Gaming Tests: GTA 5

The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA to help optimize the title. At this point GTA V is super old, but still super useful as a benchmark – it is a complicated test with many features that modern titles today still struggle with. With rumors of a GTA 6 on the horizon, I hope Rockstar make that benchmark as easy to use as this one is.

GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.

We are using the following settings:

  • 720p Low, 1440p Low, 4K Low, 1080p Max

The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence, and the title thankfully spits out frame time data. The benchmark can also be called from the command line, making it very easy to use.

There is one funny caveat with GTA. If the CPU is too slow, or has too few cores, the benchmark loads, but it doesn’t have enough time to put items in the correct position. As a result, for example when running our single core Sandy Bridge system, the jet ends up stuck at the middle of an intersection causing a traffic jam. Unfortunately this means the benchmark never ends, but still amusing.

AnandTech Low Resolution
Low Quality
Medium Resolution
Low Quality
High Resolution
Low Quality
Medium Resolution
Max Quality
Average FPS
95th Percentile

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

Gaming Tests: Gears Tactics Gaming Tests: Red Dead Redemption 2
Comments Locked

339 Comments

View All Comments

  • Andrew LB - Sunday, December 13, 2020 - link

    5800x @ 3.6-4.7ghz draws 219w and hits 82'c and locked at 4.7ghz its 231w and 88'c.

    Thats hotter than my i7-10700k @ 5.1ghz all core locked.

    https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11...
  • Thunder 57 - Monday, April 26, 2021 - link

    This comment didn't age well...
  • AndyMclamb - Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - link

    Rip AMD oner year later Intel destroys AMD with Alder Lake
  • jeremyshaw - Thursday, November 5, 2020 - link

    Yes! All I wanted to see was on the Cache and Latency parts - the unified cache allows 6 core and 12 core setups without the penalties of having partial CCXs!
  • JfromImaginstuff - Thursday, November 5, 2020 - link

    Wow, just wow,
    Intel, hang in there you'll get there eventually
  • PandaBear - Friday, November 6, 2020 - link

    In 2023 maybe.
  • Spunjji - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link

    It could be as soon as 2022 that they become properly competitive on power and performance, depending on how TSMC 5nm and Zen 4 shake out for AMD.

    Rocket Lake ought to at least given them presence in mid-range gaming, if you can stomach the power...
  • 5j3rul3 - Thursday, November 5, 2020 - link

    No Microsoft Filght Simulator 2020 Test?
  • 5j3rul3 - Thursday, November 5, 2020 - link

    MFS 2020 is the great to test CPU performance in game
  • gagegfg - Thursday, November 5, 2020 - link

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/16214/amd-zen-3-ryz...

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now