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Destiny 2 Performance Review

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How We Tested Destiny 2

Test Configuration

AMD Ryzen 5 1600XView Deal

Asus ROG Strix X370-F GamingView Deal

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x 8GB)View Deal

Crucial MX200 (500GB)View Deal

be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 750WView Deal

Be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900View Deal

Thermal Grizzly HydronautView Deal
OS
Operating SystemWindows 10 x64 Pro 1703 (15063.674)
Graphics DriversNvidia GeForce Game Ready 388.00AMD Radeon Crimson Edition 17.10.2
GameDestiny version 1.0.5

We recently updated our test configuration to better reflect mid-range gaming in 2017. This time around, we picked an AMD Ryzen-based platform, honing in specifically on the 1600X as a great option for enthusiasts looking to save some money.

Steam's survey of hardware and software configurations offers us a view of the most prevalent components and settings (the data comes from October 2017):

  • Windows 10 64-bit represents a little less than half of the market (45%).
  • 8GB of RAM is the most popular capacity; that's what 44% of surveyed gamers have installed (our system has 16GB, which we wanted in order to measure peak RAM utilization).
  • Full HD resolution is used by 57% of gamers, while 17% are still at 1366x768. QHD is used by less than 2% of gamers, and 4K remains anecdotal. We will start with tests at 1920x1080, and then use QHD for cards that run well at 1080p.
  • Quad-core CPUs are installed in close to half of the surveyed systems (58%, to be exact). In anticipation of the coming months, we're using a mid-range six-core processor.

Graphics Card Selection

Today's benchmarks are an exception in that we're in the middle of transitioning to a new test platform. Part of this process is switching to a fresh set of graphics cards. Until they're all here, though, we'll simply combine the old cards and what we have of our new ones. Here are the 12 boards we're comparing:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 FEView Deal

MSI GeForce GTX 980 TiView Deal

Asus RX 570 Strix OC 4GView Deal

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 WF2OC-3GD 3GBView Deal

MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4GView Deal

XFX Radeon R9 390 8GView Deal

PNY GeForce GTX 1050 2GBView Deal

Test Procedure

All performance data is collected using the PresentMon tool and our own custom front-end.

In order to represent performance accurately, each graphics card is warmed up to a stable temperature before measurements are collected. Most newer GPUs employ mechanisms to optimize clock rates based on variables like power and temperature. So, tests run during the warm-up period would convey better performance than you'd see in the real world. We therefore execute the benchmark sequence once before gathering official data. For graphics options, we tested at 1920x1080 with maxed-out graphics options and then repeated our benchmark at 2560x1440.


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Destiny 2 (PC)View Deal
15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • NinjaNerd56 24 November 2017 14:30
    I’m running a GTX960 on High, and never get below 40-50fps in D2. Most of the time, I’m exceeding 100.

    I have 32GB of RAM, and have my whole house on a realtime SNMP/WMI monitor.

    D2 uses 10-12GB of RAM and drives the 4 cores in my I5 at 40-50% CPU.

    Looks awesome....
    Reply
  • SumTingW0ng 24 November 2017 18:33
    Do you recommend this game? Should I get one?

    My setup is i7 4790k @ 4.5Ghz, 32GB DDR3 RAM, and ASUS Strix GTX 970.
    Reply
  • firerod1 24 November 2017 20:42
    My evga 1060 3gb sc doesn't keep stable 60 fps on mixed medium/high settings and I have an i5-2500 that runs around 75-85% utilization with 6.5gb of RAM out of my 8 being used, Its been annoying.... to say the least. Probably going to upgrade to zen+ or i5-8600 h370 when it comes out.
    Reply
  • AnimeMania 24 November 2017 21:15
    Will clearing out 68 Gig of SSD space to run the game provide any benefit or should it be run off the hard drive.
    Reply
  • clonazepam 25 November 2017 00:03
    Disabling Depth of Field can give you back 10-20 fps average. I don't miss the effect in a first person shooter. I run it off of a normal hard drive. Once I figured out my normal overclock settings on the GPU just weren't going to work (I'm down to just +100 on both core and mem), it runs like a dream.

    The gunplay is just top notch. For normal play, you can 100% rely on the weapons, and add in the various abilities as you go. They aren't essential until you're in the harder modes and really looking to maximize teamwork and efficiency. It's a great game.
    Reply
  • nick sottiaux 25 November 2017 10:13
    20411987 said:
    Will clearing out 68 Gig of SSD space to run the game provide any benefit or should it be run off the hard drive.
    Loading times are significantly improved while on my SSD. Running a 6700 paired with 16gb and a 1060. Takes from 20-25 seconds to load a map on SSD and close to a minute on my SSHD.

    Hope that helps

    Reply
  • Blytz 25 November 2017 13:00
    Why does the iv card list say Vega 56 and the benchmarks are 64's ?
    Reply
  • lordsabathaan 25 November 2017 18:52
    Why the hell did you use so old drivers for Nvidia since 388.31 give up to 53% performance increase in Destiny 2? And you update with trying new amd drivers , but you even dont use up to date drivers from Nvidia..
    Reply
  • cpt.pants 25 November 2017 23:56
    These benchmarks are way off. I run a Ryzen 1700x and a RX 480 8gb. On 1080p with highest settings I average well above 100fps while playing solo and see a low of 80 fps during Public events or raids/crucible. Either toms is using bad drivers on amd hardware or they are just bias as usual towards nvidia.
    Reply
  • Yannick_G_THFR 26 November 2017 15:33
    20414974 said:
    Why the hell did you use so old drivers for Nvidia since 388.31 give up to 53% performance increase in Destiny 2? And you update with trying new amd drivers , but you even dont use up to date drivers from Nvidia..

    388.00 was the last public version when all the benchs were done.

    20415809 said:
    These benchmarks are way off. I run a Ryzen 1700x and a RX 480 8gb. On 1080p with highest settings I average well above 100fps while playing solo and see a low of 80 fps during Public events or raids/crucible. Either toms is using bad drivers on amd hardware or they are just bias as usual towards nvidia.

    We always try to find some demanding areas for the benchmark sequence. Of course (and like you), our RX480 show better results - like all the others GPUs, so the final ranking doesn't change globally - in some places :)
    Reply