The Best Possible PUBG Performance: 10 Graphics Cards Tested

By Yannick Guerrini, Bruno Cormier
published

Benchmarks at 1080p

Given that the developer's recommended hardware configuration tends toward the upper end of our eight-card field, we chose not to test at 2560x1440 resolution and instead stuck with 1920x1080. We still wanted to run a couple of datasets though, so we instead dialed in the Ultra and Medium quality presets (after disabling v-sync and cinematic blur, of course).

Benchmarks at Ultra Quality

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Only three cards maintained an average of 60 FPS using the Ultra preset: the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, GeForce GTX 970, and Radeon RX 580. However, everything except for the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and Radeon RX 560 stayed above 30 FPS.

Those numbers correlate well with our smoothness tests, where most of the field appears to offer a good gaming experience. One thing the data does make clear, though, is that there's quite a bit of frame time variance across the board. This manifests as perceptible hitching and stuttering across the board.

Benchmarks at Medium

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Lowering the graphics quality to Medium naturally eases the load on our GPUs. Aside from AMD's Radeon RX 560, all of our tests samples averaged more than 60 FPS. The GeForce GTX 1060 6GB even hit 90 FPS. Moreover, every card maintained a minimum frame rate of at least 30 FPS.

In the end, the game appears even smoother, though all cards continued suffering from a quantifiable stutter.


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Yannick Guerrini
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14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • beckstrom12
    Can you please start including 1440p back into your benchmarks? I think that this resolution, while not the most popular now, will become more and more popular. This will make these articles much more future proof and allow people that have QHD now and in the future view these articles for information.
    Reply
  • mischon123
    All cards are 2 or more years old. 1080, 60, 50, 40 is obsolete by any standard. 1080px to 2560px is dead. New merchandise coming out. 4k and 8k is where its at. Not a review or test...TH part of the marketing scheme to sell off old stock.
    Reply
  • Lucky_SLS
    ^ guess u never read the steam user system survey info published in the first page...

    Damn, meant to down vote that. Lel.
    Reply
  • husker
    No problem with the article if they want to test common cards. The problem is the title. If I click a review of "The Best Possible PUBG Performance", then I kind of expect to see high end video cards, not older, mid-range cards.
    Reply
  • spdragoo
    20998644 said:
    Can you please start including 1440p back into your benchmarks? I think that this resolution, while not the most popular now, will become more and more popular. This will make these articles much more future proof and allow people that have QHD now and in the future view these articles for information.

    1440p wouldn't have been useful in this situation. Except for the "bonus" GTX 1080 vs. Vega 64 showdown, none of the GPUs tested are "1440p-capable" GPUs. The top-line GPUs they tested were the GTX 1060 & RX 580...both of which barely managed to get past 60FPS@1080p, & had significant differences between their Average & Minimum results. What would have been the point of 1440p testing with these GPUs? "Proving" that their 1440p performance is lacking? "Proving" that PUBG's optimization still lags behind other games?

    Even with the GTX 1080 & Vega 64, those 1440p tests aren't exactly impressive. It's more in line with the 1080's performance in Witcher III (https://www.techspot.com/review/1174-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080/page3.html)...& I think we can all agree that there's no contest as to which game (PUBG or Witcher III) has better graphics...
    Reply
  • The Paladin
    clean answers though not terribly revealing to many that have the hardware and the game from the start, but in all fairness for all the youngsters out there thinking of building a new rig for gaming PUBG this would be a good read to guide them.

    as far a 1440 and 4K gaming, that is upper gamer life, 75% or more "home gamers" who have a mortgage will tell you they have a 1080po monitor on they desk.

    Reply
  • nickkalember2
    Please include 1070s and 1080s in your performance reviews
    Reply
  • Lucky_SLS
    If you guys are considering 2k res for benchmarks, I for one would love to see the 21:9 aspect ratio performance. 2560x1080 for mainstream and 3440x1440 for the top end.

    Imagine playing in a monitor like the AOC - C3583FQ. True mainstream gaming monitor.
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    Only three or four cores seem to be used heavily
    UE4 shows that it's optimizedfor multi-core CPUs and manages multiple threads well.
    Are you contradicting yourself here, or when you say "optimized for multi-core" you actually mean TWO cores with hyperthreading. The game barely taxes the CPU from your own testing. A cheap CFL i3 would probably be overkill.

    Meanwhile on the GPU front you can't throw enough graphics resources at the game, seems like they have a lot of headroom for optimization.
    Reply
  • lucas_7_94
    AntiAliasing = High/Ultra
    Post Processing = High/Ultra

    Shadows High.

    Everything else, very low, and enjoy
    Reply