RTX and DLSS

Being an RTX card I also like checking out the performance of some of Nvidia’s features. Namely the ray tracing performance and the performance improvements you can see by using DLSS combined with the tensor cores. My first test goes back to our synthetic benchmarks with 3DMark where I check out their Port Royal benchmark. This is the one test that also has AMD Ray Tracing support which is great for getting a look at how different cards including older non-RTX cards perform. The TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti SUPER ties with the RX 7900 XTX here with the overclocked 7900 XTX ahead and the stock-clocked 7900 XTX behind it. The RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 are still way out in front here but the improvement for the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER gave a nice performance bump that helped pass up the RTX 3090 Ti as well.

 3DMark also has added in a few feature tests, one being a look at DLSS performance. For this one, I have the resolution set to 4K and I test with all three versions of DLSS as well as with it off completely. All DLSS are set to their performance setting as well to keep the results comparable. This gives us a great look at the performance improvements that DLSS has given with DLSS 3 also including frame generation. The TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is sitting below the RTX 4080 and ahead of the older but still powerful RTX 3080 Ti here. The big story though is how LDSS improved on the base average FPS of 33.96 up to 65 FPS for DLSS 1, 89 FPS for DLSS 2, and then 116 FPS for DLSS 3 which added in frame generation.

I then jumped into game tests, this time with Watch Dogs: Legion. For this one, I wanted to get an idea of the performance you will see when taking advantage of Nvidia’s RTX and DLSS features. I tested at 4k with the ultra detail setting and with ultra being the setting for DLSS and RTX when they are on as well. I then test with no RTX or DLSS on and then with RTX DLSS on and off and on together. Here the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti SUPER matched the 3090 Ti for its RTX-only score but did a better job when DLSS was added into the mix.

I also wanted to take a look at DLSS 3 performance as well a little more than my initial look at it with 3DMark’s benchmark. For this, I put Nvidias Frameview to the test to run a few benchmarks using the games that currently support DLSS 3. For games with a built-in benchmark, I ran the benchmark but used frameview so we could get the FPS and 1% lows and because with some of the game's frame generation is messing up their in game FPS readouts. V-Sync was turned off on all of the tests because it currently causes problems with frame generation and all of the tests were done at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the highest detail settings including the highest RTX settings. DLSS 3 when there is an option was set to performance.

The first game tested was Cyberpunk 2077 and for this one, I tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. I also did a fourth test at 1080p and low settings to get a look at how frame generation helps when CPU limited. At 1080p and 1440p the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti SUPER gets a huge performance improvement with frame generation turned on taking the 1080p performance from 81 FPS up to 116 with DLSS and a staggering 230 FPS with frame generation. 1440p was similar, pushing performance up into something smooth with DLSS and ideal for a high refresh rate display with frame generation on. Then for 4k, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti SUPER struggled with it all turned off but with DLSS gameplay was smooth. Going back to 1080p and running low detail is a great example of how frame generation can improve performance in situations where you are CPU-limited. The DLSS on and off results were nearly identical, in fact, DLSS on was a hair slower but adding in frame generation we went from 177 to 357 FPS.

In F1 2022 I ran three tests. I tested with full DLSS, I did it again but turned off frame generation, and then tested with DLSS off and TAA on. Frame generation here was a big improvement at 1080p and 1440p but I did still see that performance issue at 4k that I have seen on all of the cards. That said at 4K DLSS itself was still enough to go from a nice solid 62 FPS up to 146 FPS and improved on the 1% lows. At 1440p and 1080p it was more about getting up into the high refresh range reaching 362 at 1080p and 271 at 1440p which are both great fits for what you can find for display refresh rates at those resolutions.

In the side scroller Forged in Shadow Torch, DLSS 3 helped at 1440p and 4k but at 1080p even without DLSS and frame generation, the TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti SUPER performed well enough to reach a frame rate limit for the game or our CPU with both results at the same 198 FPS average though it did help the 1% lows slightly. 4k on the other hand shows a huge 100 FPS improvement from turning it on.

Next up was Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed. The TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Ti SUPER performed well in all three of the base DLSS off tests honestly with the lowest being 96 FPS at 4K. But turning DLSS on stilled offered a big jump even with the 1% lows to help smooth things out even more if your display can handle it.

Last I look at Microsoft Flight Simulator and this is an interesting case because this is a well-known CPU-limited game. To keep things consistent the test used the landing test run over Sydney With DLSS off and again with DLSS and frame generation. This included having DLSS on the quality setting, you can get even better performance by changing that and with the detail settings on their highest settings. I tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. This is another situation where we are CPU-limited at 1080p and 1440p. You can see it with the DLSS on and off results being the same and at 1440p with it dropping performance slightly. But turning frame generation on does get you a big performance improvement in a situation where an even better GPU just isn’t going to change that much.