NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Review

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DLSS 3 in Cyberpunk 2077 and F1 2022

NVIDIA provided us with beta paths for some games that enable DLSS 3 support to try out. These games will get public patches that enable DLSS 3 support in the future. Right now, there are some bugs to work through. However, we had just enough time to try out two of the games and do a little bit of testing for this review before launch. This is not a comprehensive review of DLSS 3, simply a “first try” kind of thing, where we will show you some performance advantages with DLSS 3 plus testing some latency. We do plan to further evaluate DLSS 3 in the future when official public support is available in these games.

Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling screenshot

There are some requirements and caveats to enabling and using DLSS 3 Frame Generation. One of the first requirements is that Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling must be enabled in Windows 10/11. This option is usually enabled by default when you install your video card and drivers. However, if it is not, you will want to enable it so that Frame Generation will work. A second requirement is that DLSS 3 frame generation only works in DX12 API games. A third caveat is that VSYNC is not compatible with Frame Generation, this means you cannot have VSYNC turned on. NVIDIA recommends utilizing GSYNC instead or leaving VSYNC off if you cannot. We have VSYNC disabled.

While NVIDIA recommends setting “Performance” mode DLSS 3 at 4K, thankfully you can still set whatever quality mode you want with DLSS 3, so you can utilize “Quality” mode for the best image quality with DLSS 3 Frame Generation. This is the quality mode we utilized for testing, as we do for all game testing DLSS performance. We also utilized NVIDIA FrameView to benchmark 1% lows and AvgPCLatency (latency in ms). And remember, NVIDIA Reflex is an integral part of DLSS 3 frame generation in order to reduce the latency that it adds, so you must have NVIDIA Reflex enabled in the game.

Cyberpunk 2077

In the game settings of this new beta of Cyberpunk 2077, there is the NVIDIA Reflex option, which must be On (you have no choice on that with DLSS 3) for DLSS 3 Frame Generation to work. Therefore we also tested performance without DLSS also with NVIDIA Reflex turned on so it is apples-to-apples. Then you head over to the main graphics menu where you can toggle DLSS on or off. Once DLSS is on, you can separately toggle the Frame Generation. Frame Generation is what DLSS 3 is, so if you do not have Frame Generation turned on you are essentially just running the upscaling part of DLSS, DLSS 1, or DLSS 2. When you enable Frame Generation you have just enabled DLSS 3. You can also separately set the quality level of the upscaling portion, we use Quality mode.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS 3 Frame Generation Performance Graph

Note that we are not using the benchmark in the game, we are using a custom run-through that is more representative of the actual gameplay experience. In the above graph, we are showing the performance advantage that DLSS and DLSS 3 Frame Generation adds at 4K and “Ultra” settings in the game on the GeForce RTX 4090 FE. Without DLSS, the standard performance is 52.2 FPS, when we enable regular DLSS upscaling at Quality mode that rises 42% to 74.5 FPS. Then, we can enable Frame Generation, which enables “DLSS 3” that boosts framerates another 53% over just the DLSS upscaling, to now 113.8 FPS average. DLSS 3 versus no DLSS is a 118% boost in performance.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS 3 Frame Generation Performance Graph

In the above graph, we have upped the graphics settings to the highest setting possible, the Psycho Ray Tracing option at 4K. Without DLSS performance is at 38.6 FPS, and by enabling regular DLSS upscaling performance increases by 73% to 67 FPS. When we enable Frame Generation, enabling “DLSS 3” performance increases by another 55% to 103.5 FPS. DLSS 3 versus no DLSS is a 168% boost in performance.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS 3 Frame Generation Latency Graph

Now we are looking at something unique, we are looking at latency utilizing NVIDIA FrameView’s AvgPCLatency result in ms. At 4K and “Ultra” settings in Cyberpunk 2077, we have NVIDIA Reflex Enabled for all tests above so they are apples-to-apples. At No DLSS the latency is 44ms (note that without NVIDIA Reflex the latency here is 69.9ms). Now, when we enable regular DLSS that latency goes down, and improves to just 33.7ms which is a nice improvement. However, when we now enable DLSS 3 frame generation the latency goes back up to 44.8ms. This shows that DLSS 3 frame generation adds latency over regular DLSS upscaling. NVIDIA Reflex is helping to minimize it, but it will never be as low as just regular DLSS upscaling reduction.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Cyberpunk 2077 DLSS 3 Frame Generation Latency Graph

Now in this graph, we are running Psycho Ray Tracing at 4K in Cyberpunk 2077, again with NVIDIA Reflex enabled at all settings. Without DLSS the latency is 52ms (without Reflex it was 90.7ms). When we enable DLSS upscaling only that is reduced a lot down to 36.6ms with NVIDIA Reflex. However, this does go back up a bit when we enable DLSS 3 frame generation. However, to DLSS 3’s credit, the overall latency is still slightly lower and better than without DLSS period, but it’s nowhere near what it is with DLSS upscaling only. Also to DLSS 3’s credit, the latency is way better than without DLSS, and no NVIDIA Reflex at all, since it was 90.7ms without Reflex, so DLSS 3 frame generation is better in latency than NO DLSS with Reflex OFF.

F1 2022

F1 2022 DLSS 3 Frame Generation Screenshot

There is also beta support for DLSS 3 frame generation F1 2022. Unfortunately, we could not get latency results at this time. To enable DLSS 3 frame generation it is simply a toggle, the same as Cyberpunk 2077 was. If you don’t have it turned on, then you are just using DLSS upscaling.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition F1 2022 DLSS 3 Frame Generation Performance Graph

In F1 2022 we are running at 4K and “Ultra High” Ray Tracing, so the game is very demanding. Without DLSS performance is at 79 FPS. When we enable regular DLSS upscaling at Quality mode performance increases by 66% up to 131 FPS. Once we enable DLSS 3 Frame Generation on top of that, performance increases by another 30% up to 170 FPS. This really makes 4K and max Ray Tracing playable. DLSS 3 versus No DLSS is a 115% performance increase.

Since both of these games only have Beta support right now, consider the final results when these are released officially may change. There are more games coming, and really more testing overall will be needed, and we plan to do more with DLSS 3 in the future.

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Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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