CyberPunk 2077 – 40 GPUs Benchmarked!

"Wake the f*** up, Samurai! We have cards to benchmark" or something along those lines. Yes folks, it's time for CyberPunk 2077. After 8 long years, the game is finally with us. Sure, it's had a few delays, it's had a few controversies, but if memory serves me correct, that's true of all the best big-budget games these games. A few bugs here and there aren't slowing us down though, as those things can be fixed. What we really want to know, however, is how do various graphics cards perform at various resolutions. Yes, such deep philosophical questions are what keep me up at night... because testing just takes a long time. CyberPunk 2077 As per our usual graphics card review benchmarks, we'll be testing a range of AMD and Nvidia cards, and this isn't about who comes out the fastest. Well, it is a bit actually, but it's more to bolster our library of results for upcoming hardware reviews, and to show you what kind of performance you can expect from your current GPU or the one you're dreaming about when you look for stock each night (be patient, stock will come). Furthermore, with significant updates expected for the game, it'll give us a baseline to compare the game with a then and now feature in the coming weeks and months! GPUs Tested ASUS RTX 3070 TUF GamingGigabyte RTX 3070 Gaming OCiGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-VMSI RTX 3070 Gaming X TrioZotac RTX 3070 Twin Edge OCASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3080 OCASUS RTX 3080 TUF GamingGigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OCMSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM XPalit RTX 3080 GameRockZotac RTX 3080 TrinityMSI RTX 3090 SUPRIM XZotac RTX 3090 TrinityMSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X TrioNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPERGigabyte AORUS RTX 2080 TiAMD Radeon RX 5700XTAMD Radeon RX 6800XTMSI RTX 2070 Gaming ZGigabyte AORUS GTX 1060 6GBMSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X TrioASUS RTX 3060 Ti TUF GamingGigabyte RTX 3060 Ti Gaming OCASUS Radeon RX 5600 XT TUF GamingASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1660 TiGigabyte AORUS GTX 1080ASUS Radeon RX 6800XT STRIX LCAMD Radeon RX 6800Sapphire Radeon RX 6800 Nitro+AMD Radeon RX 6900XTASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1650Gigabyte RTX 3090 Gaming OCSapphire Nitro+ RX590Sapphire Pulse RX570ASUS Strix RX Vega64Sapphire Nitro+ 6800XTXFX Mercury 319 RX 6800 XTGigabyte RX 6800 XT Gaming OCGigabyte 2060 Super Gaming OCPower Colour Red Devil R580 "Would you rather live in peace as Mr. Nobody... or go down for all times in a blaze of glory?" - Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements As you can see, the game will run on something equivalent to the Core i6-3570k or AMD FX-8310, which is basically any quad-core for the last 6 years or so. Back that up with an RX 470 or GTX 780 and you'll scrape by the minimum requirements. Fortunately, the High requirements are pretty decent too, requiring the RTX 2060 or 5700 XTpaired with a more modern quad-core CPU, but still within the reach of a lot of PC gamers. Beyond that, you're firmly into enthusiast territory though, with high-end RTX 3000 serries cards being suggested for ray tracing, and if you're wanting to push to higher refresh rates or more extreme resolutions, then you'll find hardware requirements will ramp up as expected. £Please note that the game is both graphics- and processor-intensive, so make sure these components meet or exceed the minimum requirements. Also note that the minimum is created with Low settings and 1080p gaming in mind and Recommended with High and 1080p."- CD Projekt Red Test Bench As per our usual testing methodology for graphics card reviews, all benchmarks are performed at three resolutions, 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p (4K) using the games built-in HIGH settings or equivalent, not ULTRA, but HIGH! We're firm believers that you should add quality settings after benchmarking to hit your desired performance rather than take them away. Three runs are completed and an average will be taken. Since CyberPunk 2077 also features both Ray Tracing and DLSS, these features will also be tested at 4K. First at 4K with Ray Tracing enabled, then again with DLSS enabled, and finally, with both Ray Tracing and DLSS enabled. MotherboardASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi)ProcessorAMD Ryzen 9 3900XTRAMTEAMGroup DarkZa 16GB 3600MHz (2x8GB)CPU CoolerNoctua NH-D15SPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850StorageSeagate FireCuda 520 2TBChassisOpen BenchtableMonitorDell UP3218KOSWindows 10 Pro Version 2004 About the Game Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure story set in Night City, a megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour and body modification. You play as V, a mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality. You can customize your characterâs cyberware, skillset and playstyle, and explore a vast city where the choices you make shape the story and the world around you. Features Dive into an open-world RPG and explore a futuristic city where anything goes.Create a unique character, along with their looks and background. Craft your own destiny by making tough choices as the immersing story follows.Utilize a wide arsenal of high-tech weapons against your opponents.Drive futuristic vehicles through the city streets or race to earn cash. Who Will You Be? Become a cyberpunk, an urban mercenary equipped with cybernetic enhancements and build your legend on the streets of Night City. Create your character from scratch and choose their background out of three unique Lifepaths. Take the role of a gang-wise Street Kid, freedom-loving Nomad, or a ruthless Corpo. Night City Enter the massive open world of Night City, a place that sets new standards in terms of visuals, complexity and depth. Explore the bustling megalopolis of the future and its extensive districts, each with exceptional visual flavor, inhabitants and chances to earn cash. Interact with members of powerful gangs who rule the streets of Night City. Gameplay Trailer This likely doesn't come as much of a surprise, given that the most expensive and high-end graphics cards are at the top and the oldest and less expensive cards are sitting around at the bottom. However, it how close to many of the cards are that surprised us the most. Cards that are a bit faster than others at 1080p can then be slower than the next card in 1440p or 4K. It seems to mostly come down to VRAM though, which is what gives the RTX 3090 cards an advantage at 4K, even if they're easily matched at 1080p. The best from AMD and Intel had no trouble with 1080p, scoring around 130 FPS each. It is a visually demanding game to run though, and a GTX 1080 or 1660 Ti was required to get around 60 FPS using High settings. The same for AMD, requiring the VEGA 64, with the older RX 5xx series cards just lacking the power to get up to 60 FPS. 1080p, 1440p & 4K The coolest advantage of many of the modern Nvidia graphics cards has to be DLSS. This renders the game at a lower resolution, then uses an algorithm that has been trained on that specific game using AI to upscale the image to the higher resolution. The end results speak for themselves, with a large uptick in performance across the board. Keep in mind, this is in 4K mode using High preset and quality DLSS. Even the bottom of the charts, with the RTX 2080 Super scoring around 10 FPS more than it did without DLSS. However, it's not until we get to the 3060 Ti that we see 60 FPS on the board. That card only scored 31.48 FPS with DLSS off, virtually doubling its FPS with it enabled! Of course, AMD have their own similar feature in the works, and we look forward to testing that soon enough too. DLSS Ray Tracing This game is demanding, like REALLY demanding, even on the best of the best hardware. We tested Ray Tracing at 4K, and it turned into a torture test of the cards rather than a true performance test. As you can see, even cards that cost £1000+ were brought to their knees and for most gamers, this simply will not do. Drop the quality or drop to 1440p, or you'll be finding Night City looks awfully cinematic. Press F to pay respects to the 2060 Super with its 9 FPS. Ray Tracing & DLSS Well, isn't this a completely different story, the wonders of DLSS laid bare it seems. All the cards that struggled to do anything good in the last page find a new life here. The 9 FPS of the 2060 is now a whopping 23 FPS. Everything from the RTX 3080 up wards scored between 50 and 60 FPS, which for a 4K and ray traced game is plenty playable to me, even more so with V-sync, FreeSync, G-Sync or kitchen sync... OK, not that last one. Even more so, if you do drop to 1440p, you'll see simlar lifts in performance from DLSS with or without Ray Tracing enabled. We tested the heck out of this fix, which has been well touted on reddit and YouTube the last few days. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on our CPU, and likely favours 4-core and 8-thread CPUs as well as 8-core and 16-thread CPUs. We're running a 12-core 24-thread CPU and the fix mostly seemed to decrease performance. We're not saying don't try it, as it's easily done, but from our testing, it's not the wonder-fix it was claimed to be unfortunately, at least on our test bench. HEX Fix Final Thoughts Overall, it's clear that this is not an easy game to run. You'll get away with some pretty modest, albeit fairly modern, gaming hardware for 1080p, but even stepping up to 1440p will be the real of the current flagships, especially if you intend to use ray tracing effects. There's some hope though, as both the current crop of Nvidia and AMD cards remained pretty competitive with each other. The game does favour Nvidia right now, but I expected as much given the RTX implementation. However, I suspect that will broadly improve over time with software updates and driver updates. There's another advantage for the green team too, with DLSS being virtually essential in this release. That being said, it's working phenomenoally well. If you're running the game at 4K with ray tracing, it'll be DLSS that gets you where you need to be. Finally, we know the game has issues. However, they're largely focused on the last-gen console performance. PC users seem to be getting the best deal here, but certainly for those with flagship hardware. There are plenty of bugs, sure, but we ran into nothing particularly game-breaking. Finally, while we did run the AVX patch, it really didn't work on our CPU, so we suggest trying it, but don't count on it being a one-stop fix. I'm sure we'll be back to testing soon enough when CDPR put out some more significant updates. Stay tuned.