ASUS ROG Strix RTX 2080 TI Review

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a Western-themed action-adventure game. Played from a first or third-person perspective, the game is set in an open-world environment featuring a fictionalized version of the Western, Midwestern and Southern United States in 1899, during the latter half of the Wild West era and the turn of the twentieth century. For most of the game, the player controls outlaw Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang, as he completes numerous missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story; from the game’s epilogue, the player controls John Marston. Outside of missions, the player may freely roam its interactive world.

For Red Dead Redemption 2, like other games, we used the games mas presets. However, RDR2 is much like GTA V in the fact it has advanced settings that are very intricate. Therefore, we had to make sure the settings were the same on both systems as they reset to defaults after each benchmark run.  So, here are the settings used for Red Dead Redemption 2.

Graphics Settings

• VSync: Off
• Texture Quality: Ultra
• Anisotropic Filtering: x8
• Lighting Quality: Ultra
• Global Illumination Quality: Ultra
• Shadow Quality: Ultra
• Far Shadow Quality: Ultra
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: Ultra
• Reflection Quality: Ultra
• Mirror Quality: Ultra
• Water Quality: High
• Volumetrics Quality: Ultra
• Particle Quality: Ultra
• Tessellation Quality: High
• TAA: Medium
• FXAA: Off
• MSAA: off

Advanced Settings

• Advanced Settings: Unlocked
• Graphics API: DX12 and Vulcan
• Near Volumetric Resolution: Ultra
• Far Volumetric Resolution: Ultra
• Volumetric Lighting Quality: Ultra
• Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution: Off
• Particle Lighting Quality: Medium
• Soft Grass: Ultra
• Grass Shadows: Medium
• Long Shadows: On
• Full Resolution Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: Off
• Water Refraction Quality: High
• Water Reflection Quality: High
• Water Physics Quality: 75% of Slider
• Resolution Scale: Off
• TAA Sharpening: 100% of Slider
• Motion Blur: On
• Reflection MSAA: Off
• Geometry Level of Detail: 100% of Slider
• Grass Level of Detail: 80% of Slider
• Tree Quality: Medium
• Parallax Occlusion Mapping Quality: High
• Decal Quality: High
• Fur Quality: Medium
• Tree Tessellation: Off

DX12

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the newest, and most graphically intensive games in our suite of benchmarks. The results were similar across the board. We tested Red Dead Redemption 2 on both the Vulcan API and DX12 API. First, we’ll look at the DX12 results for RDR2. On the 9700K system, the Strix 2080 Ti averaged 84 frames per second in 1080p resolution. On the 9900K system, the Strix 2080 Ti averaged 80 frames per second in 1080p.

In 1440p, the Strix 2080 Ti averaged 69 frames per second on our 9700K system and 64 frames per second on our 9900K system. The 9900K system did have a higher minimum frame rate when compared to the 9700K system.

I had a few issues when benchmarking RDR2 in 4K. Originally, I was on Nvidia Driver 442.59. When I was, I was averaging about 20 frames per second in 4K. However, when I updated to driver 445.75, the average more than doubled in 4K. In DX12, the 9700K system averaged 46 FPS in 4K and the 9900K system averaged 45 FPS in 4K on Red Dead Redemption 2.

Vulcan

Red Dead Redemption 2 performed better on the Vulcan API than it did in DX12. The averages were higher across all resolutions. In 1080p, the Strix 2080 Ti averaged 88 FPS in 1080p on our 9700K system and 79 FPS on our 9900K system.

In 1440p on the Vulcan API, the Strix 2080 Ti averaged 72 FPS on our 9700K system and 66 FPS on our 9900K system.

The averaged for Red Dead Redemption 2 on the Vulcan API in 4K was identical to the DX12 results. The 9700K system averaged 46 FPS in 4K and the 9900K system averaged 45 FPS.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2013 game Tomb Raider and its sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider.

I love the Tomb Raider reboot series. The play and look beautiful. I hadn’t expected the Strix 2080 Ti to do as well as it did on the third game of the Tomb Raider series. However, on our 9700K system, the Strix 2080 Ti averaged 173 FPS and 157 FPS on the 9900K system in 1080p resolution.

In 1440p resolution in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, our Strix 2080 Ti averaged 119 frames per second when paired with the 9700K and 109 frames per second when paired with the 9900K.

I was surprised at the difference in results between the two systems on Shadow of the Tomb Raider in 4K. The Strix 2080 Ti averaged 65 frames per second on our 9700K system and only 50 frames per second on our 9900K system.

Strange Brigade

Strange Brigade is a third-person shooter with a huge emphasis on cooperative gameplay. In the game, the player assumes the role of an adventurer in the 1930s and can team up with three other players to fight against different mythological enemies like mummies, giant scorpions, and minotaurs. The game’s four playable characters, who can be customized, have different weapons and abilities. Players have a large arsenal of weapons at their disposal. Each weapon has several upgrade slots, which can be used to enhance combat efficiency. Players can switch and upgrade their weapons at the workbenches found in a level. They can also activate different traps, such as spinning blades and spikes, to kill enemies.

DX12

Strange Brigade is a very fun third-person shooter. It’s also not very tough of your graphics card. That being said, the game looks great. Especially when playing on a high refresh rate monitor. Our Strix 2080 Ti averaged a whopping 221 frames per second on our 9700K system. It did great on the 9900K system, averaging 218 frames per second in 1080p.