In-Game Benchmarks

Now that we have an idea of how the cards stand compared to each other, it’s finally time to get down to the in-game performance numbers. To do that I ran through our entire in-game benchmark test suite. The suite has 13 different games tested at both 1080p and 1440p at their highest settings. Four of the games are also tested in more than one configuration to see the difference between DX11 and DX12 performance or in the case of the most recent addition, DOOM I test out both OpenGL and Vulkan performance. The problem is, with so many results it can be a little too much to take in. To help with that I have condensed our results into two graphs, one for 1080p and the other for 1440p. All of our games are run at their max settings and we use the average FPS as the end result. The graphs below are broken down into three FPS ranges to represent unplayable (below 30), playable but not ideal (30 to 60), and ideal (over 60 FPS). So what did I find from those results?

Well, lets just put it this way. I actually had to change our playability graphs because the GTX 1080 Ti came in over 60 FPS on every single game tested at both resolutions. The truth is while our benchmark suite is demanding, it really needs more VR and 4k testing to really push the limits of the 1080 Ti. I added 120 FPS results to the graphs to help show just how well the card would also perform for people running today's high refresh rate monitors like 120, 144, and even 240 Hz offerings.

As always I also include the actual graphs for each of the games tested. Typically there is a short list of things that I think people should check out but really the performance was fairly consistent with the GTX 1080 Ti with it coming in ahead of the GTX 1080 in every test and GTX 1080 SLI when it works still being faster. Hitman: Absolution proved to be a little weird on top of being dated. The 1440p results were in line with what I would expect them to be but at 1080p there was clearly a problem. DirectX 12 performance was consistently better than DX11 performance in the games that I tested both. The same goes for DOOM when testing OpenGL and Vulkan, Vulkan gave the 1080 Ti a boost as well. DOOM was another game that proved that the GTX 1080 Ti so words more than is needed for 1080p and even 1440p gaming, the card actually found the FPS limit of the game peaking at 200 on both 1080p tests with the FPS never dropping below 200 at all.