Fable Legends Early Preview: DirectX 12 Benchmark Analysis
by Ryan Smith, Ian Cutress & Daniel Williams on September 24, 2015 9:00 AM ESTGraphics Performance Comparison
With the background and context of the benchmark covered, we now dig into the data and see what we have to look forward to with DirectX 12 game performance. This benchmark has preconfigured batch files that will launch the utility at either 3840x2160 (4K) with settings at ultra, 1920x1080 (1080p) also on ultra, or 1280x720 (720p) with low settings more suited for integrated graphics environments.
When dealing with 3840x2160 resolution, the GTX 980 Ti has a single digit percentage lead over the AMD Fury X, but both are above the bare minimum of 30 FPS no matter what the CPU.
When dealing with the i5 and i7 at 1920x1080 ultra settings, the GTX 980 Ti still has that single digit percentage lead, but at Core i3 levels of CPU power the difference is next to zero, suggesting we are CPU limited even though the frame difference from i3 to i5 is minimal. If we look at the range of cards under the Core i7 at this point, the interesting thing here is that the GTX 970 just about hits that 60 FPS mark, while some of the older generation cards (7970/GTX 680) would require compromises in the settings to push it over the 60 FPS barrier at this resolution. The GTX 750 Ti doesn’t come anywhere close, suggesting that this game (under these settings) is targeting upper mainstream to lower high end cards. It would be interesting to see if there is an overriding game setting that ends up crippling this level of GPU.
At the 720p low settings, the Core i7 pushes everything above 60 FPS, but you need at least an AMD 7970/GTX 960 to start going for 120 FPS if only for high refresh rate panels. We are likely being held back by CPU performance as illustrated by the GTX 970 and GTX 980 Ti being practically tied and the R9 290X stepping ahead of the pack. This makes it interesting when we consider integrated graphics, which we might test for a later article. It is worth noting that at the low resolution, the R9 290X and Fury X pull out a minor lead over the NVIDIA cards. The Fury X expands this lead with the i5 and i3 configurations, just rolling over to the double digit percentage gains.
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Ian Cutress - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Please screenshot any issue like this you find and email it to us. :)Frenetic Pony - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
So interesting to note, for compute shader performance we see nvidia clearly in the lead, winning both compute and dynamic gi which here is compute based, once we get to pixel operations we see a clear lead for Amd, ala post processing, direct lighting and transparency. When we switch back to geometry, the gbuffer, Nvidia again leads. Interesting to see where each needs to catch up.NightAntilli - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Once again I wish AMD CPUs were included for the performance and scaling... Both the old FX CPUs and stuff like the Athlon 860k.Oxford Guy - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
They claimed that readers aren't interested in seeing FX benchmarked. That doesn't explain why like 8 APUs were included in the Broadwell review or whatever and not one decently-clocked FX.I also don't see why the right time to do Ashes wasn't shortly after ArsTechnica's article about it rather than giving it the GTX 960 "coming real soon" treatment.
NightAntilli - Sunday, September 27, 2015 - link
Considering that DX12 is supposed to greatly reduce CPU overhead and be able to scale well across multiple cores, this is one of the most interesting benchmarks that can be shown. But yeah. It seems like there's a political reason behind it.Iridium130m - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Shut hyperthreading off and run the tests again...be curious if the scores for the 6 core chip come up any...we may be in a situation where hyperthreading provides little benefit in this use case if all the logical cores are doing the exact same processing and bottlenecking on the physical resources underneath.Osjur - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
Dat 7970 vs 960 makes me have wtf moment.gamerk2 - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
Boy, I'm looking at those 4k Core i3, i5, and i7 numbers, and can't help but notice they're basically identical. Looks like the reduced overhead of DX12 is really going to benefit lower-tier CPUs, especially the Core i3 lineup.ruthan - Sunday, September 27, 2015 - link
Dont worry Intel would find the way, how to cripple i3, even more.Mugur - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
This game will be DX12 only since it's Microsoft, that's why its Windows 10 and Xbox One exclusivity.Where can I find some benchmarks with the new AMD driver and this Fable Legends?