u/pcgameshardware

Hello there,

with Doom: The Dark Ages - Revelations launching today, we used the DLC release as a reason to re-test the game with current drivers.

We tested 33 GPUs and 30 CPUs across native resolution, ray tracing and path tracing. For Radeon cards, the most interesting part is probably the non-path-traced benchmark: RX 7000 cards, and even some RX 6000 models, still deliver very good frame rates considering that RT is always active in this game.

Path tracing is a different story. With full ray tracing/path tracing enabled and FSR Quality, the performance hit is massive, and this remains much more comfortable on newer GeForce cards. VRAM also becomes a bigger issue here: 8 GiB can be limiting, while 16 GiB looks much safer.

CPU-wise, Doom remains pretty light. Even older six-core CPUs can still deliver solid performance, so once you increase resolution or enable path tracing, the GPU is clearly the main limit.

Anyone here playing Doom: The Dark Ages on Radeon? I’d be curious which GPU/settings you use, and whether you stick to regular RT or actually use path tracing.

- Jacky

Hello there guys,

PC Games Hardware has a large GPU benchmark special with 180 graphics cards tested from 2009 to today, covering Geforce and Radeon models across many generations, from old entry-level cards to former flagships and current high-end GPUs.

Since the article is basically a long-term GPU performance archive in benchmark form, I asked our GPU editor Raff why this project was interesting to him beyond the raw numbers. His answer:

>Since I was a teenager, I’ve had a soft spot for benchmark bar charts. Especially the ones where a new GPU generation didn’t just beat the old one, but clearly moved the whole performance scale. Back in the late 90s, when I ran my first benchmarks like 3DMark 99, Quake and Incoming, it felt like there was a new champion every other week. That feeling has become rarer. Today, unless you enable Multi Frame Generation, a new high-end card often means something like 30 percent more performance. That is still progress, but it does not feel quite the same. This 180-GPU benchmark brought some of that feeling back. It does not go all the way down into the Wild West of the 90s, but the older cards from 2009 onward still show how large the long-term jumps have been

The comparison includes current cards, older high-end models, low-end GPUs, several long-lived architectures and a few outliers.

Some of the more interesting questions:

• How much faster is an RTX 5090 than an HD 5450?
• How does a Titan X Pascal from 2016 compare to modern midrange cards?
• How far have Radeon and Geforce architectures moved since 2009?
• And where does China’s fastest GPU currently land?

It was a substantial amount of retesting, but the result is a useful snapshot of how GPU performance has shifted over the past decade and a half.

Which GPU generation do you think was the biggest real-world jump?

- Jacky

Hello there... :)

Okay, I usually post reviews and current hardware articles here, but this time I found something in our archive that I personally think is pretty cool.

We went through the PCGH picture archive and put together a gallery of more than 40 graphics cards stripped down to the bare PCB. Some of them are old enough that I did not even actively experience them when they were current, which makes looking at the board designs even more interesting now.

The gallery includes cards like the 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000, Geforce 7900 GX2, Radeon HD 2900 XT, Radeon HD 5970, Asus Mars and several other AGP, early PCIe and dual-GPU designs.

Which of these cards did you actually own back then? And which older GPU PCB design do you think aged the best or looks the most ridiculous today?

- Jacky

Hello there...

We tested AMD FSR 4.1 on RDNA 3 / Radeon RX 7000, mainly because I was curious how much of a real-world upgrade this is for cards that originally shipped without the new AI upscaler.

The short version: image quality is clearly better than older FSR versions in several scenes, especially when it comes to temporal stability and fine detail. It is not magic, though. The performance cost is still relevant, so the result depends a lot on the game, target resolution and preset.

For RX 7000 owners, I think this is still a pretty important update. Not because it suddenly turns RDNA 3 into RDNA 4, but because it makes the cards age better in games where upscaling is basically required anyway.

Curious what other RX 7000 users think: is FSR 4.1 enough to make you more comfortable keeping an RDNA 3 card longer, or is the performance cost still too much for your use case?

- Jacky

We recently interviewed Valve, and this quote stood out from a hardware pricing perspective:

"Obviously, if you just don’t have the budget for it, you don’t have the budget for any real gaming PC at that point."

I don’t read this mainly as gatekeeping what counts as a "real" PC. The more useful question is where the lower limit for credible PC gaming hardware actually sits today.

With handhelds, mini PCs, APUs, used GPUs and entry-level desktops all competing for budget-conscious players, how low can PC gaming hardware realistically go before the compromises become too big?

Is there still room for a low-cost Steam Machine-style device, or has that space mostly been taken over by handhelds, used parts and consoles?

- Jacky

Full disclosure: I worked on this review.

We tested Valve’s new Steam Machine, and since Valve has compared it directly to the Steam Deck, I thought the results might be relevant here.

The short version: yes, the Steam Machine is clearly much faster than the Steam Deck. That part is not really in question. But in our actual game benchmarks, we did not see a blanket 6x uplift across the board.

We tested Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon with Steam Deck-style settings to make the comparison a bit cleaner. The Steam Machine turns 30-ish fps results on the Deck into much smoother triple-digit or near-triple-digit results in some cases, The Steam Machine but the gap depends a lot on the game, resolution and settings.

I would have liked to go into more detail, but I also do not want this to turn into a full repost of the review here.

What I find interesting is that the Steam Machine feels less like a “normal PC” and more like Valve taking the Steam Deck idea and moving it into the living room: SteamOS-first, controller-friendly, more powerful, but still built around realistic settings and upscaling rather than brute-forcing everything.

Curious how other Deck owners see it:

Would you treat the Steam Machine as a natural upgrade path for TV gaming, or does the Steam Deck already cover that use case well enough for you?

Naaaa... wer is hier hyped auf die Steam Machine? Is hier überhaupt jemand hyped? ^^

- Jacky

uuuh... ich find die Werte von den beiden AiOs ja ganz sexy. Die Optik und dire Preise allerdings weniger.
Jemand Bock sich so n Teil einzubauen oder is das eher so n "nett, aber will ich nich"-Ding?

- Jacky

PCGH basically built an unofficial “Arc B780” by overclocking an Asrock Arc Pro B70 Creator with Intel’s big BMG-G31 GPU. The card was pushed to 330 W and around 3.1 GHz average clock.

It was enough to beat cards like the RX 7800 XT, RTX 3080 and RTX 4070 in rasterization. Ray tracing also looks decent, with the card slightly ahead of the RTX 4070 and clearly ahead of the RX 9070 GRE.

But it still does not consistently catch the RTX 5070 or RX 9070. The bigger issue is efficiency.

So Big Battlemage clearly had more performance left in the tank, but it needed a lot of power to get there.

Would an Arc B770/B780 have made sense if Intel had sold it with 16GB VRAM for under $400, or is the efficiency gap just too big?

- Jacky

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for input on what a useful benchmark setup for a small SteamOS or Bazzite-based living-room gaming PC should include.

Which games would you consider important for this kind of test? Current AAA titles, Unreal Engine 5 games, competitive multiplayer games, Steam Deck-relevant games, native Linux titles, Proton edge cases, or games known for shader compilation issues?

I’m also curious about resolutions and settings. Would 1080p native, 1440p native, 4K with FSR/upscaling, or console-like 40 to 60 FPS settings on a TV be the most useful scenario?

What would make such a benchmark genuinely useful from a Linux gaming perspective?

- Jacky

Hello there,

I’m looking for input on what a useful benchmark setup for a small SteamOS or Bazzite-based living-room PC should include.

Which games would you consider representative for this type of system? Would you prioritize current AAA titles, Unreal Engine 5 games, competitive titles, Steam Deck-relevant games, Proton edge cases, or a balanced mix?

I’m also interested in the resolution and settings approach. Would 1080p native, 1440p native, 4K with upscaling, or console-like 40 to 60 FPS settings on a TV be the most useful scenario?

What would make such a benchmark useful for you personally?

- Jacky

Hello there,

ich hätte mal eine Frage aus Interesse: Welche Spiele und Testbedingungen würdet ihr für einen kleinen Livingroom-PC mit SteamOS oder Bazzite sinnvoll finden?

Mir geht es vor allem um die Frage, was bei so einem System wirklich praxisnah wäre. Also eher 1080p nativ, 1440p nativ, 4K mit Upscaling oder konsolenartige Settings für 40 bis 60 FPS am Fernseher?

Welche Spiele sollten eurer Meinung nach in so einen Benchmark rein? Aktuelle AAA-Titel, Unreal-Engine-5-Spiele, kompetitive Spiele, bekannte Steam-Deck-Titel oder bewusst schwierige Proton-Fälle?

Und was wäre euch neben FPS wichtig? Zum Beispiel Lautstärke, Leistungsaufnahme, Frametimes, Controller-Bedienung, Suspend und Resume, Shader-Stutter oder der Vergleich zu Windows?

Was würdet ihr bei so einem kleinen Wohnzimmer-PC wirklich wissen wollen?

Jacky

Moin Leute,

ich hätte mal eine Frage aus Interesse: Welche Spiele und Testbedingungen würdet ihr für einen kleinen Livingroom-PC mit SteamOS oder Bazzite sinnvoll finden?

Mir geht es vor allem um die Frage, was bei so einem System wirklich praxisnah wäre. Also eher 1080p nativ, 1440p nativ, 4K mit Upscaling oder konsolenartige Settings für 40 bis 60 FPS am Fernseher?

Welche Spiele sollten eurer Meinung nach in so einen Benchmark rein? Aktuelle AAA-Titel, Unreal-Engine-5-Spiele, kompetitive Spiele, bekannte Steam-Deck-Titel oder bewusst schwierige Proton-Fälle?

Was würdet ihr bei so einem kleinen Wohnzimmer-PC wirklich wissen wollen?

Jacky

Moin Leute,

Ich hab da mal eine kleine Frage aus Interesse: Welche Spiele würdet ihr gern in einem Benchmark-Parcours für einen kleinen Livingroom-PC mit SteamOS oder Bazzite erwarten?

Mich würde vor allem interessieren, welche Auflösungen und Settings aus eurer Sicht sinnvoll wären: 1080p nativ, 1440p nativ, 4K mit Upscaling oder eher konsolenartige Settings für 40 bis 60 FPS am Fernseher?

Welche Spiele müssten eurer Meinung nach rein? Eher aktuelle AAA-Titel, Unreal-Engine-5-Spiele, kompetitive Spiele, bekannte Steam-Deck-Titel oder bewusst problematische Proton-Fälle?

Was wäre für euch bei so einem Benchmark wirklich hilfreich?

- Jacky

Do games really need more than 8 CPU cores yet?

We tested Intel’s Core 9 273PQE with 6, 8, 10 and 12 active P-cores. The jump from 6 to 8 cores is clearly measurable, but beyond that the gains flatten out quickly. 10 and 12 cores still help in some games and frame-time metrics, but the average-FPS differences are often small.

It is not a direct buying recommendation, since the 273PQE is an embedded Bartlett Lake chip. Still, it is one of the few ways to test 12 monolithic P-cores without hybrid cores or multiple CCDs getting in the way.

- Jacky