Adding the GTX 970 and R9 390, Conclusions
Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 11)
This comparison set includes the R9 Nano and GTX 980 again, but adds the Radeon R9 390 GB card and the GTX 970. The first thing I noticed was that the R9 390 did NOT exhibit the same frame time stutter and spikes that we saw with the both of the Fiji GPUs. This Hawaii-based GPU appears to be running much more smoothly than the R9 Nano, even if the average frame rate it provides is 6-7 FPS lower. The GeForce GTX 970 falls behind the other cards in this comparison, getting just 40 FPS on average at 2560×1440 with these image quality settings.
None of these cards are going to handle Rise of the Tomb Raider at 4K well, but it's still interesting to see the Radeon R9 390 doesn't exhibit the spikes either. The much less expensive R9 390 is actually outperforming the GTX 980 here though no one should be playing this game at 25 FPS!
Closing Thoughts
The early results are in and the verdict is….Rise of the Tomb Raider is going to be tough on GPUs at maximum image quality settings. Obviously you'll be able to turn IQ settings down to get frame rates where you want them with your hardware, but if you are looking for a game to showcase the power of your shiny new graphics card, RoTR is going to hit the spot nicely. In my play testing with the game I found myself stunned by the presentation in numerous places, especially when coming across a new area for the first time. Though some users will complain about the performance levels on THEIR hardware with this game, I believe this is the trend we want to see for PC gaming – improved visuals over consoles even at the cost of higher end hardware to run it. Software pushes hardware, pushes software, and so on.
Click for a 4K screenshot!
I'm confused about the frame time spikes on the Fury X and R9 Nano from AMD and hopefully the company is working on a fix for it. I asked AMD for a newer driver than the 16.1 hotfix release on their website but was told it would be at least Monday before one would be available for media. NVIDIA on the other hand had a WHQL driver ready for Rise of the Tomb Raider and this weekend's Tom Clancy's The Division beta the day before the game's release. AMD's Fiji architecture is still performing well in the game, but those spikes are noticeable in the play through and is just not how consumers $600+ hardware should perform. Hopefully we'll get an update for it soon!
Click for a 4K screenshot!
A quick side note: I tested multi-GPU with a pair of GTX 980 Ti cards just long enough to capture a 4K run through of our testing scenario but did notice in other areas that there are some visual anomalies present. Rushing water seemed to "flash" and the hair effects of PureHair (based on TressFX) were "jumpy." I'll continue to dive into SLI and CrossFire to see how it performs and behaves over the weekend.
UPDATE 2/5/16: Nixxes released a new version of Rise of the Tomb Raider today with some significant changes. I have added another page at the end of this story that looks at results with the new version of the game, a new AMD driver and I've also included some SLI and CrossFire results.
There is this rumor that you
There is this rumor that you can buy it at $20 in russia,and play it elsewhere via family sharing.Really?
Nixxes have stated on the
Nixxes have stated on the steam forums:
“Also note that textures at Very High requires over 4GB of VRAM, and using this on cards with 4GB or less can cause extreme stuttering during gameplay or cinematics.”
http://steamcommunity.com/app/391220/discussions/0/451852225134000777/
This may explain the frame time spikes that were seen.
Ah….Maybe I will try it on
Ah….Maybe I will try it on high instead of Very High. If this fixes it I will be happy. But a little sad because of the 4GB limit issue. Oh well…bring on the 8GB HBM2 cards in the summer…or there abouts. 🙂
Running the game great in 4k
Running the game great in 4k with the sli hack for my twin 980 tis. Finally a game that actually uses them fully! Well, Far Cry 4 did a good job too, but the lack of sli support recently was getting me salty.
Is PCPer not going to do
Is PCPer not going to do 1080P benchmarks anymore? Few people have 1440 and even fewer have 4K (1.28% and 0.7% according to the last Steam Survey).
While beautiful, this is the
While beautiful, this is the most VRAM hungry title I have every used! I cranked everything up, setting-by-setting, just to see what would happen. No complaints on performance. I never saw a dip below 60 fps last for more than a split second, and it only went down to 57 fps (only saw this twice during an hour of play).
But what was surprising was 8.2 GB of VRAM usage at 1080p – that’s nutty! I can’t say I’m entirely surprised given how amazing the game looks, but I’m surprised that my Titan X is essentially necessary to max out this game.
Funny. I think that it would
Funny. I think that it would be better if the game used the whole 12GB of VRAM. What is the benefit of unused VRAM to you?
Hi Ryan.AMD Crismon 16.1.1
Hi Ryan.AMD Crismon 16.1.1 is Out.Please Rerun Benchmark.Thanks
Re-Run it NOW
Re-Run it NOW !!!
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please..
Test Geothermal Valley /
Test Geothermal Valley / Soviet Installation or gtfo.
So for the updated article,
So for the updated article, you decided to showcase Nvidia’s best performing card, and AMD’s weirdest performing card and nothing else? Are you serious? You should’ve thrown in the 970 and 390 as well.
Yea, WTF Ryan? Your lil Miss
Yea, WTF Ryan? Your lil Miss will cry shame. She will NOT be proud of daddy on this one.
If the 980 Ti (non-SLI) was tested, then surely your single Fury X should have been – if only to see the difference, if any. Its understandable that they cant all be re-tested (work load, time constraints, etc), but we’re not talking about Peggle Nights here; this is a huge title that challenges the top tier cards. So those should be the focus.
The difference between Nano
The difference between Nano and Fury X is so small that it should not be a factor when choosing between AMD and Nvidia for dual cards setup. You can easily add those 5-10% and calculate Fury X perf if you want. And there are not too many Nano benchmarks out there – I always love to see them 🙂
The nano could be throttling
The nano could be throttling in some cases due to the strict thermal limitations. I would have preferred that they use the Fury or Fury X instead, but if they don’t have dual Fury/X cards available, then that just wasn’t an option.
Are you running reference
Are you running reference 980ti? Because my GIGABYTE G1 Gaming card is getting better results, just curious.
Since you favor AMD over Nvidia I figured you would run a reference card with a pink chart color,so it doesn’t make AMD Fury X look so bad….hahahah just playing, but seriously my card kicks ass!!!
Yes, the pink line is hard to see on some phones. 😛
I keep forgetting that any
I keep forgetting that any review that is not an immediately glowingly perfectly admiringly wonderfully perfect review of an Nvidia product IMMEDIATELY MEANS THE REVIEWER IS AN AMD FANBOY.
Jesus. Some of you Nvidia people are pathetic.
I think holyneo was
I think holyneo was joking…..:)
I was, glad you get
I was, glad you get it.
😉
Sorry for those that didn’t, well not really. Take a deep breath, slowly walk away from the computer, ponder my reply till a smile forms onto your face.
Can you please run the frame
Can you please run the frame time test with R9 280 or 280x? That would help figure out if it is GCN 1.2 or 4gb vram that is causing the spikes with fury x and nano. I know 980 doesn’t have them but that doesn’t mean much because of so many different variable such as drivers.
Sorry I meant 290 or 290x
Sorry I meant 290 or 290x
Can you confirm that R9 Nano
Can you confirm that R9 Nano was not throttling during the testing?
I own nano crossfire and I
I own nano crossfire and I under clock to 900mhz to keep the top card from throttling. Left at stock the spikes are a bit worse/often. Overclocking is out of the question. There are still spikes at a steady 900mhz. I would really like to see benchmarks with r9 290x crossfire vs r9 390x crossfire to test if the spikes are based on the ram. Obviously drivers could improve the nano/fury crossfire either way because 980 sli does not have the same spikes.
The comments are too funny!
I
The comments are too funny!
I feel like this is a two party system, NVidia or AMD! So I’m going to vote Intel Integrated Graphics are better than both combined. Yea for independents!
Would be great to see this
Would be great to see this revisited now that patch 1.0.668.1 (Patch #7) is out with improved async compute support. The addition of Polaris benches would be valuable too.