After 18 months and releases on four other platforms, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V finally arrived on PC this week. After extensively benchmarking GTA V on 14 different AMD and Nvidia graphics cards, across multiple resolutions and settings, I’m thrilled to say Rockstar has done a terrific job optimizing the game for our favorite gaming platform. And let’s be honest with each other, we don’t get to say that on a regular basis.
Yes, folks, this port is much better than GTA IV.
The PC version of GTA V also introduces a ton of visual and technical upgrades over the console versions. Stuff like denser traffic, increased draw distance, a new foliage system, enhanced weather effects, and the Rockstar Editor, allowing players to record, create, and publish video clips of their open world shenanigans.
GTA V is also getting strong support from Nvidia and AMD, with SLI and CrossFire supported out of the gate (although CrossFire exhibits noticeable stuttering during benchmarks), and Nvidia’s “Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows” tech. That’s a fancy way of saying that all manner of shadows look true-to-life, softening shadows realistically, and softening them more the further away a shadow gets from its source . They’re softer and more dynamic, versus typical shadows that resemble stencils. That kind of detail isn’t present in nature.
The game also happens to look stunning in 4K.
But let’s get to why you’re here: Benchmarks. I spent several hours testing a wide variety of AMD and Nvidia hardware to give you an idea of how your system might perform with various settings under multiple resolutions. The results you’ll see are meant to be approximate, not exact. Certain cards aren’t reference versions and may have a slight factory overclock. In the interest of time these weren’t downclocked, and there’s a lot of variation out there. Still, it’s a great performance snapshot.
Graphics Cards Tested:
- Nvidia GTX 650Ti
- Nvidia GTX 750Ti
- Nvidia GTX 770
- Nvidia GTX 780Ti
- Nvidia GTX 960
- Nvidia GTX 970
- Nvidia GTX 980
- Nvidia GTX Titan X
- AMD Radeon 260x
- AMD Radeon 270x
- AMD Radeon 280x
- AMD Radeon 285
- AMD Radeon 290x
- AMD Radeon 295×2
Benchmark Settings & Test System
Benchmarking was carried out on my X99 test bench, which is admittedly overkill for gaming, but also eliminates the possibility of the CPU being a bottleneck. The system boasts an Intel INTC +4.29% Core i7-5960x and 16GB of G.Skill DDR4 memory. This system will slightly elevate results compared to a Core i7-4770K rig with DDR3 memory, but the differences are marginal.
Let’s talk about the test itself. Rockstar’s built in benchmark routine for Grand Theft Auto V runs 5 different scenes, and it’s a strong representation of gameplay and engine demands. Camera fly-throughs test environment rendering, lighting, day/night cycles, and weather effects, while a lengthy driving sequence pushes the hardware by throwing chaos like gunfire, crashes, and major explosions into the mix. You can view your own results in My Documents/Rockstar Games/GTA V/benchmarks.
Rockstar has also implemented a huge number of graphics quality settings allowing you to tweak to your heart’s content. Best of all, a meter tracks estimated Video RAM usage as you cycle through various settings. Beyond helping you simply find the sweet spot between framerate and graphical fidelity, it’s a minor teaching tool that illustrates which properties have the strongest impact on your VRAM. For example, Population Variety and Anti-aliasing. If you’re struggling to hit your desired framerate, reduce these first, as well as Tessellation.
Watch The GTA V Benchmark
You can see the settings and the benchmark routine in the video I recorded below.
So, to arrive at an average framerate, I calculated the median framerate across all 5 scenes. As I mentioned, there are a bunch of dials to turn, and probably as many testing methodologies. Therefore I’ve divided the 1080p and 1440 benchmarks into two sets: “High” and “Very High” based o
