Total War: Warhammer II (DX11)

Last in our 2018 game suite is Total War: Warhammer II, built on the same engine of Total War: Warhammer. While there is a more recent Total War title, Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia, that game was built on the 32-bit version of the engine. The first TW: Warhammer was a DX11 game was to some extent developed with DX12 in mind, with preview builds showcasing DX12 performance. In Warhammer II, the matter, however, appears to have been dropped, with DX12 mode still marked as beta, but also featuring performance regression for both vendors.

It's unfortunate because Creative Assembly themselves have acknowledged the CPU-bound nature of their games, and with re-use of game engines as spin-offs, DX12 optimization would have continued to provide benefits, especially if the future of graphics in RTS-type games will lean towards low-level APIs.

There are now three benchmarks with varying graphics and processor loads; we've opted for the Battle benchmark, which appears to be the most graphics-bound.

Total War: Warhammer II - 3840x2160 - Ultra QualityTotal War: Warhammer II - 2560x1440 - Ultra QualityTotal War: Warhammer II - 1920x1080- Ultra Quality

Again, the RTX 2070 slots into familiar position: faster than the GTX 1070 by 30 to 40%, yet only around 10% or so ahead of the GTX 1080. Even if it were to catch up to the GTX 1080 Ti, the RTX 2080 would need to make ground as well.

At 1080p, the cards quickly run into the CPU bottleneck, which is to be expected with top-tier video cards and the CPU intensive nature of RTS'es. Even still, the Founders Edition specs, which don't materially change the RTX 2070's positioning, is helpful for the RTX 2080 in pipping the GTX 1080 Ti.

F1 2018 Compute & Synthetics
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  • Jon Tseng - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link

    Anandtech review out on time? What is the world coming to???
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link

    That was a nate review. Ehm, I mean neat.
  • ianmills - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link

    Oh, I get it!
  • bug77 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link

    Oh, nate! I mean, oh neat!
  • dollarshort - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link

    Technically a day late if you count Kyle B's review ;)
  • Jon Tseng - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link

    BUT I WANT MY REVIEWS TO HAVE LOTS OF EGREGIOUS TECHNICAL DETAIL AND DROP 2 WEEKS LATE! :-p
  • imaheadcase - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link

    Apparently its come to flying around the globe to tech conferences, reporting on news than actual product.
  • mkaibear - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link

    Waa! Waa! My free entertainment isn't exactly what I want it to be, time to get on my keyboard and complain about it.

    Grow up. Or go elsewhere. Anandtech is doing a great job given the constraints they operate under.
  • Diji1 - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link

    Waa! Waa! This comment isn't exactly what I want it to be, time to get on my keyboard and complain about it.

    Grow up. Or go elsewhere. imaheadcase is doing a great job given the constraints they operate under.
  • GreenReaper - Thursday, October 18, 2018 - link

    Like... being a headcase? >_>

    Sometimes the flying is part of getting the product to review. Other times... well, trade shows and the like are sometimes compensation for the level of pay provided by an online news reporting gig. This isn't the glory days of Personal Computer World, with issues 600-pages thick with ads.

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