Final Thoughts
Far Cry Primal is characterized by good optimization which allows for excellent frame-rates providing the resolution doesn’t surpass 2560×1440. The GTX 980Ti performs extremely well and even manages to maintain 60 frames-per-second on a 1440P panel. Furthermore, I didn’t encounter any sudden frame-rate dips and the minimum figures weren’t overly far away from the average numbers. This allows for a consistent and thoroughly enjoyable user-experience.
When using a 1920×1080 display, it’s relatively easy to achieve 60 frames-per-second with affordable graphics hardware. The R9 390 and GTX 970 are both capable of this feat and provides great performance at a reasonable price point. Once the resolution is increased to 2560×1440, the demands increase at an exponential rate and requires at least the R9 Fury X to hover around 60 frames-per-second.
As expected, even elite grade hardware cannot cope with Far Cry Primal on a 4K monitor and you have to rely on either dual GPU setups or reduce settings. Thankfully, this is fairly simple because the options menu is laden with visual tweaks to improve performance. It’s important to reiterate that the lackluster numbers are a result of current hardware being unable to play complex games on high presets. This lack of graphical horsepower applies to most major releases and isn’t a commentary on the engine’s optimization.
Apart from the top positions, AMD graphics cards are really competitive and appear to thrive in mid to high-range performance results. For example, the R9 390 outperformed the GTX 980 during 1440P testing and obtained an identical result with a 4K panel. The Nano also showcases its wonderful potential and catapults into a different league to the GTX 980 while costing less. In Far Cry Primal, NVIDIA dominates the first position and showcases the unbelievable gains from an overclocked GTX 980Ti. However, this isn’t a shocking revelation and the real story here is how well the 390X and 390 perform compared to their NVIDIA counterparts. To conclude, Far Cry Primal is quite good from a technical perspective providing you opt for a GTX 970 or higher.
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