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 9 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of if turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. In total, each video card is tested 48 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier to read 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.

So how did the XFX MERC 319 RX 6800 XT perform? Well in 1080p it did well with 11 of the results coming in over 120 FPS and the other 5 were all over 60 FPS and most were on the high end. With the resolution up to 1440p half were over 120 FPS and the other half were in that same 60-119 range. Then finally at 4k, we have the first two results that were below 60 with 13 over 60 and still 1 over 120 FPS. For comparison, the aftermarket RTX 3080 I just tested had the same result at 4k but did better at 1440p with two more and one more at 1080p.

Looking at the actual results we can start to see why the Merc 319 fell behind a little in the previous graphs. There were a few results like Watch Dogs Legion on the high detail setting which are clearly CPU limited. In that one with 116 FPS at 1440p, I have no doubt the 1080p result would be well over 120 FPS with an even faster CPU than the 3900X on our testbench. The 1440p result on Dawn of War 3 was tragic as well with the 6800 XT well ahead at 4K but struggling in both 1440p and 1080p, but the 1440p result came in .09 below 120 FPS. I ran all of these multiple times with the same results. Overall though the 6800 XT does come in slightly behind the RTX 3080, especially at ultra detail. But it does much better at the bumped down detail settings like in World War Z at medium detail, Metro Exodus at normal detail, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider at medium detail where it went from being behind both 3080’s at the ultra detail to being ahead with the detail stepped down slightly. That said at 4k it still came out on top 6 times with two more results where it beat out the Founders Edition but not the overclocked RTX 3080 Suprim X.