Image Quality Comparison & Medium Quality Performance
First let's do a quick IQ comparison of the presets used during testing.
Picking apart the visual quality differences between the 'Ultra' and 'Very High' quality presets is rather difficult. Frankly, they are so similar we don't see the point in going for Ultra. However taking it another notch down to Medium we can see quite a noticeable decline in visual quality.
Please note there is a High quality setting positioned between Medium and Very High but we found the performance difference between high and very high was minimal for some of the lower end GPUs.
Therefore, in an effort to give the mid-range GPUs a chance we went down to Medium. In short, there is less detail, especially on shadows and textures. Overall the game still looks decent and would be greatly improved with 2xMSAA.
Even with the Medium graphics quality preset, we find that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is extremely demanding. Last generation's mid-range offerings, such as the Radeon R9 380 and GeForce GTX 960, are only able to deliver playable performance. The GTX 960 in particular barely gets by with 34fps on average – pretty shocking given the resolution and quality settings. The R9 380 is much more respectable with a 45fps average. Some of you will be quick to note that the R9 380 and GTX 780 produced similar performance.
Meanwhile for an average of 60fps gamers will require the GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 470/480. It's clear that Mankind Divided is an AMD supported title as the Radeon GPUs make out very well. The Fury X can be found rubbing shoulders with the GTX 1070, while the GTX 980 and GTX 970 are beaten by pretty much any decent AMD GPU.