Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DX12)

A veteran from both our 2016 and 2017 game lists, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation remains the DirectX 12 trailblazer, with developer Oxide Games tailoring and designing the Nitrous Engine around such low-level APIs. The game makes the most of DX12's key features, from asynchronous compute to multi-threaded work submission and high batch counts. And with full Vulkan support, Ashes provides a good common ground between the forward-looking APIs of today. Its built-in benchmark tool is still one of the most versatile ways of measuring in-game workloads in terms of output data, automation, and analysis; by offering such a tool publicly and as part-and-parcel of the game, it's an example that other developers should take note of.

Settings and methodology remain identical from its usage in the 2016 GPU suite. To note, we are utilizing the vanilla Ashes Classic Extreme graphical preset, which compares to the current one with MSAA dialed down from x4 to x2, as well as adjusting Texture Rank (MipsToRemove in settings.ini). For today, we are also utilizing the vanilla High and Standard presets.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - 1920x1080 - Extreme Quality

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - 1920x1080 - High Quality

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - 1920x1080 - Standard Quality

Ashes: Escalation - 99th Percentile - 1920x1080 - Extreme Quality

Ashes: Escalation - 99th Percentile - 1920x1080 - High Quality

Ashes: Escalation - 99th Percentile - 1920x1080 - Standard Quality

With Ashes, the GTX 1650 continues on trend, solidly slower than the RX 570 yet clearly a step up from predecessor 2GB cards.

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  • onbquo - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link

    Why is it nobody talking about coming 7nm Radeons mopping the floor in the 75W segment?
  • PeachNCream - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link

    Because no one has been able to benchmark said graphics cards so no one knows if something is going to mop floors or just draw polygons. (Personally, I'm in for a GPU that will mop my floors for me. I'd also like one that will mow the yard, wash the dishes, and take care of the laundry.)
  • onbquo - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link

    Good point but I seriously believe the next architecture Radeon built on 7nm could perform almost twice as fast than a RX 560 with 1024 CUs. Am I the only one hyped for 7nm graphics cards?
  • guidryp - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link

    You are making a pile of assumptions with no evidence.

    Process bumps aren't the big win that they once were. Radeon 7 is 7nm and it didn't get twice as fast. RTX2080 outperforms it while using less power.

    7nm is NOT a magic bullet. We need to wait and see what actually happens.
  • Cooe - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link

    More recent benchmarking actually shows the RVII with the performance edge vs the RTX 2080 (AMD just completely botched the launch drivers-wise, as isn't particularly uncommon for them) as many recent videos have shown, but you're totally passing over the fact that it uses the exact same Vega architecture as 14nm Vega 10 but manages to outperform it by around 30% while pulling LESS power than a V64. That's nearly a 40-50% boost in power efficiency per fps, with absolutely no arch changes beyond 2x additional memory controllers. Even if Navi only matches that kind of efficiency bump vs Polaris it'll still be looking really good just as long as they maintain their performance advantage as well.
  • guidryp - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link

    Better in one or two AMD favorable games, but not overall. Beating power of V64 is needed, but still doesn't come close to NVidia power usage.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link

    7nm TSMC isn't nearly as impressive as 5nm TSMC. 80% increase in density with 5nm. 7nm is a little bit sad, really. But, it saves companies money because it doesn't require nearly as much design rules modification, so porting existing 14nm stuff is much easier.
  • PeachNCream - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link

    I'm really looking forward to seeing what 7nm GPUs do once they hit the market, but I want to hold back on making judgements before we see what sorts of performance and power numbers emerge. I'm also more interested in mobile than desktop components because I have not put together or purchased a desktop PC in the past 5 years since I find laptops and phones a better fit in my living space and lifestyle.
  • nevcairiel - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link

    Personally, the only reason I would ever care about a 75W card is for video duties - and AMDs video decoding/encoding is significantly worse then Intels or NVIDIAs. So there is that.

    I would be excited if they were trying to make a high-end 7nm card that doesn't suck, but apparently its once again just low-power cards. same old same old. I'm bored already.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link

    "Personally, the only reason I would ever care about a 75W card is for video duties "

    Then the lack of B frame support in the encoder is a deal-breaker.

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