX 11 API on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
      • Stuttering may be experienced while playing Overwatch with some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon RX 6700 XT.
      • Higher than expected CPU usage when Instant Replay is enabled on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
      • Fan Tuning option may be missing on some AMD Graphics Products such as the Radeon RX 590.

The Adrenalin 22.6.1 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 17 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 17 games plus 4 hybrid and 4 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 21.10.2 to 22.6.1 using the reference AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Far Cry New Dawn, tested at 3840×2160 resolution; and Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR) and Quake 2 RTX (Vulkan Ray Tracing Pipeline) which are tested at 1920×1080 resolution.

Results give average framerates and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frametimes consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

Adrenalin 22.6.1 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on Adrenalin 22.6.1 Driver Performance – 22.6.1 vs. 21.10.2 – Fine Wine?

From the charts, although we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for the hybrid tests, we see significant performance improvements in Superposition (DX11) and Neon Noir (DX11) non-synthetic tests.

For the game benchmarks, although many games show no significant differences when we upgrade to the 22.6.1 drivers from 21.10.2, we saw notable performance improvements in most DX11 games such as Borderlands 3 (DX11), Days Gone (DX11), Deus Ex Mankind Divided (DX11), and Far Cry New Dawn (DX11), as well as in Doom Eternal (Vulkan & Vulkan Ray Pipeline) and Quake 2 RTX (Vulkan Ray Query).

The only negative outlier with driver 22.6.1 is The Division 2 (DX11), which showed a noticeable regression in terms of frame time consistency resulting in micro-stuttering during gameplay.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar RDNA 2.0 gaming rigs on Windows 11 v21H2. Its representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different AMD Radeon micro-architectures, testing benches, and Microsoft Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

So, do Radeon cards’ performance get better with age as newer drivers bring more performance? Or asked another way, does the performance comparison of 22.6.1 vs. 21.10.2 drivers act as a good example to support the Fine Wine theory?

Based on our previous results and findings, we answer yes to this question, and we recommend RDNA 2.0 gamers update to the latest Adrenalin 22.6.1 driver. Its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency level are overall better in most DX11 games and some Vulkan games than with our last recommended driver.

There are relevant qualitative reasons that also make it advisable to upgrade to version 22.6.1. These reasons include a higher level of security and driver bug fixes, optimizations for the latest games, and support for the latest AMD Radeon technologies.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka “RodroG”) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

*The featured image is from AMD.

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) and an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK (Turing architecture) with 20 PC games using the latest GeForce 516.40 Game Ready driver. We compare these drivers versus our previously recommended driver 512.77 with both cards, and we perform all tests on the same game version and the same OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we use and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 512.77 and 516.40 drivers; ‘High Quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile-basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR (why?).
• V-Sync application controlled in the control panel, V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v21H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS off (why?), Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install GIGABYTE and ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 20 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark’s suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• The corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence is used.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • ‘Aggregate excluding outliers’:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 20 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 5 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark
• GPUScore: Relic of Life – NEW
• Neon Noir (Benchmark)
• UNIGINE Superposition

DX11 Games

• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12)
• Borderlands 3 (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.5.0)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Both ‘High-Quality’ values for texture filtering-quality setting and ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for power management mode are set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 516.40 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 516.40 driver was released on June 15 primarily for the release of Fall Guys: Free For All. It brings optimized support for the latest updates in Jurassic World Evolution 2, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 7, which introduce ray-tracing technology to these games. Also, it adds support for NVIDIA Reflex in ICARUS to improve system latency.

The download links for the latest GeForce 516.40 drivers can be found starting here. The release notes are found here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from NVIDIA’s website:

Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.

Game Ready for Fall Guys: Free for All

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for Fall Guy: Free for All. In addition, this new Game Ready Driver offers support for the latest releases and updates including the addition of NVIDIA Reflex in ICARUS and the introduction of ray tracing to Jurassic World Evolution 2, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 7.

The GeForce 516.40 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 20 games plus 4 hybrid and 5 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 512.77 to 516.40 using both the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Days Gone and Far Cry 6 tested at 3840×2160 resolution. You may click on each chart to open a pop-up for the best viewing.

Results give average framerates and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frametimes consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 516.40 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 516.40 Driver Performance

From the charts, we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for both the hybrid and non-synthetic tests using both our RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti.

For the game benchmarks, most games show no significant differences when we move to 516.40 drivers from the 512.77 driver version using both GPUs.

We can also confirm that the significant performance regressions we saw in Hitman 3 (DX12) and Chernobylite (DX11) were due to their latest title updates and weren’t driver-related.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ampere and Turing gaming rigs on Windows 11 v21H2. Its representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ampere and Turing users update to the latest GeForce 516.40 driver. Its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency level are overall on par with our previously recommended driver 512.77 using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 516.40. These reasons include its higher level of driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, and support for the latest NVIDIA technologies.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka “RodroG”) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.

This driver performance analysis showcases the performance of a Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER (Ampere architecture) and an EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK (Turing architecture) with 26 PC games using the latest GeForce 512.77 Game Ready driver. We compare these drivers versus our previously recommended driver 512.15 with both cards, and we perform all tests on the same game version and the same OS build.

Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we use and the drivers we compare.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz CL14 XMP), supplied by TeamGroup
• Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 10GB (rev. 1.0); v.F4 VBIOS, stock clocks
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION GAMING 11GB, stock clocks
• 1 x Samsung 500GB SSD 960 EVO NVMe M.2
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• 1 x TeamGroup MP33 M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG289Q 28? IPS UltraHD (3840×2160) 60Hz 5ms FreeSync Monitor for testing games at 2160p resolution.
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q 27? IPS QuadHD (2560 x 1440) 165Hz 4ms G-Sync Monitor for testing games at 1440p resolution.

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 512.15 and 512.77 drivers; ‘High Quality’ and ‘prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile-basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR (why?).
• V-Sync application controlled in the control panel, V-Sync off in-game.
• AA and AF as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v21H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS off (why?), Game Mode, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis.
• We do not install GIGABYTE and ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All 26 games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark’s suite and UNIGINE Superposition benchmark, the latest version
• Basemark GPU benchmark, v.1.2.3
• UNIGINE Superposition, v.1.1
• CapFrameX (CX), the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall old driver using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• The corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence is used.

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

• We use CapFrameX for capturing and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
• We always perform consecutive runs until detecting 3 valid runs (no outliers) that can be aggregated by CapFrameX using the following method:
  • ‘Aggregate excluding outliers’:
    • Outlier metric: Third, P0.2 (0.2% FPS percentile).
    • Outlier percentage: 3% (the % the FPS of an entry can differ from the median of all entries before counting as an outlier).
• We compare and evaluate the results and aggregated records in terms of percentages of gain/loss and set the following thresholds to consider a % value as significant (not within the margin of error) for our benchmarking purposes:
  • Score/FPS Avg > 3% when valuing hybrid and non-synthetic benchmarks;
  • FPS Avg > 3% when evaluating raw performance;
  • P1/P0.2 > 3% when evaluating frame time consistency; after applying our custom formula

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

Benchmark Suite: 26 PC Games, 4 Hybrid & 4 Non-Synthetic Tests

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DirectX Raytracing feature test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Port Royal
• Time Spy Extreme

Non-Synthetic Tests

• Basemark GPU
• Boundary: Raytracing Benchmark
• Neon Noir (Benchmark)
• UNIGINE Superposition

DX11 Games

• Borderlands 3 (DX11)
• Chernobylite (DX11)
• Days Gone (DX11)
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DX11)
• Far Cry New Dawn (DX11)
• God of War (DX11)
• Neon Noir (DX11; Loop Mode)

DX12 Games

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (DX12)
• Borderlands 3 (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• DIRT 5 (DX12)
• F1 2021 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• LEGO® Builder’s Journey (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (DX12)
• Watch Dogs: Legion (DX12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)
• Quake 2 RTX (VK; v.1.5.0)
• Strange Brigade (VK)
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood (VK)

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

Both ‘High-Quality’ values for texture filtering-quality setting and ‘Prefer maximum performance’ for power management mode are set on a per-game or program profile basis via Manage 3D Settings > Program settings tab.

GeForce 512.77 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

This latest GeForce Game Ready 512.77 driver was released on May 12 primarily for the launch of Evil Dead: The Game, which supports NVIDIA DLSS technology. It also provides optimized support for Dolmen and Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong.

The download links for the latest GeForce 512.77 drivers can be found starting here. The release notes are found here as a downloadable pdf file. Here are the release highlights from NVIDIA’s website:

Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.

Game Ready for Evil Dead: The Game

This new Game Ready Driver provides the best day-0 gaming experience for Evil Dead: The Game, which uses NVIDIA DLSS to maximize performance. In addition, this new Game Ready Driver offers support for the latest releases including Dolmen and Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong.

The GeForce 512.77 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 26 Games

Below you can find the summary charts of our representative selection of 26 games plus 4 hybrid and 4 non-synthetic benchmarks. We chart our games’ driver performance progression from version 512.15 to 512.77 using both the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER and the EVGA RTX 2080 Ti BLACK.

You can see the list of graphics settings on the charts, and we run each built-in or custom game benchmark’s sequence at 2560×1440, except for Days Gone, Far Cry New Dawn, and Far Cry 6 tested at 3840×2160 resolution. You may click on each chart to open a pop-up for the best viewing.

Results give average framerates and higher is better. We display the low FPS percentiles (P1 and P0.2) below the corresponding averages. We use CapFrameX to record frametimes over time and to visualize and convert them into their corresponding average FPS and P1 and P0.2 FPS percentiles values.

There are also columns showing percentages of gain/loss in both raw performance (average FPS) and, when applicable, in frametimes consistency or stability between the different driver versions. We applied the following custom formula to calculate the stability gains or losses:

{[(LowPercentileFPS_2 / AvgFPS_2) / (LowPercentileFPS_1 / AvgFPS_1)] – 1} x 100

We mark significant performance changes (higher than 3%) in bold and use purple for the significant improvements or orange font for regressions.

GeForce 512.77 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 512.77 Driver Performance

From the charts, we see no significant differences in graphics performance between drivers for both the hybrid and non-synthetic tests using both our RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti.

For the game benchmarks, most games show no significant differences when we move to 512.77 drivers from the 512.15 driver version using both GPUs.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding driver recommendation are valid for similar Ampere and Turing gaming rigs on Windows 11 v21H2. Its representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different NVIDIA GPU architectures, testing benches, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, we recommend Ampere and Turing users update to the latest GeForce 512.77 driver. Its raw performance and smoothness or frametimes consistency level are overall on par with our previously recommended driver 512.15 using both NVIDIA GPU architectures.

From a qualitative point of view, there are also important reasons that make it advisable to upgrade to version 512.77. These reasons include its higher level of security and driver bug fixes, the optimizations for the latest games, and support for the latest NVIDIA technologies.

Let’s Play!

***

Rodrigo González (aka “RodroG”) is an enthusiast gamer and tech reviewer interested especially in shooter games, open-world role-playing games, and software and hardware benchmarking. He is the author of the NVIDIA WHQL Driver Performance Benchmarks Series and founder and moderator of the r/allbenchmarks community on Reddit.