Far Cry 6 Benchmarked

Today we're taking a expect at Far Cry 6 to see how it runs on a variety of PC hardware and GPUs, so lots and lots of benchmarks. To be articulate this isn't a review of Far Cry six, although nosotros take spent several hours playing the game and can confirm, it plays like a Far Cry game, but with more interesting gunplay, which is probably what Far Cry fans want.

Graphically, it besides looks a lot like other recently released titles in the franchise, think New Dawn and Far Weep 5, but with some visual upgrades. Ubisoft is withal using the Dunia two game engine introduced manner back in 2022 with Far Cry 3, though the engine is meant to be in constant development and the game has certainly evolved visually over the past 9 years.

Now, because Far Cry 6 is an AMD sponsored title, information technology arrives with support for FSR with four presets to choose from, but for today's benchmark we're going to ignore FSR for a few reasons, chief among them time. Proper FSR testing requires its ain dedicated commodity that not just includes benchmark information, but also detailed image quality assay, something we simply couldn't do while also benchmarking 30+ current and previous-gen AMD and Nvidia GPUs at iii resolutions using two quality presets forth with a expect at ray tracing.

Speaking of which, Far Cry 6 supports ray tracing at launch, with the ability to enable DXR reflections and DXR shadows. Merely because DXR shadows are kind of pointless and not worth the performance striking, nosotros oasis't tested with them enabled, merely I have taken a look at DXR reflections, so we'll look at that shortly using supported hardware.

Far Cry vi includes a built-in criterion which appears to accurately correspond in-game performance, but we've decided to do manual criterion runs as we generally prefer to examination. Nosotros will refer to the criterion tool for a few direct visual quality comparisons though. We've also tested using the HD texture pack which according to the settings carte du jour takes the VRAM requirement at ultra from 5.2 GB up to half-dozen.two GB.

For testing we're using our Ryzen 9 5950X GPU exam organisation which features 32GB of dual-rank, dual-channel DDR4-3200 CL14 retentivity. For the GeForce cards we're using Game Ready commuter 472.12 and for Radeons early access driver Adrenalin 21.ten.1.

Benchmarks

Ultra Quality Operation

Starting with the 1080p ultra results and starting from the top, nosotros unsurprisingly discover the RTX 3090 which is either CPU or game engine limited, peaking at just 126 fps. This is the aforementioned performance you'll receive from the 3080 Ti, as well as the 6900 XT and standard RTX 3080.

Even the 6800 XT and 6800 are right in that location, so this isn't a game where y'all can easily drive really high frame rates for super fast panels. That said, 100+ fps is probably more than enough for a Far Cry-style game, at least for virtually players.

Although this is an AMD sponsored title, and AMD did provide an early access driver, I'd say overall functioning looks quite neutral, at least at 1080p on the high-end segment. The RX 6700 and RTX 3070 are evenly matched and Nvidia'due south Turing-based GPUs are where you lot'd await them to exist with the RTX 2080 Ti matching the 3060 Ti.

The 5700 XT did perform uncommonly well, beating the RTX 2080 and that meant it was 16% faster than the 2070 Super. That's uncharacteristically fast for the old RDNA GPU, but we take seen it do well in other sponsored AMD titles.

Interestingly, the RX 6600 XT which typically mimics 5700 XT functioning was quite a bit slower, rendering just 90 fps on average and that was simply enough to match the vanilla RX 5700. It was able to match the RTX 3060 though, which seems to be its main competitor at the moment.

The 5600 XT performs well in Far Cry vi, likewise, matching the RTX 3060 and 2060 Super, which isn't something we can oftentimes see. Even Vega does uncommonly well here, with Vega 56 matching the GTX 1080 Ti... a fleck of a "what the..." moment when I saw those results. Pascal in full general appears to practise desperately in Far Weep six, at least with the current driver and then that might alter, equally the 8GB 5500 XT was able to roughly match the GTX 1080, though the 4GB 5500 XT was a lot less impressive, presumably running out of VRAM.

Moving up to 1440p provides a few unexpected results, though the margins remain incredibly modest. The 6900 XT is able to overtake the RTX 3090 and unremarkably you'd wait the margin to widen in Ampere's favor every bit the resolution increases. We also encounter that the 6800 XT nudges ahead of both the RTX 3080 Ti and 3080, albeit marginally.

The RX 6800 too matched the RTX 3070 Ti, while the RX 6700 was able to match the previous-gen flagship GeForce function, the RTX 2080 Ti. Again, the 5700 XT was seen punching above its weight, edging out the RTX 2080 which made information technology 13% faster than the 2070 Super. Then nosotros run into the RX 5700 matching the RTX 3060.

Again though, the more limited bandwidth of the 6600 XT appears to be hurting it every bit the new mid-range Radeon GPU was skilful for only 64 fps on average at 1440p, and that saw it only match the RTX 3060 forth with the RTX 2070 and 2060 Super.

Then nosotros have the 5600 XT which relative to the Turing GPUs is right where y'all'd expect information technology to exist, trailing the 2060 Super past a 10% margin. Yet, it'southward Pascal that actually struggles in this title. Typically, yous'd expect to find the GTX 1080 shadowing the 2060 Super past less than a 10% margin, merely here it was 25% slower.

The Radeon 5500 XT 8GB was also able to friction match the GTX 1070, though the RX 580 is about where you'd wait information technology to be -- on par with the GTX 1060. Elsewhere, whatsoever GPU with a 4GB VRAM buffer can't handle these quality settings at 1440p.

At 4K is where nosotros find gamers who are seeking the about visually impressive Far Cry 6 experience, short of enabling ray tracing, yous'll crave some pretty serious rendering hardware. The RTX 3090 was dorsum on top here with an 79 fps average which for an open world game of this quality is great.

In our opinion, Far Cry 6 looks improve than Assassinator's Creed Valhalla and here the RTX 3090 is 34% faster when comparing our examination data. Information technology'south also a similar margin when comparing the Watch Dogs Legion performance.

The 6900 XT too performed well, essentially matching the RTX 3090. The 6800 XT also did well and was positioned between the 3080 Ti and 3080. Below that nosotros're heading downward towards 60 fps with the RX 6800 and 3070 Ti, while parts like the 3060 Ti and RX 6700 are down around 50 fps, which is still okay and certainly playable, but annihilation slower and I'd rather drib the resolution down to 1440p and take the striking on visual quality for the higher frame rates.

Medium Quality Performance

As noted before, we're using HD textures for both ultra and medium quality tests, so the image quality is pretty like. The difference in terrain quality is small, equally is h2o. The big 1 here is shadow quality, though the difference isn't ever noticeable. Volumetric fog does look better on ultra.

We recall it'south fair to say most of you volition exist but every bit happy using the medium quality preset, but let'southward move on to see how much extra functioning information technology offers...

Every bit expected, nosotros're seeing an increase in performance at 1080p using the medium quality preset, even with the flagship GPUs. Lower quality settings can reduce CPU load and even convalesce game engine bottlenecks, so it'due south non entirely articulate which limitation has been mitigated in order to increment the bottleneck limit past roughly 15%, simply we can tell that we're however not GPU limited since the Radeon 6900 XT and 6800 XT both deliver the aforementioned level of operation.

Equally nosotros scroll down the graph we're seeing stiff functioning from all the usual suspects and again, just as we saw with the ultra quality preset, the Radeon RX 6700 and GeForce RTX 3070 deliver identical performance. The Radeon 5700 XT is also extremely strong, matching the RTX 3060 Ti which is nuts, and the 137 fps average over again meant it edged out the RTX 2080, making information technology half-dozen% faster than the RTX 2070 Super.

The 6600 XT was only able to lucifer the standard RX 5700, though that did brand information technology a few frames faster than the RTX 3060. And then nosotros have the 5600 XT roughly matching the GTX 2070 which made it a little faster than the RTX 2060, and again Vega 56 can be seen beating the GTX 1080 Ti, making it a whopping 23% faster than the standard GTX 1080.

The Radeon RX 580 likewise does better with the medium quality preset, pulling alee of the GTX 1060 by an eleven% margin to friction match the GTX 1070. It was a struggle for some of the 4GB graphics cards and although the GTX 1650 Super did well, the 5500 XT tin once more be found at the very bottom of our graph.

The 1440p medium results see the vast majority of the GPUs tested still able to return over lx fps on average. Merely we detect again the Radeon 6900 XT matching the RTX 3090, along with the 6800 XT and 3080 Ti. The RTX 3080 and RX 6800 both managed to boilerplate over 130 fps.

Then from 125 fps downward to 155 fps we take a range of Nvidia GPUs with the RX 6700 coming in at 115 fps, then higher up information technology was the 3060 Ti, 2080 Ti, 3070 and 3070 Ti. Again the 5700 XT was able to match the RTX 2080, an incredible result for the first-gen RDNA office. In one case again nosotros encounter the 6600 XT simply matching the vanilla 5700, and that fabricated information technology a few frames slower than the standard RTX 3060, which is a disappointing issue for an AMD sponsored title.

It's worth mentioning that the mid-range to depression-stop GPUs saw a thirty-40% performance improvement with the medium quality preset, opposed to ultra, and I've got to say that's a massive increment for what'due south often simply a small difference in visual quality. Parts such as the GTX 1070, 1650 Super and RX 580 did enable playable performance, but depending on the frame rates you're chasing, you might desire to lower the quality settings even farther.

Then for those of you wishing to game at 4K and are happy to exercise so with dialed down quality settings we've got proficient news, Far Cry 6 is very playable with most mod graphics cards. Nvidia pulls ahead at the high-terminate with the RTX 3090 and 3080 Ti edging out the 6900 XT, though the RTX 3080 and 6800 XT were comparable, as were the RX 6800 and RTX 3070 Ti.

With the RX 6700 and RTX 2080 nosotros're dipping downward towards 60 fps, while there were several options capable of 50 fps such as the RTX 3060 Ti, GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2070 and 2060 Super. Below that you can start to really discover the frame charge per unit lag and every bit such you'd drop the resolution back down to 1440p or lower.

Ultra vs. Ultra DXR Comparison

For a quick await at the visual quality difference, or lack thereof, between ultra with and without DXR reflections enabled. I watched some footage over and over and couldn't spot the departure, then I turned to a trained center in Tim who informed me that ray tracing was working and there was a difference.

Below is an example, simply to best illustrate it, we've zoomed in by 400%. Y'all can run into the car'south shadow that is bigger and more realistic in the puddle of water, just yeah that's information technology...

When playing the game the visual difference isn't more noticeable than the congenital-in benchmark, and every bit such the functioning hit is much the same. No surprises, Radeon GPUs aren't very good at real-time ray tracing even so, just since they are advertised to support it and AMD wants to push button that marketing bending forward, best to do it, just merely do very picayune of it to avoid a serious performance penalty.

With DXR reflections enabled we're only looking at a ten-15% reduction in performance which explains why the effects are then difficult to spot. Games with more prominent ray traced effects will meet a part like the 6900 XT driblet at least 40% of its original performance, so again given how small-scale the operation hit hither is, information technology's unsurprising that I really struggled to tell when the characteristic was enabled. Frankly I'd run with DXR disabled, merely allow'south take a expect at the 1440p results.

At 1440p nosotros're looking at a twenty% performance hit for the 6900 XT with DXR reflections enabled and a 13% striking for the RTX 3090. Both are comparatively small to nigh other titles that support DXR, but nonetheless given the very small-scale upgrade to visuals, at least seen in my testing, I don't recall I'd carp enabling it.

At 4K nosotros're looking at a 22% drop in operation for the 6900 XT with just a 13% striking for the RTX 3090. The more rays cast, the more that margin will be exacerbated, which is manifestly why AMD has opted for extremely limited utilize of ray tracing for this title.

VRAM Usage

Now here's a look at Far Cry 6 VRAM usage with the HD texture pack using a Radeon RX 6800 XT. These figures were recorded after 10 minutes of gameplay and for each quality setting or resolution alter, the game was completely closed and the process repeated for accurate data.

Yous may have noticed 4GB and 6GB graphics cards were removed from the 4K results, and that's because they basically didn't work. Some configurations did work, like the RTX 2060 which appeared fine with ray tracing enabled, despite the game using over 8GB of VRAM at 1080p and 1440p, though it was broken at 4K.

For 1440p gaming you'll ideally want a GPU with 6GB of VRAM every bit the minimum using the ultra and medium quality settings and 4GB is sketchy fifty-fifty at 1080p using medium.

How Does Information technology Run?

Considering the visual fidelity in Far Cry 6, we'd say the results are quite good. The Far Cry series has never been well optimized for driving high frame rates, only we don't think information technology needs to be. Every bit a predominantly single role player open-world game, most gamers volition be happy with 60 fps, while the pickier of the bunch such as myself volition be content with ninety fps.

That means for those who merely want to max out the quality settings without any tinkering to get the best balance of performance and visuals, you can achieve around 90 fps with an RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 at 1440p, which is pretty decent.

And so more modest previous generation GPUs such as the 5700 XT will be good for around eighty fps, though yous will require something a lot more expensive from Nvidia to achieve the same level of performance, such as the RTX 2080.

Dialing the quality preset back to medium can improve frame rates substantially while but slightly downgrading the visuals. For gamers using mid-range to low-end hardware, this is a corking option.

The 5700 XT, RTX 2080, 2070 Super and RTX 3060 were all expert for over 90 fps at 1440p, while 60 fps was doable with more modest hardware, such as the GTX 1660 Ti or Radeon 5600 XT.

As well read: 17 Years of Far Weep -- From Tech Demo to Successful Video Game Franchise

Considering this is an AMD sponsored title, you'd expect Radeon GPUs to perform well and they did. High-end RDNA2 parts such every bit the 6900 XT, 6800 XT 6800 and 6700 all performed very well relative to their GeForce competitors. Even so, the 6600 XT was disappointing equally it could only match the RX 5700.

Just peradventure it's non a example of the 6600 XT performing worse than expected -- after all, it did lucifer the RTX 3060 in nearly of our testing -- rather it could be RDNA-based GPUs like the 5600 XT, 5700 and 5700 XT performing well beyond expectation. A possible reason for this is retention bandwidth, as all iii models savour a lot more of it when compared to the 6600 XT, which is comparable to the 5500 XT. Of course, the 6600 XT does have some Infinity Cache likewise, though it's hard to say how useful the smaller 32MB buffer is.

Other surprises include the venerable Vega 56 pumping out 70 fps on boilerplate at 1440p using the medium quality preset and that made it only 7% slower than the GTX 1080 Ti and faster than the rest of the GeForce 10 series. It'll be interesting to come across if Nvidia does improve performance with an updated driver for the older GPUs.

Finally, Far Cry 6 ray tracing is not as relevant as y'all may recall. We know this isn't a strength of RDNA2 and and so the average result was kind of expected. However the game's ray traced graphics are nothing to write dwelling house about. Granted, we didn't get deep in the exploration, only I personally couldn't even tell when it was enabled.