Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX

Gears 5 benchmarked at 8K on the best graphics cards money can buy -- fun!

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Introduction & Graphics Settings

8K TVs are now in stores and slowly going mainstream thanks to next-gen consoles in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett featuring 8K support, and while it will most likely be limited to playback at this stage, 8K gaming is here and it's real.

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 400

Gears 5 launched recently so between a bunch of reviews on custom graphics cards (there's so many to test right now, I'm like a kid at Christmas) so it was time to pull out the 8K monitor and run it at 7680 x 4320.

Gears 5 is the sixth entry into the series, starting out as an Xbox exclusive and slowly coming to the PC. The PC version of the game is always the best, especially when Microsoft offers up an optional high-resolution texture pack. This texture pack really shines at 4K, and crushes the souls of all GPUs at 8K.

Attempting to power up Gears 5 at 8K had its issues, and then when actually getting it up and running it would reduce the fastest graphics cards to dust -- almost like a Thanos snap.

I've got some more results cooking at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K -- but they're for a different discussion. I want to put 8K under a microscope here and give it its own space, as it deserves it. 8K gaming is beyond normal gaming, crunching 4x the pixels of 4K and 16x the pixels of 1080p.

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 503

You need some serious GPU horsepower, and for games with higher-end 4K textures up at 8K -- if you throw AA (anti-aliasing) into the mix then needing over 12GB of framebuffer (VRAM on your graphics card) is needed. There are instances in testing (like Remedy's latest game Control) where the NVIDIA TITAN RTX has all of its ridiculously-large 24GB of GDDR6 used.

Gears 5 running at 8K is seriously hard... and it reduces our graphics cards to nothing really, unplayable. I re-ran the tests on Medium so we can get some idea of how Gears 5 would run at 8K... nothing that exists can run it, it's that hard.

8K gaming is crazy and with that said... let's get right into it.

Graphics Cards Used

You can't run Gears 5 at 8K with any graphics card that has 8GB of VRAM, but throws out virtually everything apart from the AMD's only card capable in running Gears 5 at 8K being the Radeon VII.

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 402

NVIDIA has a couple of options with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, TITAN Xp, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and TITAN RTX. I've tested all of these graphics cards at 8K for a total of 5 cards, with some surprising results.

The best thing about the TITAN RTX is that it can be used in any VRAM starved situation, with it quickly becoming my go-to graphics card when I'm testing games at 8K. Seeing the VRAM clock over 16GB in some instances is pretty insane, but 8K isn't doing that here in Gears 5. You simply can't load the game up with a graphics card that only has 8GB of VRAM.

  • NVIDIA TITAN RTX - 24GB GDDR6
  • AMD Radeon VII - 16GB HBM2
  • NVIDIA TITAN Xp - 12GB GDDR5X
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti - 11GB GDDR6
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - 11GB GDDR5X

Test System Specs

Our New GPU Test Rig

Welcome to the latest revision of our GPU test bed, with our system being upgraded from the Intel Core i7-7700K to the Core i7-8700K. The CPU is cooled by the Corsair H115i PRO cooler, with the 8700K overclocked to 5GHz. We've stayed with GIGABYTE for our motherboard with their awesome Z370 AORUS Gaming 7.

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 1060

We approached our friends at HyperX for a kit of their kick ass HyperX Predator DDR4-2933MHz RAM (HX429C15PB3AK4/32), with 2 x 8GB sticks for a total of 16GB DDR4-2933. The RAM stands out through every minute of our testing as it has beautiful RGB lights giving the system a slick look while benchmarking our lives away, while the Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 motherboard joins in with its own array of RGB lighting.

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 1061

Detailed Tech Specs

  • CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5GHz
  • Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO
  • MB: Z370 AORUS Gaming 7
  • RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) HyperX Predator DDR4-2933
  • SSD: 1TB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2
  • SSD: 512GB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2
  • PSU: InWin 1065W PSU
  • Chassis: In Win X-Frame
  • OS: Windows 10 Pro x64

Additional Images

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 1063
Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 1064
Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 1065
Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 1066

8K - Medium

Graphics Settings

I've got the high resolution texture pack installed, with motion blur and vertical sync both disabled.

Gears 5 - 8K - Medium Settings

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 500

8K - Ultra

Graphics Settings

I've got the high resolution texture pack installed, with motion blur and vertical sync both disabled.

Gears 5 - 8K - Ultra Settings

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 502

Final Thoughts

8K gaming is still out of reach for most people and here with Gears 5 we see that it is unplayable, with NVIDIA's beasty TITAN RTX being the only card close enough to hitting 30FPS average on Medium detail.

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 403

AMD's flagship Radeon VII and its 16GB of ultra-fast HBM2 memory is no match for NVIDIA's previous-gen champion in the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and the TITAN Xp which have 11GB and 12GB of GDDR5X, respectively. Radeon VII is only capable of 18.4FPS versus the 19FPS and 20.7FPS of the GTX 1080 Ti and TITAN Xp, respectively, on Medium detail in Gears 5 at 8K.

But NVIDIA reigns supreme here with its Turing GPU architecture and GDDR6 memory with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti pushing 25.6FPS average at 8K on Medium detail, while $2499 will get you 27.4FPS average.

Taking things up to Ultra we see no card in the 5 that I tested breaching 20FPS average in Gears 5 at 8K, the Radeon VII falls off a cliff at 12.8FPS taking down the GTX 1080 Ti with it and its 13.3FPS average.

The slightly faster TITAN Xp does a little better on Ultra settings at 14.6FPS average, but the Turing-based RTX 2080 Ti blows it away at 18FPS while the TITAN RTX takes the cake and eats it too at 19.1FPS -- but again, at the exorbitant cost of $2499.

Wrapping up -- Gears 5 at 7680 x 4320 with 4K high-res textures and Ultra settings brings every graphics card known to man to its knees. NVIDIA's flagship $2499 monster TITAN RTX graphics card can't even muster 20FPS, while the 16GB of HBM2 is spinning its wheels it seems with only 12.8FPS on the Radeon VII.

Gears 5 Benchmarked at 8K: eats up $2499 NVIDIA TITAN RTX 50

8K gaming is nowhere close to mainstream... but it is a great way to see just how far we have to go to get to 8K 60FPS, and that is looking like it is a long wait yet. I don't see next-gen GPUs being able to do over 30FPS without some radical changes, and 8K 60FPS seems like it is at least 2-3 years away and maybe the generation after the one coming in 2020.

Still, 8K benchmarks are fun to run and see how they stress different graphics cards -- up next is Borderlands 3, something I just finished benchmarking at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. Speaking of those resolutions, I'll have a follow-up piece on Gears 5 at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K later this week.

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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