Intro + System Specs
If you're an EA/Origin Access member, there's a 10-hour trial of Mass Effect: Andromeda that's available right now. It's something we downloaded and ran through a few of our graphics cards quickly - before EA decided we'd switched out hardware enough for the day and halted us for a few more hours.
So far, we've tested a few of NVIDIA's latest graphics cards - the GeForce GTX 1070, GTX 1080, and the new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with 11GB of GDDR5X clocked at 11Gbps. We will be running both Titan X (Maxwell and Pascal) cards, the GTX 1060, GTX 900 series, Radeon RX 400 series, and R9 Fury X through the same benchmarks - but for now, we have GTX 1070, GTX 1080, and GTX 1080 Ti results to share.
We ran Mass Effect: Andromeda on its Ultra preset, on 4 resolutions:
- 1920x1080 (1080p)
- 2560x1440 (1440p)
- 3840x2160 (4K)
- 3440x1440 (21:9 UltraWide)
System Specs
As for the system specs:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K w/Noctua U12S
- M/B: AORUS Z270X-Gaming 9
- RAM: 16GB G.Skill DDR4-4000MHz
- SSD: OCZ 1TB RD400 M.2 NVMe
- PSU: be quiet! 1200W
Benchmarks: 1080p, 1440p, 4K, 3440x1440
Benchmarks
We ran Mass Effect: Andromeda on its Ultra preset, on all four resolutions used. Our performance analysis and final thoughts are on the next page.
Here are the results:
Performance Analysis & Final Thoughts
Performance Thoughts
Thoughts on 1080p: If you've got a 1080p monitor with a faster 120Hz refresh rate then you'll want the new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. It can hit 124FPS average in Mass Effect: Andromeda - at least, at 1080p. The GTX 1080 drops to 99FPS (still an amazing result), while the GTX 1070 scores 80FPS at 1080p.
Thoughts on 1440p: Bumping the resolution up to 2560x1440 sees the GTX 1070 fall below 60FPS to 55FPS average, but that can be fixed with a few in-game visual setting tweaks. The GDDR5X-powered GTX 1080 graphics card is much faster with its additional memory bandwidth, pushing 71FPS average - but damn, does the GTX 1080 Ti kill it at 1440p with 86FPS average.
Thoughts on 4K: The only card worthy of running Mass Effect: Andromeda at 4K is the new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with 47FPS average, while the GTX 1080 is 10FPS behind it with 37FPS average - and the GTX 1070 manages to keep 30FPS solid.
Thoughts at 3440x1440: My favorite, 3440x1440 - which the GTX 1080 Ti carves up a nice 76FPS average. The slower GTX 1080 manages 55FPS (close to that magic 60FPS mark, again - easily adjusting some details to hit 60FPS isn't a problem), while the GTX 1070 manages just 44FPS at 3440x1440.
Final Thoughts
If you want to run Mass Effect: Andromeda maxed out, you're going to need NVIDIA's new blazing fast GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card for anything above 1440p. 4K and 3440x1440 display owners will need the GTX 1080 Ti if they want to maintain 60FPS+ on Ultra settings.
For those wanting to hit 1080p/1440p at 60FPS, the GTX 1070 is still a viable graphics card - and remember, we're running everything at Ultra. Dropping the detail down to medium or even high gains 10-15FPS easily, and heavier tweaking will increase both the minimum and average FPS results.
In the coming days, I'll run Mass Effect: Andromeda through its paces on the GTX 780, GTX 980, GTX 980 Ti, Titan X (Maxwell), Titan X (Pascal), GTX 1060, and AMD's Radeon RX 460, RX 470, RX 480, and Radeon R9 Fury X. Expect some big results in the coming days, but will the GTX 1080 Ti be dethroned? Probably not.