Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarked, Again: v1.5 Update With Built-In Benchmark

Introduction

CD PROJEKT RED pushed out one of the biggest games of all time -- and its biggest game ever made -- far too early. Cyberpunk 2077 was an under-cooked game, but now it has received what I think it should have launched with: a built-in benchmark.

24

Cyberpunk 2077 now has a built-in benchmark that was revealed during CDPR's live stream for the huge new v1.5 update, which had me instantly pulling an all-nighter at this point of the article at least, benching stacks and stacks of graphics cards.

I've got some regular results here using the built-in benchmark and will be working over the next couple of days to re-run it all with ray tracing enabled -- and then again with DLSS + FSR -- now that CD PROJEKT RED has so graciously made it easier to benchmark Cyberpunk 2077.

• Read more: Cyberpunk 2077's latest update provides built-in benchmark for PC
• Read more: Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarked at 8K: Future GPU Technology Required
• Read more: Cyberpunk 2077 Benched at 8K with Ray Tracing: RTX 3090 vs RX 6900 XT

24

At first, I was only going to throw NVIDIA's current-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs alongside AMD's current-gen RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs. But then I couldn't help myself and in went some older-gen GPUs to see how things balance out in Cyberpunk 2077.

For the first batch of Cyberpunk 2077 benchmarks, I've got the three usual resolutions that I run for my GPU and system reviews: 1080p, 1440p, and 4K (1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160) respectively. Once I've got this article out and the RT + DLSS/FSR articles out, I'll do something I'm dying to do... benchmark Cyberpunk 2077 at the glorious 8K resolution (7680x4320).

Best Deals: Cyberpunk 2077 - PC

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	Loading...	Loading...	Loading...	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 12/31/1969 at 6:00 pm CST - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.

Graphics Settings

I didn't want to mess around with the graphics settings too much, as I would recommend running a blend of medium + high graphics settings in Cyberpunk 2077.

But for the purposes of benchmarking Cyberpunk 2077, I've got the graphics settings up about as high as they can be without ray tracing, DLSS, or FSR enabled. For now, I'm running native resolutions and Ultra graphics without ray tracing and DLSS or FSR in Cyberpunk 2077.

Test System Specs

24

Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

The biggest upgrade to the GPU testbed is the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X processor, offering 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 3-powered CPU grunt at up to 4.8GHz.

24

That's plenty of CPU power and offers a great upgrade over the Ryzen 7 3800X that I was using previously.

I will be upgrading this system in a few months, and maybe running it side-by-side with the new Alder Lake-powered Intel Core i9-12900K processor. I'm using one inside of the Allied M.O.A.B.-I gaming PC that I reviewed a few months ago, and man the 12900K is like the Godzilla of CPUs.

24

Sabrent is the most recent partner of mine to help build out my systems, sending me oodles of the fastest NVMe M.2 SSDs on the planet. I'm using Sabrent's flagship Rocket 4 Plus 4TB M.2 SSDs which offers 7GB/sec+ reads and writes with a huge 4TB of capacity.

• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix XG438Q Review: It's So Good, ASUS Will Hate This Review
• Read more: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ Review: Perfect For The GeForce RTX 3080
• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ Review - The Best HDMI 2.1 Gaming Monitor

ASUS has been a tight partner of mine for a few years now, providing their huge 43-inch 4K 120Hz gaming monitors for my benchmarking and gaming needs. I'm using two of them at the moment, the ROG Strix XG438Q and the ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitors.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 4TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro x64 (buy from Amazon)
• Display: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ (4K 120Hz) (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - 1080p

24

Benchmarks - 1440p

24

Benchmarks - 4K

24

Final Thoughts

Cyberpunk 2077 is a hardcore game for your PC and really needs to be very best of the best to have all of the in-game visual dials up, and have the game running in native 4K. It's not something I'd recommend -- NOT running DLSS -- with CD PROJEKT RED's flagship game rocking NVIDIA's incredible DLSS technology, and now AMD's new FSR tech. DLSS super-powers the game, my numbers on that aren't too far away.

24

NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 3090 reigns supreme, at least until the conspiracy theory that is the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti ever sees the light of day, with 47FPS average at 4K. This is without DLSS enabled, where 1FPS behind it is the RTX 3080 Ti, another 1FPS behind that the new RTX 3080 12GB.

AMD's flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card sits under the GeForce RTX 3080 at 4K in Cyberpunk 2077, with 38FPS average (vs the 40FPS average of the RTX 3080) while the Radeon RX 6800 XT is just 1FPS behind at 37FPS average at 4K in Cyberpunk 2077.

Once you get down to the GeForce RTX 3070, you're under 30FPS average 4K which isn't ideal at all -- ideal is 60FPS, which we'll see if we can hit in some upcoming DLSS-powered Cyberpunk 2077 benchmarks -- while the former Pascal-based flagship GeForce GTX 1080 Ti spits out a few teeth, and 16FPS average 4K.

24

Knocking things down to 1440p (remember, we're native... baby) and things are still all-green for Team Green. NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 3090 knocks it out of the park at 1440p in Cyberpunk 2077 with 90FPS average, and the new RTX 3080 12GB is just 2FPS behind with 88FPS, and the RTX 3080 Ti with 87FPS.

AMD does better here with 83FPS average on the Radeon RX 6900 XT, while the RX 6800 XT isn't far behind with 79FPS. The GeForce RTX 3070 is still good for 1440p 60FPS (again, without RT + DLSS) while AMD needs its RX 6800 to hit over 60FPS (68FPS average).

24

Down at 1080p, AMD's flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT actually comes out on top with the Navi 21 + 16GB GDDR6 + Infinity Cache combo taking out top place in Cyberpunk 2077 @ 1080p with 124FPS average. NVIDIA's best GPU in the GeForce RTX 3090 hits 122FPS, the RX 6800 XT and RTX 3080 12GB tie at 121FPS average.

Not bad at all for native resolutions and Cyberpunk 2077, but I'm just about finished with some DLSS results since Cyberpunk 2077 has some of the best DLSS tech in town. Behind that is some +RT results, so we can see how ray tracing performance is thrown into the mix.

• Read more: Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarked at 8K: Future GPU Technology Required
• Read more: Cyberpunk 2077 Benched at 8K with Ray Tracing: RTX 3090 vs RX 6900 XT

From here on out for TweakTown's 2022 GPU reviews I'll have Cyberpunk 2077 as a staple benchmark for my suite, as well as Forza 5 -- both on AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X (12C/24T) processor. It's a beast, and Cyberpunk 2077 is fantastic on it (with the right GPU, of course).

Cyberpunk 2077 is out now on all platforms, with the new v1.5 update hitting next-gen consoles and PCs last week with the PC side of things including the awesome built-in benchmark that I've just run through its paces here. Thanks, CD PROJEKT RED -- something that should've been there since launch, is now there -- and it's a great tool for your PC.