Although Intel’s A770 drivers installed easily and we set up our Valve Index, SteamVR refused to recognize the Index and Intel confirmed lack of Arc driver support. Fortunately, we were able to set up a Reverb G2, a WMR (Windows Mixed Reality) headset, and charted A770 performance versus the RTX 3060 using FCAT VR.

The Reverb G2 is a much more demanding headset than the Valve Index. We do not recommend using entry level VR cards like the A770 or RTX 3060 to drive it any more than we would for 4K pancake gaming, but the G2 is our only WMR headset. Fortunately, despite many crashes to desktop, we were able to benchmark six VR games on generally the lowest settings using FCAT VR.

VR Games & Settings

We benchmark using FCAT VR on Windows 11 Pro Edition 2H22 with Intel’s Core i9-13900KF, and 32GB of T-Force Delta RGB 6400MHz CL40 DDR5 2x16GB memory on an ASUS Prime-A Wi-Fi Z790 motherboard with fast SSD storage. All VR games and benchmarks are patched to their latest versions, and we use Intel’s most recent drivers.

For this review, we benchmarked the Reverb G2 using FCAT VR and allowed the default SteamVR 100% render resolution (3168×3096). It uses a factor of ~1.4X (the native resolution is 2160×2160) to compensate for lens distortion and to increase clarity. We are going to compare the performance of the A770 with the RTX 3060, generally at each game’s in-game lowest VR settings.

Here are the six VR games we tested.

VR Games

• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Moss: Book II
• Project CARS 2
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

IMPORTANT: BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” – measuring only one important performance metric – which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS, faster is better.

In addition, FCAT VR does not distinguish between dropped and synthesized frames using the G2.

Let’s individually look at our 6 VR games’ performance using FCAT VR.

First up, Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous (ED)

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets. Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a dedicated following of players.

We picked the Lowest settings but we left the Field of View on its maximum.

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR:

The A770 managed 69.73 unconstrained FPS with 3301 (40%) synthesized or dropped frames but no Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivered 77.41 unconstrained FPS with 4667 (50%) synthesized or dropped frames and no Warp misses.

Although the A770 delivers only ~10% less unconstrained frames per second, the Elite Dangerous VR experience is much better using the RX 3060. The A770 framerate delivery is uneven leading to visible stutters which break immersion.

Let’s look at F1 2022.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The A770 managed 38.58 unconstrained FPS with 5935 (61%) synthesized or dropped frames but no Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivered 59.13 unconstrained FPS with 6202 (54%) synthesized or dropped frames and no reported Warp misses.

The A770 falls way behind the RX 3060 in raw performance. The A770 framerate delivery is fairly even due to Motion Smoothing, but the artifacting is very annoying and there are immersion breaking stutters.

Stay tuned. Rodrigo has two not-to-be-missed in-depth major video card reviews coming shortly.

A personal note from BTR’s now retired E-I-C, Mark Poppin

After a great 15 years since ABT and then BTR were established, I am retiring from my duties as Editor-in-Chief and lead reviewer as of today, January 1, 2023. BTR’s has been acquired by JPR (Jon Peddie Research) splitting ownership with Mario who is now BTR’s manager, and Rodrigo is now the lead reviewer. I’ll continue to contribute some VR reviews regularly.

Thanks to all of our loyal readers who turn to BTR for the best reviews – It will get even better!

Happy New Year & Happy Gaming!

The $999 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX arrived at BTR for evaluation last week from PowerColor. We have been comparing it against Nvidia’s new $1199 RTX 4080 Founders Edition (FE) and $1599 RTX 4090 FE plus five additional top cards. We focus on raw performance by benchmarking 42 PC and 10 VR games, GPGPU, workstation, SPEC, and synthetic benchmarks.

We will also compare the performance of these three new competing cards with the RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT reference editions and their competitors, the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3080 FE.

Features & Specifications

Although launched at reference $999 XTX pricing, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX has its factory Game Clock set 30MHz higher than the reference version’s 2300MHz. According to PowerColor specifications, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX can boost its Game Clock to 2330MHz (2270MHz Silent) with the OC BIOS. The Game Clock is the expected GPU clock while running average high-load gaming scenarios with a regular non-overclocked total graphics usage situation. However, the GPU Boost Clock can reach as high as 2525MHz – 25MHz higher than reference – by using the OC BIOS and we will test this.

Here are the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX features.

Additional Information from PowerColor

• The Hellhound 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 14 layer high TG PCB board has 12+3+2+2+1 Phase VRM design. Hellhounds are over-spec’d in order to deliver the best stability and overclocking headroom. By having high quality VRMs, it will run cooler and last longer.
• DrMos and high-polymer Caps are used without compromise.
• The cooler features three 9-blade ball bearing fans with 8 heat pipes (8X6?) across a high density heatsink with a copper base. The PCB is shorter than the cooler.
• It uses mute fan technology and the fans stop under 60C.
• The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX includes card stands for supporting it so as to not put extra strain on the PCIe slot.

The RX 7900 XTX is AMD’s brand new RDNA 3 flagship card, and the Hellhound represents one of the best choices for a mildly factory overclocked $999 card by virtue of its high-quality components and carefully selected GPUs coupled with good support and great warranty service.

The Test Bed

We benchmark using FCAT VR and FrameView on Windows 11 Pro Edition 2H22 with Intel’s Core i9-13900KF, and 32GB of T-Force Delta RGB 6400MHz CL40 DDR5 2x16GB memory on an ASUS Prime-A Wi-Fi Z790 motherboard with fast SSD storage. All games and benchmarks are patched to their latest versions, and we use recent drivers.

First, let’s take a closer look at the new PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX.

A Closer Look at the PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX

Although the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX advertises itself as a premium 24GB card which features ray tracing, Radeon Boost, and Anti-Lag, the cover of the box uses almost no text in favor of stylized imagery.

The back of the box touts key features which include ray tracing, Anti-Lag, DisplayPort 2.1, RDNA 3, FidelityFX, Infinity Cache, streaming aids, and Boost, as well as states its 800W power and system requirements. There is no mention of VR Ready Premium. Also highlighted are PowerColor’s custom cooling solution, Dual-BIOSes, fan improvements, and output LEDs. The default LED color is an eye-pleasing amethyst.

We open the box and note there are parts for a card stand.

The complete package contents except for the anti-static bag are pictured above together with the card holder parts. Above the stand is fully assembled. Although the Hellhound is relatively heavy, it is not 4090-heavy, and we didn’t feel a need for it.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a large tri-fan card in a three slot design which is quite handsome with PowerColor’s neutral colors and even more striking with the LED on.

Turning it over we see a sturdy backplate featuring the Hellhound logo which also lights up with amethyst being the default color.

Looking at either long edge, we see the entire PCB is covered by heatpipes and heatsink fins. Additional power is provided by the PSU’s 2 x 8-pin Molex cables to the card connectors. There is also a switch to choose between the default overclock (OC) BIOS and the Silent BIOS. We didn’t bother using the Silent BIOS as the card is really quiet anyway, but it is good to have in case a flash goes bad.

The card should perhaps be locked down with two thumbscrews instead of one because it is heavy or the stand can be used.

The Hellhound’s IO panel connectors include 3 DisplayPorts and 1 HDMI connection.

Below is the other end which is very plain.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX looks great inside a case.

The specifications look good and the card itself looks solid. Now let’s check out its performance after we look over our test configuration and more on the next page.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-13900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost at stock settings)
• ASUS Prime-A Z790 LGA1700 motherboard (Intel Z790 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-Force Delta RGB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• Valve Index, 90Hz / 100% SteamVR Render Resolution
• Hellhound RX 7900 XTX, 24GB, factory clocks, supplied by PowerColor
• RTX 4080 16GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4090 24 GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• Gigabyte RX 6900 XT GAMING OC, 16GB, factory clocks
• RX 6800 XT Reference 16GB, factory clocks, supplied by AMD
• RTX 3080 Ti 12GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 3080 10 GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• 2 x 2TB T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 (5,000/4,400MB/s) PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSDs (one for AMD/one for Nvidia)
• T-Force M200 4TB USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C external SSD (2,000x2000B/s), supplied by TeamGroup
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan & 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• BenQ EW3270U 32? 4K HDR 60Hz
• LG C1 48″ 4K OLED HDR 120Hz display

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 526.98 drivers for the RTX 4090/4080 and 527.27 for the RTX 3080/3080 Ti. Adrenalin 22.11.2 for the RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT, and press drivers for the RTX 7900 XTX.
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the Nvidia control panel.
• High Quality textures, all optimizations off in the Adrenalin 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 Ultra Preset or highest with 16xAF always applied – no upscaling is used
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games
• All games have been patched to their latest versions
• VR charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom; higher is better)
• Windows 11 Pro edition; 22H2 recent clean install for GeForce and Radeon cards using separate but identical NVMe SSDs.
• Latest DirectX
• SteamVR latest beta

Games

Vulkan

• Sniper Elite
• DOOM Eternal
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade
• Rainbow Six: Siege

DX12

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Spiderman: Remastered
• F1 2022
• Ghostwire: Tokyo
• Elden Ring
• God of War
• Dying Light 2
• Forza Horizon 5
• Call of Duty: Vanguard
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
• Far Cry 6
• DEATHLOOP
• Chernobylite
• Resident Evil Village
• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
• Hitman 3
• Godfall
• DiRT 5
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Watch Dogs: Legions
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• Borderlands 3
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

DX11

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

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa: Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Moss: Book II
• No Man’s Sky
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

Synthetic

• Time Spy & Time Spy Extreme (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.3.0 benchmark
• Geekbench
• Sandra 2020 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperfect 2020
• FCAT VR benching tool
• OpenVR Benchmark tool

Adrenalin Control Panel settings

Here are the Adrenalin Control Panel settings.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

Overclocking, temperatures and noise

We spent little time overclocking the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX for this review as we encountered some unexpected results that require further investigation. The card is very quiet and its fans never spin up even under a heavy load so as to be irritating or even noticeable. It’s quieter than the Gigabyte 6900 XT or the RTX 3080 Ti.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is factory clocked 30MHz higher than the reference version at 2330MHz using the OC BIOS. According to its specifications, the Hellhound boost can clock up to 2565MHz out of the box. From our benching, we generally see it boosting even higher and it generally settles in above 2750MHz with peaks above 2780MHz.

The Hellhound temperatures stay in the low to mid-60s C with the fans quietly running well below 50% even using the OC BIOS under a full gaming load. It is an exceptionally well-cooled and quiet card.

Let’s head to the performance charts to compare the performance of the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX with six other cards.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX vs. the RTX 4080 FE and 5 other cards benchmarked with 42 games

Here are the performance results of 42 games and 3 synthetic tests. The highest settings are used and are listed on the charts. The benches were run at 2560×1440 and 3840×2160. Click on each chart to open in a pop-up for best viewing. Gaming results show average framerates in bold text, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font which represent a game’s average 1% lows (99th percentiles).

The first set of charts show the seven main competing cards. Column two represents the $999 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX performance in between the $1599 RTX 4090 FE in column one and the RTX 4080 FE, its $1199 primary competitor, in the third column. The RTX 3080 Ti results are in the fourth column next to Gigabyte RX 6900 XT OC version performance results in the fifth column, followed up by the RTX 3080 in the sixth and the RX 6800 XT in the seventh column.

“Wins” between the RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4080 are denoted by yellow text. If there is a tie, both values are in yellow.

Playing with the RX 7900 XTX, Elden Ring locked up the PC even after verifying files and reinstalling Adrenaline drivers and it appears a driver issue prevented ray traced Guardians of the Galaxy running on the RX 6800 XT.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 are cards that are primarily suited for 4K and high-FPS 1440P gaming and they stand out from the other four cards. The RX 7900 XTX trades blows with the RTX 4080 in rasterized games – they are equivalent cards if ray tracing is not considered.

Although RX 7900 XTX ray tracing has greatly improved over the RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT, it now appears to perform similarly to the RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti but far behind the RTX 4080. FSR 2.0, although still not on the same image quality level as Nvidia’s DLSS 2, will almost double framerates for a very minor IQ hit and will make most of the games quite playable at Ultra/4K in this 52 game benching suite. Gamers who are not so impressed with ray tracing or who are not picky about image quality perfection may well prefer to save $200 on a $1000 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX over buying a $1200 RTX 4080.

Let’s look at synthetic benches.

Synthetic benches

We hold synthetic benches to be meaningless for predicting real world gaming performance versus competing cards with different architectures although they have other practical uses like overclocking and ranking. The RX 7900 XTX performs better in the synthetic tests than in gaming.

Let’s see how the Hellhound performs in ten popular VR (Virtual Reality) games next.

10 VR Games

For this review, we benchmarked the Valve Index using FCAT VR and set the SteamVR render resolution to 100% (2016×2240) which uses a factor of 1.4X (the native resolution is 1440×1600) to compensate for lens distortion and to increase clarity. We are going to compare the performance of the RX 7900 XTX with the RX 4080 and versus the RX 4090 at each game’s Ultra/Highest settings.

Unfortunately, FCAT VR still doesn’t work with MS Flight Simulator 2020 or with Star Wars Squadrons. Here are the ten VR games we tested.

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa: Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Moss: Book II
• No Man’s Sky
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

Synthetic

• Time Spy & Time Spy Extreme (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room

IMPORTANT: BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS, measuring just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our 10 sim-heavy VR games’ performance using FCAT VR.

First up, Assetto Corsa: Competizione.

Assetto Corsa: Competizione (ACC)

BTR’s sim/racing editor, Sean Kaldahl created the replay benchmark run that we use for both the pancake game and the VR game. It is run at night with 20 cars, lots of geometry, and the lighting effects of the headlights, tail lights, and everything around the track looks spectacular.

Just like with Project CARS, you can save a replay after a race. Fortunately, the CPU usage is the same between a race and its replay so it is a reasonably accurate benchmark using the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. iRacing may be more accurate or realistic, but Assetto Corsa: Competizione has some appeal because it feels more real than many other racing sims. It delivers the sensation of handling a highly-tuned racing machine driven to its edge.

Here are the ACC FCAT VR frametimes using VR Ultra using the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX, the RTX 4080 FE, and the RTX 4090 FE.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 7900 XTX managed 85.77 unconstrained FPS with 6339 (50%) synthesized frames with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 118.42 unconstrained FPS with 207 (2%) synthesized frames with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 164.03 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic frame but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The ACC racing experience is best with the RTX 4090 although the RTX 4080 delivers a nearly constant 90 FPS on the Epic VR preset unlike the RX 7900 XTX which requires one-half of its frames to be synthesized.

Next, we check out Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous (ED)

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets. Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a dedicated following of players.

We picked the Ultra Preset and we set the Field of View to its maximum.

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 7900 XTX managed 185.21 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames with no dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 230.98 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized frame and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 brings 296.16 unconstrained FPS together with 2 synthetic frames but with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses.

Although the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX has the lowest performance, the experience playing Elite Dangerous at Ultra settings is not perceptibly different on any tested video card. However, the RTX 4090 has a lot more performance headroom to increase the render resolution or to use a higher resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2.

Let’s look at our newest VR sim, F1 2022.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 156.57 unconstrained FPS with 6 synthesized but no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 achieved 200.24 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 delivered 254.72 unconstrained FPS together with 3 synthetic frames plus with 3 dropped frames and 3 Warp misses.

The experience playing F1 2022 using the Ultra preset is not very different on any of these video cards but the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 have considerably more performance headroom than the RX 7900 XTX to use 120Hz/144Hz or to use a higher resolution headset.

Kayak VR: Mirage

The outstanding near-photorealistic visual fidelity really sets Kayak VR: Mirage apart from other simulators. It boasts a wide range of locales with day/night/sunset options offering tropical, icy, desert, and even stormy scenarios with trips to Costa Rica, Antarctica, Norway, and Australia and occasional interactions with wildlife. It can be played as a relaxing sim or as a strenuous workout with competitive time trials which offer asynchronous multiplayer and ranking on global leaderboards.

We benchmark at 100% resolution with the highest “Cinematic” in-game settings but do not use DLSS or FSR.

Here is the frametime plot for Kayak VR: Mirage.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 198.98 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 257.16 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 got 329.35 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic frame and 1 dropped frame plus 1 Warp miss.

Kayak VR: Mirage looks fantastic at 100% resolution with maximum settings and would be well-suited for play on the Reverb G2 with any of our test cards.

Next, we look at Moss: Book II.

Moss: Book II

Moss: Book II is an amazing VR experience with much better graphics than the original game. It’s a 3rd person puzzle adventure game played seated that offers a direct physical interaction between you (the Reader) and your avatar, Quill, a mouse that bring real depth to the story. Extreme attention has been paid to the tiniest details with overall great art composition and outstanding lighting that make this game a must-play for gamers of all ages.

Moss II boasts very good visuals and we use the in-game highest settings.

Here are the frametimes plots of our four cards.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 189.29 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 308.44 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 436.34 unconstrained FPS no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

Unfortunately, the experience playing Moss II on the Valve Index using the RX 7900 XTX is marred by visual issues including artifacting and shimmering.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky (NMS)

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky frametime plot. We set the settings to Maximum which is a step over Ultra including setting the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgrading to FXAA. We did not use any upscaling method.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RX 7900 XTX brought 108.17 unconstrained FPS with 3536 (50%) synthesized frames but no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 159.10 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthesized frames but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 achieved 201.96 unconstrained FPS together with 17 synthetic frames but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

RX 7900 XTX gamers may want to lower some individual settings to remain above 90 FPS. The RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 have enough performance headroom to increase the refresh rate, render resolution, or to perhaps use a higher resolution headset.

Let’s continue with another VR game, Project CARS 2, that we still like better than its successor even though it is no longer available for online play.

Project CARS 2 (PC2)

There is still a sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur but picked SMAA Ultra instead of MSAA.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 194.77 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized nor dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 got 200.88 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames nor dropped frames and no Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 achieved 253.50 unconstrained FPS together with 3 synthetic frames plus 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 using maximum settings is similar for all three video cards.

Next we will check out a classic VR game, Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked vanilla Skyrim using its highest settings plus we increased the in-game Supersample option to maximum.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 7900 XTX provided 218.2 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 achieved 239.08 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthetic frames plus 2 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 delivered 337.76 unconstrained FPS together with 2 synthetic frame and with 2 dropped frames plus 1 Warp miss.

All cards deliver an identical vanilla Skyrim VR experience with a ton of extra performance headroom to add mods and, in addition, to raise the render resolution using the two faster cards.

Next we check out Sniper Elite VR.

Sniper Elite VR

Sniper Elite VR’s visuals are decent with good texture work that is well-realized. The building architecture and panoramas look good, explosions are convincing and the weapons convey a sense of weight, although not achieving realism. It is primarily an arcade style sniping game featuring its signature X-Ray kill cam, but it offers multiple ways to achieve goals including with explosives and by using three other main weapon choices besides your rifle.

We benchmarked using the Highest settings.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details:

The RX 6900 XT delivered 197.98 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 223.33 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 brought 318.03 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

All three cards deliver a similar playing experience on High with the RTX cards offering more performance headroom. We recommend that any performance headroom be used for increasing the SteamVR render resolution.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 10 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are very good and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its High preset and we left the Pixel Density at 100%. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 198.93 unconstrained FPS with no synthetic nor dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 got 260.94 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic frames and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 366.41 unconstrained FPS together with 6 synthetic frames and with 4 dropped frames and 4 Warp misses.

The RX 7900 XTX experience was marred by artifacting and shimmering.

Let’s check out synthetic VR tests and unconstrained framerates.

Unconstrained Framerates & Synthetic VR Benchmarks

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our three cards using our 10 VR test games. In addition, we added recent RTX 3080 Ti and 6900 XT results for comparison. The preset is listed on the chart and higher is better. In addition, we present three synthetic VR benchmarks.

Although synthetic VR benches (except for OpenVR benchmark) predicted good VR performance, we were disappointed with our 7900 XTX VR experience, unlike with pancake games. In at least two games, we experienced distracting visual artifacting and texture shimmering. The 7900 series may benefit from some attention to VR from the Radeon driver team as in many cases it even falls behind the RX 6900 XT.

At AMD’s press event in Las Vegas, the presenters noted that AMD drivers continue to improve for the entire life of the architecture – generally with an up to 10% performance gain – often compared to “fine wine” aging well. However, for VR enthusiasts today, the RX 7900 XTX is disappointing and it performs well behind the RTX 4080 not logging a single performance win.

We next look at creative, pro, GPGPU, and workstation apps.

Creative, Pro & Workstation Apps

Let’s look at non-gaming applications next to see if the RX 7900 XTX is a good upgrade from the other video cards that we tested starting with Blender.

Blender 3.3.0 Benchmark

Blender is a very popular open source 3D content creation suite. It supports every aspect of 3D development with a complete range of tools for professional 3D creation.

We benchmarked three Blender 3.3.0 benchmarks which measure GPU performance by timing how long it takes to render production files. We tested seven of our comparison cards using CUDA, Optix, and OpenCL.

For the following chart, higher is better as the benchmark renders a scene multiple times and gives the results in samples per minute.

The RX 7900 XTX sits well ahead of the RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT but well behind the GeForce cards.

Next, we move on to AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks.

AIDA64 v6.80

AIDA64 is an important industry tool for benchmarkers. Its GPGPU benchmarks measure performance and give scores to compare against other popular video cards.

AIDA64’s benchmark code methods are written in Assembly language, and they are well-optimized for every popular AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and VIA processor 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. CPU results are also shown for comparison with both the RTX 3070 and GTX 2080 Ti GPGPU benchmarks.

Here are the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX AIDA64 GPGPU results compared with an overclocked i9-13900KF.

Here is the chart summary of the AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks with seven of our competing cards side-by-side.

The RX 7900 XTX is a fast GPGPU card and it compares favorably with the competing cards being weaker in some areas and stronger in others. So let’s look at Sandra 2020 next.

SiSoft Sandra 2020

To see where the CPU, GPU, and motherboard performance results differ, there is no better tool than SiSoft’s Sandra 2020. SiSoftware SANDRA (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a excellent 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.

There are several versions of Sandra, including a free version of Sandra Lite that anyone can download and use. Sandra 2020 R10 is the latest version, and we are using the full engineer suite courtesy of SiSoft. Sandra 2020 features continuous multiple monthly incremental improvements over earlier versions of Sandra. It will benchmark and analyze all of the important PC subsystems and even rank your PC while giving recommendations for improvement.

We ran Sandra’s intensive GPGPU benchmarks and charted the results summarizing them.

In Sandra GPGPU benchmarks, since the architectures are different, each card exhibits different characteristics with different strengths and weaknesses. However, we see some very solid solid improvement of the RX 7900 XTX over the RX 6900 XT and the RX 6800 XT.

SPECworkstation3 (3.0.4) Benchmarks

All 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 GPU-related workstation performance as checked in the image above.

Here are our SPECworkstation 3.0.4 raw scores for the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX. RTX 4080 raw scores are displayed below the XTX results for a detailed performance comparison.

Here are our RTX 4080 SPECworkstation 3.1 raw scores:

Here are the Hellhound XTX SPECworkstation3 results summarized in a chart along with six competing cards. Higher is better.

Using SPEC benchmarks, since the architectures are different, the cards each exhibit different characteristics with different strengths and weaknesses.

SPECviewperf 2020 GPU Benches

The SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization Group (SPECgpc) has released a new 2020 version of its SPECviewperf benchmark recently that features updated viewsets, new models, support for both 2K and 4K display resolutions, and improved set-up and results management.

We benchmarked at 4K and here are the summary results for the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX.

Here are SPECviewperf 2020 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX benchmarks summarized in a chart together with six other cards.

Again we see different architectures with different strengths and weaknesses. After seeing these benches, some creative users may upgrade their existing systems with a new card based on the performance increases and the associated increases in productivity that they require.

The question to buy a new video card should be based on the workflow and requirements of each user as well as their budget. Time is money depending on how these apps are used. However, the target demographic for the reference and Hellhound RX 7900 XTXs are primarily gaming for gamers.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

The Conclusion

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX improves significantly over the last generation RX 6900 XT, easily exceeds RX 6800 XT performance, and it trades blows with the $200 more expensive RTX 4080 FE in rasterized games although overall it is slightly slower using our 42-game benching suite. The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX beats all of the last generation cards including the RTX 3080 Ti although it still struggles with ray traced games compared with RTX cards.

For Radeon gamers, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a good alternative to GeForce Ada Lovelace cards for the vast majority of modern PC games that use rasterization. The RX 7900 XTX offers 24GB of GDDR6 to the 16GB of GDDR6X that the RTX 4080s are equipped with, but that 8GB of vRAM shouldn’t make any practical difference to game performance in the near future.

At its suggested price of $999, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX costs about $200 less than the RTX 4080 FE and offers a good value for Radeon gamers. Unlike with the RTX 4080 which increased from $700 for the RTX 3080 to $1200, the RX 7900 XTX is priced the same $999 as AMD’s last generation RX 6900 XT. For Radeon buyers, what makes the Hellhound XTX particularly attractive is that there is no price premium for this mildly overclocked PowerColor card.

The only real issue that we see with Radeon 7000 series cards is that AMD’s FSR solution is still inferior to Nvidia’s DLSS AI upscaling that delivers similar performance but with better image quality. On the flip side, there are still relatively few ray traced games released every year in comparison to thousands of rasterized games where the RTX 7900 XTX trades blows with the much more expensive RTX 4080.

One major issue although affecting relatively few gamers is poor VR RX 7900 XTX performance compared with the RTX 4080. It’s going to need some attention from AMD’s driver team before we can recommend the RX 7900 XTX for the best VR gaming.

We recommend the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX as a great choice out of multiple good choices, especially for any AMD PC gamer looking for good looks with LED lighting, an exceptional cooler, great performance for 2560×1440 or 4K, PowerColor’s excellent support, and overall better value compared with the slower RX 7900 XTX reference version.

Let’s sum it up:

Hellhound RX 7900 XTX Pros

• The PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is much faster than the last generation RX 6900 XT by virtue of new RDNA 3 architecture. It trades blows in the majority of rasterized games with the RTX 4080 FE for significantly less money ($200 less)
• The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX has excellent cooling with very little noise and has a very good power delivery and a 3-fan custom cooling design that is very quiet when overclocked even using the OC mode
• Dual-BIOS give the user a choice of quiet with less overclocking, or a bit louder with more power-unlimited and higher overclocks
• FidelityFX 2.0 allows for upscaling and improved sharpness with almost no performance penalty, and there is a low latency mode for competitive gamers
• LED lighting and a neutral color allow the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX to fit into any color scheme
• 24GB vRAM compared with 16GB for the RTX 4080

Hellhound XTX Cons

• Cost. It’s still very expensive at $999
• VR performance is subpar
• Weaker ray tracing performance than the RTX 4080

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a good Radeon card choice for those who game at 2560×1440 or at 4K and want the best that AMD has to offer. It represents a good gaming alternative to the RTX 4080 albeit with weaker ray tracing performance. It is offered especially for those who prefer AMD cards and FreeSync2 enabled displays which are generally less expensive than Gsync displays. And if a gamer is looking for something extra above the reference version, the PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a very well-made and good-looking card that will overclock better.

We are giving the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX BTR’s Recommended Award.

The Verdict:

• PowerColor’s Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a solidly-built handsome card with higher clocks out of the box than the same-priced reference version. It trades blows with the RTX 4080 in rasterized games. I t is a kick ass RX 7900 XTX.

Stay tuned, there is much more coming from BTR. We will soon return to VR with a mega performance evaluation to test the role of the CPU for VR performance. And we’ll retest the RX 7900 XTX using higher resolution headsets after AMD’s driver team has a chance to address it’s VR issues. We also plan to test Intel ARC video cards in VR.

Happy Gaming!

BTR recently received a RTX 4090 Founders Edition (FE) from Nvidia and we have been testing it for the past ten days by using 45 pancake and VR games plus GPGPU benchmarks. In addition, although the RTX 4090 is not a workstation card, we have added workstation SPEC benches and selected popular creative and synthetic apps. Although this new flagship Ada Lovelace card arrives with multiple new features including DLSS 3, this review will focus on testing raw performance, not upscaling.

The RTX 4090 is touted as a beast in every way by Nvidia as the fastest video card for gaming with up to 4X the performance of the Ampere flagship or up to 2X the performance without using DLSS 3. The RTX 4090 boasts 83 Shader-TFLOPS, 191 RT-TFLOPS, and 1.3 Tensor petaFLOPS. It achieves over 1 TB/s memory bandwidth using 24 GB of GDDR6X memory. Its 72 MB L2 cache offers a 12X improvement over the RTX 3090 Ti.

We will focus on RTX 4090 raw performance as well as consider whether the new RTX 4090 Founders Edition at $1599 delivers a good value as a compelling upgrade from the RTX 3090 which launched at $1499 two years ago. We will also compare performance with the RX 6900 XT. In addition to gaming, VR, and SPECworkstation3 GPU results, we have added creative results using Geekbench, the Blender 3.3.0 benchmark, and complete Sandra 2020 and AIDA64 GPGPU benchmark results plus some pro applications including Blender rendering and OTOY OctaneRender.

We benchmark using Windows 11 Pro Edition 2H22 at 2560×1440 and at 3840×2160 using Intel’s Core i9-12900K and 32GB of T-FORCE DELTA RGB 6400MHz CL40 DDR5 2x16GB memory on an ASUS ROG Maximus Apex motherboard. All games and benchmarks are the latest versions, and we use the latest GeForce Game Ready press drivers for games and for testing pro apps, and Adrenalin 22.10.1 for the RX 6900 XT benching.

Let’s first take a quick look at the RTX 4090 Founders Edition before we go to the test configuration

The RTX 4090 Founders Edition Unboxing

Just like as with all RTX 3000 Founders Edition cards, the RTX 4090 comes in a similar “shoebox” style where the card inside lays flat at an slight incline for display. However, the RTX 4090 box is much thicker and probably close to 50% larger.

The system requirements, contents, and warranty information are printed on the bottom of each box. The RTX 4090 requires an 850W power supply unit – 100W more than the RTX 3090 – and the case must have space for a 304mm (L) x 137mm (W) x 61mm (H) three-slot card. However, it easily fits in our Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower. The extra thick packing of the box protects the card. Inside the box and beneath the card are warnings, a quick start guide, and warranty information, plus the PCIe Gen5 power cable adapter to quad PCIe 8-pin cables that will be required to connect the RTX 4090 to most PSUs.

The RTX 4090 Founders Edition exudes a premium and solid feel from its industrial design. It is a very heavy 3-slot card and we use two thumbscrews to lock it down, taking care not to damage our PCIe slot.

The power connector adapter requires three or four molex cables from the PSU to operate; the fourth cable is for overclocking. Newer PSUs may offer the new PCIe Gen5 single cable connector instead of a bulky quad cable.

Turning the card over, we see a similar design of the Ada Lovelace FEs to the Ampere cards with a fan also on the other side.

The IO panel has a very large air vent and four connectors. The connectors are similar to the Founders Edition of the RTX 3090. Three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors are included, and the HDMI 2.1 connector allows for 4K/120Hz or 8K/60Hz over a single HDMI cable.

The other end offers a removable plate for enthusiasts to use a support bracket.

The RTX 4090 Founders Edition is a beautiful card with a very unique industrial style, and it’s larger than the RTX 3090 which is itself an imposing card. However, the larger Ada Lovelace card tends not to heat up like the RTX 3090 and it is also much quieter under full load. It looks great installed inside a case.

Disassembly appears to be very difficult and should give pause to any enthusiast who may have custom watercooling in mind. In fact, we think that watercooling is a waste for the Founders Edition as it doesn’t have any thermal issues.

Let’s check out our test configuration.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-12900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost at stock settings)..
• ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Apex LGA1700 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-Force Delta RGB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• Valve Index, 90Hz
• Gigabyte RX 6900 XT GAMING OC, GV-R69XTGAMING OC-16GD 16GB, factory clocks
• RTX 3090 24GB Founders Edition, factory clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4090 24GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• 2 x T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440; 2TB PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD (one for AMD/one for Nvidia)
• T-Force M200 4TB USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C Portable SSD, supplied by TeamGroup
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan; 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• BenQ EW3270U 32? 4K HDR 60Hz FreeSync monitor
• LG C1 48″ 4K OLED HDR 120Hz display/TV

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce press drivers for the RTX 3090 and RTX 4090, and Adrenalin 22.10.1 for the RX 6900 XT.
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the Nvidia control panel.
• High Quality textures, all optimizations off in the Adrenalin 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 Ultra Preset or highest with 16xAF always applied – no upscaling is used except for five DLSS games tested using the Quality preset.
• 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. The minimums are expressed by 1% lows (99th-percentile) in FPS
• Windows 11 Pro edition; 22H2 clean install for GeForce and Radeon cards on separate identical NVMe SSDs. DX11 titles are run under the DX11 render path. DX12 titles are run under DX12, and seven games use the Vulkan API.
• Latest DirectX

Games

Vulkan

• Sniper Elite
• DOOM Eternal
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
• Wolfenstein Youngblood
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade

DX12

• Spiderman: Remastered
• F1 2022
• Ghostwire: Tokyo
• Elden Ring
• God of War
• Dying Light 2
• Forza Horizon 5
• Call of Duty: Vanguard
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
• Far Cry 6
• DEATHLOOP
• Chernobylite
• Resident Evil Village
• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
• Hitman 3
• Godfall
• DiRT 5
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Watch Dogs: Legions
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• Borderlands 3
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

DX11

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

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa: Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• No Man’s Sky
• ProjectCARS 2

Synthetic

• TimeSpy & Time Spy Extreme (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.3.0 benchmark
• Geekbench
• Sandra 2020 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperfect 2020
• Octanebench
• FrameView benching tool
• OCAT benching tool

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

Unfortunately, we did not have time to check out overclocking, but temperatures and noise levels are lower than the RTX 3090 FE. We plan to follow this review up with a VR review, an overclocking review, and a DLSS 3 review.

Let’s check out performance using 41 pancake and 5 VR games plus Workstation and creative benches on the next page.

Performance summary charts & graphs

Main Performance Gaming Summary Charts

Here are the summary charts of 41 games and 6 synthetic tests. The highest settings are always chosen, ray tracing is enabled for all games that offer it, and the settings are listed on the chart. The benches were run at 2560×1440 and at 3840×2160 as it is pointless to test at 1920×1080 with such a powerful card. In fact, we see CPU bottlenecking at 1440P for certain games.

Three cards are compared and they are listed in order starting with the RTX 4090, the RX 6900 XT, and the RTX 3090. We do not have a RX 6950 XT or a RTX 3090 Ti and no other cards are in this class.

All 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. Minimum framerates are expressed by the 99th-percentile (1% lows) and higher is better.

The RTX 4090 offers an overall 160% to 180% improvement over the RTX 3090’s baseline performance (at 100%) depending on the resolution and individual game, and in several examples it offers nearly a 200% improvement!

All of the games that we tested ran well on the RTX 4090. Although some games show less of a performance increase than others due to being CPU bound even at 1440P, it is a blowout and the RTX 4090 FE wins every game benchmark over the RTX 3090 and RX 6900 XT – it crushes the former Ampere and RDNA2 flagships. This is achieved with no upscaling whatsoever!

The RTX 4090 is the first single-GPU card that is truly suitable for 4K/60+ FPS using ultra/maxed-out ray traced settings for most modern demanding games without any upscaling, and it’s probably even solid for 4K/120 FPS using Quality DLSS which has equivalent or better visuals than the native image.

Next we look at five RTX/DLSS enabled games, each using maximum ray traced settings and the highest Quality DLSS.

RTX/DLSS Benchmarks

The RTX 4090 FE maintains its performance dominance over the RTX 3090 FE and pulls even further away when Quality DLSS is enabled.

Using Quality DLSS, we can see that the RTX 4090 will take advantage of an LG C1 4K/120Hz panel using the most demanding ray traced modern games. From testing DLSS 2 exhaustively, we note that the Quality setting at 4K is visually equal to or better than the native image.

We only had a little time to check out DLSS 3 which upscales far better than DLSS 2 and looks just as good. We believe that DLSS 3 will prove especially advantageous for the less powerful upcoming Ada Lovelace cards and will devote an upcoming review to it.

Next, we look at VR performance.

VR Games

For this review we benchmarked the Valve Index and set the SteamVR render resolution to 150% (2758×2740) which is considered ideal, if overkill, to compensate for lens distortion, and it’s well above our usual benchmarking render resolution at 100%. This higher render resolution gives the visuals exceptional clarity. The Index is still considered one of the best overall headsets due to its outstanding tracking and solid feature set, and we are going to compare the performance of the RX 4090 versus the RX 3090 at each game’s Ultra/Highest settings.

IMPORTANT: BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS, measuring just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our 5 sim-heavy VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of these games were benchmarked at 150% SteamVR resolution as we compare the stock-clocked RTX 4090 FE with the stock RTX 3090 FE using the Valve Index and FCAT VR.

First up, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

Assetto Corsa: Competizione (ACC)

BTR’s sim/racing editor, Sean Kaldahl created the replay benchmark run that we use for both the pancake game and the VR game. It is run at night with 20 cars, lots of geometry, and the lighting effects of the headlights, tail lights, and everything around the track looks spectacular.

Just like with Project CARS, you can save a replay after a race. Fortunately, the CPU usage is the same between a race and its replay so it is a reasonably accurate benchmark using the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

iRacing may be more accurate or realistic, but Assetto Corsa: Competizione has some appeal because it feels more real than many other racing sims. It delivers the sensation of handling a highly-tuned racing machine driven to its edge. We test the VR Ultra preset.

VR Ultra

Here are the ACC FCAT VR frametimes using VR Ultra.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3090 delivered 46.26 unconstrained FPS with 7884 (62%) synthesized frames with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 delivered 78.63 unconstrained FPS together with 6346 (50%) synthetic frames but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The ACC racing experience is better with the RTX 4090. However, the only way that the RTX 4090 can play on VR Epic is to lower the SteamVR render resolution to 100% as it is best to have no synthesized frames.

Next, we check out Elite Dangerous next.

Elite Dangerous (ED)

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets. Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a dedicated following of players.

We picked the Ultra Preset and we set the Field of View to its maximum. Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3090 delivered 137.33 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized frames with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 delivered 236.17 unconstrained FPS together with no synthetic frames and with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The experience playing Elite Dangerous at Ultra settings is not perceptibly different on either video card but the RTX 4090 has a lot more performance headroom to increase the render resolution or to use a higher resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2.

Let’s look at our newest VR sim, F1 2022.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3090 delivered 117.16 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthesized frames but no dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 delivered 192.66 unconstrained FPS together with no synthetic frames and with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The experience playing F1 2022 using the Ultra preset is not very different on either video card but the RTX 4090 has more performance headroom to increase the framerate to 120Hz or to use a higher resolution headset.

Next we check out No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky (NMS)

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to Maximum which is a step over Ultra including setting the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgrading to FXAA+TAA. Since DLSS is available for RTX cards and the Quality setting improves performance without impacting image quality, we used it.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RTX 3090 delivered 109.88 unconstrained FPS with 198 (3%) synthesized frames but no dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 delivered 183.68 unconstrained FPS together with 4 synthetic frames and with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The experience playing No Man’s Sky using the highest settings is not very different on either video card but the RTX 4090 has far more performance headroom.

Let’s continue with another VR game, ProjectCARS 2, that we still like better than its successor even though it is no longer available for online play.

Project CARS 2 (PC2)

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra rather than to use MSAA.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3090 delivered 113.60 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames and no dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 delivered 209.53 unconstrained FPS together with no synthetic frames and with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 using maximum settings is similar for both video cards but the RTX 4090 has far more performance headroom to increase the framerate to 120Hz or to use a higher resolution headset like the Vive Pro 2 or Reverb G2.

Amazing. Although all of these maxed out VR benchmarks were run at SteamVR’s 150% render resolution (2758×2740), the RTRX 4090 only broke a sweat playing ACC.

Unconstrained Framerates

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our two cards using our 5 VR test games. The preset is listed on the chart and higher is better.

The RX 4090 FE delivers far higher unconstrained frames for all VR benchmarks over the RTX 3090 FE in this important performance metric. However, unconstrained framerates are just one metric that has to be taken together with the frametime plots to have any meaning. It is clear that the RTX 4090 is ready for higher resolution headsets than the Valve Index. We’ll follow up this review with an expanded VR review using the Reverb G2 and Vive Pro.

Creative, Pro & Workstation Apps

Let’s look at Creative applications next to see if the RTX 4090 is a good upgrade from the RTX 3090 or RX 6900 XT. We test starting with Geekbench.

GeekBench

GeekBench is an excellent CPU/GPU benchmarking program which runs a series of tests and times how long a GPU (in this case) takes to complete its tasks. It benchmarks OpenCL, Vulcan, and CUDA performance

OpenCL, Vulcan, and CUDA Performance

RTX 6900 XT

First, OpenCL performance.

Next we test the RTX 6900 XT using Vulcan.

The 6900 XT does not run CUDA, so we move on to RTX 3090 performance.

RX 3090

First, OpenCL performance.

Next we test the RX 3090 using Vulcan.

Finally, RTX 3090 CUDA performance.

We move on to RTX 4090 performance

RX 4090

First, OpenCL performance.

Next we test the RX 4090 using Vulcan.

Finally, RTX 4090 CUDA performance.

The summary charts below show the comparative performance scores.

Again, the RTX 4090 performance is outstanding.

Next up, Blender benchmark.

Blender 3.3.0 Benchmark

Blender is a very popular open source 3D content creation suite. It supports every aspect of 3D development with a complete range of tools for professional 3D creation.

For the following chart, higher is better as the benchmark renders a scene multiple times and gives the results in samples per minute.

Blender’s benchmark performance is highest using the RTX4090, and often the amount of time saved is substantial over using the next fastest card, the RTX 3090.

Next, we look at the OctaneBench.

OTOY Octane Bench

OctaneBench allows you to benchmark your GPU using OctaneRender. The hardware and software requirements to run OctaneBench are the same as for OctaneRender Standalone.

We run OctaneBenc 2020.1.5 for Windows and here are the RTX 3090’s complete results and overall score of 671.17

We compare the score and results for the RTX 4090 – almost double the RTX 3090 score with 1261.64

Here is the summary chart comparing the RTX 4090 with the RTX 3090 overall scores.

The RTX 4090 is a beast of a card when used for rendering.

Next, we move on to AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks.

AIDA64

AIDA64 is an important industry tool for benchmarkers. Its GPGPU benchmarks measure performance and give scores to compare against other popular video cards.

AIDA64’s benchmark code methods are written in Assembly language, and they are well-optimized for every popular AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and VIA processor 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. CPU results are also shown for comparison with the RTX 4090 GPGPU benchmarks.

Here is the chart summary of the AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks with the RTX 4090, the RTX 3090 and the RX 6900 XT side-by-side.

Generally the RTX 3090 is faster at almost all of AIDA64’s GPGPU benchmarks than the other cards. So let’s look at Sandra 2020 next.

SiSoft Sandra 2020

To see where the CPU, GPU, and motherboard performance results differ, there is no better tool than SiSoft’s Sandra 2020. SiSoftware SANDRA (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a excellent 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. 20/21-R16a is the latest version, and we are using the full engineer suite courtesy of SiSoft. Sandra 2020 features continuous multiple monthly incremental improvements over earlier versions of Sandra. It will benchmark and analyze all of the important PC subsystems and even rank your PC while giving recommendations for improvement.

With the above in mind, we ran Sandra’s intensive GPGPU benchmarks and charted the results summarizing them. The performance results of the RTX 4090 are compared with the performance results of the RTX 3080, and the RX 6900 XT.

In Sandra GPGPU benchmarks, the RTX 4090 is much faster than the RTX 3090 and it distinguishes itself in every area – Processing, Cryptography, Financial and Scientific Analysis, Image Processing, and Bandwidth.

Next up, SPEC benchmarks.

SPECworkstation3.1 Benchmarks

All the SPECworkstation 3 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 SPECworkstation 3. 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 GPU-related workstation performance as checked in the image above.

Here are our raw SPECworkstation 3.1 raw scores for the RX 6900 XT:

Here are our raw SPECworkstation 3.1 raw scores for the RTX 3090:

Finally, here are our SPECworkstation 3.1 raw scores for the RTX 4090:

Below are the SPECworkstation 3.1 RTX 4090 results summarized in a chart along with the two competing cards, the RTX 3090, and the RTX 6900 XT. Higher is better since we are comparing scores.

The RTX 4090 is not a workstation card, yet it uses brute force to win most of the benches against the other two cards. The Radeon scores unbelievably high in snx-03, however, and we have no explanation for this result.

Finally, we benchmark using SPECviewperfect GPU benches.

SPECviewperf 2020 GPU Benches

The SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization Group (SPECgpc) has released a 2020-22 version of its SPECviewperf benchmark that features updated viewsets, new models, support for up to 4K display resolutions, and improved set-up and results management. We use the highest available 3800×2120 display resolution for highend cards.

Here are SPECviewperf 2020 GPU RTX 4090 benchmarks summarized in a chart together with our two competing cards.

Although we see different architectures with different strengths and weaknesses, the RTX 4090 is a beast in these SPEC benchmarks.

The RTX 4090 doesn’t offer any certifications for professional applications and it is not expected. It is likely that in workstation specific benchmarks, there will be cases where a Quadro board will outperform the RTX 4090 GeForce card. This is why professionals pay much more for Quadro than for any GeForce with otherwise equivalent raw performance.

After seeing the totality of the benches, many creative users will probably upgrade their existing systems with a new RTX 4090 series card based on the performance increases and the associated increases in productivity that they require. The question to buy the RTX 4090 or the RTX 3090 should be based on the workflow and requirements of each user as well as budget. Time is money to a professional depending on how these apps are used. Hopefully the benchmarks that we ran may help you decide.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

Final Thoughts

This has been a very enjoyable exploration evaluating the new Ada Lovelace RTX 4090 FE versus the RTX 3090 FE and Gigabyte RTX 6900 XT Gaming OC. The RTX 4090 performed brilliantly performance-wise. It totally blows away its other competitors as it is much faster. The RTX 4090 at $1599 is the upgrade from the $1499 RTX 3090 since the RTX 4090 gives at least a 160% (1.6X) improvement over its baseline performance. If a gaming enthusiast wants the very fastest card – just as the RTX 3090 was for the past two years (until the up to 10% faster RTX 3090 Ti was released), and doesn’t mind the $100 price increase – then the RTX 4090 is the only choice for intensive gaming and high resolution VR headsets.

The RTX 4090 is the flagship gaming card that can also run intensive creative apps very well, especially by virtue of its huge 24GB framebuffer. But it is still not a Quadro. These cards cost a lot more and are optimized specifically for workstations and also for professional and creative apps.

For RTX 3090 gamers who paid $1499 and who have disposable cash for their hobby, the RTX 4090 Founders Edition which costs $1599 is the card to maximize their upgrade. And for high-end gamers who also use creative apps, this card may become a very good value. Hobbies are very expensive to maintain, and the expense of PC gaming pales in comparison to what golfers, skiers, audiophiles, and many other hobbyists pay for their entertainment.

We cannot call the $1600 RTX 4090 a “good value” generally for gamers as it is a halo card although it provides more than 1.6X the performance of a RTX 3090. Of course, a RTX 3090 can be currently found at many etailers for under $1000 and a RTX 6900 XT for less than $700. Value is in the eye of the beholder, and the RTX 4090 delivers on its raw performance promises.

In addition, DLSS 3 brings a great future value to the new 4000 series as it has already received support from many of the world’s leading game developers, with more than 35 games and applications announcing support including game engines, including Unity, Unreal, and Frostbite Engine. If a game already uses DLSS 2 Super Resolution, upgrading to DLSS 3 is a relatively simple process that will make both Super Resolution and Frame Generation available. DLSS 3 leverages the same integration points as DLSS 2 (color buffer, depth buffer, engine motion vectors, and output buffers) and Nvidia Reflex, making upgrades from these existing SDKs easy for devs using the DLSS 3 Streamline plugin.

We will follow up with a DLSS 3 review since what we have experienced so far is extremely promising especially for upcoming less powerful Ada Lovelace cards.

Conclusion

We are very impressed with the RTX 4090 raw performance after spending more than 100 hours testing it over the past few days. It offers exceptional performance at Ultra 4K and and it even supports smooth playable gaming at 4K/120Hz using Quality DLSS and may be used for 8K gaming. It currently stands alone as the fastest video card in the world.

The Founders Edition of the RTX 4090 is well-built, solid, good-looking, and it stays cool and quiet even when overclocked – the card does not get hot like the RTX 3090 and it is much quieter under load. The RTX 4090 Founders Edition offers a big performance improvement over any previous Founders Editions in every metric.

Pros

• The RTX 4090 is the fastest video card in the world
• The RTX 4090 at $100 more than the RTX 3090 launched at is at least a 1.6X+ jump in raw performance
• The RTX 4090 offers an overall 160% to 180% improvement over the RTX 3090’s baseline performance (at 100%) depending on the resolution and individual game, and in several examples it offers nearly a 200% improvement!
• 24GB of fast vRAM and a fast core allow for 4K/120Hz gaming and it’s also very useful for intensive creative apps
• Ray tracing is a game changer in every way and DLSS 2 is pure magic. DLSS 3 looks to be even more of a game changer
• Ada Lovelace improves over Ampere with AI/deep learning and ray tracing to improve visuals while also increasing performance with DLSS 2 and especially with DLSS 3
• The RTX 4090 Founders Edition design cooling is quiet and efficient; the GPU in a well-ventilated case stays much cooler and quieter than the RTX 3090
• The industrial design is eye-catching and it is solidly built

Con

• Price. At $1600, the RTX 4090 is not a good value for gaming except as a multi-purpose halo card or for bragging rights

The Verdict:

If you are a gamer who also uses creative apps where saving time is important, you may do yourself a favor by upgrading to a RTX 4090. For high-end gamers with disposable income, the RTX 4090 is a true 4K/120Hz video card for most modern games and it offers the highest performance as an upgrade from a RTX 3090 delivering from 160% to nearly 200% improvement in raw performance power.

Stay tuned, there is a lot more on the way from BTR. Next up, we will more extensively test the RTX 4090, RTX 3080, and RX 6900 XT in VR using the Vive Pro 2 and Reverb G2 with an ETA of early next week. We also plan to follow up with an RTX 4090 overclocking review and a DLSS 3 deep dive. Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy Gaming!

UPDATE: I shared my data with John Peddie Research and they posted their own take on the RTX 4090 focusing on averages and easy-to-read charts including their famous Pmark overall comparison.

Video card prices have normalized and most prices of new video cards in the USA have dropped to at or below MSRP, plus there are sales and bundles to be found. This VR review of the Hellhound RX 6650 XT is our follow-up to BTR’s original review in May. We found that the RX 6650 XT beats up on the RTX 3060 but falls short of the RTX 3060 Ti in rasterized pancake gaming. This time, we want to see how the Hellhound performs compared to its faster sibling, the RX 6700 XT, and against the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti to see if it is a good entry level VR value.

The Hellhound RX 6650 XT is currently below MSRP for $369.99 at Newegg which AMD has positioned against entry level RTX 3060s which can be found starting at $380. RX 6700 XTs can be found starting at $430 and the RTX 3060 Ti can be found starting at $470. We have found the RX 6650 XT to be faster than than the RTX 3060 in rasterized pancake games but outclassed by the Ti which is in turn is slightly slower than the RX 6700 XT. For this VR value showdown, we will use the Valve Index and 10 VR games to compare the performance of the RX 6650 XT and the RX 6700 XT versus the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti.

We want to see if the RX 6650 XT is adequate as an entry level mainstream card to power a Valve Index. Although a fast CPU is important for geometry and other processing, smooth VR delivery depends primarily on the video card. An underpowered video card can even cause reprojecting and artifacting for a substandard playing experience that may even lead to VR sickness.We currently benchmark ten VR games using the Valve Index that features 2880×1600 resolution (1440×1600 pixels per eye), and we have changed our benching suite and added three new VR games: F1 2022, Kayak Mirage, and Sniper Elite VR.

BTR’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.

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames can make a VR experience unpleasant. It’s also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. But before we benchmark our VR games, check out our Test Configuration below.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-12900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost at stock settings)..
• ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Apex LGA 1700 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-FORCE DELTA RGB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• Valve Index, 90Hz
• Hellhound RX 6650 XT 8GB, factory clocks, on loan from PowerColor
• Red Devil RX 6700 XT 12GB, factory clocks, on loan from PowerColor
• RTX 3060 Black 12GB, factory clocks, on loan from EVGA
• RTX 3060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• T-FORCE CARDEA Ceramic C440 2 x 2TB PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD (one for AMD/one for NVIDIA)
• T-FORCE DELTA MAX White 1TBSATA III SSD (Storage), supplied by TeamGroup
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan; 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• Samsung G7 27? 1440P HDR600, 240Hz FreeSync/Gsync monitor

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 516.79 drivers – Stock settings in the NVIDIA control panel
• Adrenalin 22.6.1 drivers. Stock settings in the AMD control panel
• Windows 11 latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All 10 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT VR Capture (non-public) Beta
• FCAT VR Beta 18 (non-public)
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution

10 VR Game benchmark suite

SteamVR Games

• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Myst
• No Man’s Sky
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite VR
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our ten VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution as we benchmark the Hellhound RX 6650 XT to see how it compares with the EVGA RTX 3060 XC Black and against the Red Devil RTX 6700 XT and RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition.

First up, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim. Best of all, it runs well on the cards we tested.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3060 struggled with 97.37 unconstrained FPS with 10 dropped frames and 10 Warp misses plus 4565 (46%) synthetic frames generated.

The RX 6650 XT managed to deliver 108.63 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 50 (1%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti 131.63 delivered unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses plus 14 synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6700 XT achieved 141.20 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses and no synthetic frames were generated.

The RTX 3060 really struggled with the F1 2022 VR Medium preset unlike the RX 6650 XT, and the RX 6700 XT edged out the RTX 3060 Ti with a bit more performance headroom.

Next we check out Kayak VR: Mirage.

All cards deliver an identical vanilla Skyrim VR experience with a little bit of extra performance headroom for the RX 6650 XT, unlike with the RTX 3060, and a ton of extra headroom to add mods or to Supersample for the two faster cards.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Although The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an older first generation VR game built on the Unreal 4 engine, it still boasts amazing visuals even on entry-level cards. Although it is considered by some to be a walking simulator, it is also an excellent detective game with great puzzles. However, be aware that its style of locomotion tends to make some of its players VR sick.

There are only a few in-game graphics options available, so we picked the highest 130% resolution with TAA.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3060 managed 219.82 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss but no synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6650 XT achieved 258.13 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, and no frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti produced 270.97 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss, but no synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6700 XT delivered 304.39 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, and no synthetic frames were generated.

The experience playing The Vanishing of Ethan Carter on our medium VR settings is identical for all cards. The RX 6600 XT is faster than the RTX 3060 as the RX 6700 XT is faster than RTX 3060 Ti, which means there is a lot of performance headroom to increase the SteamVR render resolution.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 10 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are very good and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its High preset and we left the Pixel Density at 100%. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3060 managed 108.22 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped frames and 4 Warp misses. In addition, 2565 (33%) synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6650 XT provided 128.54 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, and but 324 (4%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti delivered 152.75 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss and 55 (1%) synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6700 XT achieved 155.17 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 9 synthetic frames were generated.

Playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game High preset and 100% Pixel Density is too optimistic for both of our lower end cards and some individual setting should be lowered. However, the RX 6700 XT and the RTX 3060 Ti deliver a decent and similar High preset experience.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

It is great to see AMD and NVIDIA delivering two mainstream cards that are both again priced below $400 that are adequate for entry level VR using a Valve Index (or Vive Pro). AMD appears to have addressed the micro stutter VR driver issues we found when we tested the RTX 6600 XT versus the RTX 3060 last August, and the Radeon is now a faster card that offers slightly more VR performance headroom.

Both the RTX 3060 and the RX 6650 XT can max several VR games in our benching suite if the resolution is left at 100% or slightly subsampled, or if the in-game settings are lowered. But if a VR enthusiast is going to spend $1000 for a premium HMD, it makes sense to pair it with a faster video card like the RTX 3060 Ti or the RX 6700 XT. However, one cannot pair a high resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2 with any of our four tested cards without lowering the resolution or settings.

To recap pricing: The Hellhound RX 6650 XT is currently below MSRP for $370 at Newegg versus entry level RTX 3060s which can be found starting at $380. The RX 6700 XT can be found starting at $430 and the RTX 3060 Ti can be found starting at $470. Make sure to check for new game bundles, sales, and promotions as both AMD’s and Nvidia’s promos recently ended. Video card pricing changes almost daily.

The RX 6650 XT offers a stronger VR performance at a slightly lower price than the RTX 3060 while the RTX 3060 Ti offers a similar VR experience to the RX 6700 XT. The advantage the GeForce cards hold over the Radeons is that they offer more DLSS supported VR games.

We did not test DLSS in VR nor did we use FSR and will leave that comparison for future reviews. We are going to take a break this week to play Spiderman: Remastered for PC and will be back with more great reviews next week.

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!

The RX 6600 XT is priced starting at $379 while the factory overclocked Red Devil is priced higher than the $399 RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition, yet AMD has positioned its newest mainstream video card against the entry level $329 RTX 3060. We have found the Red Devil RX 6600 XT to be a bit faster than than the RTX 3060 in rasterized pancake games but outclassed by the Ti. For this VR showdown, we will use the Valve Index and 10 VR games to compare the performance of the RX 6600 XT with the RTX 3060.

We want to see if the RX 6600 XT is worthy of AMD’s claim of VR premium and how it compares with the RTX 3060 which is adequate as an entry level mainstream card to power a Valve Index. Although a fast CPU is important for geometry and other processing, smooth VR delivery depends mostly on the video card. An underpowered video card can even cause reprojecting and artifacting for a substandard playing experience that may even lead to VR sickness.We currently benchmark ten VR games using the Valve Index that features 2880×1600 resolution (1440×1600 pixels per eye), the same as the Vive Pro and with similar performance at 90Hz/90FPS. BTR’s testing platform is an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32 GB of Vulcan Dark Z DDR4 at 3600MHz on a recent clean install of Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition.

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames can make a VR experience unpleasant. It’s also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. But before we benchmark our VR games, check out our Test Configuration below.

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, v1.3 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
• Valve Index, 90Hz
• EVGA RTX 3060 Black 12GB, stock clocks, on loan from EVGA
• Red Devil RX 6600 XT 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from PowerColor
• 2 x 1TB Team Group MP33 NVMe2 PCIe SSD for C: drive (one for AMD; one for NVIDIA)
• 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)
• 1TB T-FORCE DELTA MAX SATA III SSD (storage), supplied by Team Group
• ANTEC HCG1000 Extreme, 1000W gold power supply unit
• 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)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 471.68 drivers – Stock settings in the NVIDIA control panel
• Adrenalin 21.8.1 drivers. Stock settings in the AMD control panel
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All 10 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT VR Capture (non-public) Beta
• FCAT VR Beta 18 (non-public)
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution

10 VR Game benchmark suite & 1 synthetic test

Synthetic

• OpenVR Benchmark

SteamVR Games

• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Borderlands 2
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Half Life: Alyx
• No Man’s Sky
• Pavlov
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our ten VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution as we benchmark the Red Devil RX 6600 XT to see how it compares with the EVGA RTX 3060 Black.

The OpenVR benchmark ranks the RX 6600 XT and the RTX 3060 almost identically.

But we really want to see gaming benchmarks. First up, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

Half Life: Alyx

Half Life: Alyx uses an adaptive/dynamic scaling algorithm which uses a card’s performance headroom to subsample in demanding scenes and to supersample in less demanding scenes. We used its console commands to lock the SteamVR resolution to 100% so that it did not supersample or subsample and we set the graphics preset to High.

Here is the frametime plot for Half Life Alyx.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 114.87 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses, but 222 (4%) of its frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 managed 114.43 unconstrained FPS with no Warp misses but with 2 dropped frames and 399 (6%) synthetic frames.

Half Life: Alyx isn’t particularly demanding unless the Super Resolution increased in SteamVR settings, but unless console commands are used, the game will automatically subsample or supersample as needed and it will run fine with High settings on both cards. Unfortunately, while playing the game, Warp misses happened too frequently with the 6600 XT to mar an otherwise good VR experience.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to Standard, but we also set the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgraded to FXAA+TAA. Although DLSS is available for RTX cards and the Quality setting improves performance without impacting image quality significantly, we did not test with it.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 76.91 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, but 3221 (50%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 produced 103.61 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, and it only required 191 (3%) synthetic frames.

Although, the RTX 3060 gives a better experience over the RX 6600 XT in No Man’s Sky using the Standard preset, it isn’t strong enough to play on the Enhanced setting without synthesizing frames.

Next we check out Pavlov.

Pavlov

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Pavlov in VR. Pavlov is the most popular multiplayer VR shooter with a primary focus on its community. Realistic fast-paced combat is a large part of its core experience, and even tanks have been added.

We benchmarked using the training sessions with the highest settings.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details:

The RX 6600 XT delivered 165.97 unconstrained FPS with no dropped, synthesized frames, or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivered 175.96 unconstrained FPS also with no dropped, synthesized frames, or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivers an identical VR experience to the RX 6600 XT although it has a little more performance headroom. We recommend that it be used for increasing the SteamVR render resolution or for playing at 120Hz.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2

Project CARS 2

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur although it looks best to us on Low or Medium. For lesser cards, we would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6600 XT managed 100.15 unconstrained FPS with 17 dropped frame and 17 Warp misses but 566 (6%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 achieved 77.43 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frame and with 1 Warp miss but with 4820 (50%) synthetic frames. It had no Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 on our medium VR settings is unsatisfactory for both cards and we would recommend lowering individual settings or even lower the resolution a bit as needed to stay out of reprojection. The RX 6600 XT is faster, but the VR experience is spoiled by dropped frames and Warp misses.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings but we did not increase or Supersample the resolution.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 128.30 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthetic frames and there were no Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 managed 129.39 unconstrained FPS, also with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 26 synthetic frames were produced

Both cards deliver an identical experience with a little bit of performance headroom to add mods or to Supersample.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 10 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are outstanding and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its highest settings and we left the Pixel Density at 100%.. Here is the frametime chart. Please note that the Pixel Density is 100%.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6600 XT produced 120.55 unconstrained FPS with 7 dropped frames and 7 Warp misses, but 114 (2%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 managed 115.00 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses and 37 (1%) synthetic frames were generated.

Playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game maximum settings and 100% Pixel Density should be similar for both of our cards although the RX 6600 XT has too many dropped frames and Warp misses.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

It is great to see AMD and NVIDIA delivering two mainstream cards that are both priced below $400 – if they can be found at all at MSRP – that drop the entry price for VR. The EVGA RTX 3060 Black sits in a unique position as the fastest $329 MSRP video card available for VR and it offers reasonable performance for use with a Valve Index, and no doubt it would offer excellent performance for an original Vive, Rift CV1, or even for a Rift S. The Red Devil RX 6600 XT at above $400 should be slightly faster, but unfortunately it suffers from microstuttering together with excessive dropped frames and Warp misses, and we suggest that AMD’s driver team should address this.

Both the RTX 3060 and the RX 6600 XT can max multiple VR games in our benching suite if the resolution is left at 100% or slightly subsampled, or if the in-game settings are lowered. But if someone is going to spend $1000 for a premium HMD, it makes sense to pair it with a faster video card like the RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition which is MSRP/SEP priced below the Red Devil RX 6600 XT. However, one cannot pair a high resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2 with either card.

The RTX 3060 is a good card for high/medium quality PC VR at a rather bargain price of $329 – if it can be purchased at this price – and the RTX 3060 Ti is a more solid offering for $70 more. Unfortunately, the RX 6600 XT at $379 barely matches the experience of the RX 3060 at $329 – never mind the Red Devil at above $400 – and it needs some attention from AMD’s driver team before we can give it a solid recommendation for VR. We did not test DLSS in VR nor did we use FSR and will leave that comparison for a future review.

Next up, we plan to review Myst which launches tomorrow on Steam also in VR. It features ray tracing in the pancake version and DLSS in both versions.

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!

BTR received the RTX 3070 Ti 8GB Founders Edition (FE) from NVIDIA and we have been testing its performance by benchmarking 25 games and five VR games using the new Vive Pro 2, and also by overclocking it with an emphasis on ray tracing and DLSS. Although the RTX 3070 Ti is a gaming card, we have added workstation, SPEC, and GPGPU benches. Although we feature the Vive Pro 2 to see if a RTX 2080 Ti / RTX 3070/Ti class of card can power its extreme resolution, this is not a review of the new headset yet.

We are going to compare performance using eight top cards to see where the RTX 3070 Ti FE fits in – the RTX 3070 Ti, 3080 Ti FE, the RTX 3090 FE, the RTX 3080 FE, as well as versus the reference RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and the Red Devil RTX 6900 XT. However, because of supply/demand issues, all suggested pricing is meaningless as only a very lucky few gamers will get them at or close to MSRP/SEP.

NVIDIA indicates that the RTX 3070 Ti has been in full production and stockpiled for over a month, so they are already in the hands of retailers and have been there for weeks so they can build supply. Even so it will still sell out probably within a few minutes or less because the demand is incredibly high. Fortunately, the end of the COVID-19 and Crypto pandemics are in view and a new ‘Roaring 20s’ for gamers may soon appear on the horizon with lower prices and better availability by the Autumn.

Specifications

We have already covered Ampere’s features in depth and we have reviewed the RTX 3070, the 3080 Ti’s $499 slower brother that comes equipped with 8GB of GDDR6 vRAM. The RTX 3070 Ti is a GDDR6X upgrade over the RTX 3070. Besides its faster memory, the 3070 Ti also has more CUDA Cores and slightly higher clock speeds, as well as a flow-through cooler design similar to the RTX 3080/3080 Ti/3090.

This review will consider whether the new RTX 3070 Ti FE at $599 – $100 more than the RTX 3070 – delivers a good value. Below are the specifications comparing the RTX 3070 Ti with the RTX 2070 as well as with the RTX 3070.

Since the RTX 2080 Ti launched in 2018, there are now more than 130 games and applications supporting NVIDIA’s RTX tech including ray tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Since all of the vendors and console platforms now support ray tracing technology, we will focus on these newer games. NVIDIA’s Reflex latency-reducing technology is also now supported in 12 of the top 15 competitive shooters and we will follow up this review with an upcoming latency review.

We benchmark using Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition at 1920×1080, 2560×1440, and at 3840×2160 using Intel’s Core i9-10900K at 5.1/5.0 GHz and 32GB of T-FORCE DARK Z 3600MHz DDR4 on a EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard. All games and benchmarks use the latest versions, and we use the most recent drivers.

Let’s first unbox the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition before we look at our test configuration

The RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition Unboxing

The Ampere generation RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is also a completely redesigned Founders Edition and here is the card, unboxed.

Inside the box and beneath the card are warnings, a quick start guide and warranty information, plus the 12-pin to PCIe dual 8-pin dongle that will be required to connect the RTX 3070 Ti to most PSUs.

Just like the other Ampere Founders Editions, the RTX 3070 Ti comes in a “shoebox” style box where the card inside lays flat at a slight incline for display.

The system requirements, contents, and warranty information are printed on the bottom of each box. The RTX 3070 Ti requires a minimum 750W power supply unit, and the case must have space for a 267mm (L) x 112mm (W) two-slot card.

It easily fits in our Phanteks Eclipse P400 ATX mid-tower as it is much smaller than the RTX 3090 and slightly smaller than the RTX 3080 Ti.

The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is a moderately heavy 2-slot card with dual fans. As a GDDR6X upgrade over the RTX 3070, the 3070 Ti also has more CUDA Cores and slightly higher clock speeds, as well as the flow-through cooler design similar to the RTX 3080/3080 Ti/3090.

Turning the card over, we see the similar unique design of the top Ampere FEs with the flow-through cooler. This card is designed to keep the GPU cool partly by using a short PCB, and inside the card it is mostly all heatsink fins.

There is very large surface area for cooling so the heat is readily transferred to the fin stack and the dual fans exhaust the heat out of the back of the case and also from the top of the card into the case’s airflow.

The IO panel has a very large air vent and four connectors. The connectors are similar to the Founders Edition of the RTX 2080 Ti and the RTX 3080, but the VirtualLink connector for VR is no longer used. Three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors are included, and the HDMI port has been upgraded from 2.0 to 2.1 allowing for 4K/120Hz over a single HDMI cable.

Before we look at overclocking, power and noise, let’s check out our test configuration.

Test Configuration

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, v1.3 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
• RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition 8GB, stock and overclocked, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition 12GB, stock and overclocked, 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
• RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition 8GB, stock and overclocked, on loan from NVIDIA
• Radeon RX 6800 16GB reference version, stock clocks on loan from AMD
• Radeon RX 6800 XT 16GB reference version, stock clocks on loan from AMD
• Red Devil RX 6900 XT 16GB, at Red Devil clocks, loaned by PowerColor and returned in April.
• VIVE PRO 2, on a short-term loan from HTC/VIVE
• 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 466.47 for (RTX 3080 Ti Press launch drivers) are used for all GeForce cards except for the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3070 which use the new card’s press launch drivers – 466.61.
• Adrenalin 21.5.2 drivers used for the RX 6800 and the RX 6800 XT and 21.3.2 is used for the RX 6900 XT.
• 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 21H1 (Build1 9043.1023). 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, 4.6.4 beta to overclock the RTX 3070 Ti
• FCAT VR
• fpsVR
• OpenVR Benchmark

Games

Vulkan

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

DX12

• Resident Evil VIllage
• Metro Exodus – Enhanced Edition & regular edition
• Hitman 3
• Cyberpunk 2077
• DiRT 5
• Godfall
• Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War
• Assassins Creed Valhala
• Watch Dogs Legions
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• F1 2020
• Borderlands 3
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

DX11

• Days Gone
• Crysis Remastered
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Total War: Three Kingdoms

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• No Man’s Sky
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim

Synthetic

• TimeSpy (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• Heaven 4.0 benchmark
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 2.92 benchmark
• Sandra 2020/21 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperf 2020
• Octane benchmark

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings. 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. Navi cards are quite 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.

Overclocking, Temperatures & Noise

All of our performance and overclocked testing are performed in a closed Phanteks Eclipse P400 ATX mid-tower case. Inside, the RTX 3070 Ti is a quiet card even when overclocked and we never needed to increase its fan speeds manually or change the stock fan profile. We overclocked using Afterburner without adding any extra voltage.

We used Heaven 4.0 running in a window at completely maxed-out settings at a windowed 2560×1440 to load the GPU to 98% so we could observe the running characteristics of the RTX 3070 Ti and also to be able to instantly compare our changed clock settings with their results. At completely stock settings with the GPU under full load, the card ran cool and stayed below 85C with clocks that averaged around 1850MHz.

Simply raising the Power and Temperatures to their maximums resulted in the clocks running above 1875MHz with a small rise in temperatures using the stock fan profile.

After testing multiple combinations, our RTX 3070 Ti’s final stable overclock to achieve the highest overall performance added +150MHz offset to the core and +800 MHz to the memory. to achieve a core clock above 2000MHz with a memory clock of 10300MHz. The RTX 3070 Ti FE is power-limited, and to achieve a higher overclock will require more voltage.

Although we were unable to spend a lot of time overclocking it, our review sample appears to be only a fair overclocker. If you want a higher overclock, pick a partner overclocked AIB RTX 3070 Ti. To see the performance increase from overclocking, we tested 5 games. The results are given after the main performance charts in the next section.

First, let’s check out performance on the next page.

Performance Summary Charts & Graphs

Gaming Performance Summary Charts

Here are the summary charts of 25 games and 3 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. Five cards were compared and they are listed in order starting from left to right with the RTX 3070 FE, the reference RX 6800, the RTX 3070 Ti, the RX 6800 XT, the RTX 3080 FE, the RTX 3080 Ti FE, the RTX 3090 FE, and the Red Devil RX 6900 XT (which was benchmarked in April).

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. Performance wins between the RTX 3070 Ti and the RX 6800 are given in yellow text.

Please click on each chart to open a pop-up window for its best viewing experience.

Although there is some game-dependent variability, the RTX 3070 Ti FE is only around 3-10% faster than the RTX 3070 FE but it is enough to now easily trade blows with the reference RX 6800 in rasterized games, winning more than it loses, and is much faster in most ray traced games and a lot faster when DLSS is used.

Next we look at overclocked performance.

Overclocked benchmarks

These benchmarks are run with the RTX 3070 Ti overclocked +150MHz on the core and +800MHz on the memory versus at stock clocks. The RTX 3070 Ti overclocked results are presented first and the stock results are shown in the second column.

There is a small performance increase from overclocking the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition. Unfortunately, although we did not have enough time to optimize our overclock, it’s clear that NVIDIA has locked down Ampere cards’ overclocking in an attempt to maximize performance for all Founders Edition gamers. We would also suggest that the RTX 3070 Ti FE is rather voltage constrained and if you want a higher overclock, pick a factory-overclocked partner version instead of a Founders Edition.

Let’s next look at VR gaming with the Vive Pro 2. The following is not our review of the Vive Pro 2 – the full review will follow next week. Instead we are going to focus on performance.

VR Gaming with the Vive Pro 2

The Vive Pro 2 is a much more demanding headset than the Vive Pro or the Valve Index by virtue of its higher resolution. Image resolution has been increased per eye from the Pro’s (or Valve Index’) 1440 x 1600 to 2448 x 2448. This higher resolution gives it exceptional clarity with no screen door effect, but it is also demanding on video cards. By default at the Ultra or Extreme preset, the Vive console uses 150% SteamVR Render Resolution for the Vive Pro 2 which appeared to be set to 2748×2748 per eye for high end NVIDIA cards at the time we benchmarked our games.

Here is the OpenVR benchmark result which requires 100% SteamVR Render Resolution for its default run. We used the Vive Console Ultra setting at native resolution and 90Hz. We did not test the Extreme setting which allows up to 120Hz.

Although SteamVR sets the same resolution for the RTX 3090 and the RTX 3070 Ti, it uses a lower resolution for AMD cards at either 100% (2244×2244) or at 150%. In fact, yesterday’s Vive software update lowered the default SteamVR resolution slightly for NVIDIA cards which suggests that it is still a work in progress and is being fine-tuned. The 100% SteamVR render resolution was lowered from 2556×2556 to 2532×2532 yesterday. Our results reflect the higher render setting.Some VR gamers prefer to lower the SteamVR Render Resolution which is set at 150% and is mostly used to compensate for the lens’ distortion instead of lowering a game’s preset or by dropping individual settings. We decided to initially test at 100% which is what we test the Reverb G2, the Vive Pro, and the Valve Index. Our follow up review will also benchmark at the default 150% resolution.

Yesterday, in response to our questions, Vive suggested that the SteamVR default Render Resolution should be left at 150%. Vive told BTR:

“Motion Compensation is the same as Motion Smoothing. The new lens and display requires our own motion compensation, and VIVE Console is the software that is driving the displays, so motion compensation is built into that.

For VIVE Pro 2, we set Steam’s supersampling setting as 150% by default, which makes up for the lens distortion. We found this to be the best value for SteamVR’s automatic performance scaling to scale and still reach 90 or 120 Hz on the majority of PCs we expect to be used to run VIVE Pro 2. However, users can still go into SteamVR to manually adjust their supersampling settings.

If we had set it to 100%, a lot of PCs would struggle under automatic settings. Render resolution is set by SteamVR and automatically scales to what it thinks is best for your system, VIVE Console handles display resolution.”

Motion Smoothing is disabled in SteamVR, but we actually didn’t see any FPS performance difference disabling or enabling Motion Compensation in the Vive console using fpsVR although the frametimes suffered. We see relatively minor visual differences between 100% and 150% SteamVR Render Resolution but even at the higher setting, lens distortion is still slightly visible to us particularly at the edges of the display.

At 50% SteamVR Render Resolution, there is a clear degradation of visuals which indicates that the SteamVR Render Resolution is working properly. However, at 150% Super Resolution, the frametime rates go up (which is bad) for several games that we tested although the FPS remain at 45 FPS which suggested to us that Vive’s Motion Compensation may still be on although Vive assures us it can be switched off in their console. We noticed that Motion Compensation artifacting became prominent and even disturbing if settings are pushed too high as we found with Elite Dangerous.

Please note that FCAT VR doesn’t distinguish dropped frames from synthesized frames using the Pro 2 (or the Reverb G2) like it properly does for the Valve Index and the Vive Pro. We suggest that the vast majority of the frames reported as dropped are actually synthetically generated (reprojected) frames. It is likely that FCAT VR is not yet optimized for the Pro 2.

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our five VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution.

First up, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC)

BTR’s sim/racing editor, Sean Kaldahl created the replay benchmark run that we use for both the pancake game and the VR game. It is run at night with 20 cars, lots of geometry, and the lighting effects of the headlights, tail lights, and everything around the track looks spectacular.

Just like with Project CARS, you can save a replay after a race. Fortunately, the CPU usage is the same between a race and its replay so it is a reasonably accurate benchmark using the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

iRacing may be more accurate or realistic, but Assetto Corsa Competizione has some appeal because it feels more real than many other racing sims. It delivers the sensation of handling a highly-tuned racing machine driven to its edge. We test using the VR Low preset.

VR Low

Here are the ACC frametimes using VR Low.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3070 Ti delivered 102.85 unconstrained FPS with 15 dropped or synthesized frames and no Warp misses.

The RTX 3070 Ti has a little performance headroom and it is possible to play it using enhanced individual settings with minimal reprojected or synthesized frames but it is best suited for playing ACC on VR Low. VR High is unplayable.

Next, we check out Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous (ED)

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets (~400 billion). Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a very dedicated following of players.

We picked the Ultra Preset with the maximum FoV originally but the shimmering and artifacting from reprojection/Motion Compensation was awful, so we set everything to Medium leaving the FoV at maximum. Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3070 Ti delivered 128.79 unconstrained FPS with no Warp Misses nor any dropped or synthetic frames.

The experience playing Elite Dangerous at Ultra settings is awful but Medium seems perfect with some performance headroom to increase individual settings.

Next, we will check out a really demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

We set the settings to Enhanced which is above Low and below High, but we also set the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgraded to FXAA+TAA. The game has recently implemented DLSS 2.1 and we used the highest visual quality preset, Quality which gives a much smaller performance boost than the others DLSS settings.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RTX 3070 Ti produced 85.37 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but it required 3200 (50%) synthetic frames.

The Low Preset may be better suited for play with the RTX 3070 Ti, or else individual setting may be lowered to maintain a balance of performance to visuals. However, it may be best to use DLSS Performance instead and accept a slight artifacting. We were very impressed with the Enhanced preset using DLSS Quality, and the high resolution screen of the Vive Pro 2 makes playing this game an even more extraordinary experience where the game comes more alive.

Let’s continue with another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2, that we still like better than its successor.

Project CARS 2 (PC2)

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA rather than to use MSAA.

We originally tried maximum settings including for Motion Blur but that wasn’t possible so we set everything to Medium.

Here is the frametime plot.Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3070 Ti delivered 77.49 unconstrained FPS with 4802 (50%) synthesized or dropped frames and with no Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 on the Medium preset requires that we would recommend lowering individual settings or even lower the resolution a as needed to stay out of reprojection. However, even on Medium, the game looks great using the Vive Pro 2.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings, but we did not increase its in game supersampling.

Here are the frametime results.

The RTX 3070 Ti managed 130.68 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames, no synthetic frames, and no Warp misses.

The RTX 3070 Ti can play Skyrim at its maxed out in-game settings although we did not benchmark in-game Supersampling since we saw reprojecting or synthesized frames. Since there is some performance headroom, it suggests to us that mods may be used with the Vive Pro 2 and a RTX 3070 Ti class of video card.

These benchmarks results bring up more questions than answers that we hope to cover in a follow up review dedicated to the Vive Pro 2 next week. However, we love the Pro 2 and have ordered our own headset and will keep it for future VR benchmarking.

To see if the RTX 3070 Ti is a good upgrade from the other video cards we test workstation, creative, and GPGPU benchmarks starting with Blender.

Blender 2.92 Benchmark

Blender is a very popular open source 3D content creation suite. It supports every aspect of 3D development with a complete range of tools for professional 3D creation.

We benchmarked three Blender 2.92 benchmarks which measure GPU performance by timing how long it takes to render production files. We tested seven of our comparison cards with both CUDA and Optix running on the GPU instead of using the CPU. We benchmarked the RX 6800 XT and the RTX 3080 using OpenCL because Radeons do not support CUDA.

Here are the RTX 3070 Ti’s CUDA and OPTIX scores.

For the following chart, lower is better as the benchmark renders a scene multiple times and gives the results in minutes and seconds.

Blender’s benchmark performance is slower using the RTX 3070 Ti compared with the RTX 3080 and slightly faster than te RTX 3070.

Next we look at the OctaneBench.

Octane Bench

OctaneBench allows you to benchmark your GPU using OctaneRender. The hardware and software requirements to run OctaneBench are the same as for OctaneRender Standalone.

We run OctaneBench 2020.1.5 for Windows and here are the RTX 3070 Ti’s complete results with an overall score of 454.87.

Here is the summary chart comparing our five GeForce cards. Radeons cannot run the Octane benchmark.

The RTX 3070 Ti is a decent card when used for rendering but closer to the RTX 3070 in performance than the RTX 3080.

Next, we move on to AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks.

AIDA64 v6.33

AIDA64 is an important industry tool for benchmarkers. Its GPGPU benchmarks measure performance and give scores to compare against other popular video cards.

AIDA64’s benchmark code methods are written in Assembly language, and they are well-optimized for every popular AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and VIA processor 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.

Here are the RTX 3070 Ti AIDA64 GPGPU results.

Here is the chart summary of the AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks with seven of our competing cards side-by-side.

The RTX 3070 Ti is a fast GPGPU card that is slightly faster than the RTX 3070. So let’s look at Sandra 2020 next.

SiSoft Sandra 2020/21

To see where the CPU, GPU, and motherboard performance results differ, there is no better tool than SiSoft’s Sandra 2020. SiSoftware SANDRA (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a excellent 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. Sandra 2021 R2 is the latest version, and we are using the full engineer suite courtesy of SiSoft. Sandra 2020/21 features continuous multiple monthly incremental improvements over earlier versions of Sandra. It will benchmark and analyze all of the important PC subsystems and even rank your PC while giving recommendations for improvement.

We ran Sandra’s intensive GPGPU benchmarks and charted the results summarizing them. There was a bug in one Processing benchmark that affected the Red Devil RX 6800 XT with OpenCL that was addressed by SiSoft by the time we tested the RX 6800.

In Sandra GPGPU benchmarks, the RTX 3070 Ti is similar in performance to the RTX 3070. Interestingly, the RTX 3070 Ti (and RTX 3080 Ti’s) Hashing bandwidth is much lower than the RTX 3080/RTX 3070 and even the RX 6800 XT as NVIDIA has limited its cryptocurrency mining ability. However, since the architectures are different, each card exhibits different characteristics with different strengths and weaknesses.

SPECworkstation3 Benchmarks

All 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 GPU-related workstation performance as checked in the image above.

Here are our raw SPECworkstation 3.0.4.summary and raw scores for the RTX 3070 Ti.

Here are the SPECworkstation3 results summarized in a chart along with six competing cards. Higher is better.

Using SPEC benchmarks, the RTX 3070 Ti is closer in performance to the RTX 3070 than it is to the RTX 3080. However, since the architectures are different, the cards each exhibit different characteristics with different strengths and weaknesses.

SPECviewperf 2020 GPU Benches

The SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization Group (SPECgpc) has released a 2020 version of its SPECviewperf benchmark that features updated viewsets, new models, support for both 2K and 4K display resolutions, and improved set-up and results management.

We benchmarked at 4K and here is the summary for the RTX 3070 Ti.

Here are SPECviewperf 2020 GPU benchmarks summarized in a chart together with six other cards.

Again the RTX 3070 Ti is slightly faster than the RTX 3070 but not close to RTX 3080 performance.

After seeing these benches, some creative users may wish to upgrade their existing systems with a new RTX 30X0 series card based on the performance increases and the associated increases in productivity that they require. The question to buy an RTX 3070 Ti should be based on the workflow and requirements of each user as well as their budget. Time is money depending on how these apps are used. However, the target demographic for the RTX 3070 Ti is primarily gaming for gamers, especially at 1440P and at 1080P.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

Final Thoughts

The $599 RTX 3070 Ti FE performed well performance-wise compared to the RX 6800. However at only around 3-10% faster than the $100 less expensive RTX 3070 it is not priced particularly well based on its value to performance. It does have faster GDDR6X memory, slightly more cores and a mini-clockspeed bump together with a much better cooling system

If a gaming enthusiast wants a very fast card upper-midrange card, the RTX 3070 Ti is an excellent card for ultra 1080P or 1440P gaming. It can also be used for 4K gaming if settings are lowered.

The Founders Edition of the RTX 3070 Ti is well-built, solid, and good-looking, and it stays cool and quiet even when overclocked. The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition will offer a solid upgrade for first generation Turing owners of the RTX 2070 or any earlier generation cards. However, it is not really an upgrade from a $499 RTX 3070 FE which has a higher value to price ratio – if it can be found at MSRP.

Pros

• The RTX 3070 Ti is fast enough for VR gaming with the Vive Pro 2 at 100% SteamVR render resolution
• The RTX 3070 Ti is perfect for 1440P or 1080P gaming although settings have to be lowered for 4K; and it’s also very useful for intensive creative, SPEC, or GPGPU apps
• Ray tracing is a game changer in every way and the RTX 3070 Ti is much faster than the RX 6800 XT or RX 6800 XT when DLSS 2.0 or ray tracing features are enabled. DLSS 2.0 has been rightly called “a miracle” for gamers including for VR gamers
• Reflex and Broadcast are important features for competitive gamers and broadcasters
• Ampere improves over Turing with AI/deep learning and ray tracing to improve visuals while also increasing performance with DLSS 2.0 and Ultra Performance DLSS
• The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition design cooling is quiet and efficient and its upgraded flow-through design is a real upgrade over the RTX 3070 FE. The GPU in a well-ventilated case stays cool even when overclocked and it remains quiet using the stock fan profile
• The industrial design is eye-catching and it is solidly built

Cons

• High Price
• Lack of availability

The Verdict

If you are a gamer who plays at maxed-out 1080P, 1440P, or even at 4K with lesser settings, you may want to upgrade to a RTX 3070 Ti. The Founders Edition offers good performance value as an upgrade from previous generations with the additional benefit of being able to handle ray tracing much better. It is much faster in ray traced games than any Radeon, and DLSS 2.0 is a true game changer that brings extra performance without any compromise in visuals.

The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition is available starting tomorrow for $699 from NVIDIA’s online store, and USA customers can purchase these cards also directly from Best Buy both online and in person. Only a relatively few lucky gamers will be able to buy one at SEP, but we believe the supply issue will ease and pricing will return to normal by the Autumn and this review will be even more useful in making a high end card selection then.

Stay tuned, there is a lot more on the way from BTR. Next week, we will test multiple cards in VR using the brand new Vive Pro 2. We are in touch with HTC/Vive and hope to have answers and solid performance results by then. Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy Gaming!

This review features a follow up VR performance showdown focusing on sims between the Red Devil RX 6900 XT and the RTX 3090 Founders Edition (FE) using the Reverb G2 and FCAT VR. On a short-term loan from PowerColor, we recently received a Red Devil “Ultimate” Edition which is an unlocked card that is built for overclocking by allowing for higher voltage.

Although we had originally planned to overclock the Red Devil RX 6900 XT Ultimate versus the overclocked RTX 3090 FE, we had issues with our ANTEC/Seasonic 1000W power supply and the card’s protection circuitry so we had to abort overclocked benchmarking after we lost our favorite 1TB CARDEA Ceramic PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD to a transient power surge. However, we will compare stock benchmarks also since we found that both NVIDIA and AMD have each improved performance since January.

Our main focus for this review is on using the HP Reverb G2 with three popular sims: Elite Dangerous, Assetto Corsa: Competizione, and Project CARS 2. BTR’s testing platform is an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32 GB of Vulcan Dark Z DDR4 at 3600MHz on a clean install of Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition using NVIDIA’s GeForce Game Ready Driver, 466.11, and AMD’s Adrenalin Software 21.3.2 drivers.

After we received the Red Devil RX 6900 XT on a short-term loan in January, we tested 35 pancake games to validate its performance versus the NVIDIA flagship, the RTX 3090 FE and also overclocked them. The two cards traded blows and the performance was close in multiple rasterized games, but the GeForce was the faster card as well as being more expensive at MSRP. Although we will update our results using 14 pancake games today, this review will focus on VR sim performance using arguably the best headset for sims – the very demanding Reverb G2.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT “Ultimate” Edition.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT “Ultimate” edition is the same as the regular edition and performs identically out of the box with stock clocks. The Ultimate Edition is unlocked and aimed at more extreme overclocking with pre-selected and binned GPUs. It features a 303W ‘Unleash BIOS’ vs the 289W on the regular Red Devil.

Here is what comes in the Ultimate box.

The Ultimate edition is very similar to the regular Red Devil RX 6900 XT edition, the only differences being that the card is binned and unlocked. It’s a shame we were unable to overclock it, but we are glad to be able to retest it in VR and with regular games before we had to send this one back to PowerColor also.

Up next is our test configuration which are the same for PC games as PC VR games.

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, v1.3 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
• Reverb G2, on loan from HP/Reverb
• Red Devil RX 6900 XT Ultimate edition 16GB, stock clocks, on loan from PowerColor.
• RTX 3090 Founders Edition 24GB, 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)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 466.11 Game Ready drivers – High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, no optimizations, Vsync is off as set in the NVIDIA control panel
• Adrenalin Software 21.3.2 – All optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates v2004.
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT-VR Capture (latest non public Beta 04/21)
• FCAT-VR Beta 18 (non public)
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution unless specified

3 VR Sim Game, 14 Pancake benchmark suite & 1 synthetic test

Synthetic

• Unigine Superposition VR Benchmark
• 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy

VR Sim Games

• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• Project CARS 2

Pancake Games

• DiRT 5
• Godfall
• Death Stranding
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Borderlands 3
• Wolfenstein Youngblood
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade
• Rainbow 6 Siege
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Metro Exodus
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Far Cry New Dawn

First we are going to check the performance of 14 pancake games

14 PC Games

Most gaming results show average framerates in bold text, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. The games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by frametimes in ms where lower numbers are better. Column one represents the stock RTX 3090 FE performance next to the stock Red Devil RX 6900 XT Ultimate edition performance results in the second column.

Compared with our last benchmarks between the Red Devil RX 6900 XT and the RTX 3090 FE, there has been a general performance increase for both cards. The Red Devil wins three games outright and it ties or trades blows in six others depending on the resolution although the RX 3090 still maintains the overall lead. So let’s look at our three featured VR sim games next.

VR Sims

The Reverb G2 is a much more demanding headset than the Vive Pro or the Valve Index by virtue of its higher resolution. This higher resolution gives it exceptional clarity with no screen door effect, but its tracking isn’t as perfect as lighthouse tracking for many action games. The G2 is considered one of the best headsets for racing and flight sims and we are going to compare the performance of the RX 6900 XT versus the RX 3090 – first at each game’s Ultra settings and also, if necessary, at more “playable” settings to minimize reprojection.

Some VR gamers prefer to lower the SteamVR render resolution for the G2 which is extremely high and mostly used to compensate for the lens’ distortion instead of lowering the preset or by dropping individual settings. It is a viable option but we prefer to test at SteamVR’s 100% resolution for benchmarking purposes.

Also, please note that FCAT VR doesn’t distinguish dropped frames from synthesized frames using the G2 like it properly does for the Valve Index and the Vive Pro. We suggest that the vast majority of the frames reported as dropped are actually synthetically generated (reprojected) frames.

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our 3 sim VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution as we compare the stock-clocked Red Devil RX 6900 XT with the stock RTX 3090 FE using the Reverb G2 and FCAT VR.

First up, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

BTR’s sim/racing editor, Sean Kaldahl created the replay benchmark run that we use for both the pancake game and the VR game. It is run at night with 20 cars, lots of geometry, and the lighting effects of the headlights, tail lights, and everything around the track looks spectacular.

VR High

Here are the ACC FCAT VR frametimes using VR High.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 6900 XT delivered 72.12 unconstrained FPS with 5802 (49%) dropped or synthesized frames but no Warp misses.

The RTX 3090 delivered 86.48 unconstrained FPS together with 1623 (17%) dropped or synthetic frames along with no Warp misses.

The ACC racing experience is better with the RTX 3090 since less than 20% of its frames need to be synthesized compared with nearly 50% using the RX 6900 XT. However, there is no way that either of these cards can play on VR Epic without lowering the resolution, and it is best to have no synthesized frames, so we will try VR Low next – unfortunately there is no VR Medium.

VR Low

Here are the ACC frametimes using VR Low.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 6900 XT delivered 126.27 unconstrained FPS with 6 dropped or synthesized frames and no Warp misses.

The RTX 3090 delivered 136.11 unconstrained FPS with no dropped, synthesized frames, or Warp misses.

FIXED TEXT – 04/19/2021 9:45 AM PDT

Both cards play ACC similarly on VR Low. The RTX 3090 has more performance headroom and it is possible to play it on VR High with minimal reprojected or synthesized frames by lowering a few settings. The RX 6900 XT is best suited for playing ACC on VR Low.

Project CARS 2 (PC2)

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra rather than to use MSAA.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur although it looks best to us with on Low or Medium. For lesser cards, we would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting.

Ultra

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT delivered 78.68 unconstrained FPS, with 1 warp miss and 5802 of its frames (49%) had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 82.77 unconstrained FPS with 1913 (20%) dropped or synthesized frames but with no warp misses

The VR experience playing Project CARS 2 on our maximum settings is better on the RTX 3090 since the RX 6900 XT requires almost 50% of its frames to be synthesized whereas the RTX 3090 only requires 20%. If you want maximum settings without reprojection, the only other acceptable option is to lower the SteamVR render resolution.

Next up the PC2 Medium preset.

Medium

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The Red Devil RX 6900 XT delivered 104.51 unconstrained FPS, with 226 (2%) dropped or synthesized frames but no Warp misses.

The RTX 3090 delivered 100.81 unconstrained FPS with 314 (3%) synthesized or dropped frames and with no Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 on the Medium preset is similar using either card.

Let’s look at our overall Unconstrained Framerates Chart.

Unconstrained Framerates

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our two cards using our 3 sim VR test games. The preset is listed on the chart and higher is better.

The RX 3090 FE delivers higher unconstrained frames in three out of five sim benchmarks over the Red Devil RX 6900 XT in this one important performance metric. But unconstrained framerates are just one metric that has to be taken together with the frametime plots to have any meaning.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

It is great to see AMD delivering a card that is performance competitive with the RX 3090 in VR as well as in rasterized PC games. Several of the FCAT VR frametime plots indicate the RTX 3090 delivers a smoother VR experience at higher settings. However, the RX 6900 XT distinguishes itself from the RX 6800 XT as a faster card for playing at our demanding VR settings better than it does with pancake games, and the Red Devil is a fine RX 6900 XT indeed.

The Ultimate edition of the Red Devil RX 6900 XT is for overclockers who want a 3-year factory warranty for a card that can be potentially overclocked higher than the regular edition although it won’t give higher performance at stock compared to the regular Red Devil. We can only hope that the dual pandemics – crypto mining and COVID-19 – will end soon and that pricing and availability will return to normal – there is hope on the horizon.

Next week, we are going to review new software and will afterward return to VR by continuing to benchmark the Red Devil RX 6700 XT versus the RTX 3070 and the RTX 3060 Ti. We have added Borderlands 2 to our VR benching suite and may also add Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond.

Happy VR Gaming!

The RTX 3060 has arrived as the EVGA Black since there is no Founders Edition, and we will benchmark this midrange video card for virtual reality to compare performance with its faster sibling, the RTX 3060 Ti, that we recommended as the new “bang for buck” VR champ. This review presents its performance in 16 VR games using the Vive Pro and FCAT VR. We will follow up later today with Part 2 of BTR’s mega review using 37 regular games, GPGPU, workstation, SPEC, and synthetic benchmarks comparing the new card’s performance with the RTX 3060 Ti, the RTX 2060, the GTX 1060, and against the Radeon RX 5700 XT.

In pancake games, depending on resolution, the $329 RTX 3060 is about 30% slower than the $399 RTX 3060 Ti, and about 25% faster than the Turing GeForce RTX 2060 which launched originally at $349. It’s also on average 90% faster than the Pascal GeForce GTX 1060 which was one of NVIDIA’s most popular cards that launched at the bargain price of $249 four and one-half years ago. The RTX 3060 is also about as fast as the Radeon RX 5700 XT which launched at $449, but we test using the Anniversary Edition which originally launched at $499.

The RTX 3060 delivers 12.7 shader TFLOPs, 24.9 RT TFLOPs, and 102 Tensor TFLOPs (using the new sparsity feature) of computational power over a 192-bit memory interface using 12GB of GDDR6. It is based on its own 12 billion transistor GA106 chip, not the GA104 chip used in the RTX 3060 Ti and for the RTX 3070.

We want to see where the RTX 3060 fits regarding VR performance and how it compares with the RTX 3060 Ti which is sufficient to power a headset of the Valve Index/Vive Pro class. We had originally planned to also compare its performance with the RTX 5700 XT, but the latest driver caused conflicts with SteamVR that we were unable to solve in time for this review. Although a fast CPU is important for geometry and other processing, smooth VR delivery depends mostly on the video card. An underpowered video card can even cause reprojecting and artifacting for a substandard playing experience that can even lead to VR sickness.

We currently benchmark sixteen VR games using the Vive Pro that features 2880×1600 resolution (1440×1600 pixels per eye), the same as the Valve Index and with similar performance at 90Hz/90FPS. BTR’s testing platform is an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32 GB of Vulcan Dark Z DDR4 at 3600MHz on a clean install of Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition using the RTX 3060 launch driver, 461.64.

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames can make a VR experience unpleasant. It’s also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. But before we benchmark our VR games, check out our Test Configuration below.

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, v1.3 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
• Vive Pro, on loan from HTC/Vive; the Wireless Adapter is not used for benchmarking
• RTX 3060 Founders Edition 12GB, stock clocks, on loan from EVGA
• RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB, Anniversary Edition, at AE clocks (Adrenalin Edition 21.2.3 drivers).
• 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)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 461.64 press RTX 3060 launch drivers – High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, no optimizations, Vsync is off as set in the NVIDIA control panel
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates v2004.
• Latest DirectX
• All 16 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT-VR Capture Beta 03/04/20
• FCAT-VR Beta 18
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution unless specified

16 VR Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• VRMark Blue Room
• Unigine Superposition VR Benchmark
• OpenVR Benchmark

SteamVR /Epic Platform Games

• ARK: Park
• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Fallout 4
• Half Life: Alyx
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• Into the Radius
• No Man’s Sky
• Obduction
• Pavlov
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Subnautica
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our sixteen VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution (or higher as noted for ARK: Park) as we benchmark the RTX 3060 to see how it compares with the RTX 3060 Ti.

First up, ARK Park.

Fallout 4

Fallout 4 uses the Creation Engine, and Bethesda has dropped all support for it so it remains unoptimized although there are mods that may be helpful. It’s pretty hard to use the Index controllers with it, so we use the Vive wands instead for this game. We benchmark at its highest settings and with TAA. All Fade settings are set to their maximums.

Fallout 4 had some issues on both cards as it is still an unoptimized mess abandoned by its publisher – but it is playable and an amazing full-game experience.

Here is the frametime plot for Fallout 4.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3060 delivered 71.17 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames and no Warp misses, but 2922 (50%) of its frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti managed 107.76 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and two Warp misses, but 1859 (27%) of its frames were synthesized.

These cards may both benefit by using lowered settings for a smoother experience.

Next we look at Half Life: Alyx:

Half Life: Alyx

Half Life: Alyx uses an adaptive/dynamic scaling algorithm which uses a card’s performance headroom to subsample in demanding scenes and to supersample in less demanding scenes. We used its console commands to lock the SteamVR resolution to 100% so that it did not supersample or subsample.

Here is the frametime plot for Half Life Alyx.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3060 delivered 109.21 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, but 763 (15%) of its frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti managed 149.86 unconstrained FPS with no dropped, synthetic, or Warp misses.

Half Life: Alyx isn’t particularly demanding unless the Super Resolution increased in SteamVR settings, but unless console commands are used, the game will automatically subsample or supersample as needed and it will run fine with Ultra settings on both cards.

Next we look at Into the Radius.

Into the Radius

Into the Radius is a hardcore single player stealth survival adventure/exploration game, and it pays homage to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series by being set in the dangerous large open world of the Pechorsk Exclusion Zone.

Into the Radius has decent visuals using Unreal Engine 4 that really add to its spooky and intense atmosphere, and its performance demands on the video card are also higher since its a huge open world game with a decent draw distance.

There are no user options for changing individual graphics settings other than High, Medium, and Low presets. There is also a slider to drop or subsample the resolution down to 65%, or to increase the resolution to 110%. We benchmarked our two cards at High Quality and with 100% resolution.

Here is the frametime plot for Into the Radius.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3060 managed 108.06 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 130 (2%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti produced 157.21 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames and no Warp misses but 11 synthetic frames were generated.

The RTX 3060 provided a similar VR experience playing Into the Radius as using the RTX 3060 Ti which offers enough performance headroom to increase the resolution to 110%.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to Enhanced which is above Low and below High, but we also set the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgraded to FXAA+TAA.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RTX 3060 delivered 64.35 unconstrained FPS with 5 dropped frames and 5 Warp misses, but 3179 (50%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti produced 89.60 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss, but it required 3079 (48%) synthetic frames.

The Low Preset may be better suited for both cards or else individual setting may be lowered to maintain a balance of performance to visuals.

Next, we will check out another VR game, Obduction.

Obduction

Obduction is considered to be the spiritual successor to Myst and Riven. It is an adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds using the Unreal 4 engine and it has very good visuals. There is an emphasis on puzzle solving which get more and more difficult as a player progresses.
Obduction’s visuals are both graphically impressive and relatively intensive. There are adjustable menu sliders that will allow the player to dial down the settings but we picked Epic and left the in-game resolution at 100% plus 75% texture memory. Lowering the settings means the world textures are less detailed and the player will see them pop into view rather suddenly, breaking VR immersion.

Here is Obduction’s frametime plot.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3060 delivered 66.46 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped frames and 4 Warp misses, and 3241 (50%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti delivered 96.83 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses but 1643 (25%) synthetic frames were generated.

The RTX 3060 Ti delivers a better VR experience than the RTX 3060 although we would not recommend playing with all Epic individual settings even at 100% resolution.

Next we check out BTR’s newest game, Pavlov.

Pavlov

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Pavlov in VR. Pavlov is the most popular multiplayer shooter in VR with a primary focus on its community. Realistic fast-paced combat is a large part of its core experience, and even tanks have been added to make it into a great shooter.

We used the training sessions with the highest settings.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details:

The RTX 3060 delivered 168.74 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 Ti delivered 232.77 unconstrained FPS also with no dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivers an identical VR experience to the Ti although the faster card has significantly more performance headroom that may be used for increasing the resolution.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2 that we like better than Project CARS 3.

Project CARS 2

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur although it looks best to us on Low or Medium. For lesser cards, we would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3060 managed 61.00 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss but 4793 (50%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti achieved 77.43 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames but with 4792 (50%) synthetic frames. It had no Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 on our maximum VR settings is similar on both cards, but we would recommend lowering individual settings or even lower the resolution a bit as needed to stay out of reprojection.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings, and we also increased the resolution to its in-game maximum.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3060 delivered 105.14 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped frames and 4 Warp misses, and 2196 (24%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti managed 124.266 unconstrained FPS with 6 dropped frames, 51 synthetic frames, and 6 Warp misses.

Only the RTX 3060 Ti can play Skyrim at its maxed out in-game settings including using maximum in-game Supersampling without resorting to reprojecting or synthesizing frames.

Let’s check out Subnautica next.

Subnautica

Subnautica uses the Unity engine. As the sole survivor of a crash landing, the player ventures into the depths of a visually impressive alien underwater world. Here you can explore, craft equipment and build bases, pilot underwater craft, and solve mysteries all while attempting to survive a hostile environment. It is an unoptimized mess, but the VR experience is well worth it.

We benchmarked Subnautica using its highest settings plus TAA, but we left its resolution at 100%, and here are the frametime results.Here are the details.

The RTX 3060 managed 52.85 unconstrained FPS with 3 dropped frames and 3 Warp misses, but 3675 (58%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti achieved 69.47 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses, but 3187 (50%) frames needed to be synthesized.

The experience playing Subnautica using its highest settings is not great as it doesn’t appear to be very well optimized, and there are obvious stutters at times We would recommend lowering individual settings as needed to maintain a balance between visuals and performance to stay out of reprojection.

Next up, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an older game which is built on the Unreal 4 engine and it still boasts amazing visuals although it is not demanding. Although it is considered by some to be a walking simulator, it is also an excellent detective game with great puzzles. But be aware that its style of locomotion tends to make some of its players VR sick.

There are only a few in-game graphics options available, so we used 100% resolution in-game with TAA.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details at 100% Resolution.

The RTX 3060 delivered 132.88 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, and no frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti managed 183.30 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 2 synthetic frames, and 2 Warp misses.

Although it is a beautiful game visually, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter isn’t particularly demanding. The VR experience playing on both cards are similar.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 16 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are outstanding and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its highest settings and we left the Pixel Density at 100%.. Here is the frametime chart. Please note that the Pixel Density is 100%.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR. Please note that the Pixel Density is 100%.

The RTX 3060 produced 111.87 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses, but 344 (5%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti managed 146.53 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses but only 3 synthetic frames were generated.

Playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game maximum settings and 100% Pixel Density is similar for both of our cards although the RTX 3060 Ti has sufficient headroom to not require synthetic or reprojected frames.

Unconstrained Framerates

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our two cards using sixteen test games and and we added the RX 5700 XT for three synthetic benches: Superposition, VRMark’s Blue Room, and the OpenVR benchmark. Higher is better. Synthetic benchmarks are only useful for ranking cards. They don’t predict how any game will actually play in VR on any particular video card.

We don’t give percentages of change or percentages of increase between competing cards since unconstrained framerates are just one metric of performance headroom that is useless without the accompanying frametime charts.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, we are facing two pandemics – the COVID-19 pandemic and the Cryptocurrency Pandemic – both of which have made it very difficult for gamers to find any new cards at all – and pricing is way up primarily because of the mining demand. If the EVGA RTX 3060 can be purchased for its suggested price of $329, it would be an acceptable entry level card for the Vive Pro or Valve Index class of VR headset. However, the RTX 3060 Ti probably gives the most bang-for-buck for VR at $399.

It is great to see NVIDIA delivering two cards that are below $400 – if they can be found – that drop the entry price for VR. It will also be interesting to see what AMD brings to this price segment with their upcoming midrange RX 6000 Navi 3 cards.

The EVGA RTX 3060 Black sits in a unique position as the fastest $329 MSRP video card available for VR and it offers reasonable performance for use with a HMD like the Vive Pro or the Valve Index, and no doubt it would offer excellent performance for an original Vive, Rift CV1, or even for a Rift S.

The RTX 3060 can max out several of the games in our benching suite if the resolution is left at 100% or slightly subsampled, or if the in-game settings are lowered. But if someone is going to spend $1000 for a premium HMD, it makes sense to pair it with a faster video card like the RTX 3060 Ti or higher. However, one cannot pair a high resolution headset like the Reverb G2 with either card.

The RTX 3060 is a good card for high/medium quality PC VR at a rather bargain price of $329 – if it can be purchased at this price – and the RTX 3060 Ti is a more solid offering for $70 more. The RTX 3070 is faster but it also costs $170 more at $499 and the RX 6800 costs $258 more and is also almost impossible to find. The EVGA RTX 3060 Black is impressive as a $329 card that can even power a high-end HMD and its a real step forward toward more widespread VR adoption.

Next up for today is the much more detailed Part 2 of our Mega 53-game review using 37 pancake games, GPGPU, workstation, SPEC, and synthetic benchmarks comparing the new EVGA RTX 3060’s performance with the RTX 3060 Ti, the RTX 2060, the GTX 1060, and against the Radeon RX 5700 XT. Don’t miss it!

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!

This VR performance evaluation is the follow-up to the RTX 3070 pancake game and application performance launch review. We now present a thirteen-game VR performance showdown between the RTX 3070 and the RTX 2080 Ti using the Vive Pro and FCAT VR.

Since we posted our original VR review, we have benchmarked many VR games for our follow-up reviews for more than three years. We have also compared FCAT VR with our own video benchmarks using a camera to capture images directly from our HMD’s lenses. For BTR’s VR testing methodology, please refer to this evaluation.

We currently benchmark thirteen VR games using the Vive Pro, and we have recently added Half-Life: Alyx, Boneworks, and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. BTR’s testing platform is an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K at 5.1/5.0GHz, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32 GB of Vulcan Dark Z DDR4 at 3600MHz on a clean installation of Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition. Here are the thirteen VR games that we benchmark:

• ARK: Park
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Fallout 4
• Half-Life: Alyx
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• No Man’s Sky
• Obduction
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Subnautica
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames will make a VR experience very unpleasant. It is also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. Before we benchmark the performance of thirteen VR games, check out our Test Configuration.

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, v1.3 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 TeamGroup
• Vive Pro, on loan from HTC/Vive; the Wireless Adapter is not used for benchmarking
• RTX 3070 Founders Edition 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• 1TB TeamGroup 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 TeamGroup
• 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)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 457.09 drivers
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, as set in the NVIDIA control panel
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; Clean Installation, latest updates v20H2 (October 2020 Update)
• Latest DirectX
• MSI’s Afterburner, 4.6.3 beta to set both cards’ power and temperature limits to their maximums
• All 13 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT VR Capture (latest Beta 03/04/20)
• FCAT VR Beta 18
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution unless specified

13 VR Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• VRMark Cyan Room
• VRMarK Blue Room
• Unigine Superposition VR Benchmark
• OpenVR Benchmark

SteamVR /Epic Platform Games

• ARK: Park
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Fallout 4
• Half Life: Alyx
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• No Man’s Sky
• Obduction
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Subnautica
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Unreal 4 engine is a very popular engine for VR development, and five of our thirteen test games are created with it. The Creation and Unity engines are each used for two games, while the COBRA, No Man’s Sky, Source, and Madness engines are each represented by one game.

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (performance headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our thirteen VR games’ performance using FCAT-VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution, although some games were set in-game to a higher resolution or increased pixel density, as we compare the RTX 2080 Ti versus the RTX 3070.

First up, ARK Park.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 100.59 unconstrained FPS with 5 Warp misses and 5 dropped frame, but 35% (2208) of its frames had to be synthesized. It isn’t a great experience and we would recommend playing it on Enhanced instead of High.

In contrast, the RTX 3070 delivered 100.86 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses, and it required 1107 (17%) synthetic frames.

The experience playing No Man’s Sky using Ultra settings is better on the RTX 3070 on High settings than it is playing with the RTX 2080 Ti even though the Unconstrained FPS are almost identical.

Next we will check out another VR game, Obduction.

Obduction

Obduction is considered the spiritual successor to Myst and Riven. It is an adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds using the Unreal 4 engine. There is an emphasis on puzzle solving which get more and more difficult as a player progresses.

Obduction’s visuals are both graphically impressive and relatively intensive. There are adjustable menu sliders that will allow the player to dial down the settings but we picked Epic together with 100% resolution. Lowering the settings means the world textures are far less detailed, and the player will see them pop into view rather suddenly, breaking immersion.

Here is Obduction’s frametime plot.

Here are the details.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 103.12 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 2 Warp misses and 2166 (34%) synthetic frames.

The RTX 3070 delivered 113.97 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses and with 98 (2%) synthetic frames. The experience playing Obduction on Epic is better on the RTX 3070.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2.

Project CARS 2

There is no way to convey the incredible sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its own Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and may continue to use the older game for VR benching.

For this performance review, we have created a longer and more demanding benchmark than our previous one. We race the California coast and stay up with the pack this time making it more representative than before.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra instead of using MSAA.

We used maximum settings and here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

For VR gamers that use Turing or Ampere GeForce video cards, an excellent option for improving the visuals of a game without impacting performance is by using NVIDIA’s VRSS which is implemented at the driver level for DX11 Forward Rendered MSAA-enabled games. So far, over 30 games are supported including Boneworks and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

We have also welcomed a new BTR VR reviewer, Sean, a racing and flight sim specialist who will follow-up his first SPS iRacing VRS performance review later this week using an even more demanding track and conditions also using a Turing video card.

We are also going to follow-up on our Vive Pro Wireless Adapter review to compare performance using an overclocked i7-8700K versus an i9-10900K. However, first we plan to follow up with a Reflex Analyzer kit review which features the ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz G-SYNC Gaming Monitor PG259QNR and the ASUS ROG Chakram Core Gaming Mouse. We will compare our Samsung G7 Odyssey 27″ 2560×1440/240Hz/1ms/G-SYNC/HDR600 monitor with the new 360Hz/1ms ROG Swift 24″ display.

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!

This review is a follow-up to the RTX 3080 versus the RTX 2080 Ti VR performance review. We now present a thirteen-game VR performance showdown between the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3090 using even more demanding enhanced settings using the Vive Pro and FCAT VR.

Since we posted our original review, we have benchmarked up to 20 VR games for our follow-up reviews over the past three years. We have also compared FCAT-VR with our own video benchmarks using a camera to capture images directly from our HMD’s lenses. For BTR’s VR testing methodology, please refer to this evaluation.

We currently benchmark thirteen VR games using the Vive Pro. BTR’s testing platform is an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32 GB of Vulcan Dark Z DDR4 at 3600MHz on Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition using NVIDIA’s latest GeForce Driver, hotfix 456.71.

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames can make a VR experience unpleasant. It’s also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. But before we benchmark our thirteen VR games, check out our Test Configuration below.

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, v1.3 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
• Vive Pro, on loan from HTC/Vive; the Wireless Adapter is not used for benchmarking
• RTX 3080 Founders Edition 10GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 3090 Founders Edition 24GB, 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)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 456.71 hotfix drivers
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, as set in the NVIDIA control panel
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates v2004.
• Latest DirectX
• MSI’s Afterburner, 4.6.3 beta to set both cards’ power and temperature limits to their maximums
• All 13 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT-VR Capture (latest Beta 03/04/20)
• FCAT-VR Beta 18
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution unless specified*

*Be aware that SteamVR may set the default resolution to other than 100%, depending on the video card it detects. It set the RTX 3090’s resolution to 150% although it left the RTX 3080’s resolution at 100%.

13 VR Game benchmark suite & 4 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• VRMark Cyan Room
• VRMark Blue Room
• Unigine Superposition VR Benchmark
• OpenVR Benchmark

SteamVR /Epic Platform Games

• ARK: Park
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Fallout 4
• Half Life: Alyx
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• No Man’s Sky
• Obduction
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Subnautica
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Unreal 4 engine is a very popular engine for VR development, and five of our thirteen test games are created with it. The Creation and Unity engines are each used for two games, while the COBRA, No Man’s Sky, Source, and Madness engines are each represented by one game.

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our thirteen VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution or higher, although some games were also set in-game to a higher resolution or increased pixel density as described for each game, as we compare the RTX 3080 with the RTX 3090.

First up, ARK Park.

ARK Park

ARK Park is a single or multiplayer VR adventure game set in a dinosaur theme park, and it allows gamers to interact with a few of the dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Evolved. The idea is to explore your own “Jurassic Park” with opportunities to study genetics, raise baby dinosaurs from eggs, ride and paint them, and even defend the park against attacking dinosaurs in a wave shooter segment. It’s not a great game with small maps, but its visuals are still rather impressive.

ARK: Park has very few adjustable settings so we benchmark it using its highest preset setting. We also used SteamVR to increase the resolution from 100% to 200%.

Here are the performance results of our two competing cards using FCAT VR’s generated chart.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3080 delivered 274.60 unconstrained FPS with 3 dropped frames and 3 frames were synthesized. In addition, it suffered 3 Warp Misses.

The RTX 3090 achieved 299.46 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped and 3 synthetic frames together with 4 warp misses, but there may be an engine framerate cap involved. There isn’t any difference playing on either card at our chosen settings as ARK Park is built on the Unreal Engine, and it is just not that demanding. We would not recommending increasing the Super Resolution in SteamVR’s settings any further since there is a point of diminishing visual returns beyond 150%.

Next, we look at Boneworks.

Boneworks

Boneworks is a rare game that couples a fair single player campaign with an incredible sandbox and next generation VR physics interactive tour de force. We benchmark using the Time Tower level.

Boneworks made on the Unity engine has average to very good visuals and it particularly benefits by allowing for high levels of MSAA up to 8X which we use for benching. We also enable ambient occlusion and use the highest settings, and in addition, we set SteamVR’s resolution to 150%

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3080 delivered 146.32 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped and 1 synthetic frame. There was also a warp miss.

The RTX 3090 delivered 176.23 unconstrained FPS also with 1 dropped and 1 synthetic frames along with a warp miss. As with ARK Park, there isn’t any difference playing on either card at our chosen settings as the game is not very demanding and we would also recommend also using NVIDIA’s VRSS for maximum visual improvement.

Let’s check out Elite Dangerous next.

Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets (~400 billion). Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a very dedicated following of players.

We picked the Ultra Preset, and this time, we set the Field of View to its maximum. Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3080 delivered 132.42 unconstrained FPS with 4 Warp Misses and 4 dropped frames, and 4 of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 156.44 unconstrained FPS with 4 Warp Miss and 4 dropped frames, and it also required 5 synthetic frames. The experience playing Elite Dangerous at Ultra settings is no different on the RTX 3080 than it is playing on the RTX 3090. Perhaps the RTX 3090 may benefit more by increasing the resolution.

Let’s continue with Fallout 4.

Fallout 4

Fallout 4 uses the Creation Engine, and Bethesda has dropped all support for it so it remains unoptimized although there are mods that may be helpful. It’s pretty hard to use the Index controllers with it, so we use the Vive wands instead for this game. We benchmark at its highest settings and with TAA. All Fade settings are set to their maximums.

Fallout 4 had some issues on both cards as it is still an unoptimized mess abandoned by its publisher – but it is playable and an amazing full-game experience. Here is the frametime plot for Fallout 4.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3080 delivered 154.78 unconstrained FPS with 2 Warp Misses and 2 dropped frames, but 3% (200) of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 166.69 unconstrained FPS with 5 Warp Misses and 5 dropped frames, and it required 45 (1%) synthetic frames.

Next we look at Half Life: Alyx:

Half Life: Alyx

Half Life: Alyx uses an adaptive/dynamic scaling algorithm which uses a card’s performance headroom to subsample in demanding scenes and to supersample in less demanding scenes. We used its console commands to lock the SteamVR resolution to 150% so that it did not supersample or subsample.

Here is the frametime plot for Half Life Alyx.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3080 delivered 181.97 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped and 24 synthetic frames. It had 1 warp miss.

The RTX 3090 delivered 212.65 unconstrained FPS and with 2 dropped and 4 synthetic frames with 2 warp misses. Half Life Alyx isn’t particularly demanding and there isn’t any difference playing on either card at our chosen settings. A player may consider increasing the Super Resolution to beyond 150% in SteamVR settings, and let the game subsample or supersample further.

Next, we look at Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a visually impressive game using the Unreal 4 engine. It is a dark and disturbing game that is far more intense in VR than playing the pancake version. We benchmark at its very highest settings and with TAA, and we also increased the resolution to 160% in-game from 130% in our earlier review. We suspect in that review, the settings were not properly applied.

Here is the frametime plot for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3080 delivered 163.22 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped and 9 synthetic frames along with 2 Warp Misses.

The RTX 3090 delivered 184.14 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped and 8 synthetic frames. It also suffered 2 Warp Misses.

Hellblade isn’t particularly demanding even when the in-game resolution is set to 160% although it looks great.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to “Ultra” which is above Enhanced and set the anisotropic filtering to 16x, and we also upgraded from FXAA to FXAA+TAA.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RTX 3080 delivered 113.61 unconstrained FPS with 3 warp misses and 3 dropped frames, and 9% (549) of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 130.68 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames and no warp misses, and it only required 38 (1%) synthetic frames.

Next, we will check out another VR game, Obduction.

Obduction

Obduction is considered to be the spiritual successor to Myst and Riven. It is an adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds using the Unreal 4 engine and it has very good visuals. There is an emphasis on puzzle solving which get more and more difficult as a player progresses.

Obduction’s visuals are both graphically impressive and relatively intensive. There are adjustable menu sliders that will allow the player to dial down the settings but we picked Epic and increased the in-game resolution to 140% plus 75% texture memory (up from 120%/50% texture memory in our previous comparison). Lowering the settings means the world textures are much less detailed, and the player will see them pop into view rather suddenly, breaking VR immersion.

Here is Obduction’s frametime plot.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3080 delivered 131.54 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 13 synthetic frames, and two warp misses.

The RTX 309 0 delivered 151.12 unconstrained FPS and with 3 dropped frames, 11 synthetic frames and 3 warp misses. The experience playing Obduction is very similar on both cards as the games is probably still not well-optimized.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2 that we like better than Project CARS 3.

Project CARS 2

There is no way to convey the sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching for now.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur although it looks best to us with on Low or Medium. For lesser cards, we would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery if necessary as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting. Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3080 delivered 121.98 unconstrained FPS, with 2 dropped frames, 2 warp misses and 12 of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 141.03 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 2 warp misses, and it only required 2 synthetic frames. The experience playing Project CARS 2 on our maximum settings is not much better on the RTX 3090 than it is on the RTX 3080.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings, and we also increased the resolution to its in-game maximum. Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3080 delivered 159.68 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped frames, 4 synthetic frames, and 4 warp misses.

The RTX 3090 delivered 186.34 unconstrained FPS with 7 dropped frames, 7 synthetic frames, and 7 warp misses. Of course, many players would prefer adding more mods to the game rather than increasing the resolution, and the RTX 3090 gives a bit more performance headroom than the RTX 3080.

Let’s check out Subnautica next.

Subnautica

Subnautica uses the Unity engine. As the sole survivor of a crash landing, the player ventures into the depths of a visually impressive alien underwater world. Here you can explore, craft equipment and build bases, pilot underwater craft, and solve mysteries all while attempting to survive a hostile environment. It is an unoptimized mess, but the VR experience is well worth it.

We benchmarked Subnautica using its highest settings plus TAA, but we left its resolution at 100%, and here are the frametime results.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3080 delivered 100.82 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped frames, 4 warp misses, and 31% (1958) of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 116.01 unconstrained FPS with 4 Warp Misses and 4 dropped frames, and it required 25% (1554) synthetic frames. The experience playing Subnautica using its highest settings is not ideal as it doesn’t appear to be very well optimized and there are obvious stutters at times which may also be driver related.

Next up, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an older game which is built on the Unreal 4 engine and it still boasts amazing visuals although it is not demanding. Although it is considered by some to be a walking simulator, it is also an excellent detective game with great puzzles. But be aware that its style of locomotion tends to make some of its players VR sick.

There are just a few in-game graphics options available, so we set 130% resolution in-game with TAA and then set SteamVR’s resolution to 160%. Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3080 delivered 247.71 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames, 2 warp misses and 2 synthetic frames.

The RTX 3090 delivered 267.88 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped frames, 4 warp misses, and 4 synthetic frames.

Although it is a beautiful game visually, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter isn’t particularly demanding even after the Super Resolution is increased to 130% in-game, and then even further by increasing the Resolution in SteamVR to 160%. However, there may be a conflict between increasing the SteamVR resolution with the in-game resolution increase, so perhaps an player may wish to experiment with the settings. There were more warp misses than what is usual.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 13 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are outstanding and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its highest settings, but this time we increased the Pixel Density to 150% in game. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3080 delivered 121.60 unconstrained FPS with 7 dropped frames and 7 warp misses, and 15 of its frames had to be synthesized.

The RTX 3090 delivered 143.38 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp Miss, and it required 1 synthetic frame. The experience playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game maximum settings and highest Pixel Density is similar between both video cards although the RTX 3090 has more performance headroom.

Let’s look at our overall Unconstrained Framerates Chart.

Unconstrained Framerates

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our two cards using thirteen test games and four synthetic benches: Superposition, VRMark’s Cyan and Blue Rooms, and the OpenVR benchmark. Higher is better.

Synthetic benchmarks are only useful for ranking cards. They don’t predict how any game will actually play in VR on any particular video card. We don’t give percentages of change or percentages of increase between competing cards since unconstrained framerates are just one metric of performance headroom that is useless without the accompanying frametime charts.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

As we concluded from the launch review of the RTX 3090 after we exhaustively benchmarked it with 35 pancake games including 8K and ray traced; tested it with workstation and pro apps, and overclocked it, and we will say the same thing about its VR performance:

“The RTX 3090 at $1499 is the upgrade from the $1199 RTX 2080 Ti since the RTX 3080 gives about 20-25% improvement. If a gaming enthusiast wants the very fastest card – just as the RTX 2080 Ti was for the past two years, and doesn’t mind the $300 price increase – then it is the only choice for gaming … It stands alone as the fastest video card in the world.”

The RTX 3090 also gives more of a performance uplift in VR over the Turing RTX 2080 Ti than for regular pancake gaming. However, the RTX 3090 is a halo GeForce gaming card that is very expensive, and it is nowhere close to double the performance for more than double its price over the $699 RTX 3080. The RTX 3090 is primarily for bragging rights, and for those enthusiasts who want the very best video card available – for those who don’t mind paying $1500 for it.

For VR gamers that use Turing or Ampere GeForce video cards, an excellent option to improve the visuals of a game without impacting performance is by using NVIDIA’s VRSS which is implemented at the driver level for DX11 Forward Rendered MSAA-enabled games. It is found in NVIDIA’s control panel. So far, over 30 games are supported including Boneworks and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

We will follow up this review by comparing the performance of the RTX 3090 with 2 x RTX 2080 Ti’s in SLI using the RTX TITAN’s high bandwidth NVLink Bridge. We will test mGPU, what is now legacy SLI, and we’ll also benchmark pro apps to see if it can take advantage of 2 x 2080Ti’s 22GB of pooled memory versus the RTX 3090’s 24GB vRAM.

We have also welcomed a new VR reviewer, Sean. He is a racing and flight sim specialist who also will join us in benching VR for this large and growing community. His first review is expected this week.

Afterward, we will follow up on our Vive Pro Wireless Adapter review to compare performance using an overclocked i7-8700K versus an i9-10900K. We love the freedom of being untethered by a cable to our PC! And we will also review the ASUS Chakram mouse shortly before we prepare for the arrival of the RTX 3070. Plus we have another big surprise in store for our readers.

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!

This review is a follow-up to the RTX 3080 pancake game and application performance launch review. We now present a thirteen-game VR performance showdown between the RTX 3080 versus the RTX 2080 Ti using the highest settings with the Vive Pro using FCAT VR.

Since we posted our original review, we have benchmarked up to 20 VR games for our follow-up reviews over the past three years. We have also compared FCAT-VR with our own video benchmarks using a camera to capture images directly from our HMD’s lenses. For BTR’s VR testing methodology, please refer to this evaluation.

We currently benchmark thirteen VR games using the Vive Pro, and we have recently added Half-Life: Alyx, Boneworks, and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. BTR’s testing platform is an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K at 5.1/5.0GHz, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32 GB of Vulcan Dark Z DDR4 at 3600MHz on Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition. Here are the thirteen VR games that we benchmark:

• ARK: Park
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Fallout 4
• Half-Life: Alyx
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• No Man’s Sky
• Obduction
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Subnautica
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames can make a VR experience very unpleasant. It is also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. But before we benchmark our thirteen VR games, check out our Test Configuration.

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, v1.3 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
• Vive Pro, on loan from HTC/Vive; the Wireless Adapter is not used for benchmarking
• RTX 3080 Founders Edition 10GB, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• RTX 2080 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 13 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT-VR Capture (latest Beta 03/04/20)
• FCAT-VR Beta 18
• SteamVR

12 VR Game benchmark suite & 2 synthetic tests

Synthetic

• VRMark Cyan Room
• VRMaRK Blue Room
• Unigine Superposition VR Benchmark
• OpenVR Benchmark

SteamVR /Epic Platform Games

• ARK: Park
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Fallout 4
• Half Life: Alyx
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• No Man’s Sky
• Obduction
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Subnautica
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Unreal 4 engine is a very popular engine for VR development, and five of our thirteen test games are created with it. The Creation and Unity engines are each used for two games, while the COBRA, No Man’s Sky, Source, and Madness engines are each represented by one game.

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our thirteen VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution, although some games were set in-game to a higher resolution or increased pixel density, as we compare the RTX 2080 Ti versus the RTX 3080.

First up, ARK Park.

ARK Park

ARK Park is a single or multiplayer VR adventure game set in a dinosaur theme park, and it allows gamers to interact with a few of the dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Evolved. The idea is to explore your own “Jurassic Park” with opportunities to study genetics, raise baby dinosaurs from eggs, ride and paint them, and even defend the park against attacking dinosaurs in a wave shooter segment.

ARK: Park has very few adjustable settings so we benchmark using its highest preset setting.

Here are the performance results of our two competing cards using FCAT VR’s generated chart.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 241.24 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 frames were synthesized. In addition, it suffered 2 Warp Misses.

The RTX 3080 achieved 272.58 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthetic frames. There isn’t any difference playing on either card at our chosen settings as ARK Park is built on the Unreal Engine, and is not demanding. We would recommending increasing the Super Resolution in SteamVR’s settings

Next we look at Boneworks.

Boneworks

Boneworks is a rare game that couples a fair single player campaign with an incredible sandbox and next generation VR physics interactive tour de force.

Boneworks made on the Unity engine has average to very good visuals and it particularly benefits by allowing for high levels of MSAA up to 8X which we use for benching. We also enable ambient occlusion and use the highest settings, but setting max shadows will just default back to Medium.

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 214.23 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthetic frames.

The RTX 3080 delivered 252.76 unconstrained FPS and with no dropped or synthetic frames either. As with ARK Park, there isn’t any difference playing on either card at our chosen settings as the game is not very demanding and we would also recommending increasing the Super Resolution in SteamVR settings as well as use NVIDIA’s VRSS for maximum visuals.

Let’s check out Elite Dangerous next.

Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks. Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a dedicated following of players.

We picked the Ultra Preset. Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 95.99 unconstrained FPS with 2 Warp Misses and 2 dropped frames, but 39% (2515) of its frames had to be synthesized.

In contrast, the RTX 3080 delivered 136.99 unconstrained FPS with 1 Warp Miss and 1 dropped frame, but it only required 4 synthetic frames. The experience playing Elite Dangerous at Ultra settings is far superior on the RTX 3080 than it is playing on the RTX 2080 Ti.

Let’s continue with Fallout 4.

Fallout 4

Fallout 4 uses the Creation Engine. We benchmark at its highest settings and with TAA.

Fallout 4 had some issues on both cards with stuttering and slowdowns that we suspect are driver-related. Here is the frametime plot for Fallout 4.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 121.25 unconstrained FPS with 8 Warp Misses and 8 dropped frames, but 2% (122) of its frames had to be synthesized.

In contrast, the RTX 3080 delivered 154.89 unconstrained FPS with 4 Warp Misses and 4 dropped frames, but it only required 22 synthetic frames. The experience playing Fallout 4 on the highest settings would be superior on the RTX 3080 over playing on the RTX 2080 Ti if the driver issues or performance were solved.

Next we look at Half Life: Alyx:

Half Life: Alyx

Half Life: Alyx uses an adaptive/dynamic scaling algorithm which uses a card’s performance headroom to subsample in demanding scenes and to supersample in less demanding scenes. We used console commands to lock the SteamVR resolution to 100% so that it did not supersample or subsample.

Here is the frametime plot for Half Life Alyx.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 181.07 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthetic frames.

The RTX 3080 delivered 218.13 unconstrained FPS and with no dropped or synthetic frames either. Half Life Alyx isn’t particularly demanding and there isn’t any difference playing on either card at our chosen settings so we would also recommending increasing the Super Resolution to 130% in SteamVR settings using the RTX 2080 Ti and higher for the RTX 3080, and let the game subsample or supersample further.

We are able to increase the Super Resolution to beyond 140% for the RTX 3080 for even better visuals.

Next we look at Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a visually impressive game using the Unreal 4 engine. It is a dark and disturbing game that is far more intense in VR than playing the regular version. We benchmark at the Very Highest settings and with TAA, and we also increased the resolution to 130% in-game.

Here is the frametime plot for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 102.50 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped and 14 synthetic frames along with a Warp Miss.

The RTX 3080 delivered 139.34 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped and 3 synthetic frames. It also suffered a Warp Miss.

Hellblade isn’t particularly demanding until the Resolution is increased to 130% in-game, and then the RTX 2080 Ti runs out of headroom – unlike with the RTX 3080 that may benefit from increasing the SteamVR Super Resolution even further.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped only with a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to “Ultra” which is above Enhanced and we set the anisotropic filtering to 16x, and also upgraded from FXAA to FXAA+TAA.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative run.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 82.30 unconstrained FPS with 1 Warp Miss and 1 dropped frame, but 50% (3162) of its frames had to be synthesized. It wasn’t a great experience and we would recommend playing it on Enhanced instead of Ultra.

In contrast, the RTX 3080 delivered 115.07 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames, and it only required 403 (6%) synthetic frames. The experience playing No Man’s Sky using Ultra settings is much better on the RTX 3080 than it is playing with the RTX 2080 Ti.

Next we will check out another VR game, Obduction.

Obduction

Obduction is considered the spiritual successor to Myst and Riven. It is an adventure game developed by Cyan Worlds using the Unreal 4 engine. There is an emphasis on puzzle solving which get more and more difficult as a player progresses.

Obduction’s visuals are both graphically impressive and relatively intensive. There are adjustable menu sliders that will allow the player to dial down the settings but we picked Epic together with 120% resolution. Lowering the settings means the world textures are far less detailed, and the player will see them pop into view rather suddenly, breaking immersion.

Here is Obduction’s frametime plot.

Here are the details.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 116.83 unconstrained FPS with 4 synthetic frames.

The RTX 3080 delivered 129.45 unconstrained FPS and with 5 synthetic frames. You may be able to increase RTX 3080’s Super Resolution slightly beyond the 120% we set in-game for both cards, but the experience playing Obduction is very similar on both cards.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2.

Project CARS 2

There is no way to convey the incredible sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are a bit disappointed with Project CARS 3, and may continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra.

We used maximum settings except for Motion Blur which look best to us on Low. We would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery if necessary as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting. Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 99.36 unconstrained FPS, and 21% (1596) of its frames had to be synthesized. It isn’t a great experience playing with Motion Smoothing on, and we would recommend lowering settings instead.

In contrast, the RTX 3080 delivered 121.99 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames, and it didn’t require any synthetic frames either. The experience playing Project CARS 2 on our chosen near-maximum settings is significantly better on the RTX 3080 than it is on the RTX 2080 Ti.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings, but we also increased the resolution to its in-game maximum. Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 126.02 unconstrained FPS yet 60 of its frames had to be synthesized.

In contrast, the RTX 3080 delivered 159.30 unconstrained FPS and it didn’t require any synthetic frames. The RTX 3080 can also benefit visually from increasing the Super Resolution further, but not the RTX 2080 Ti. Of course, many players would prefer adding more mods to the game rather than increasing the resolution.

Let’s check out Subnautica next.

Subnautica

Subnautica uses the Unity engine. As the sole survivor of a crash landing, the player ventures into the depths of a visually impressive alien underwater world. Here you can explore, craft equipment and build bases, pilot underwater craft, and solve mysteries all while attempting to survive a hostile environment.

We benchmarked Subnautica using its highest settings plus TAA, but we left its resolution at 100%, and here are the frametime results.

Here are the details.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 84.66 unconstrained FPS, but 48% (2792) of its frames had to be synthesized.

In contrast, the RTX 3080 delivered 102.07 unconstrained FPS with 1 Warp Misses and 4 dropped frames, but it only required 28% (1722) synthetic frames. The experience playing Subnautica using its highest settings is not ideal as it doesn’t appear to be very well optimized and there are obvious stutters at times which may also be driver related.

Next up, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is built on the Unreal 4 engine and it boasts amazing visuals although it is not demanding. Although it is considered by some to be a walking simulator, it is also an excellent detective game with great puzzles. Be aware that its style of locomotion tends to make some of its players VR sick.

There are just a few in-game graphics options available, so we set 130% resolution in-game with TAA. Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 260.08 unconstrained FPS and the RTX 3080 delivered 356.19 unconstrained FPS. Neither card dropped any frames.

Although it is a beautiful game visually, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter isn’t particularly demanding even after the Super Resolution is increased to 130% in-game, and then both cards may benefit further by increasing the Super Resolution in SteamVR.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 13 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are outstanding and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its highest settings, but this time we increased the Pixel Density to 150% in game. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 2080 Ti delivered 94.34 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp Miss, and 33% (2101) of its frames had to be synthesized. It’s an awful experience playing this game with Motion Smoothing on, and we would recommend dropping the Pixel Density instead.

In contrast, the RTX 3080 delivered 120.75 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp Miss, but it didn’t require any synthetic frames. The experience playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game maximum settings and highest Pixel Density is much better on the RTX 3080 than it is on the RTX 2080 Ti.

Let’s look at our overall Unconstrained Framerates Chart.

Unconstrained Framerates

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our two cards using thirteen test games and four synthetic benches: Superposition, VRMark’s Cyan and Blue Rooms, and the OpenVR benchmark.

Synthetic benchmarks are only useful for ranking cards. They don’t predict how any game will actually play in VR on any particular video card.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

We are surprised that the RTX 3080 – although Ampere has no VR optimizations over Turing – is able to give a superior VR experience at more demanding settings than the RTX 2080 Ti. We think that the RTX 3080 is a good upgrade over the RTX 2080 Ti for VR, even more so than for pancake gaming.

For VR gamers that use Turing or Ampere GeForce video cards, an excellent option for improving the visuals of a game without impacting performance is by using NVIDIA’s VRSS which is implemented at the driver level for DX11 Forward Rendered MSAA-enabled games. So far, over 30 games are supported including Boneworks and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

We will follow up this review next with a Star Wars Squadron VR performance review before we benchmark the RTX 3090 versus the RTX 3080 as we plan to add it to our VR benching suite. For that review, we will focus on Super Resolution at the most demanding settings to see if the 24GB of vRAM that NVIDIA’s flagship card is equipped with will give us any significant advantage in VR that may justify its $1500 price tag over the $699 RTX 3080. We will recommend the Ampere RTX 3080 just by using brute force alone as giving a better VR experience than the Turing RTX 2080 Ti.

We have also welcomed a new VR reviewer, Sean. He is a racing and flight sim specialist who also will join us in benching VR for this large and growing community.

We are also going to follow-up on our Vive Pro Wireless Adapter review to compare performance using an overclocked i7-8700K versus an i9-10900K. We love the freedom of being untethered by a cable to our PC! And we will also review the ASUS Chakram mouse shortly before we prepare for the arrival of the RTX 3070. Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!

UPDATED again 11:45 AM PDT, Sunday 04/05/2020 – We have heard back from a developer and have updated and fine-tuned our inferences regarding SteamVR resolution and fidelity level settings to be more accurate which now match BTR’s own FCAT-VR results and screenshots.

Half Life: Alyx released on March 23rd to great reviews and it is probably the most important and instantly popular VR game to date. It has just been added to BTR’s regular benchmark suite, and we are going examine its image quality (IQ) and measure the performance of 13 NVIDIA and AMD video cards with the Vive Pro using FCAT-VR.

We spent over 20 hours savoring every moment that we spent playing Half Life: Alyx, and an additional nearly 20 hours examining its secrets and looking under its hood. Benchmarking has presented more challenges than usual since Half Life: Alyx uses a baked-in super resolution/super sampling algorithm that dynamically scales the resolution up or down depending on a video card’s performance headroom while it ignores SteamVR’s Super Resolution user settings.

This reviewer absolutely loved Half Life: Alyx and admires the developers’ high achievement of coupling an awesome game with an incredible story, amazing atmosphere, great visuals, and well-optimized performance, with next generation VR physics. Old friends are back, and the story fills in many missing elements of the Half Life saga, potentially setting the stage for Half Life 3.

Half Life: Alyx’ 11 chapters boast multiple environments, indoors and out, and its atmosphere is decidedly horror with plenty of gore to accompany the action. The Combine soldiers and other enemies appear full-sized, and they are far more threatening than any pancake version of Half Life can hope to achieve as the player is instantly immersed into its VR game world. Interaction is incredible, and the player soon makes good use of the “Russells” or gravity gloves to interact with, pick up, store, and throw items.

Puzzles are an integral part of Half Life: Alyx, and a few of them are quite difficult especially when using a multi-tool to trace electrical faults across multiple circuits in several adjoining rooms. It is a real pleasure to manipulate puzzles in 3D space by using a player’s hands that simply cannot be accomplished by any 2D video game.

The Half Life: Alyx audio is incredible, and it adds to a player’s immersion bringing with it a sense of impending dread in totally dark areas illuminated only by a small flashlight. The music score is also spot on as it matches each scene and the action exactly. Weapons sounds are real, and you will interact with your weapons somewhat realistically to manually eject spent cartridges and reload them. If you solve certain puzzles, you can upgrade your weapons at stations by using collected resin that is hidden all through the game. The game rewards the player for exploring every noon and cranny, and some of the items are very well-hidden.

BTR received a Half Life: Alyx code as part of an Index Controller bundle which arrived a week before the game launched. Half Life: Alyx is available as a $59.99 SteamVR game that is playable on multiple HMDs including the Valve Index, Vive HMDs, Oculus Rift HMDs, and WMR. Although we give Half Life: Alyx a 9.5/10, this isn’t a game review, but rather we are concentrating on its performance as measured by FCAT-VR using 13 video cards on their latest drivers at factory settings, as well as a short image quality (IQ) comparison.

Here are the cards that we benchmarked with the very latest drivers from NVIDIA (445.75) and from AMD (20.3.1):

• RTX 2080 Ti (11GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 2080 Super (8GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 2070 Super (8GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 2060 Super (8GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 2060 (6GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• GTX 1660 Super (6GB Dual EVO, on loan from ASUS)
• GTX 1080 Ti (11GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• GTX 1080 (8GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RX 5700 XT (8GB Anniversary Edition)
• RX 5700 (8GB Red Devil, on loan from PowerColor)
• RX 5600 XT (6GB EVO OC on loan from ASUS)
• RX Vega 64 (8GB Liquid Cooled edition)
• RX Vega 56 (8GB Red Devil, on loan from PowerColor)

BTR’s testing platform is an Intel Core i7-8700K at 4.8GHz, an EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard and 16 GB of T-Force XTREEM DDR4 at 3866MHz on Windows 10 64-bit Home Edition. We use a Vive Pro (on loan from HTC/Vive) because image quality differences are more easily noticed on a higher resolution HMD like the Pro or the Valve Index over using a first generation HMD like our Oculus Rift CV-1 or the original Vive.

Settings

Half Life: Alyx has 4 basic in-game user settings: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra Fidelity.

There are also multiple individual settings that may be changed by the user. Please note that when changing from Ultra to High, for example, the Texture setting will not change but it has to be set manually to match the overall High Fidelity setting.

However, many gamers have noticed that at times, the game appears less sharp visually as though subsampling has taken place automatically even though the settings have not been changed by the user.

Changing the Visuals in Half Life: Alyx and IQ comparisons

Half Life: Alyx uses an adaptive/dynamic scaling algorithm which uses a card’s performance headroom to subsample in demanding scenes and to supersample in less demanding scenes. You can actually watch the Fidelity levels bounce around if you access the game console’s VR performance HUD command line while playing the game.

Not long ago, SteamVR referred to super resolution as supersampling, and 1.4X (supersample) would equal what is now 140% 196% (super resolution), for example. UPDATED: According to the old SteamVR scale 1.4 is not new 140%, but a likely 1.4 on the old scale, thus 200% (1.4*1.4=196%) on the current scale.

From now on, BTR will use the term super resolution to refer to the up- and down-scaling of images instead of supersample as previously. For a technical discussion of supersample and super resolution, please refer to BTR’s Boneworks VRSS review. Higher super resolution increases the viewer’s perceived resolution in the HMD because of temporal and spatial downsampling and the images are also less aliased.

However, changing the SteamVR super resolution settings do nothing without using the game’s console commands. But be careful with using console commands to force super resolution or higher Fidelity levels. Reprojection is more unsettling with Half Life: Alyx than with many other games. That said, here’s how to do it.

Changing the Fidelity Levels using the Console

We were unable to use a single command line to set the Cvars, so we used the following method successfully to benchmark the performance of 13 video cards as originally posted by Avery3R on Reddit’s r/ValveIndex sub – with a big thank-you from us:

Launch alyx with -console -vconsole, then press the backtick/tilde(~) key on your keyboard to open the console. Type in vr_fidelity_level_auto 0 and hit enter, then vr_fidelity_level 3 and hit enter again. To test if Super resolution remains at 100%, keep the console open and type vr_perf_hud 1

Of course, you can also force Fidelity Level 8 which appears to be a 1.4X supersampling (old scale; probably 200% super resolution, new scale) setting, or Level 3 which appears to use no supersampling (100% resolution), or even Level 0 which looks subsampled (apparently 75%). But be aware that it takes a RTX 2080 Ti to manage the highest fidelity setting Level 8 without reprojection on Ultra, and occasionally even the mighty Ti will require some frames to be synthesized. It is also important to note that excessive reprojection may cause micro-stutters and uneven delivery of frames which may make a gamer VR sick.

UPDATED: Here are the complete Fidelity Levels for the Valve Index according to a developer. However, it is not official, and it is only posted as a guide.

Here is an enlarged comparison of three of the Fidelity levels: Level 1 (left, subsampling probably 75%); Level 3 (center, 100% super resolution); and Level 8 (right, likely 200% super resolution). Open the image full-sized in a separate window.

Since we do not have any contact with Valve, the above inferences were based on the unconstrained framerates scaling as reported by FCAT-VR as well as by comparing the image quality in game, in addition to comparing SteamVR screenshots. Our speculation has some basis in Valve’s presentation at GDC 2016 taken together with a developers updated research which seems to indicate that Fidelity Level 3 is 100%, although we are still not absolutely certain of the exact Fidelity level settings used for Half Life: Alyx. To take your own SteamVR screenshots, hold the menu button and press the trigger simultaneously. The VR screenshots will appear in your main steam folder (in our case Local Disk E:) as shown below.

vr_fidelity_level_auto 0 disables the automatic Fidelity setting so that the game’s engine no longer adjusts the levels according to your card’s performance headroom.

vr_fidelity_level X (in the case of what we use for benchmarking, X=3, or what is probably 100% supersampling/super resolution) sets the Fidelity level from 1 to 8. Level 8 is likely 200% supersampling.

The reason a reviewer might choose Fidelity Level 3 for benchmarking as we did is to force a locked Fidelity level for all tested video cards so as to allow for meaningful Card A to Card B performance comparisons. Without disabling the automatic settings with the console command lines, comparative performance benchmarking becomes impossible, and a RTX 2080 Ti and a RTX 2070 Super will give almost the same unconstrained framerate and similar frametime plots – but the visuals of the Ti will be noticeably better.

We chose Level 3 because it appears to be the level where it does not alter the global resolution which is determined by SteamVR. Below Level 3, the application appears to use subsampling and above Level 3 it appears to be supersampling.

The Fidelity Level console command settings are probably best for advanced users who are certain of which visual levels they want Alyx to remain at without any variability, but they are probably ideal for benchmarking apples to apples performance of card A to card B, etc.

By testing in this way, we may roughly suggest which in-game settings to start with – Ultra, High, Medium, or Low – without resorting to reprojection or motion smoothing which may be disturbing when playing Half Life: Alyx. For home testing, it might also be useful to type the console command vr_perf_hud 0 before you do anything else, so you can see how the game engine acts at your chosen settings. For example, if you set it too high, you will actually see the Fidelity level drop and subsample. But if you set it too high, as in a specific example of using a RTX 2060 with in-game Ultra setting, you will get microstutters and uneven frame delivery.

Let’s look at performance and we shall test each of our 13 cards at their appropriate settings before we give suggestions. Afterward we will give the overall unconstrained performance chart which compares all 13 cards’ relative performance by changing between the 4 settings: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra at a fixed Fidelity Level 3 setting.

Performance

Half Life: Alyx has very good to excellent visuals, and it generally runs well on an i7-8700K overclocked to 4.8GHz and a RTX 2070 Super with maxed out in game setting options. Physics interactions are run on the CPU, and we minimized those interactions in our 65 second benchmark run over one of the most visually demanding maps in the game in Chapter 8, Captivity. It’s also very challenging to benchmark this part of the map as it is small with many turns that may not line up precisely as the player is being actively chased by an Antlion.

Half Life: Alyx should not be played with constant reprojection or Motion Smoothing applied. Continually delivering frames at half the HMD’s optimum rate refresh by using Motion Smoothing tends to cause artifacting and it may even cause some upset or even VR sickness for the gamer.

All 13 video cards are tested by FCAT-VR using the in-game settings which include Ultra, High, Medium, and Low. Of course, we did not test a RTX 2080 Ti on Low settings nor did we test a RX 5600 XT on Ultra settings, but we tried to keep the settings realistic and close to optimal for each card. Since the VR Fidelity Level is set identically for all cards at what we believe is 100% super resolution/supersampling, they can each be tested so their performance is apples to apples.

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which show what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to 90 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures one important performance metric, faster is better. Also, please note that FCAT-VR does not show any difference between dropped and synthesized frames for any card we tested.

Lets start by testing the video cards that appear to run best at Low settings.

Low Settings

The first card we test is an ASUS GTX 1660 Super 6GB Dual EVO.

GTX 1660 Super 6GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the GTX 1660 Super run at Low and at Medium settings.

The GTX 1660 Super struggles at Medium settings and it drops or requires 190 frames to be synthesized. It does better with Low settings, either dropping 60 frames or requiring them to be synthesized. Actually playing Half Life: Alyx with a GTX 1660 Super is an acceptable experience on Low settings (without forcing Fidelity Level 3) since the game automatically subsamples the demanding scenes.

We note that the 6GB cards struggle with delivering smooth framerates apparently because the memory buffer fills more rapidly than 8GB cards, and there is some microstutter evident when it occurs.

The next card we test is an ASUS RX 5600 XT Super 6GB EVO OC.

RX 5600 XT 6GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RX 5600 XT run at Low and at Medium settings.

The RX 5600 XT really struggles at Medium settings delivering 98.68 unconstrained frames, and it drops or requires 166 frames to be synthesized. It does better with Low settings delivering 114.14 unconstrained frames, either dropping 19 frames or requiring them to be synthesized. However, at even the Low setting, microstutter is noticeable while playing even without forcing Level 3 Fidelity level. Perhaps it is a driver issue.

Next up we test the Red Devil RX Vega 56.

RX Vega 56 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RX Vega 56 tested at Low and at Medium settings.

The RX Vega 64 can handle Medium settings delivering 107.31 unconstrained frames, but it drops or requires 44 frames to be synthesized, and microstutter is evident while playing. It does better with Low settings delivering 119.23 unconstrained frames, either dropping 2 frames or requiring them to be synthesized, but some microstutter is still a factor that may be improved by not forcing Level 3 and allowing the game engine to automatically adjust the visuals.

Next up we test the cards that can handle Medium/High settings.

Medium/High Settings

The first Medium/High setting card we test is an RX Vega 6GB Liquid Cooled Edition.

RX Vega 64 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RX Vega 64 run at Low, Medium, and at High settings.

The RX Vega 64 is a borderline case. Technically it can handle High settings by delivering 111.77 unconstrained frames but it drops or requires 41 frames to be synthesized, and microstutter is evident while playing with the Level 3 Fidelity setting. It does better with Medium settings delivering 120.7 unconstrained frames, either dropping 26 frames or requiring them to be synthesized. Gameplay becomes smooth at Low settings, delivering 128.83 unconstrained frames with only one frame dropped. This card may be playable with a mix of High and Medium settings, but only by not forcing Level 3 Fidelity and letting the game engine handle the visuals automatically.

The next Medium/High card we test is an RTX 2060 6GB Founders Edition.

RTX 2060 6GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RTX 2060 run at Low, Medium, and at High settings.

The RTX 2060 struggles at High settings with 101.17 unconstrained FPS, and it drops or requires 160 frames to be synthesized. It does better with Medium settings with 114.83 unconstrained FPS, either dropping 25 frames or requiring them to be synthesized although it easily handles Low settings with 129.89 unconstrained FPS and no dropped or synthesized frames.

Even though the RTX 2060 is a 6GB cards it appears to manage its memory better than the other two 6GB cards we tested, and it appears to handle a mix of Medium/High settings better than the RX Vega 64 even though its unconstrained FPS is lower.

The next card we test is a GTX 1080 Founders Edition 8GB.

GTX 1080 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the GTX 1080 run at Medium, High, and Ultra settings.

The GTX 1080 struggles at High settings with 101.17 unconstrained FPS, and drops or requires 160 frames to be synthesized. It does better with Medium settings with 120.9 unconstrained FPS, either dropping 25 frames or requiring them to be synthesized. It may be acceptable to play with a mix of High and Medium settings as long as the game manages the Fidelity settings automatically

Next up, the cards that can handle High settings beginning with the Red Devil RX 5700 8GB.

High Settings

The first High setting card we test is a Red Devil RX 5700.

RX 5700 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RX 5700 run at Medium, High, and at Ultra settings.

The RX 5700 cannot handle Ultra settings, delivering 104.81 unconstrained FPS as it drops or requires 108 frames to be synthesized and microstutter is evident. It does a little better with High settings, delivering 109.78 unconstrained frames, but it drops 58 frames or requires them to be synthesized. At Medium settings it delivers 126.68 unconstrained FPS with 13 dropped or synthesized frames.

The next High setting card we test is an RTX 2060 Super 8GB Founders Edition.

RTX 2060 Super 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RTX 2060 run at Medium, High, and at Ultra settings.

The RTX 2060 Super is unsuitable for Ultra settings with 110.9 unconstrained FPS, and it drops or requires 36 frames to be synthesized. It does good with High settings delivering 117.94 unconstrained FPS, only dropping 3 frames or requiring them to be synthesized, and it delivers 134.02 unconstrained FPS at Medium settings, neither dropping nor requiring any synthesized frames.

It is possible to play with a RTX 2060 Super on Medium and get a higher visual image quality than on High because of the extra performance headroom that allows for a higher level of super resolution to be applied by the game’s algorithm.

Next up, the Anniversary Edition of the RX 5700 XT.

RX 5700 XT 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RX 5700 XT run at Medium, High, and at Ultra settings.

The RX 5700 XT also cannot handle Ultra settings even though it delivers 119.27 unconstrained FPS and drops or requires 26 frames to be synthesized as again microstutter is evident. It does better with High settings by delivering 126.85 unconstrained frames, but it either drops 14 frames or requires them to be synthesized. At Medium settings it delivers 144.91 unconstrained FPS with 19 dropped or synthesized frames.

We notice that the equivalent GeForce cards are somewhat less prone to microstutter than the Radeons, and it could be driver issues. Next, we chart the performance of the 4 cards that can play at Ultra settings starting with the GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition 11GB.

Ultra Settings

GTX 1080 Ti 11GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the GTX 1080 Ti run at Medium, High, and at Ultra settings.

The GTX 1080 Ti is suitable for Ultra settings with 130.13 unconstrained FPS, and it drops or requires only 1 frame to be synthesized. It also does great with High settings delivering 142.34 unconstrained FPS, while dropping 7 frames or requiring them to be synthesized, and it gives 162.35 unconstrained FPS at Medium settings, dropping or requiring 3 synthesized frames.

Next up is the RTX 2070 Super 8GB Founders Edition.

RTX 2070 Super 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RTX 2070 Super run at High and at Ultra settings.

The RTX 2070 Super is suitable for Ultra settings with 132.43 unconstrained FPS, and it drops or requires only 1 frame to be synthesized. It also does great with High settings delivering 142.89 unconstrained FPS, while dropping 1 frames or requiring it to be synthesized.

Next, the RTX 2080 Super 8GB Founders Edition.

RTX 2080 Super 8GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RTX 2080 Super run at High and at Ultra settings.

The RTX 2080 Super easily manages Ultra settings with 148.81 unconstrained FPS, and it drops or requires only 1 frame to be synthesized. It handles High settings easily by delivering 161.96 unconstrained FPS, while dropping 1 frames or requiring them to be synthesized. The RTX 2080 Super can deliver maxed-out settings at Ultra including adding some super resolution as applied by the game engine when the Fidelity settings are not overridden.

Finally, the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition is in a class by itself as we test at Ultra settings and Ultra plus the maximum super resolution that can be applied by forcing Fidelity Level 8.

RTX 2080 Ti 11GB

Here is the Frametime plot of the RTX 2080 Ti run at Ultra, and also at Ultra plus Level 8 Fidelity settings.

The RTX 2080 Ti easily manages Ultra settings with 184.62 unconstrained FPS, and it neither drops nor requires any frames to be synthesized. It handles Ultra settings plus Level 8 Fidelity setting, delivering 131.37 unconstrained FPS, while dropping only 1 frame or requiring it to be synthesized. If the game engine manages the framerates, occasionally the Fidelity level will drop a notch on the most demanding scenes.

Finally, we compare the Unconstrained Framerates of all of our cards.

Unconstrained Framerates

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates of our 13 cards all running Half Life: Alyx at Level 3 Fidelity setting using Low, Medium, High, and Ultra settings. The Unconstrained Framerates are measured by FCAT-VR to show what a card could deliver (performance headroom) if it were not constrained by the HMD’s locked 90hz/90FPS cadence. An ‘X’ means the card was not tested at a particular setting. Yellow text refers to what we suggest as a starting point for our card’s recommended settings.

In some VR games the Turing architecture does better than Navi in VR while in other games the situation is reversed. Navi has significantly improved over Vega in VR games as our testing shows, however, in the case of Half Life: Alyx, the usually comparable GeForce cards give a better experience than the Radeons. We hope it is a driver issue that AMD will address quickly.

Conclusion

After spending 40 hours playing and benchmarking Half Life: Alyx with 13 video cards, we have concluded that it is an incredibly well-optimized game that automatically leverages the headroom of a video card to deliver extremely good visuals. We do not necessarily recommend overriding the game settings using the console except perhaps by advanced users with extremely powerful PCs.

In several cases using lesser cards, we saw better visuals playing at lower settings since there was more performance headroom that allowed for added automatic super resolution bringing increased visuals. It pays to experiment with the settings to determine which are best, and our recommendations may serve only as a starting point.

We were somewhat surprised that the Radeons that are normally equivalent to their GeForce counterparts in pancake gaming and in VR are somewhat held back by microstutter, and we hope that upcoming Adrenalin drivers will address this. The Unconstrained framerates taken by themselves do not give a complete picture of the performance experience playing Half Life: Alyx.

Although Half Life: Alyx is a DirectX 11 forward rendered game that leverages MSAA, it may not be suitable for VRSS because of the way that the engine leverages its own Fidelity settings automatically. NVIDIA isn’t commenting about it. Half Life: Alyx has become BTR’s Game of the Year, and it will become our 13th regular VR benchmark.

Next up, we will return to our indie ray tracing series with Bright Memory which left Steam’s Early Access last week with brand new content. We have already played through it several times while in Early Access, and our impressions of it are very positive.

Happy VR Gaming!