We recently received an RTX 4070 Founders Edition from Nvidia and we have been testing it for the past week by using 11 PC games plus hybrid benchmarks. The Founders Edition will be available at $599 starting tomorrow. Nvidia is touting this GPU as a great upgrade to the seven-year-old 10 series cards – and while it is true that its value proposition is undeniable – you will have to decide if it is worth the price of admission.

Thankfully, Nvidia has kept pricing sane as the RTX 4070 arrives with multiple new features, including DLSS 3, which brings an incredible performance uplift. For this reason alone, this new entry in the 40 series is extremely exciting. The higher-priced RTX 3080 is hard to find new in stock so we will compare them to find the best value.

The RTX 4070 further cements its new value role as it supports impressive new features including Displaced Micro-Meshes and Nvidia DLSS 3 technology, all while using less power than the RTX 3070 Ti. Additionally, for broadcasters, the RTX 4070 supports AV1 encoding which in and of itself is a good enough reason to upgrade from older generations of cards. 

The RTX 4070 Feature set

Right out of the gate, many will be concerned about being bound by the RTX 4070’s 12GB VRAM capacity as modern games skyrocket in their usage. While it may not age the best in 5-6 years, its VRAM is more than enough for current needs. Compared with buying a used RTX 3080, the RTX 4070 is a new card with a warranty, and it includes the latest leaps in DLSS/AI technology.

Comparing generation-to-generation there is a giant leap thanks to TGP/power improvements. There is also no price category competition from AMD, and FSR 2.0 is well behind DLSS 3 in performance. Again, the value proposition in comparison to the rest of the rather expensive 40 series is obvious, but the RTX 4070 may not offer the raw GPU power upgrade that those with RTX 3080s are looking for at this price range.

Today, there are over 400 games and applications that have RTX support which includes over 50 announced titles with DLSS 3. According to Nvidia, DLSS 3 has the fastest adoption of any of their technologies to date, with DLSS 3 being adopted 7x faster than DLSS 2. DLSS 3 is featured in some of the hottest current and upcoming titles including Forza Horizon 5, Diablo IV, Redfall, and The Finals. This value alone may be enough to move the needle for potential buyers.

GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition Board

The GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition graphics card incorporates many of the new design elements that are also found on NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4080, and RTX 4090 Founders Edition boards. The RTX 4070 Founders Edition board is crafted with premium materials and components including a die-cast aluminum body and dual axial fans. It looks fantastic in our PC and especially for ITX enthusiasts, this may be a go-to card with its perfect compact size.

The RTX 4070’s new design also provides about a 20% increase improvement in airflow compared to the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition.

Our Plan

Nvidia is in an interesting spot with the RTX 4070 delivering outstandingly efficient performance. For this review, we are planning to benchmark the RTX 4080, RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4070, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 within an average build that most gamers today would be able to complete on a reasonable budget.

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

The GeForce RTX 4070 is based on the AD104 GPU and equipped with 5,888 CUDA Cores providing 29 FP32 Shader-TFLOPS of power for rendering traditional rasterized graphics. It also boasts 184 Fourth Generation Tensor Cores offering 466 Tensor-TFLOPS (with Sparsity) for AI processing and DLSS, 46 Third Generation Ada RT Cores capable of 67 RT-TFLOPS for powering next-generation ray-traced graphics, and 12GB of GDDR6X memory.

We want to test if it really can hold up with 12GB of VRAM to deliver a potential amazing value proposition compared to the RTX 3080 launched at $699 two years ago and the RTX 2080 Ti which launched at $99 MSRP four years ago. We want to especially compare the $599 RTX 4070 with the $849 ASUS Tuff Gaming 4070 Ti OC to determine its place in the current lineup.

Features & Specifications

The RTX 4070 technological innovations include:

• New Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) – The new SM delivers up to 2x performance and power efficiency
• 4th Generation Tensor Cores and Optical Flow – Enable and accelerate transformative AI
  technologies, including the new frame rate multiplying Nvidia DLSS 3
• 3rd Generation RT Cores – Up to 2x ray tracing performance, delivering incredibly detailed
  virtual worlds like never before
• Shader Execution Reordering (SER) – SER improves ray tracing operations by 2x, boosting FPS up to 44% in Cyberpunk with RT: Overdrive Mode
• DLSS 3 – A revolutionary breakthrough in AI-powered graphics that massively boosts
  performance using AI to generate additional high-quality frames
• Nvidia Studio – Unmatched performance in 3D rendering, video editing, and live streaming
• AV1 Encoders – The 8th generation Nvidia Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 is 40% more efficient than H.264, enabling new possibilities for streamers, broadcasters, and video callers

Key Features from ASUS

• Dedicated 3rd generation ray tracing cores (46)
• Dedicated 4th generation Tensor cores (184)
• Nvidia DLSS 3 support
• Game Ready and Nvidia Studio drivers
• Nvidia GeForce Experience
• Nvidia Broadcast
• Nvidia G-Sync
• Nvidia GPU Boost
• PCI Express Gen 4
• Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate support
• Support for Vulkan RT APIs, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenGL 4.6
• HDCP 2.3 support
• DisplayPort 1.4 support: up to 4K at 240Hz or 8K at 60Hz with DSC, HDR
• HDMI 2.1 support: up to 4K 240Hz, Gaming VRR, HDR

Specifications

Nvidia’s MSRP price for RTX 4070 Ti GPUs is $799, and ASUS’s price for the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC Edition is $849.99. So it’s exciting to get back down to Nvidia’s MSRP for the RTX 4070 FE at just $599.

Here is the RTX 4070 in GPU-Z:

According to GPU-Z, the RTX 4070 has the default GPU clock of 1920Mhz compared to the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC’s 2310MHz, about an 18.4% difference, and a boost GPU clock of 2475Mhz compared to the RTX 4070 Ti TUF GAMING OC’s 2730MHz which is around a 10% difference. So for $350 less, you will have a very competitive performance with the latest 40 series feature set.

Below is the advanced general information on the RTX 4070 FE as reported by the GPU-Z tool.

As you can see from the GPU-Z screenshots, you can even increase both power and temperature limits to some degree, and while there is little room for overclocking, there is some additional potential performance for gamers looking to get more from their builds. RTX 4070 partner boards should be interesting to see based on their cooling methods and pricing.

Our Benchmarking PC

We benchmark using FrameView on a recent install of Windows 11 Pro Edition 22H2, at 3440×1440 using an Intel Core i7-12700K with stock clocks and 32GB of DDR4 Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3600MHz memory on an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard. All games and benchmarks are the latest versions, and we use the latest GeForce 531.42 press drivers for our testing. The games tested, display driver, settings, and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we compare.

Fair warning – We lost our RTX 4080 during benchmarking due to a faulty power cable and PSU when swapping out video cards, so this is why the card is missing from some tests. We are in the process of getting them replaced.

Let’s unbox and take a closer look at this graphics card.

A Closer Look at the RTX 4070 Founder’s Edition

Packaging

The box cover highlights a sleek approach to the packaging. I am a huge fan of the presentation Nvidia has been providing for its FE line. It offers a very premium unboxing experience. The graphics card image for the recent RTX cards is iconic and that shape is also shown on the box.

Accessories

As we open the box, it folds out beautifully displaying the brand new RTX 4070 FE. Beneath the card are the new standard 16 PIN (12VHPWR) PCIe connector and an installation guide with a QR code to visit Nvidia’s website for more guides and information if needed.

The Card

The RTX 4070 FE is a small dual-fan graphics card with classic RTX aesthetics that are still refined and look great. The logo sadly does not light up on the RTX 4070 FE so that is one downside of its lower price range.

For comparison here are some photos of our 4070 Ti:

The IO panel connectors are 3 DisplayPorts and 1 HDMI connection.

Inside the case

The RTX 4070 FE looks subtle and classic inside a case. I would personally love to build an SFF PC using this card. It is the perfect size offering a powerful small gaming rig at a reasonable price compared to the sky-high prices we have seen these last few years. We like that it is small and discrete but some may not like the unlit logo

Next is our testing configuration, methodology, and more.

Test Configuration

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz XMP)
• RTX 4070 FE 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 3080 FE 10GB, stock clocks
• RTX 3070 FE, stock clocks
• 1 x TeamGroup 1 TB NVMe M.2 SSD
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ALIENWARE 34″ CURVED QD-OLED GAMING MONITOR – AW3423DWF

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 531.42 game-ready press drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite, the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• FrameView, the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.
• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture

• We use FrameView for capturing frame times and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Benchmark Suite:

PC Games

DX11 Games

• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Chernoblyte (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• F1 2022 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Resident Evil 4 (DX12)
• Red Dead Redemption 2(DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Dirt 5 (DX 12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DLSS Feature Test
• Fire Strike Extreme
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Time Spy
• Time Spy Extreme

Nvidia Control Panel settings

Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

Noise, Temperatures, and Power Consumption

Unfortunately, we did not have time to check out the overclocking potential, but temperatures were controlled and the RTX 4070 runs very cool.

The RTX 4070 FE is quiet, and its fans never spin up at idle, even under a heavy or full load to be irritating or noticeable. When gaming it spins up to full often under very heavy loads – like Metro Exodus with all features turned on. It is as silent as the RTX 4070 Ti we tested previously.

Below is our thermal and approximate power consumption analysis on idle (Windows desktop, no user interactions.

Idle conditions

We ran into issues testing under load (our PSU died during near the end of our testing) but throughout our testing overall, the GPU was very efficient and in-line with our expectations. There is no heater meme to be found here.

Nvidia Performance Graphs and information

The biggest selling point for the RTX 4070 FE at $599 has to be DLSS 3. This is a gigantic leap – while some purists may not like frame generation – the performance increase and quality retention is simply stunning. On our QD-OLED display, we could barely see any image quality differences but performance increased dramatically. BTR plans on doing a full DLSS 3 gaming suite test in the near future.

In our testing, the RTX 4070 FE with DLSS 3 is almost 3 times faster than the RTX 2070 Super and it nearly doubles the performance of the RTX 3070 Ti while using less power.

Let’s head to the performance charts to compare the graphics performance of the RTX 4070 FE.

Gaming Performance Charts

Main Performance Gaming Summary Charts

Here are BTR’s summary charts of 19 games, six hybrid, and three non-synthetic tests. We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings on the performance summary charts below. The benches were run at 3440×1440.

FireStrike Graphics Score:
3070: 16807
4070: 21121
Timespy Graphics Score:
3070: 6611
4070: 17881
4070Ti: 22467
Averaged Framerates & Relative GPU Performance

Averaged Game Framerates

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

On average, the RTX 4070 is faster than the RTX 3080 at 3340×1440. However, owners of this card can likely hold off on an upgrade unless they want lower power consumption, DLSS 3, and better ray tracing performance at a reasonable price. DLSS 3 is a game-changer for the games that have it. For games that do not and that are on DLSS 2 the RTX 3080 loses narrowly or wins in some older games in rare cases.

The 4070 Ti is a clear improvement but at a significantly higher buy-in price. In comparison to the rest of the 40 series lineup, the RTX 4070’s performance is unmatched for budget/value gamers.

Final Thoughts & Verdict

This has been an enjoyable exploration evaluating the new RTX 4070 FE. Overall, it is the best 40 series value for your money if the current adoption rate of DLSS and DLSS 3 continues. The performance gain is stunning. Without this technology, we can compare the RTX 4070 to the RTX 3080 from the previous generation with very distinct differences. Nvidia has improved performance with supplemental tech like DLSS 3, the architecture, cooling, and most of all, the pricing.

The RTX 4070 is compact and amazingly efficient compared to the RTX 30 series and its 40 series brothers. The idle fan stop is huge for us, and support for AV1 encoding is stellar for a lot of streamers at this price.

The RTX 4070 performed above the RTX 3080 in most cases and well above the RTX RTX 3070. The gap widened significantly with frame generation/DLSS 3 – So much so that this is a no-brainer. However, this is not a “wow” with the raster performance jump over the previous generation. Instead, the RTX 4070 is more efficient, more compact, and has much better features especially if you are still on a 10-series card. This is a worthy point in time with a card that is finally available at a reasonable price as a poster child for the generational leaps Nvidia is making with its technology and DLSS 3.

There is no early adopter woe here as there are many AAA titles to enjoy – right now – with DLSS 3 enabled, unlike with ray tracing at its launch. However, If DLSS 3 means little to you, we would hesitate to recommend upgrading from an RTX 3080 to an RTX 4070. However, the RTX 3070 user base will see enough significant performance gains to be able to make this a worthwhile consideration.

For a couple hundred dollars more you could buy an RTX 4070 Ti or a current AMD offering – but there is no card currently in this class and price that comes close to competing. The value of your dollar here will make any gamer happy. Especially at 1080p and 1440p, this card is a beast ready to serve your needs.

We do implore you to look at our upcoming DLSS 3 comparison of the current generation. This technology is finally allowing Nvidia to realize the dream that has been ray tracing. We can now maintain great performance while having the full suite of RTX features on an mid-level card. Safe to say, we give the RTX 4070 Founders Edition our Editor’s Choice award.

–Happy gaming! Per Audacia Ad Astra. Rest in Peace to Lance Reddick – our Commander Zavala.

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

PC Games

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

Nvidia Control Panel settings

Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 528.24 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

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

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

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

Fixed Bugs

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

The GeForce 528.24 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 17 Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 528.24 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 528.24 Driver Performance

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

Conclusion

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

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

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

PC Games

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

Nvidia Control Panel settings

Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 528.02 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

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

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

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

Gaming Technology

• • • Introduces support for the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

The GeForce 528.02 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 17 Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 528.02 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 528.02 Driver Performance

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

Conclusion

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

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!

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

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 522.25 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

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

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

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

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

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

Game Ready

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

Gaming Technology

Includes support for the GeForce RTX 4090.

The GeForce 522.25 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 522.25 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 522.25 Driver Performance

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

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

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 517.48 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

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

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

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

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

Game Ready for Overwatch 2

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

The GeForce 517.48 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 517.48 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 517.48 Driver Performance

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

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

Disclaimer

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

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

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 516.94 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

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

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

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

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

Game Ready for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered

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

The GeForce 516.94 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 516.94 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 516.94 Driver Performance

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

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

Disclaimer

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

Conclusion

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

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

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 516.79 Hotfix Driver

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 516.79 Hotfix Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 516.79 Hotfix Driver Performance

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

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

Disclaimer

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

Conclusion

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

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

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 516.40 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

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

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

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

Game Ready for Fall Guys: Free for All

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

The GeForce 516.40 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 20 Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 516.40 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 516.40 Driver Performance

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

Conclusion

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

This Windows 11 versus Windows 10 performance analysis is a follow-up to this week’s review of PC Gamerz Hawaii premium Blue Elite 12700KF/RTX 3080/DDR4 prebuild. They are still using Windows 10 Pro so we performed all of our detailed benching on that operating system and then did a clean install of Windows 11 Pro using the same settings. We will see if there are any performance advantages or disadvantages for Intel 12th Gen gamers or creators still on Windows 10 who are considering an upgrade.

We benchmarked 20 games with HAGS (Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling) off between Windows 10 and 11 and then turned on HAGS for all 40 Windows 11 games. Before we head to the performance chart featuring 40 games plus creative, workstation, and professional benchmarks, it’s important to detail the hardware and software configuration used for our for our benchmarking as well as our testing methodology.

Test Configuration – Hardware

PC Gamerz Hawaii Blue Elixir

• Intel Core i7-12700KF (HyperThreading/Turbo boost On) (All listed Blue Elixir hardware except the portable SSD supplied by PC GamerZ Hawaii)
• ASUS TUF Gaming H670-PRO WIFI D4 (Intel H670 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0/5.0/3.0/3.1/3.2 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x)
• G.SKILL Trident Z 16GB DDR4 (2x16GB, dual channel at 3600MHz)
• Crucial P2 1TB NVMe SSD PCIe 3.0 (2400MBps/1900MBps Read/Write) for C: drive
• The T-FORCE M200 4TB USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C Portable SSD (supplied by Team Group for game storage)
• EVGA 850B5, 850W Bronze PSU
• ACER (LC27G75TQSNXZA) 27? 1920×1080/165Hz monitor
• Lian-Li Galahad 360 AIO Cooler
• CoolerMaster TD500 Mesh White

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 512.77
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the NVIDIA control panel; Vsync off.
• Optimizations are off, Vsync is forced off, Texture filtering is set to High Quality, and Power management prefer maximum performance
• 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 (1% lows/99 percentiles) shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font where higher is better.
• Windows 11 Pro edition clean install and Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates. 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

Games

Vulkan

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

DX12

• God of War
• Ghostwire: Tokyo
• Elden Ring
• Dying Light 2
• Forza Horizon 5
• Call of Duty: Vanguard
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Far Cry 6
• Chernobylite
• Resident Evil Village
• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
• Hitman 3
• Godfall
• DiRT 5
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Watch Dogs: Legion
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• F1 2021
• Borderlands 3
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Battlefield V
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

DX11

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

Synthetic

• TimeSpy (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room
• Cinebench
• GeekBench
• OctaneBench
• AIDA64 CPU, cache & memory, and GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.01 benchmark
• Sandra 2021 CPU Benchmarks
• SPECviewperf 2020
• SPEC Workstation

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

Let’s head to the performance charts.

Performance Summary Charts

Here are the performance results of 40 games and 5 synthetic tests comparing the performance of Windows 11 with Windows 10 using PCGz’ Blue Elixir. Click on each chart to open in a pop-up for best viewing.

All gaming results show average framerates in bold text, and higher is better. Minimum framerates (1% lows/99-percentiles) are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. We picked the highest settings as shown on the charts. Wins (or ties) are show by yellow text.

Windows 10 HAGS off vs. Windows 11 HAGS off vs. Windows 11 HAGS on

We first benchmarked 20 games with HAGS (Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling) off between Windows 10 and 11, and also using Windows 11 with HAGS on vs. off. We did not benchmark Windows 10 with HAGS on. Column 1 shows the Windows 10 results (HAGS off) versus Column 2 which shows Windows 11 results (HAGS off). Performance wins are in yellow text. Column 2 repeats Windows 11 results with HAGS off versus Column 3 with Windows 11 with HAGS on. We use a slightly darker yellow text to show Windows 11 performance wins between HAGS off versus on.

Interestingly, nineteen of twenty average results between HAGS off Windows 10 and Windows 11 are approximately within what is considered the 3% margin of benchmarking error. Civilization VI, a CPU-heavy benchmark, is the only outlier that favors Windows 10. When HAGS is turned on for Windows 11, Civ’s performance normalizes between the OSes. HAGS on for Windows 11 doesn’t appear to give any significant performance disadvantages so we benchmarked all 40 games with HAGS on for Windows 11 in the following set of charts.

Windows 10 HAGS off vs. Windows 11 HAGS on

Column 1 shows the Windows 10 performance results (HAGS off) versus Column 2 which shows Windows 11 results (HAGS on). Performance wins are in yellow text.

Final Thoughts

We can conclude from our benchmarking using the PCGz Hawaii Blue Elite i7-12700KF/DDR4/RTX 3080 FTW PC that there is very little performance difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11. There is no reason not to upgrade to Windows 11 although there appears to be no performance disadvantages to remaining on Windows 10.

As to enabling HAGS or not on Windows 11, we agree with Rodrigo who found some HAGS performance inconsistences but also concluded:

“Anyway, the HAGS feature is still quite promising and can improve performance in some cases, so we also recommend doing your testing to see how it works with your gaming rig and set of favorite games.”

Happy Gaming!

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

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

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

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

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

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

Non-Synthetic Tests

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

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

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

GeForce 512.77 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

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

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

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

Game Ready for Evil Dead: The Game

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

The GeForce 512.77 Driver Performance – Summary Charts with 26 Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

GeForce 512.77 Driver Performance Charts

Notes on GeForce 512.77 Driver Performance

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

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

Disclaimer

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

Conclusion

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

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

Let’s Play!

***

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

Windows 11 includes an optional OS graphics feature called Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (abbreviated as HAGS), and this performance analysis will showcase gaming using the Gigabyte AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER. We will compare the performance of 26 PC games with HAGS on versus HAGS off using our latest recommended GeForce Game Ready driver, 512.15, and Windows 11 version 21H2.

The Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 20H1) added this feature, and we tested it using this Windows version in November 2020. Unfortunately, we saw that the HAGS feature led to performance inconsistencies on Windows 10. That made us not recommend it for general use at the time. We’re now revisiting HAGS performance using the latest Windows 11 public build to see if it is finally worth it.

You can enable HAGS through the Windows 11 “Default graphics settings” menu as long as you satisfy its requirements: Windows 10 v20H1 or newer, a supported GPU (Pascal onwards from NVIDIA, and RX 5600 onwards from AMD), and HAGS compatible GPU drivers.

This time, our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 11 64-bit Pro Edition, an i9-12900K with stock clocks, an ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard, and 32GB of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB WHITE DDR4 3600MHz. The games tested, settings, hardware, GeForce drivers, and Windows 11 build are identical except for the HAGS’ states we compare (on vs. off).

Before offering the performance data and charts of each different analysis scenario, it’s important to describe both the hardware and software configuration used in our testing, as well as the analysis methodology.

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

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

Test Configuration – Software

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

• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

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

Game Benchmarks-related

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

Frametimes Capture & Analysis tool-related

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

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

Benchmark Suite: 26 PC Games

DX11 Games

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

DX12 Games

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

Vulkan Games

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

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the global NVIDIA Control Panel settings:

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

The Performance Summary Charts with 26 Games

Below are the summary charts of 26 games used to compare the games’ performance changes with HAGS enabled and disabled using the AORUS RTX 3080 MASTER.

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

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

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

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

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

Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling Performance Charts ( On vs. Off)

Notes on Windows 11 Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling performance (On vs. Off)

For the game benchmarks, although most games show no significant performance differences with HAGS enabled, we see significant improvements in Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12), Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DXR), and Wolfenstein: Youngblood (RTX) in terms of frametime consistency; but also noteworthy performance regressions in Ghostwire: Tokyo (DX12) in terms of raw performance, LEGO® Builder’s Journey (DX12 & RTX modes) and Quake 2 RTX (Vulkan Ray Pipeline & Vulkan Ray Query modes) in terms of frametime consistency. Both LEGO® Builder’s Journey and Quake 2 RTX regressions are striking and are associated with severe and consistent frametime stability and frame-pacing issues during testing and gameplay.

Also, we saw inconsistent and low GPU load in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (DX12) and experienced random crashes in Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12) with HAGS enabled.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that the following results, notes, and the corresponding HAGS’ state recommendation are valid for similar Ampere gaming rigs using GeForce Game Ready 512.15 driver and Windows 11 v21H2. Its representativeness, applicability, and usefulness on different GPU architectures, testing benches, GPU drivers, and MS Windows versions may vary.

Conclusion

Based on our previous results and findings, although we acknowledge that HAGS performance results are better on Windows 11 than we showed in the past using Windows 10, we still see significant performance inconsistencies that prevent us from recommending HAGS for general or global use for GeForce gamers.

Anyway, the HAGS feature is still quite promising and can improve performance in some cases, so we also recommend doing your testing to see how it works with your gaming rig and set of favorite games.