The Witcher 3

The third game in CD Projekt RED’s expansive RPG series, The Witcher 3 is our RPG benchmark of choice. Utilizing the company’s in-house engine, REDengine 3, The Witcher makes use of an array of DirectX 11 features, all of which combine to make the game both stunning and surprisingly GPU-intensive. Our benchmark is based on an action-heavy in-engine cutscene early in the game, and Hairworks is disabled.

The Witcher 3 - 2560x1440 - Ultra Quality (No Hairworks)

The Witcher 3 - 1920x1080 - Ultra Quality (No Hairworks)

In terms of absolute performance, I’m a bit surprised that the GTX 1060 can’t crack 60fps at 1080p. 57.6 isn’t too far off the mark, but for what’s otherwise meant to be NVIDIA’s ultimate 1080p gaming card, it’s not quite ultimate enough to hit 60fps on a year-old game.

In any case this does put GTX 1060 a bit farther behind the GTX 980 than usual, delivering around 94% of its high-end predecessor’s performance. Or to compare the card to GTX 960, it nets a 75% performance gain. Otherwise this also happens to be a game where the GTX 1060/1070 gap is a smidge larger than usual, with GTX 1060 delivering 70% of GTX 1070’s performance.

Finally, as for the RX 480 comparison, GTX 1060 is yet again solidly in the lead. Here we see it deliver 12-15% more performance than the 8GB RX 480, depending on the resolution.

Crysis 3 The Division
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  • osxandwindows - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Finally!.
    A timely review from anandtech.
  • osxandwindows - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Now, where is the HTC10 review, the new titan, and the note 7?
  • Ryan Smith - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    HTC 10: In progress (Josh is nearly done)
    Titan X Pascal: We weren't sampled
    Note7: No comment
  • ddriver - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    "Titan X Pascal: We weren't sampled"

    What do you expect? They send units to be reviewed for publicity, which requires the unit be reviewed immediately after it is received, and the review published the moment NDA expires. But if it takes you months after the official release to review stuff - why bother sending you samples? Keep on sloth gear and you might end up having to purchase all the hardware you want to review...
  • ddriver - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    And please don't go with the "but we go in depth" stuff - there is nothing preventing you from publishing detailed stuff later on. Because otherwise you are implying some absurdity like "we're too good for timely reviews" which is plain out silly.
  • zepi - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    I'm happy to read average results from techpowerup, guru3d on whatever random site I happen to find my way to.

    I come to Anandtech to find out WHY the cards perform the way they do, not to answer the question of HOW they perform.
  • ddriver - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Sure, because it is all about you happiness...
  • mmrezaie - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Well mine too. I do not care about others shallow reviews. I like how Anandtech goes deep about these reviews. Maybe it is a niche portion of visitors, but AT is being famous because of these reviews.
  • Fnnoobee - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Deep in reviews? They're not even doing they're test on the latest AMD Crimson drivers, 16.7.3, or even 16.7.2, which released almost a month ago. Yeah, real deep testing there. /s
  • mkaibear - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Ah, the irony of ddriver complaining that anandtech doesn't make him happy, then telling zepi off for pointing out anandtech makes him happy...

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