When TeamGroup sent us a T-FORCE 2x16GB VULCAN 5200MHz CL40 DDR5 memory kit for review, we were eager to compare it with our 2x16GB T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz CL18 DDR4 kit. We used a full set of benchmarking tools and 31 games to see if gamers should choose DDR5 over DDR4 for Intel’s newest Z690 CPU platform. This is the first installment of BTR’s memory review series that compares DDR4 with progressively faster DDR5 and also focusing on latency to measure DDR5 performance for gaming.

Last year, BTR ran an exhaustive set of tests comparing DDR4 3600MHz CL 18 with CL16 and the performance results were very similar for gaming, so our T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz CL18 2x16GB kit is representative of today’s fast DDR4. We started over with new benchmarks and have updated our testing tools to focus narrowly on DDR4 3600MHz CL18 versus DDR5 5200MHz CL40. We use an i9-12900KF on an ASUS Prime Z690 P-D4 Z690 DDR4 motherboard to compare memory performance against an ASUS ROG Maximus Apex Z690 DDR5 motherboard.

Both the VULCAN 5200 CL40 black kit that we are testing today as well as the red kit have a MSRP of $349.99 and the lower latency VULCAN 5200 CL38 kit has a MSRP of $359.99. TeamGroup informed us that all of their preorders at MSRP sold out almost instantly and most DDR5 kits are now ridiculously over-priced. In contrast, the T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz CL18 DDR4 2x16GB kit sells for $115.00 on Amazon.

Since no motherboard supports both types of memory, most gamers have a choice of using their current DDR4 memory on a Z690 DDR4 motherboard or buying new memory for a Z690 DDR5 motherboard. When BTR originally upgraded its flagship PC from an i9-10900K to an i9-12900KF, we picked a solid midrange ASUS Prime Z690-P D4 board for our DDR4 3600 memory. We then purchased an ASUS ROG Maximus Apex Z690 DDR5 motherboard for this review and will overclock our Vulcan DDR5 to see if we get any additional performance.

From our testing with Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake, Coffee Lake, and Comet Lake platforms, using faster DDR over slower DDR brings only limited performance improvements for a few CPU-dependent games. However, we found that using faster memory brings extra overall performance gains for many other tasks and applications and we will compare overall DDR5 5200 performance with DDR4 3600.

Our review sample of VULCAN 5200MHz CL40 DDR5 desktop memory is a medium speed high-capacity 16GBx2 gaming memory kit for Intel’s 12th Generation CPU platform. Here are the two memory kits that we are comparing:

• T-FORCE VULCAN PC5-41600 5200MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit
• T-FORCE VULCAN DARK Z PC4 28800 DDR4 3600MHz CL18 2x16GB kit

Just like with video cards, predatory resellers are buying large quantities at MSRP to resell them at inflated prices to turn a profit. If you want DDR5, please don’t buy from them. It is better to wait until supply becomes plentiful, or perhaps you can get a near-MSRP deal from the Newegg Shuffle, from Microcenter in person, or you can possibly find Amazon etailers that don’t gouge their customers. Although DDR5 is ridiculously overpriced in the United States, gamers in Europe are finding DDR5 at or close to MSRP.

Testing Platform, Product Specifications & Features

Our testing platform is a recent clean installation of Windows 11 Professional, using an Intel Core i9-12900KF at stock settings using either a 1) ASUS Prime P-D4 Z690 motherboard for DDR4 benchmarking or 2) an ASUS ROG Maximus Apex Z690 motherboard for DDR5 benching; a 2TB T-Force C440 Cardia NVMe PCIe 5,000MB/s SSD, and with either 1) 2x16GB T-FORCE Dark Z DDR 3600MHz CL18, or 2) 32GB of T-FORCE Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 CL40 memory. We use an RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition at stock clocks for our testing. The settings, benchmarks, testing conditions, and hardware are identical except for the two memory kits and their respective motherboards being compared.

Voltages are set at 1.35V for the DDR4 3600MHz memory and 1.25V for the DDR5 5200MHz memory, and both Command Rates are set at 2T by their respective default XMP profiles in the BIOS. The default XMP 2.0 Profile 1 of the T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz is CL18-22-22-42, while the T-FORCE Vulcan DDR5 5200MHz XMP 3.0 timings are CL40-40-40-76.

There are several variants of Vulcan DDR5 as TeamGroup’s chart shows.

We compare the performance of both DDR kits, and we will also overclock the DDR5 memory. As this is a series comparing multiple DDR5 speeds/latencies on gaming performance, we benchmark the performance of 31 modern games at a maxed-out/ultra 3840×2160, 2560×1440, and 1920×1080 resolutions to see which games benefit from faster memory. We also benchmark using many of the recognized memory-related benchmarking tools including AIDA64, SANDRA 2020/21, PCMark 10, SPECworkstation3, 3DMark, Blender Benchmark, Cinebench, Frybench, GeekBench, Novabench, RealBench, CPU-Z Bench, 7-Zip Bench, Kraken JavaScript Bench, and Wprime.

Here are the Vulcan DDR5 5200MHz CL40 features from TeamGroup’s website.

Features

• Sleek Design
• Reinforced Structure for Better Cooling
• Supports Intel XMP3.0 for One-Click Overclocking
• Power Management ICs (PMICs) Equipped for Stable, Efficient Power Usage
• Strengthened PMIC Cooling Design
• On-die ECC for Stable Systems
• High-Quality ICs Selected for Stability & Reliability

TeamGroup offers a lifetime warranty for their T-FORCE DDR5 desktop memory and Vulcan DDR5 is available in black or red.

Let’s unbox the memory kit on the next page and take a closer look.

Unboxing

The T-FORCE Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 2x16GB memory kit comes in a anti-static blister pack inside of a box that pictures it on the front and advertises its features on its reverse.

The T-FORCE logo uses a stylized hawk symbolizing a gamer’s independent spirit of flying free. Its features include one-click overclocking to 5200MHz supported by Intel’s XMP 3.0 profile of most Z690 motherboards. Of course, check your motherboard’s qualified vendor list (QVL) to be sure the memory has been tested to support it or you may need to spend some time in the BIOS tweaking RAM settings.

After we removed the memory out of the box, we placed it next to it.

The installation guide is illustrated and is easy to follow.

There is plenty of room for this Vulcan memory unlike some taller RGB memory modules that may interfere with some large CPU air cooler installations. Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 looks great installed in a conservative build and it is currently featured in BTR’s flagship i9-12900KF PC below.

First, let’s look at our test configuration before we benchmark performance.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-12900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost are on to 4.9GHz for all cores; Alder Lake DX11 CPU graphics) stock settings.
• ASUS Prime Z690-P D4 LGA 1700 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR4)
• ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Apex LGA 1700 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-FORCE DARK Z PC4 28800 DDR4 3600MHz CL16 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• T-FORCE VULCAN PC5-41600 5200MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB, at stock FE clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• 2TB T-FORCE C-440 Ceramic NVMe SSD C: drive
• 1TB T-FORCE A-440 NVMe SSD, supplied by TeamGroup
• 1.92 TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
• 2 TB Micron 1100 SSD
• 1TB Delta Max RGB SSD, supplied by Team Group
• Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1200W 80+ Platinum power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R, ARGB CPU Liquid Cooler (AIO) 360mm CPU water cooler
• CORSAIR 5000D Mid-Tower ATX PC Case + 2 x 120mm + 1 x 140mm Noctua Fans
• BenQ 32″ 4K/60Hz display

Test Configuration – Software

• Nvidia’s GeForce 496.98 WHQL drivers. High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display
• VSync is off in the control panel
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games
• Windows 11 Professional edition
• Latest DirectX
• MSI’s Afterburner, latest version.
• CPU-Z
• Karhu RAM Test
• Windows Memory Diagnostics

31 PC Game suite

Vulkan

• DOOM Eternal
• Wolfenstein Youngblood
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade
• Rainbow 6 Siege

DX12

• Forza Horizon 5
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Far Cry 6
• Resident Evil VIllage
• Metro Exodus – Enhanced Edition & regular edition
• Hitman 3
• DiRT 5
• Assassins Creed Valhala
• Watch Dogs Legions
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• F1 2020
• Borderlands 3
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

DX11

• Chernobylite
• Days Gone
• Crysis Remastered
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Overwatch
• Grand Theft Auto V

Synthetic Game Benchmarks

• Firestrike
• TimeSpy
• VRMark
• Superposition

Synthetic/Real World Benching Suites & Tools

• SANDRA 2020/21 Engineer version courtesy of Sisoft
• AIDA64 courtesy of FinalWire
• PCMark 10 Professional Edition courtesy of UL
• SPECworkstation3
• 3DMark Professional Edition courtesy of UL
• Blender Benchmark
• Cinebench
• Frybench
• GeekBench
• RealBench
• Novabench
• CPU-Z benchmark
• 7-Zip benchmark
• Kraken JavaScript Bench
• Wprime

Nvidia Control Panel settings:

Texture Filtering has been set to High with ‘prefer maximum performance’ power selected and V-sync disabled, but the other settigs are left stock. Before we head to our benching results, let’s briefly cover overclocking.

CPU-Z and Overclocking

Here is the CPU-Z 12900KF report.

Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 stock clocks and details are shown below.

The SPD is set as below by the XMP 3.0 BIOS profile for 2600MHz (x2).

Before we look at benches, let’s explore overclocking the Vulcan DDR5 above 5200 MHz.

Overclocking

We used the Vulcan DDR5 5200 DDR4’s default timings to increase its clocks until we reached its maximum stable speed of 5400MHz at a fixed 1.25V. Increasing the voltage to 1.4V made no difference and we could go no higher – At 5600MHz, Windows wouldn’t boot.

Tightening DDR timings tend to bring less performance gain than increasing clock speed and should probably be left until after preliminary overclocking and stability tests have been completed. However, the timings could not be set from CL40 to CL36 at 5200MHz nor at CL38 at 5400MHz with any reasonable voltage. We concluded that there is very little performance headroom in our particular sample. From past experience with DDR on a new process, the overclocking headroom varies from sample to sample, often by a large margin.

Here is CPU-Z showing the Vulcan DDR5 5200 stock XMP 3.0 Profile 2 timings and speeds overclocked to 5400MHz.

We tested our overclock’s stability using Karhu’s excellent RAM test as well as AIDA64’s System Test. Since a +200MHz is a minor overclock, we did not benchmark overclocked performance but will leave it for a follow-up review using higher frequency DDR5.

A hardcore overclocker may wish to aim for the highest overclock that their memory can reach by using extreme voltage well beyond the recommended 1.25V to likely exceed 1.4V, and then fine-tune the timings and voltage for maximum memory performance without concern for their memory’s longevity. As a gamer, we don’t see large gaming performance increases from memory overclocking that we see with GPU/CPU overclocks, so we left clocks at stock for our benchmarking and to set a baseline for upcoming higher-clocked DDR5 reviews.

Benchmarking

Individual chart results are always listed in order: 1) Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 and 2) DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4.

Synthetic and Real World Benches

SiSoft Sandra 2020/21

To see where memory performance results differ, and there is no better tool than SiSoft’s Sandra 2020/21. SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an complete information & diagnostic utility in a complete package. It is able to provide all the information about your hardware, software and other devices for diagnosis and for benchmarking. Sandra is derived from a Greek name that implies “defender” or “helper”.

There are several versions of Sandra, including a free version of Sandra Lite that anyone can download and use. It is highly recommended! We are using the full engineer suite courtesy of SiSoft. The latest version features multiple improvements over earlier versions of Sandra. It will benchmark and analyze all of the important PC subsystems and even rank your PC and give recommendations for improvement.

We run Sandra memory intensive benchmark tests focusing on the CPU. Here is the chart summarizing the results.

The higher bandwidth generally gives DDR5 5200MHz a large edge over DDR 3600MHz in many of Sandra’s synthetic benches.

We next feature AIDA64.

AIDA64 v6.60.5900

AIDA64 is the successor to Everest and remains an important industry tool for benchmarkers. Its memory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, and Memory Copy) measure the maximum available memory data transfer bandwidth. AIDA64’s benchmark code methods are written in Assembly language, and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate instruction set extensions. We use the Engineer’s full version of AIDA64 courtesy of FinalWire. AIDA64 is free to to try and use for 30 days.

The AIDA64 Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay from when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the time is accurately measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU. It also tests Memory Read, Write, and Copy speeds besides Cache.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 results are first.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 results are next.

Here is the summary chart

Here is the summary chart of multiple AIDA64 CPU benchmarks that depend on fast memory.

The AIDA64 FPU benchmarks results are less dependant on memory than the CPU benches.

Faster memory scores higher and T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 memory results/scores are generally higher than DDR4 memory in AIDA64 synthetic benching.

Let’s look at PCMark 10 next to see if its benchmarks can reflect memory speed increases.

PCMark 10 Professional Edition

PCMark 10 has multiple tests which use real world timed benchmarks including web browsing, video group chat, photo, batch, and video editing, music and video tests, and even mainstream gaming. The PCMark 10 test offers three primary tests and we chose the Extended and also the Express version. We use the Professional Edition courtesy of UL.

First are the Express version results including the online results that show individual test results starting with the Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 with a score of 7025.

Here are the DDR5 Express benchmark results validated online scoring in the top 2% of PC tested.

The DARKZ 3600MHz DDR4 scores higher – 7188 – on the Express test.

Surprise! The DDR4-equipped PC scores higher. Here is the online validation

Next is the Extended test and the DDR5 scores 12829.

Here is the online validation

Now, DDR4 results with a higher score of 13384.

Here is the online validation.

Here is the summary.

In both cases, using PCMark 10, the DDR4 equipped PC scores higher.

SPECworkstation3 Benchmarks

All of the SPECworkstation3 benchmarks are based on professional applications, most of which are in the CAD/CAM or media and entertainment fields. All of these benchmarks are free except for vendors of computer-related products and/or services.

The most comprehensive workstation benchmark is SPECworkstation3. It’s a free-standing benchmark which does not require ancillary software. It measures GPU, CPU, storage and all other major aspects of workstation performance based on actual applications and representative workloads. We only tested the CPU-related workstation performance.

Here are our SPECworkstation 3.1.0 summary and raw scores for Vulcan DDR5 5200.

Here are the raw scores and individual tests.

Next, the DDR4-equipped PC.

The raw scores and individual results are below.

Here is the summary of the DDR5-equipped PC compared side-by-side with DDR4.

In a few benchmarks, the DDR5 PC is faster and sometimes by a significant margin, but in many others DDR4 is better.

Let’s take a look at Blender.

Blender 2.93 Benchmark

We generally see the performance increasing with faster CPU and memory speeds, so we used Blender 2.93 benchmark which primarily measure CPU performance for rendering production files. Lower is better as the benchmark automatically renders a scene multiple times and gives the results in minutes and seconds. It may be downloaded from here.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 is first

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 is next.

Here is the Summary.

Our conclusion from Blender benchmarking is that there is little performance difference, but the DDR4 equipped PC has a slight advantage.

Next we benchmark using Cinebench.

Cinebench

CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s professional 3D content creation suite, CINEMA 4D. This latest R20.0 version of CINEBENCH can test up to 64 processor threads accurately and automatically. It is an excellent tool to compare CPU/memory performance and higher is always better.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 is first and scores 27312 Multi Core and 2008 Single Core.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 scores a bit higher with 27585 Multi Core and 2012 Single Core.

There is very little difference between the scores as shown by the chart summarizing the Cinebench runs.

Let’s look at Frybench next.

Frybench

Frybench uses Fryrender in a similar manner as Cinebench uses the Cinema Rendering engine. The objective is to render as quickly as possible.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 is first and it completes the render in 58 seconds.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 is next and completes the render in 57 seconds..

Here is the summary chart.

Next up, GeekBench.

GeekBench

GeekBench is an excellent CPU benchmarking program which runs a series of tests and times how long the processor takes to complete the tasks. Faster memory means the CPU may be able to complete tasks faster than with slower memory.

The T-FORCE Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 is up first and here are the overall results.

Here are the detailed single-core test results.

Multi-core results are presented below.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 is tested next and the overall results are below.

Here are the single-core test results.

Multi-core DDR4 results follow.

Here is the Geekbench summary chart.

This time, the DDR4 5200 PC scores higher overall.

Next we check out Real Bench.

RealBench v2.56

RealBench is a benchmarking utility by ASUS Republic of Gamers which benchmarks image editing, encoding, OpenCL, Heavy Multitasking, and gives an overall score. Some of these tests are affected by CPU and memory speeds.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 is first and scores 343,096.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 scores higher with 365,051.

Here are the individual tests summarized.

Just like with PCMark 10, the results favor DDR4.

Next up, Novabench.

Novabench

Novabench is a very fast benching utility that spits out a memory score showing the overall bandwidth speeds.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 is first and the RAM scores 353.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 RAM scores 365.

Here are the Novabench memory scores summarized in a chart.

The Novabench results show the DDR4-equipped PC is faster.

Next is the CPU-Z benchmark

CPU-Z bench

The CPU-Z benchmark can show differences in IPC between CPUs to generate a score to compare both CPU single-core and multi-core performance.

The Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5-equipped PC is first and it scores 818.9 single-core and 11386 multi-core.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4-equipped PC scores 822.0 single-core and 11463 multi-core. .

Here is the summary

Again, the DDR4-equipped PC scores higher.

The Z-Zip benchmark is next.

7-Zip benchmark

The 7-Zip benchmark tests LZMA compression/decompression and gives a rating in MIPS (million instructions per second) which is calculated from the measured speed. It is highly dependent on RAM latency and a good test to compare DDR4 against DDR5.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 is first.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 is next.

Here is the summary showing an advantage of lower-latency DDR4 over faster/higher bandwidth high latency DDR5.

On to Wprime and number crunching.

WPrime v2.10

WPrime is a multi-threaded benchmark which can show the differences in IPC between CPUs, and faster memory may also make a difference. Here are the tests using 24 threads, and we choose to calculate 1024 million digits and 32 million digits using multiple runs.

The Vulcan 5200MHz DDR5 is presented first.

The DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 is next.

Here is the Wprime comparison chart with the fastest numbers from each set of runs compared.

If you increase the memory speed, the CPU may crunch numbers a little faster and DDR4 is significantly faster in the 32M tests,

Kraken JavaScript Benchmark

The Kraken JavaScript benchmark was created by Mozilla to measures the speed of several different tests based on the SunSpider benchmark. The results are reported in milliseconds and lower (quicker) is better.

The T-FORCE VULCAN 5200MHz DDR5 is first.

The T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 is next

Here is the summary:

Again, the DDR4-equipped PC is faster.

Next, the gaming benchmarks, the summary charts, and then followed by the conclusion.

Game Performance Results, Summary Charts, & Conclusion

Gaming Performance Summary Charts

Here are the summary charts of 31 games and 6 synthetic tests. The highest settings were always chosen and the settings are listed on the chart. The benches were run at 1920×1080, 2560×1440 and at 3840×2160 to compare DDR5 vs DDR4 platforms.

Most results, except for synthetic scores, show average framerates, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. Games benched with OCAT show average framerates, but the minimums are expressed by frametimes (99th-percentile) in ms where lower are better.

Although the benchmarking margin of error may cloud the results, there is a trend showing that although the DDR5-equipped PC is faster in some games, others show higher framerates for the DDR4 equipped PC.

Synthetic Summary Chart

Here are all of the Summary charts in one location.

Let’s head for the conclusion.

Conclusion and Verdict

We have previously seen that that running DDR memory at a faster clock speed produces performance gains and saves time with some tasks. In addition, some CPU-dependent games may benefit from faster system memory and the higher bandwidth of DDR5. However, the higher latency of Vulcan DDR5 5200MHz CL40 platform appears to put it at a disadvantage overall versus the DDR4 3600MHz CL18 platform.

There is no way that we can recommend the Vulcan DDR5 5200MHz CL40 memory to a gamer especially at today’s pricing. Even at the MSRP of $349.99, the Vulcan 2×16 GB DDR5 kit is triple the price, and the overall performance favors the DDR4 equipped PC. Besides, it is almost impossible to find DDR5 for MSRP. Perhaps there are some applications where the DDR5 PC may really benefit from the higher bandwidth, but gamers need not bother. Stick with DDR4 3600MHz for your 12th generation Intel CPU platform if you are considering DDR5 5200MHz as your only DDR5 choice.

It is possible that faster DDR5 will benefit gamers and our memory series will next test G.Skill DDR5 6000MHz CL36 versus T-FORCE DELTA DDR5 6400MHz CL40. Stay tuned.

When you buy memory, you cannot go wrong with T-FORCE as TeamGroup offers great choices and a lifetime warranty. But pick DDR4 3600MHz over DDR5 5200MHz for the Z690 platform if these are your memory choices.

Stay tuned. Next up is Rodrigo’s GeForce 511.23 Driver Performance Analysis featuring God of War later today, followed by a 7,000MB/s T-FORCE A440 SSD review by mid-week. After a VR review of a new video card, we will return to our DDR4 versus DDR5 series.

Happy Gaming!

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT Limited Edition arrived at BTR for evaluation on a two-week loan from PowerColor the day before Christmas although it launched earlier at $1139 or at $1179 for the Limited Edition. We have been comparing it with the $649 RX 6800 XT reference version and benching it versus the $1499 RTX 3090 Founders Edition (FE) and versus the $699 RTX 3080(FE). We are featuring the Red Devil RX 6900 XT in a three part review, and this Part 1 features 35 games, GPGPU, workstation, SPEC, and synthetic benchmarks. Part 2 will compare 15 virtual reality (VR) games, and Part 3 will focus on overclocking and power draw versus the RTX 3090 FE.

We will also compare the performance of these competing cards with the RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition (AE) and the GTX 1080 Ti FE to see how older cards fare, and we also include all of the GeForce Turing Super cards and the Ampere cards to complete BTR’s 12-card Big Picture.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT is factory clocked 90MHz higher than the reference version at 2250MHz using the OC BIOS. According to its specifications, the Red Devil RX 6900 XT boost can clock up to 2340MHz out of the box. It also looks different from older generation classic Red Devils, arriving in a more neutral gray color instead of in all red and black. The Red Devil RX 6900 XT features a RGB mode whose LEDs default to a bright red which may be extensively customized by PowerColor’s DevilZone software.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT Features & Specifications

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT specifications include an Engine/Game clock of 2105MHz that will Boost up to 2340MHz, and it uses 16GB of DDR6 at 16Gbps on PCIe 4.0. The Game clock is the expected GPU clock while running average high-load gaming scenarios with a regular non-overclocked total graphics usage situation. It’s a high power-draw card, and PowerColor recommends a 900W PSU to power it. We will test the power draw and overclocking in Part 3.

Specifications

Features

Here are the Red Devil RX 6900 XT features.

Additional Information from PowerColor

• The Red Devil has 2 modes, OC and Silent with a BIOS switch on the side of the card. Even on performance mode it’s said to be considerably quieter than reference board and the silent mode is indeed very quiet.
• The board has 16 Phase versus the 11+2 Phase VRM design on the reference design. Red Devils are over-spec’d in order to deliver the best stability and overclocking headroom. It’s not only capable of using well over 400w, but by having the best VRMs, it will run cooler and last longer.
• DrMos and high-polymer Caps are used without any compromise.
• The cooler features 2 x 100mm with a center 1x90mm fan, all with two ball bearing fans with 7 heat pipes (3X8Φ and 4X6Φ heatpipes) across a high density heatsink with a copper base. The PCB is shorter than the cooler.
• The RGB is enhanced and the Red Devil RX 6900 XT connects to the motherboard using aRGB (5V 3-pin connector).
• It uses mute fan technology and the fans stop under 60C.
• The ports are LED illuminated so as to see in the dark where to plug in cables.
• The card back plate does not use thermal pads, rather there are openings across the backplate for the PCB to ‘breathe’.
• Red Devil RX 6900 XT Graphics Card Limited Edition provides unique and high-quality crafted Red Devil keycaps to make your keyboard look Devilish.
• Red Devil RX 6900 XT Graphics Card Limited Edition includes card stands for mounting it and displaying it vertically in your PC.
• Buyers of the Red Devil Limited Edition will be able to join exclusive giveaways as well access to the Devil Club website. A membership club for Devil users only gives them access to news, competitions, downloads and instant support via live chat.

Contrary to social media speculation, the Limited Edition uses the same GPU as the “regular” edition but differentiates itself by bundling two Red Devil keycaps and vertical mounting stands for $40 more. Here are the bundles link.

The Big Navi 2 Radeon 6000 family

The Radeon 6800 competes with the RTX 3070 and is priced a little higher at $579 while the RTX 6800 XT at $649 competes with the RTX 3080 at $699. The reference RTX 6900 XT released at $999 to compete with the $1499 RTX 3090 and the Red Devil is priced around 15% more than the reference version.

Above is a die shot of the GPU powering the Radeon 6000 series courtesy of AMD.

AMD has their own ecosystem for gamers with many unique new features for the Radeon 6000 series including low-latency modes for eSports gamers and FidelityFX upscaling for better image quality without impacting performance. Ray tracing is now featured and premium VR support continues to be supported.

The RX 6900 XT is AMD’s flagship card, and the Red Devil represents one of the best choices for a partner card by virtue of its high-quality components and carefully selected GPUs coupled with good support and great warranty service.

The Test Bed

BTR’s test bed consists of 35 games and 3 synthetic game benchmarks at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and at 3840×2160 as well as SPEC, Workstation, and GPGPU benchmarks. Our latest games include Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs: Legions, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, Godfall, and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and we will test ray tracing performance in selected games. The testing platform uses a recent clean installation of Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition, and our CPU is an i9-10900K which turbos all 10 cores to 5.1/5.0GHz, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE Dark Z DDR4 3600MHz. The games, settings, and hardware are identical except for the cards being compared.

Part 2, coming later this week, will feature 15 VR games’ performance versus the RX 3090, the RTX 3080, and against the RX 6800 XT. Part 3 will feature overclocking and power draw using the same cards.

First, let’s take a closer look at the new PowerColor Red Devil RX 6900 XT.

A Closer Look at the PowerColor Red Devil RX 6900 XT

Although the Red Devil RX 6900 XT advertises itself as a premium 7nm card on AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture which features FidelityFX, FreeSync 2 HDR and PCIe 4.0, the cover of the box uses almost no text in favor of stylized imagery.

The back of the box touts key features which now include HDMI 2.1 VRR, ray tracing technology, and VR Ready Premium as well as states its 900W power and system requirements although there is a lot of blank space on the box. AMD’s technology features are highlighted, but the box does not even mention PowerColor’s custom cooling solution, Dual-BIOSes, RGB software, output LEDs, and custom lighted backplate.

We don’t see the Red Devil’s features and extreme cooling highlighted until we open the box.

Now we see advertising above that instead probably should have been included on the outside of the box. Also inside are a quick installation guide, RGB LED cable, and an invitation to join PowerColor’s Devil’s Club. The complete package is pictured below.

In addition, a couple of key caps are included with the Limited Edition which could prove useful for benchmarking while wearing a HMD, and there are two stands for mounting the Red Devil vertically in a large case. We did not mount the Red Devil vertically as our case is thermally challenged with the side panel closed, and we think it looks nicer mounted horizontally.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT is a large tri-fan card in a three slot design which is quite handsome with PowerColor’s colors and even more striking with the RGB on.

Here is the Red Devil RX 6900 XT pictured next to a RTX 3090 FE above. Both cards are huge compared with either the reference RX 6800 XT or the reference RTX 3080. Although the Red Devil is a little longer than the RX 3090 FE, the GeForce is bulkier and is a bit heavier. Both cards should be locked down with two thumbscrews instead of one because they are both very heavy.

The backplate is beautiful and it uses cutouts for maximum airflow instead of thermal pads. The PowerColor Red Devil RX 6800 XT’s sturdy backplate features a stylized custom devil symbol that lights up in the color of your choice if synced, red being the default. This card is number 467 out of a 500 Limited Edition run. Contrary to social media speculation, the Limited Edition uses the same GPU as the “regular” edition but differentiates itself by bundling two Red Devil keycaps and the vertical mounting stands.

There is also a switch to choose between the default overclock (OC) BIOS and the Silent BIOS. We didn’t bother benching with the Silent BIOS but it is good to have in case a flash goes bad. The Red Devil logo lights up in default red but may be fully customized using the aRGB cable provided.

The card uses three 1×8-pin PCIe connections and a high capacity PSU is recommended. PowerColor recommends 900W, and we hope to measure the card’s actual power draw in Part 3 of our Red Devil RX 6900 XT review.

The Red Devil’s RX 6900 XT’s connectors include 2 DisplayPorts, 1 HDMI connection, and a USB Type C connector. There is an LED that illuminates this panel for making easier connections in the dark.

Below is the other end where there are additional RGB LEDs that light up the white plastic for a very unique “Red Devil’ look.

The Red Devil looks outstanding inside a case.

The specifications look good and the card itself looks great with its default RGB bright red contrasting with the black backplate and its aggressively lit-up end, perhaps stylistically reminiscent of an automotive grill.

Let’s check out its performance after we look over our test configuration and more on the next page.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-10900K (HyperThreading/Turbo boost On; All cores overclocked to 5.1GHz/5.0Ghz. Comet Lake DX11 CPU graphics)
• EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard (Intel Z490 chipset, v1.9 BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1/3.2 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• T-FORCE DARK Z 32GB DDR4 (2x16GB, dual channel at 3600MHz), supplied by Team Group
• Red Devil RX 6900 XT 16GB, stock and overclocked, on short term loan from PowerColor
• Radeon RX 6800 XT Reference version 16GB, stock settings, on loan from AMD
• Radeon RX 6800 Reference version 16GB, stock settings, on loan from AMD
• Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB Anniversary Edition, stock AE clocks.
• RTX 3080 Founders Edition 10GB, stock, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 3090 Founders Edition 24GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 3070 Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• EVGA RTX 3070 FTW3 Ultra 8GB factory clocks, on loan from EVGA
• RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 2070 Ti Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• 1TB Team Group MP33 NVMe2 PCIe SSD for C: drive
• 1.92TB San Disk enterprise class SATA III SSD (storage)
• 2TB Micron 1100 SATA III SSD (storage)
• 1TB Team Group GX2 SATA III SSD (storage)
• 500GB T-FORCE Vulcan SSD (storage), supplied by Team Group
• ANTEC HCG1000 Extreme, 1000W gold power supply unit
• BenQ EW3270U 32″ 4K HDR 60Hz FreeSync monitor
• Samsung G7 Odyssey (LC27G75TQSNXZA) 27″ 2560×1440/240Hz/1ms/G-SYNC/HDR600 monitor
• DEEPCOOL Castle 360EX AIO 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Phanteks Eclipse P400 ATX mid-tower (plus 1 Noctua 140mm fan) – All benchmarking and overclocking performed with the case closed

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 460.89 used for the RTX 3090 and the RTX 3080
• GeForce 456.96 for the RTX 3070, the RTX 2080 Ti, and the RTX 2070/2080 SUPER; and GeForce 456.16 Press drivers and GeForce 456.38 public drivers (functionally identical) are used for the other GeForce cards. There have been no general game performance driver improvements since Ampere launched.
• Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.12.2 drivers used for the Red Devil RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT; 20.12.1 used for the RX 6800. Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.10.1 drivers used for the RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition.
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the NVIDIA control panel.
• VSync is off in the control panel and disabled for each game
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games
• All games have been patched to their latest versions
• Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font where higher is better. Games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by frametimes (99th-percentile) in ms where lower numbers are better.
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates v2004. DX11 titles are run under the DX11 render path. DX12 titles are generally run under DX12, and multiple games use the Vulkan API.
• Latest DirectX
• MSI’s Afterburner, latest beta
• OCAT
• Fraps

Games

Vulkan

• DOOM Eternal
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
• Wolfenstein Youngblood
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade
• Rainbow 6 Siege

DX12

• Cyberpunk 2077
• Godfall
• Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
• Watch Dogs: Legion
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• F1 2020
• Mech Warrior 5: Mercenaries
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare
• Borderlands 3
• Gears 5
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Metro Exodus
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Assetto Corsa: Competitione
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Project CARS 2
• Forza 7

DX11

• Crysis Remastered
• Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
• The Outer Worlds
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Borderlands 3
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Far Cry New Dawn
• Monster Hunter: World
• Overwatch
• Grand Theft Auto V

Synthetic

• TimeSpy (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• Heaven 4.0 benchmark
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 2.90 benchmark
• Sandra 2020 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperf 2020

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

We used MSI’s Afterburner to set all GeForce video cards’ power and temperature limits to maximum and used Wattman for the Radeons.

AMD Adrenalin Control Center Settings

All AMD settings are set so that all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings. All Navi cards are capable of high Tessellation unlike earlier generations of Radeons.

Anisotropic Filtering is disabled by default but we always use 16X for all game benchmarks.

Let’s check out overclocking, temperatures and noise next.

The Red Devil RX 6800 XT arrived at BTR for evaluation on a short-term loan from PowerColor on Wednesday, the same day the card launched for sale with very limited supply and with no manufacturer recommended pricing although it has been listed out of stock for $799.99 at Newegg. We have been benching it versus the $699 RTX 3080 Founders Edition (FE) and the $649 RX 6800 XT reference card that we got that same day from AMD using GPGPU, workstation, SPEC, 37 games and synthetic benchmarks. We concluded from our preliminary 9-game PC and PCVR 15-game review relative to the RTX 3080, that the reference RX 6800 XT is probably faster at pancake gaming than at VR gaming.

We will also compare the performance of these competing cards with the RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition (AE) and the GTX 1080 Ti FE to see how older cards fare, and we also include all of the GeForce Turing Super cards and the Ampere cards to complete BTR’s 10-card Big Picture.

The Red Devil RX 6800 XT is factory clocked 90MHz higher than the reference version using the OC BIOS. According to its specifications, the Red Devil RX 6800 XT boost can clock up to 2340MHz out of the box. It also looks different from older generation classic Red Devils, arriving in a more neutral gray color instead of in all red and black. The Red Devil RX 6800 XT features a RGB mode whose LEDs default to a bright red which may be customized by PowerColor’s DevilZone software.

The Red Devil RX 6800 XT Features & Specifications

Here are the Red Devil RX 6800 XT specifications according to PowerColor:

Specifications

Features

Here are the Red Devil RX 6800 XT features.

Additional Information from PowerColor

• The card has 2 modes, OC and Silent. 281W / 255W Power target. There’s a bios switch on the side of the card. Even on performance mode it’s considerably quieter than reference board but the silent mode is truly whisper quiet, with a normal case with a optimal airflow, you most likely see the card run around 1000 rpm.
• The board has 16 Phase VS the 11+2 Phase VRM design on the reference design meaning is over spec’d in order to deliver the best stability and overclock headroom,not only capable of well over 400w but by having such VRM it will run cooler and last longer.
• DrMos and high-polymer Caps are used with no compromises.
• The cooler features 2 x 100mm with a center 1x90mm fan, all with two ball bearing fans with 7 heat pipes (3X8Φ and 4X6Φ heatpipes) across a high density heatsink with a copper base. The PCB is shorter than the cooler.
• RGB is enhanced, Red Devil now connects to the motherboard aRGB (5v 3 pin connector).
• Red Devil has Mute fan technology, fans stop under 60C.
• The ports are LED illuminated. Now you can see in the dark where to plug.
• The card back plate does not have thermal pads but instead there are openings across the backplate for the PCB to breathe.
• Red Devil RX 6800 XT Graphics Card Limited Edition provides the unique and high quality crafted Red Devil keycap to make your keyboard look Devilish.
• Buyers or Red Devil Limited edition will be able to join exclusive giveaway as well access to the Devil Club website. A membership club for Devil users only which gives them access to News, Competitions, Downloads and most important instant support via Live chat.

The Big Navi 2 Radeon 6000 family

The Radeon 6800 competes with the RTX 3070 and is priced a little higher at $579 while the RTX 6800 XT at $649 competes with the RTX 3080 at $699. Next week, the RTX 6900 XT releases at $999 to compete with the $1499 RTX 3090.

Here is a die shot of the GPU powering the Radeon 6000 series courtesy of AMD

AMD has their own ecosystem for gamers and many unique new features for the Radeon 6000 series.

The Test Bed

BTR’s test bed consists of 37 games and 3 synthetic game benchmarks at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and at 3840×2160 as well as SPEC, Workstation, and GPGPU benchmarks. Our latest games include Watch Dogs: Legions, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. The testing platform uses a clean installation of Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition, and our CPU is an i9-10900K which turbos all 10 cores to 5.1/5.0GHz, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE Dark Z DDR4 3600MHz. The games, settings, and hardware are identical except for the cards being compared.

First, let’s take a closer look at the new PowerColor Red Devil RX 6800 XT.

A Closer Look at the PowerColor Red Devil RX 6800 XT

Although the Red Devil RX 6800 XT advertises itself as a premium 7nm card on AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture which features FidelityFX, FreeSync 2 HDR and PCIe 4.0, the cover of the box uses almost no text in favor of stylized imagery.

The back of the box touts key features which now include HDMI 2.1 VRR, ray tracing technology, and VR Ready Premium as well as states it’s 850W power and system requirements although there are a lot of blank and unused space on the box. AMD’s technology features are highlighted, but the box does not even mention PowerColor’s custom cooling solution, Dual-BIOSes, RGB software and output LEDs and backplate.

Opening its very well-padded box, we now see advertising that instead probably should have been on the box’s outside. Also inside are a quick installation guide, RGB LED cable, and an invitation to join PowerColor’s Devil’s Club. In addition, a couple of key caps are included which could prove useful for benchmarking while wearing a HMD. PowerColor’s is a nicer presentation than AMD’s reference RX 6800 XT.

The Red Devil RX 6800 XT is a large tri-fan card in a three slot design which is quite handsome with PowerColor’s colors and even more striking with the RGB on. Here is the Red Devil next to a RTX 3080 FE to show how much larger and beefier a card it is.

It uses two 1×8-pin PCIe connections. Above is the reference RX 6800 XT backplate.

The PowerColor Red Devil RX 6800 XT’s sturdy backplate features a stylized custom devil symbol that lights up in the color of your choice if synced, red being the default. This card is number 41 out of a 1000 limited edition set. We do not know what this means. There is also a switch to choose between the default overclock (OC) BIOS and the Silent BIOS. We didn’t bother with the Silent BIOS but it is good to have in case a flash goes bad.

The Red Devil’s RX 6800 XT’s connectors include 2 DisplayPorts, 1 HDMI connection, and a USB Type C connector. There is an LED that illuminates this panel for making easier connections in the dark.

The specifications look good and the card itself looks great with its default RGB bright red contrasting with the black backplate and its aggressively lit-up end perhaps stylistically reminiscent of an automotive grill.

Let’s check out its performance after we look over our test configuration and more on the next page.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-10900K (HyperThreading/Turbo boost On; All cores overclocked to 5.1GHz/5.0Ghz. Comet Lake DX11 CPU graphics)
• EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard (Intel Z490 chipset, v1.9 BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1/3.2 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• T-FORCE DARK Z 32GB DDR4 (2x16GB, dual channel at 3600MHz), supplied by Team Group
• Radeon RX 6800 XT Reference version 16GB, stock settings, on loan from AMD
• Red Devil RX 6800 XT 16GB, stock and overclocked, on short term loan from PowerColor
• RTX 3080 Founders Edition 10GB, stock, on loan from NVIDIA
• Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB Anniversary Edition, stock AE clocks.
• RTX 3090 Founders Edition 24GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 3070 Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 2070 Ti Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• 1TB Team Group MP33 NVMe2 PCIe SSD for C: drive
• 1.92TB San Disk enterprise class SATA III SSD (storage)
• 2TB Micron 1100 SATA III SSD (storage)
• 1TB Team Group GX2 SATA III SSD (storage)
• 500GB T-FORCE Vulcan SSD (storage), supplied by Team Group
• ANTEC HCG1000 Extreme, 1000W gold power supply unit
• BenQ EW3270U 32″ 4K HDR 60Hz FreeSync monitor
• Samsung G7 Odyssey (LC27G75TQSNXZA) 27″ 2560×1440/240Hz/1ms/G-SYNC/HDR600 monitor
• DEEPCOOL Castle 360EX AIO 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Phanteks Eclipse P400 ATX mid-tower (plus 1 Noctua 140mm fan) – All benchmarking and overclocking performed with the case closed

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 456.96 for the RTX 3070, the RTX 2080 Ti, and the RTX 2070/2080 SUPER; and GeForce 456.16 Press drivers and GeForce 456.38 public drivers (functionally identical) are used for the other GeForce cards. GeForce GRD 457.30 is used for games released in late October and November although otherwise there were no general game performance driver improvements since Ampere launched.
• Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.11.2 public launch drivers used for the RX 6800 XT reference and Red Devil editions at their factory clocks and the Red Devil was also overclocked. Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.10.1 drivers used for the RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition (AE) at AE clocks.
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the NVIDIA control panel.
• VSync is off in the control panel and disabled for each game
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games
• All games have been patched to their latest versions
• Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font where higher is better. Games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by frametimes (99th-percentile) in ms where lower numbers are better.
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates v2004. DX11 titles are run under the DX11 render path. DX12 titles are generally run under DX12, and multiple games use the Vulkan API.
• Latest DirectX
• MSI’s Afterburner, 4.6.3 beta to set the RTX 3070’s power and temperature limits to their maximums

Games

Vulkan

• DOOM Eternal
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
• Wolfenstein Youngblood
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade
• Rainbow 6 Siege

DX12

• Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
• Watch Dogs: Legion
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• F1 2020
• Mech Warrior 5: Mercenaries
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare
• Gears 5
• Anno 1800
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Metro Exodus
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Assetto Corsa: Competitione
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Project CARS 2
• Forza 7

DX11

• Crysis Remastered
• A Total War Saga: Troy
• Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
• The Outer Worlds
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Borderlands 3
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Far Cry New Dawn
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Monster Hunter: World
• Overwatch
• Grand Theft Auto V

Synthetic

• TimeSpy (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• Heaven 4.0 benchmark
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 2.90 benchmark
• Sandra 2020 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperf 2020

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

We used MSI’s Afterburner to set all video cards’ power and temperature limits to maximum.

AMD Adrenalin Control Center Settings

All AMD settings are set so that all optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings. All Navi cards are capable of high Tessellation unlike earlier generations of Radeons.

Anisotropic Filtering is disabled by default but we always use 16X for all game benchmarks.

Let’s check out overclocking, temperatures and noise next.

This driver performance analysis only features AMD’s top single-GPU flagship Radeon R9 290X although we plan to regularly test lesser cards also for upcoming evaluations. We want to at least document the performance changes of this beta driver set even though we are only testing one video card.

We are going to give you the performance results of the R9 290X at 1920×1080, 2440×1600, and at 3840×2160 using 33 games. This driver mini-performance evaluation will give a natural comparison between the performance changes since AMD’s latest 15.5 beta driver set and the 15.4 beta driver that preceded it.

We are going to test the older Catalyst 15.4 Beta versus 15.5 Beta using our updated benchmark suite of 32 games plus 2 synthetic benchmarks. Our testing platform is Windows 8.1 64-bit, using an Intel Core i7-4790K at 4.00GHz which turbos to 4.4GHz for all cores, an ASUS Z97E motherboard, and 16GB of Kingston “Beast” HyperX RAM at 2133MHz. The settings and hardware are identical except for the drivers being tested.

At R9 280X and above, we test at higher settings and at higher resolutions generally than we test midrange and lower-end cards. All of our games are now tested at three resolutions: 3840×2160, 2560×1440 and 1920×1080 at 60Hz; and we use DX11/10/10.1 whenever possible with a very strong emphasis on the latest DX11 games. We no longer benchmark at 2560×1600, but now use the more popular 2560×1440 resolution beginning with this analysis.

Several games have had updates which changed the settings. Shadows of Mordor has patched in FXAA and Camera + Object Blur which is more demanding than previously and we are now testing with the highest settings available.

Let’s get right to the test configuration, the driver release notes, and then to the results.

Test Configuration & Driver Release Notes

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-4790K (reference 4.0GHz, HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 4.4GHz; DX11 CPU graphics), supplied by Intel.
• ASUS Z97-E motherboard (Intel Z97 chipset, latest BIOS, PCOe 3.0 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x)
• Kingston 16 GB HyperX Beast DDR3 RAM (2×8 GB, dual-channel at 2133MHz, supplied by Kingston)
• GeForce GTX 980, 4GB reference clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• PowerColor R9 290X PCS+, 3GB at reference speeds and clocks.
• Two 2TB Toshiba 7200 rpm HDDs
• EVGA 1000G 1000W power supply unit
• Cooler Master 2.0 Seidon, supplied by Cooler Master
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• ASUS 12X Blu-ray writer
• Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Test Configuration – Software

• Catalyst 15.5 Beta and 15.4.1 Beta drivers. High Quality; all optimizations off, use Application settings.
• Nvidia GeForce 352.86 WHQL drivers for the GTX 980. High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display.
• VSync is off in the control panels.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 8.1 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths; DX11 titles under DX11 render paths. Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions

The 32 Game benchmarks & 2 synthetic tests

• Synthetic
• Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
• Heaven 4.0
• DX9
• The Witcher 2
• DX10
• Crysis
• DX11
• STALKER, Call of Pripyat
• Max Payne 3
• the Secret World
• Sleeping Dogs
• Hitman: Absolution
• Tomb Raider: 2013
• Crysis 3
• BioShock: Infinite
• Metro: Last Light Redux (2014)
• Battlefield 4
• ArmA 3
• Batman: Arkham Origins
• Thief
• Sniper Elite 3
• Watch_Dogs
• GRID: Autosport
• Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor
• Alien Isolation
• Assassin’s Creed Unity
• Civilization Beyond Earth
• Far Cry 4
• Dragon’s Age: Inquisition
• Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
• The Crew
• Evolve
• Total War: Attila
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
• Project CARS
• the Witcher 3

Since the Witcher 3 is a new benchmark for BTR, the settings we use are completely maxed-out Ultra, with every setting on and at highest, including “HairWorks”.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is more demanding than earlier Wolfenstein games, but requires that testing take place below the engine’s 60 fps cap so we use completely maxed out ultra settings with 8xMSAA. And for ProjectCARS, we use the most demanding settings, including High AA and Ultra SMAA.

If you missed the improvements in the old drivers, look at AMD’s release highlights regarding the Catalyst 15.4 driver and please also see the Catalyst 15.4.1 Release Notes which appears to be a bug fix for FreeSync displays.

Release Notes Highlights for Catalyst 15.5 Beta

Benchmarks & Performance Analysis

Here are our results of thirty-two games and 2 synthetics compared between the older Catalyst 15.4 drivers, and Catalyst 15.5 beta drivers using the R9 290X. Each set of drivers are compared against the other in the two results column and the higher performance number is in bold. If there is a tie, both results are given in bold type. The third column represents the GTX 980 performance using the latest WHQL GeForce Driver 352.86 compared with the R9 290X.

We note some a few performance improvements with AMD’s new Catalyst 15.5 Beta over the older drivers in only a few games for the 290X. However, Project Cars got a decent boost at the three resolutions, although the Witcher 3 didn’t. We only tested with Nvidia’s HairWorks “On”, so perhaps in future evaluations we will test with it “Off”, also.

Conclusion:

So far, we would recommend upgrading to the latest Catalyst 15.5 Beta driver because there are generally incremental advantages, and no large performance-impacting negatives that we have encountered. It is also the driver to use for the latest really fun games that we are playing including GTA V, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, ProjectCARS, and the Witcher 3.

Stay tuned, next up we are benching for an important new showdown – check back tomorrow afternoon for an update.

Happy gaming!