Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice may have slipped under my radar, but didn't miss the eyes of many. If you are not familiar with this title I urge you to check out our review before proceeding. Hellblade may be an indie title but the visuals this game delivers would have you believing it is anything but. Powered by the Unreal 4 engine Hellblade delivers amazing sights that make even full budget AAA titles scramble for excuses. But all of those visuals do not mean much if you can not run it.
That is what we are here today to take a look at and find out what kind of performance you can expect from different graphics cards at different resolutions.
Testing Setup and Method
With Hellblade using the Unreal Engine and DX11 testing was fairly straightforward with the exception that there is no built in benchmark. So we had to find a segment of the game to establish a course on. We tested the game just after the first fight encounter after Senua contracts the 'rot'. Our test ran for one minute from the time you enter the door and follow the path at a walking pace, there is heavy foliage, lighting, and volumetric effects in this area similar to what is seen in most of the game. Of course because of the testing method our numbers will differ slightly from other publications. I urge that you take a round of numbers from others to see how these cards pan out in a variety of scenarios.
X99 Test System
| CPU | Intel Core i7 6800k (4.1GHz) |
| Memory | 32GB CORSAIR Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666MHz |
| Motherboard | ASUS X99A-II |
| Storage | Crucial MX100 512GB SSD Seagate 2TB SSHD |
| PSU | Corsair AX860i |
Graphics Cards Tested
| GPU | Architecture | Core Count | Clock Speed | Memory Capacity | Memory Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE | Pascal | 2560 | 1607/1733 | 8GB GDDR5X | 10Gbps |
| NVIDIA GTX 1070 FE | Pascal | 1920 | 1506/1683 | 8GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| NVIDIA GTX 1060 FE 6GB | Pascal | 1280 | 1506/1708 | 6GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| XLR8 GTX 1060 3GB | Pascal | 1152 | 1506/1708 | 3GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| XFX RX 480 8GB | Polaris 10 | 2304 | 1266 | 8GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| Sapphire RX 570 Nitro+ 4GB | Polaris 20 | 2048 | 1340 | 4GB GDDR5 | 7Gbps |
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | Polaris 11 | 896 | 1250 | 4GB GDDR5 | 7Gbps |
Drivers Used
| Drivers | |
|---|---|
| Radeon Settings | 17.7.2 |
| GeForce | 385.12 |
Results
Conclusion
It definitely helps that the GeForce drivers are 'Game Ready' for this one as even the GTX 1060 3GB outpaces even the RX 480. Hopefully we'll see a driver update from RTG soon to give them a bit of a boost. But that's not to say anyone will have a bad time playing this game. Not often will I say this, but with the type of game this is, staying over 30 fps will result in a very playable experience. And if our game review is any indication then no one should hesitate to pick up this title if you are even somewhat interested.
If you're curious about seeing the opening scene in action with the XLR8 Gaming GTX 1060 3GB compared to the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 570 4GB OC, then check out the video below.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
