Ray Tracing Performance
We are going to focus on Ray Tracing 1440p gameplay performance with the overclocked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition video card. We will include DLSS and FSR performance on the same graph in the games that are supported. We will use DLSS on NVIDIA GPUs and FSR on AMD GPUs. For video card comparisons we are using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition video card and an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT video card.
Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 was released in February 2022 on the PC and uses Techland’s C-Engine. The game supports Ray Tracing, DLSS and FSR. This game supports Ray Tracing environmental effects including Ray Traced Soft Shadows, Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion, Ray Traced Global Illumination, and Ray Traced Reflections. We utilize the built-in preset option to set “HIGH QUALITY RAYTRACING” which enables the games highest graphics settings plus the environmental effects explained above at the highest values. The game is run in DX12 Ultimate mode with ASYNC Compute turned on. For our benchmark, we are using a custom manual run-through at the end of the game hopping between rooftops, as well as free-roaming on the ground city level, as well as a forested area, in the daylight.
In Dying Light 2 at 1440p with Ultra Ray Tracing overclocking the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition has improved performance by 8% bringing it up to near 60FPS. At this level of performance, the game is very playable at 1440p with maximum Ray Tracing on this video card. Enabling DLSS further improves performance by 54% making it extremely smooth at 90FPS with the overclock. The DLSS performance overclocked has improved by 7% versus not overclocked. At 58FPS the RTX 3090 FE is 8% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti and 73% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry 6 was released in October of 2021 and uses the Dunia Engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and turned on. We utilize the “Ultra” graphics preset which sets all options to the highest game settings. This game supports Ray Tracing via two DXR settings, one for Reflections and the other for Shadows, we turn on both for testing. This game supports FSR upscaling.
In Far Cry 5, at 1440p, even with DXR enabled we have run into a CPU bottleneck on these high-end video cards. Overclocking did improve performance slightly, but not a lot, and FSR does very little for performance across the board on these video cards because we are very CPU limited. Remember, FSR renders at a lower resolution and upscales, so it is even more CPU bottlenecked than native resolution. This means at 1440p, in this game, overclocking the RTX 3090 is not really going to help you in performance. You’ll see a bigger gain at 4K, however. This game is very playable at over 100FPS on every video card here at 1440p with DXR enabled.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 was released in December of 2020 and uses the REDengine 4. We have the game patched to version 1.52 and perform a long manual run-through driving in the game’s open world. We test using the Graphics Preset option to set graphics settings. We use the Ray Tracing Graphics Preset of either: “Ray Tracing: Low”, or “Ray Tracing: Medium” or “Ray Tracing: Ultra” as indicated. This game supports DLSS and FSR.
In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p with Ultra Ray Tracing overclocking the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition has improved performance by 8%. Even at this increase, the game is still not playable until we enable DLSS. With DLSS enabled performance increases by 60% and is very playable at 76FPS average. The overclocked DLSS performance is 8% faster than without the overclock. At 47.9FPS the overclocked RTX 3090 FE is 9% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti and 76% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Watch Dogs Legion
Watch Dogs Legion was released on the PC in October of 2020 and uses the Disrupt game engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and enabled for testing. We use the built-in graphics preset of “Ultra” for testing. We utilize the “Ultra” preset quality option for Ray Tracing. This game supports DLSS upscaling.
In Watch Dogs Legion at 1440p with Ultra Ray Tracing overclocking the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition has improved performance by 10%, putting it at the top in this game. Enabling DLSS has improved performance by 32% making this game smooth close to 90FPS with Ray Tracing. The overclocked DLSS versus non-overclocked DLSS performance uplift is 6%. At 66FPS the game is very playable and performance is 8% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti and 38% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Metro Exodus Enhanced
Metro Exodus Enhanced is being run with Shading Quality at “Extreme” and Ray Tracing at “Ultra.” This is a demanding game, that heavily focuses on Ray Tracing utilization, including Global Illumination. We are utilizing the built-in benchmark.
In Metro Exodus Enhanced overclocking the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition has improved performance by 8%, bringing it up to a playable performance even without DLSS. With DLSS performance is improved by another 33%. The DLSS performance versus non-overclocked DLSS performance is 7% faster than not overclocked. At 66FPS the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 FE is 7% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti and 32% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT.