Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarked

[Steve]

The day has finally arrived: Cyberpunk 2077 is here and the massively popular game appears to be a huge success. This benchmark feature will cover Cyberpunk 2077 performance with all current and previous-gen GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2164-cyberpunk-benchmarks/

Graphics Cards Used for Testing:

• MSI Gaming X GeForce GTX 1650 [4GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce GTX 1650 Super [4GB]
• Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5500 XT [4GB]
• Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5500 XT [8GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce GTX 1660 [6GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce GTX 1660 Super [6GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce GTX 1660 Ti [6GB]
• Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5600 XT [6GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce RTX 2060 [6GB]
• PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 5700 [8GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce RTX 2060 Super [8GB]
• AMD Radeon VII [16GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce RTX 2070 [8GB]
• PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 5700 XT [8GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce RTX 2070 Super [8GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce RTX 2080 [8GB]
• MSI Gaming X GeForce RTX 2080 Super [8GB]
• MSI Gaming X  Trio GeForce RTX 3060 Ti [8GB]
• MSI Gaming X  Trio GeForce RTX 2080 Ti [11GB]
• MSI Gaming X  Trio GeForce RTX 3070 [8GB]
• PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 6800 [16GB]
• MSI Gaming X  Trio GeForce RTX 3080 [10GB]
• PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 6800 XT [16GB]
• MSI Gaming X  Trio GeForce RTX 3090 [24GB]
• AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT [16GB]

 

[Vulcanproject]

The game needs DLSS to run well with good settings over 1080p. I personally think the game looks great on just 'medium' settings, but at 1440p that still means you need some decent horsepower just to push over 45FPS most of the time. 5700XT barely does the job! For me Freesync and Gsync solve a lot of issues in terms of smoothness.

Anyone who has an RTX card is in pole position. If high frame rate is the goal and you forgo ray tracing, DLSS is where it is at to get 60FPS+ on this game. A RTX2060 Super with DLSS posts decent numbers at 1440p.

Without it AMD and Nvidia Pascal just can't compete.

Saying all that, for PC gamers turning up their nose at medium settings then they should have a look at the car crash that is the console versions. PS4 is 720p, Ps4 Pro is 1080p most of the time, 25FPS is entirely normal and the game is basically equivalent to 'low' with severe cutbacks on all of them.

A 4790k and a GTX1060 batters them beyond belief. Perspective.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I’m running Cyberpunk on my 3090 with all Ray Tracing settings turned up, but I’m playing on a Alienware curved 34” Gaming monitor at 1440p until I can upgrade to Alienware’s 38” 4K monitor.

The majority of the market is playing on a 1080p or 1440p monitor and as long as they have a 2060 or better, they should have no issues with detail turned way up and RTX ON.

I’ve had just 2 bug experiences:

#1 in a car chase, my shotgun disappeared from my hand while I shot at attacking drones.

#2 some inventory displays took so long to boot, I thought the game crashed.

Originally I was on the fence about this game and I was afraid that it was going to disappoint me. I can honestly say that this game hasn’t disappointed me at all and I’ve been amazed by the experience they’ve crafted here.

I give my experience as 9/10.

The GUI needs more explanation for crafting. It reminds me of when I played Fallout4 and I didn’t understand how to build a settlement until basically the end of the game. Had I known how to build up my settlement and trade lines throughout the game and how to manage items it would have made the gameplay a lot easier.

My major issue is that this game should have been made specifically for the PC and they should not have tried to port it so early. That would have allowed them to get it out of the door months ago and they could have focused the ports on the PlayStation 5 and and Xbox series X.

This game is basically unplayable on the original Xbox One and PS4.

This game barely works that well on Xbox one X or PlayStation 4. If they had targeted series X PS5 they would have created the best possible experience at the sacrifice of a few gamers not being able to play itbut at least everyone who played it would have gotten a similar quality experience.

 

[Achaios]

Don't care/won't play.

 

[R00sT3R]

On my PC (9900K, 32GB RAM & RTX 2080) I can play @ 1440p with all settings at High & (where available) Ultra, inc RT, with DLSS set to 'Quality' at a locked 30fps...so far.

The 'Psycho' setting in Ray Tracing is off limits though, that drops my frame rate down to mid 20's.

My GPU usage is constantly above 80%, so there maybe parts of the game that will push it to its very limits and cause a drop below 30fps, but I've yet to see it.

I'm guessing if I upgraded to a 3080, I'd be able to run at the same settings but at 4K...not sure its worth the money, TBH.

 

[Endymio]

I’m running Cyberpunk on my 3090 with all Ray Tracing settings turned up, but I’m playing on a Alienware curved 34” Gaming monitor at 1440p until I can upgrade ...

That's the curved monitor that you say makes the card run faster? With that feature, I'm surprised you want to upgrade at all.

 

[Thannos]

On my current PC (i7-6850k @ 4.4GHz, 32GB 3200MHz 18CL RAM & 3060Ti) I was playing at 4K with DLSS on Balanced mode and Ultra settings and was pretty much locked at 60fps with 1% dips to 58fps. This is on my 32" 4k 60Hz BenQ monitor with VRR enabled.

It is silky smooth, but I can't wait to finish building my upgraded rig with a Ryzen 5900x and 32GB 3600MHz CL16 RAM to see how that will impact it and I'm pretty sure my current CPU is bottlenecking the 3060Ti.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

That's the curved monitor that you say makes the card run faster? With that feature, I'm surprised you want to upgrade at all.

Have you seen Alienware’s new 38”?

 

[veLa]

Definitely making the RX 5000 series and RTX 2000 series feel noticeably last gen. I haven't purchased it yet, but I anticipate doing so in the next week or two when I have a little more downtime.

 

[Lounds]

I'd be interested to see how this works on older cards. RX570/580 vs 1060 3GB/6GB.

 

[BSim500]

That's how Cyberpunk 2077 performs on modern GPUs, and we’ve gotta say given how visually breathtaking the game is, the performance is justified for an open-world title.

Hmm. I've looked at a ton of screenshots taken on "Max" and whilst the character models in particular look good up close, I wouldn't call many of the environmental textures "breathtaking" relative to the fairly poor performance. Example - are the one-block away skyscraper (Softsys building) windows supposed to look much uglier / plasticy than those we had 9 years ago in Deus Ex:HR (2011)?...

I'm really not getting the "this game totally deserves to run this bad because of the visuals" hype in quite a number of "actual gameplay" scenes outside of a few select HUD-less PR shots on GOG / Steam pages... It sounds more like poor optimisation as a result of being spread across too many new + old consoles platforms combined with not wanting to "reinvent the wheel" customising per platform.

 

[Porkous]

So much ray tracing eye candy was promised that I reckon the game's own backed lighting can easily be confused for some of that feature.

"ray traced lighting" barely seems to justify the price. Looking at this:

Overall the image already looks impressive without that effect, and the effect itself can be easily confused if you don't reckon where the light source is. If you want to look with a critic's eye, ray tracing needs a lot more horse power than these cards provide in this aspect, and the little impact just shows the flaws of the added effect itself.

A tint of gray that appears in a corner, or that little gray shade on the boxes is kind of relative. If the box is shinier or cleaner, it does appear brighter by itself.
Lights were backed in the scene by the developer, so it is their expression, and a few effects don't seem to justify the price and the marketing this generation. if is a matter of taste, and not of necessity, any eye candy is welcomed, though.

PS. The game is available on GeForce Now service.

 

[veLa]

I'd be interested to see how this works on older cards. RX570/580 vs 1060 3GB/6GB.

Agreed. Considering the RX 590 and GTX 1060 are listed as options for recommended graphics cards on Steam, I felt as though cards like the RX 570/580/590 were noticeably absent from the benchmarks.

Although from what we've seen, we can conclude that those cards will all struggle if you crank the settings and resolution up.

 

[Prosercunus]

I turned DLSS performance on with my RTX 3070 and I get more like 75-85 FPS outside and around 90's or higher indoors. I think you do get some blurry effects doing this, but they are offset in some ways I haven't experimented with yet.

 

[ZackL04]

No 1070/80 or Vega results?

My guess is a Vega 64 would “do well” in this game...

 

[Nobina]

DLSS is the definetely the feature to have. Game looks great, I'd put it on High before Medium, the difference is barely noticable anyway and I would stay away from ray tracing since it eats at your framerate for free.

 

[Shadowboxer]

This is the third game I have experienced where RT is worth turning on, after Metro Exodus and Minecraft. It’s odd you don’t notice a huge amount turning RT on but if you turn it off you miss it straightaway. RT has come a long way, 2 years ago in BFV it gave us some crappy reflections for about 50fps penalty. Now it changes the look and feel of the entire experience! I’m using an RTX 2080 @1440p and I’m able to play with RT ultra and DLSS performance mode giving me about 60-70fps. If I change it to balanced it runs about 45-55, I still haven’t decided which mode I prefer.

Without DLSS this game wouldn’t be playable with RT imo.

 

[Axle Grease]

Where are the results for the 1080 ti?? Was it not popular compared to the other cards tested?

 

[Avro Arrow]

Wow Steve, you really went above and beyond! Cheers for that!

The craziest thing about all of this is that when they started work on this game, the Radeon HD 7970 was the most powerful video card in the world.

Maybe for $hits and giggles, Steve could try to just make the game load with an HD 7970.

 

[Avro Arrow]

No 1070/80 or Vega results?

My guess is a Vega 64 would “do well” in this game...

Where are the results for the 1080 ti?? Was it not popular compared to the other cards tested?

Steve specifically addressed this in the article:
"This first feature will cover Cyberpunk 2077 performance with all current and previous generation GPUs from AMD and Nvidia."
And with good reason too:
"So in order to create this article we’ve made nearly 500 benchmark runs, each lasting 60 seconds. Forget about sleep... "All work and no play makes Steve a dull boy.""
He's only human and it's quite clear that most of the cards that are 2 generations old and older aren't going to give very interesting results in this title. I believe that the GTX 1080 Ti would be the exception to this as it tends to perform about as well as an RTX 2070 Super but if Steve included that, you'd have people whining about other cards as well like the GTX 1060/70/80, the RX 470/570/580/590, the R9 Fury/Fury-X and the GTX 980/980 Ti.

He has to draw the line somewhere. The last time I saw him do something like this, his eyes were all bloodshot in his Hardware Unboxed video. He was clearly ready to drop.

 

[konondrum]

Hey guys, thanks for all your hard work, it is appreciated.
I know you had extremely tight deadlines here and a ton of work, but your choice of GPUs here is.... a little odd?
Like why bench a 1650 when it's below recommendations? And why bench all 3 variations of the 1660? You could have saved yourselves some work and still included 1070s and 580s which are still incredibly popular today.
I am a 1070 owner, and I can kinda guess where it would be on this chart, but it seems to me it would have been a much more useful data point than the 1660ti for example.
Anyways, thanks again for your hard work. Get some sleep.

 

[tembew]

No CPU tests?

 

[neeyik]

@konondrum @tembew - from the article itself (my bolding)

This first feature will cover Cyberpunk 2077 performance with all current and previous generation GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.

Then on the coming days, we'll be providing a detailed look at ray tracing and DLSS performance as well as some in-game quality comparisons, and possibly a third article will look at older GPU generations and CPU benchmarks as well. So plenty more content to come.

 

[glenn0411]

Don't care/won't play.

then dont comment

 

[mgilbert]

DLSS is a gimmick. It's just upscaling, so why even bother? Just play at the lower resolution, without upscaling, to start with. Looks like those of us running older cards, like the RX480 and 580, are out of luck. Maybe we can play at 720p. Doesn't matter to me, though. I won't pay the obscene prices they ask for modern games anyway. I'll wait a year or two, until the price comes way down.