Ashes of the Singularity May Have Leaked Benchmarks for Nvidia's Next GPUs
New hardware can't debut without someone joking about whether or not it can run Crysis. Pretty much any modern system can, of course, but Crytek's pretty, first-person shooter has been enshrined in the public consciousness as a benchmark for how well given hardware performs. We at Tom's Hardware often ask a different question: How many frames per second can we squeeze out of Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation with this gear? It seems like we aren't the only ones who wonder, because the game's leaderboards may have given us a peek at Nvidia's new GPUs.
Nvidia announced its new Turing architecture on August 13 alongside the first three GPUs--the Quadro RTX 8000, RTX 6000 and RTX 5000--to rely on it. Rumors suggest we'll get some more news from the company on August 20 with the announcement of the next-gen RTX 2080 platform (it appears the debate between whether the platform will be called the 1180 or the 2080 has finally been settled). There aren't many firm details about that announcement, but chances are good that impatient gamers will soon be able to cram a shiny new graphics card into their PC.
Which brings us back to Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. We've long used the game to benchmark new graphics cards and processors--it offers a variety of quality settings, relies on both the GPU and CPU and is a generally accepted measure of how well a system handles real-time strategy games. Now someone with the handle "nvgtltest007" has used the game on Crazy settings at 4K resolution to benchmark the "Nvidia Graphics Device" paired with an Intel Core i7-5960X clocked at 3GHz (and yes, we suspect that gobbledygook of a username is supposed to refer to secret testing of Nvidia cards).
The "Nvidia Graphics Device" appeared to score well enough. It managed to squeeze out 75.1, 60.6 and 57.4 frames per second in the game's normal, medium and heavy batch tests, respectively. The recorded CPU frame rates were 138.6, 118.4 and 91.9, respectively. That averages out to a frame rate of 63.5 and CPU frame rate of 113 on Crazy settings. For reference, we've gotten between 40 and 59.5 frames per second out of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB with Crazy settings at a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution. Therefore, this mysterious Nvidia device bottoms out near the top of what the GTX 1080 Ti can achieve.
Those numbers should be taken with a pound of salt, however, because we didn't run the tests on the "Nvidia Graphics Device" ourselves. We don't know all the differences between the setups and methodologies we use and what "nvgtltest007" uses. But if the benchmark is at least close to accurate, there's another reason to be excited for whatever Nvidia plans to announce sometime soon. We're looking forward to getting this mystery device into our own test systems so we can benchmark it ourselves. And, you know, finally play some Crysis.
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Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.
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milkod2001 Just wait for next gen GPUs from AMD they will be awesome! Availability: imminent in 2020.Reply -
10tacle It managed to squeeze out 75.1, 60.6 and 57.4 frames per second in the game's normal, medium and heavy batch tests, respectively. For reference, we've gotten between 40 and 59.5 frames per second out of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB with Crazy settings at a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution.
If we are talking about the 2080, that would not be out of alignment with previous generation Nvidia top end GPUs when it comes to the next generation releases of high end non-Ti cards. For example, the GTX 980 blew the 780 Ti away, and the GTX 1080 blew the 980 Ti away. We're talking about a 25-30% performance boost here historically with each new generation GPU which, if these numbers are true, are right in alignment with that. Same with their lower tier products. I would expect nothing less in the new 2xxx generation of GPUs.
With that said, I'm still scratching my head why Nvidia is leaving the GTX reference behind that they've long held in their GPU product lines. To remind everyone, their first GTX based video card series was the 7th generation 7800 GTX dating from 2005. So this is a long lineage of product nomenclature that Nvidia is leaving behind. I'm not liking it, but if their release prices aren't out of control and the performance of the new series is a leap forward like we've seen in past new generations of GPUs, then I don't really care. The games sure won't.
21233192 said:@Milkod2001 if you keep waiting for the next gen you won't ever buy a GPU or a CPU.
He was being sarcastic at how slow AMD has been in GPU development lately. But I can't blame them as they shifted focus towards the CPU sector with Ryzen as well as APU development for the Xbox and PlayStation. Nvidia has the R&D financial luxury of primarily being focused on GPU architecture. -
coffeya13-2 I only mess with steam and gog. The only reason why I have twitch is because of the free games.Reply -
jimmysmitty 21233207 said:It managed to squeeze out 75.1, 60.6 and 57.4 frames per second in the game's normal, medium and heavy batch tests, respectively. For reference, we've gotten between 40 and 59.5 frames per second out of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB with Crazy settings at a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution.
If we are talking about the 2080, that would not be out of alignment with previous generation Nvidia top end GPUs when it comes to the next generation releases of high end non-Ti cards. For example, the GTX 980 blew the 780 Ti away, and the GTX 1080 blew the 980 Ti away. We're talking about a 25-30% performance boost here historically with each new generation GPU which, if these numbers are true, are right in alignment with that. Same with their lower tier products. I would expect nothing less in the new 2xxx generation of GPUs.
With that said, I'm still scratching my head why Nvidia is leaving the GTX reference behind that they've long held in their GPU product lines. To remind everyone, their first GTX based video card series was the 7th generation 7800 GTX dating from 2005. So this is a long lineage of product nomenclature that Nvidia is leaving behind. I'm not liking it, but if their release prices aren't out of control and the performance of the new series is a leap forward like we've seen in past new generations of GPUs, then I don't really care. The games sure won't.
21233192 said:@Milkod2001 if you keep waiting for the next gen you won't ever buy a GPU or a CPU.
He was being sarcastic at how slow AMD has been in GPU development lately. But I can't blame them as they shifted focus towards the CPU sector with Ryzen as well as APU development for the Xbox and PlayStation. Nvidia has the R&D financial luxury of primarily being focused on GPU architecture.
Well GTX was originally "trim". I would be more concerned if they dropped GeForce and instead called it say RayForce. The 7800 had a couple trims as they used to do in the older days (GS, GT, GTX, GTX 512)
GTX became a primary identifier for the GPUs after GeForce in the 200 series. However Ti, for example, is older than GTX yet was dropped after the 4000 series and not brought back until the 500 series. It was similar though. In the 4000 series it was a first step identifier after GeForce but in the 500 series and on its a "trim" level.
As for AMD, I thought they separated CPU and GPU branches to allow the GPU branch to better develop on its own? Not sure there is an advantage to letting one side drown while the other does well. Interestingly enough when their CPUs were doing poorly their GPUs were more competitive IMO. -
cat1092 Looks to be exciting times for the GTX 2xxx lineup, like previous gens, am looking forward to (minimum) 35% increase. Could be more, because we're no longer talking GDDR5(X), rather net gen memory. Which will most certainly play a factor.Reply
One thing on our side, the mining crase has peaked, so should have minimum impact on the GTX 2xxx series. Many of the 'leftover' GTX 1080/1070 including Ti, as well as 1060 are selling at or below initial release on Newegg & other retailers. Not a good time to buy these anymore, if building a PC, use whatever GPU on hand & wait for the GTX 2xxx lineup to settle in price, then pull the trigger on a promo.
Cat