In-Game Benchmarks

Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 11 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). I also slipped in a few variations on the same games for comparisons like DX11 to DX12, OpenGL to Vulkan, and a couple of games are just tested at their highest setting and lower but still high detail options to show the performance difference when things are turned down slightly. In total, each video card is tested 51 times and that makes for a huge mess of graphs when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start off with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier to read the result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, and then over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors. This covers all of the games tested except Final Fantasy XV that we have a score rather than an FPS because they like to be different.

So how did the two XFX RX590 Fatboys do in Crossfire? Well, it is best compared to the single card results. So for the quick breakdown, the XFX RX590 Fatboy did the following

1080p

1 Over 120 FPS

12 Over 60 FPS

3 Over 30

1440p

7 Over 60 FPS

9 Over 30 FPS

4k

8 Over 30 FPS

8 Under 30 FPS

So how does it compare? Well not so well honestly. So at 1080p, we gain one more over 120 FPS but none of the lower performing games moved up to the 60+ range. At 1440p there are 3 more in the 60 FPS range but two also moved down under 30 FPS now. Then at 4k two games are now over 60, two more are now over 30, and two less under 30. So 4k was an improvement but not enough to push this combo into a range that 4k is very recommended. At 1440p A majority of the games are playable now, but the downside is a few that were playable are now not. Then at 1080p, it was just one game moving up into the 120+ range so that isn’t really worth it.

Of course, we have all of the actual results as well and these help tell more of a store than the basic breakdown above. For starters 5 of the games I tested didn’t support Crossfire or Multi-GPU, that is a big number. With some of those, it actually was a net loss. Here is a list of the games that didn’t support it out of the box or with an option in the video settings. I say it that way because some games can have hacked profiles copied over so you might be able to gain support later with the work, but out of the box is what I’m worried about.

Final Fantasy XV

DOOM

Deus: Ex: Mankind Divided

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3

Far Cry 5