The AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive: The 2700X, 2700, 2600X, and 2600 Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 19, 2018 9:00 AM ESTRise of the Tomb Raider
One of the newest games in the gaming benchmark suite is Rise of the Tomb Raider (RoTR), developed by Crystal Dynamics, and the sequel to the popular Tomb Raider which was loved for its automated benchmark mode. But don’t let that fool you: the benchmark mode in RoTR is very much different this time around.
Visually, the previous Tomb Raider pushed realism to the limits with features such as TressFX, and the new RoTR goes one stage further when it comes to graphics fidelity. This leads to an interesting set of requirements in hardware: some sections of the game are typically GPU limited, whereas others with a lot of long-range physics can be CPU limited, depending on how the driver can translate the DirectX 12 workload.
Where the old game had one benchmark scene, the new game has three different scenes with different requirements: Geothermal Valley (1-Valley), Prophet’s Tomb (2-Prophet) and Spine of the Mountain (3-Mountain) - and we test all three. These are three scenes designed to be taken from the game, but it has been noted that scenes like 2-Prophet shown in the benchmark can be the most CPU limited elements of that entire level, and the scene shown is only a small portion of that level. Because of this, we report the results for each scene on each graphics card separately.
Graphics options for RoTR are similar to other games in this type, offering some presets or allowing the user to configure texture quality, anisotropic filter levels, shadow quality, soft shadows, occlusion, depth of field, tessellation, reflections, foliage, bloom, and features like PureHair which updates on TressFX in the previous game.
Again, we test at 1920x1080 and 4K using our native 4K displays. At 1080p we run the High preset, while at 4K we use the Medium preset which still takes a sizable hit in frame rate.
It is worth noting that RoTR is a little different to our other benchmarks in that it keeps its graphics settings in the registry rather than a standard ini file, and unlike the previous TR game the benchmark cannot be called from the command-line. Nonetheless we scripted around these issues to automate the benchmark four times and parse the results. From the frame time data, we report the averages, 99th percentiles, and our time under analysis.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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Maxiking - Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - link
"I just finished running Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmarks, 1080p, very high preset, FXAA.Unpatched:
Mountain Peak: 131.48 FPS (min: 81.19 max: 197.02)
Syria: 101.99 FPS (min: 62.73, max: 122.24)
Geothermal Valley: 98.93 FPS (min:76.48, max: 117.00)
Overall score: 111.31 FPS
Windows patch only:
Mountain Peak: 135.34 FPS (min: 38.21 max: 212.84)
Syria: 102.54 FPS (min: 44.22, max: 144.03)
Geothermal Valley: 96.36 FPS (min:41.35, max: 148.46)
Overall score: 111.93 FPS
Windows patch and BIOS update:
Mountain Peak: 134.01 FPS (min: 59.91 max: 216.16)
Syria: 101.68 FPS (min: 38.95, max: 143.44)
Geothermal Valley: 97.55 FPS (min:46.18, max: 143.97)
Overall score: 111.62 FPS
Average framerates don't seem affected."
From the link you posted, you got rekt by yourself.
Ranger1065 - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
Nicely done Mr Aardvark. That made me smile.mikael.skytter - Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - link
Thanks for a great review. Any chance it would be possible to look into how SpeedShift 2 compares to AMD:s solution for short burst loads and clock ramp-up?Thanks!
koekkoe - Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - link
My favorite part in the article: fsfasd.Meow.au - Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - link
I’ve visited the comments section a few times since the publication. As a psychologist in training, I’ve found it interesting as the initial complaints about this review were reasonable (it doesn’t match other sites), but by page 45 are now bordering on paranoia and conspiracy theories. The conspiracy theories are all the more puzzling when the simplest and most reasonable explanation is that the spectre patch has punished Intel processors rather severely. I’ve found trying to argue against conspiracy theories, be it the moon landing or anti-vaxers, to be singularly ineffective.The more you provide scientific evidence and rationality, the harder conspiracy theorists dig in their heels and defend their original position. Our natural confirmatory bias to only seek evidence which confirms pre-existing beliefs seems to be a flaw built into the wiring of the human brain. Psychologically protective? Yes... it’s nice to always be right. Useful for doing science? No.
I’d be delighted (and shocked) in a week’s time to learn of massive incompetence or a cover up. I expect there to be some interesting and unexpected details. But I’m guessing no evidence will be found for the commonly repeated conspiracy theories (spectre effect is minimal, heatsink throttling, bias against intel, etc.). But I guess that will just be further evidence there really is a conspiracy... whatever.
Keep up the good work guys. A long time reader.
RafaelHerschel - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
I think you need more training, psychologist in training, because it seems that you can't detect your own personal bias. As you stated yourself, the original complaints are quite reasonable. The problem is that AnandTech is not addressing these complaints in a timely manner and is mostly interested in damage control.The fact that some complaints are unreasonable doesn't change the fact.
Many other reviewers have applied all relevant patches, it is poor form to assume that they haven't. But I understand why you question their competence or integrity. It's cognitive dissonance. You trust AnandTech. In this case AnandTech is an outlier and has not clarified the unique results of their gaming test. Your trust in AnandTech is therefore not logical, and yet you consider yourself a logical person.
Therefore, you have decided that the 'logical' explanation is that all other reviewers haven't applied the patches... whatever.
divertedpanda - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
Other reviewers admitted having not patched down to the bios since some used mobos where patches were not yet released.TrackSmart - Thursday, April 26, 2018 - link
This comment by RafaelHerschel doesn't make sense. The person being maligned said exactly this: "I expect there to be some interesting and unexpected details. But I’m guessing no evidence will be found for the commonly repeated conspiracy theories..."And he/she was EXACTLY CORRECT in that prediction.
Your complaint, on the other hand, seems disingenuous. Anandtech's staff immediately flagged their gaming results as anomalous (on just about every page of the article). Then they dug deep to figure out what happened, which takes time to test, confirm, and then publish about). Then about 5 days later they posted updated results (2700x and i7-8700k, so far) and a VERY DETAILED explanation of what happened.
So.... What's the problem again? That sometimes unforeseen test parameters can lead to different results? That can happen. The only question is how was the situation handled. In this case, I think reasonably well under the circumstances.
mapesdhs - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
Grud knows now what "timely manner" is supposed to mean these days. Perhaps RafaelHerschel would only be happy if AT can go back in time and change the article before it's published.Meow.au, re what you said, Stefan Molyneux has some great pieces on these issues on YT.
schlock - Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - link
Why aren't we running DDR4-3200 across all systems? It may go a small ways to explaining the small discrepancy in intel performance ...