Rainbow Six Siege in the benchmark

– BitcoinMinersHashrate tested the tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege in the benchmark with 29 graphics cards and 5 graphics units (iGPUs) integrated in CPUs. Both high-end as well as entry-level and older models take part in the comparison. The article is the third in a twelve-part benchmark test series.

A series of articles with twelve games

In the standard test course for graphics cards, processors and even gaming notebooks, BitcoinMinersHashrate usually focuses on AAA games. In addition to their high popularity and modern technology, there is another reason for this: They generally allow comparable results over a long period of time. But even if the number of players is high, the highest have other titles.

We are talking about games that focus exclusively on multiplayer and whose goal is to reach as many players as possible. Battle royale shooters like Fortnite or PUBG as well as e-sports heavyweights like League of Legends or Counter-Strike are among them. Technically, they are usually designed to be simpler than the AAA offshoots and harder to benchmark consistently due to continuously provided updates. Nevertheless, millions of players around the world keep asking themselves: How fast is or would GPU XYZ be in this game? BitcoinMinersHashrate will now look into this question again in a twelve-part series of articles.

In all twelve games, 29 graphics cards and 5 GPUs integrated in processors in two different quality settings will have to endure benchmarks. From GeForce RTX 2080 Ti to Radeon RX 5700 XT and GeForce GTX 1650 as well as older representatives such as the Radeon R9 390, numerous price, performance and age groups are represented.

So that the overview is not lost, each game gets its own article. The following titles are on our agenda, the linked ones have already been tested:

• Apex Legends in the 2020 benchmark
• Counter-Strike: GO
• Destiny 2
• Dota 2
• Fortnite in the 2020 benchmark
• GTA V
• League of Legends
• Overwatch
• PUBG
• Rainbow Six Siege (this article)
• World of Tanks
• World of Warcraft

The third game, Rainbow Six Siege from Ubisoft has to face the test. The tactical shooter is currently in the fourth season of the fourth year and will soon switch to the first season of the fifth year. The remaining nine articles will appear in the course of the next few weeks, there is no fixed rhythm.

Rainbow Six Siege: The third game in the benchmark

The tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege by Ubisoft and the developer studio Ubisoft Montreal was released on December 1, 2015 and has been continuously and massively developed since then. The in-house AnvilNext 2.0 engine is used as the basic technology, which is also used in the Ghost Recon and Assassin's Creed series and has only recently received an update to the Vulkan API.

The AMD and Nvidia graphics cards in the test

The 29 graphics cards are 13 3D accelerators from AMD and 16 from Nvidia. In addition, three APUs from AMD are represented and also two CPUs from Intel, each of which has to use the integrated graphics units for the benchmarks. There are also tests with a very inexpensive CPU, each of which has to show with a cheap Radeon or GeForce whether such a double team is worthwhile compared to a more expensive APU.

All GeForce and Radeon graphics cards adhere to the reference specifications, overclocked models for more performance do not take part in the comparison. How much faster they are can be seen in the many graphics card tests or the graphics card ranking on BitcoinMinersHashrate.

Driver and test system

Since the numerous benchmarks are created over a longer period of time, different drivers are used. The adrenaline 20.2.1 and the GeForce 442.19 were used for the tests of Rainbow Six Siege. The 26.20.100.7755 is installed for the Intel GPUs. The driver settings are left on the standard, only special optimizations like the theoretically possible adjustment of the maximum tessellation level with AMD are switched off.

An AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and the MSI MEG X570 Godlike with the X570 chipset of the same name are used as the test system. 16 gigabytes of RAM (2 × 8 GB, DDR4-3200-14-14-14-32-1T, single rank) are available to the system. Windows 10 1909 with all updates is installed.

Different resolutions and quality settings

To compare so many graphics cards from different performance classes in one article requires different quality settings, because it is clear that those with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti can drive completely different resolutions and levels of detail than one with a GeForce GTX 1050. Nevertheless, the need for benchmarks that compare all GPUs is great. This series of articles offers both.

Firstly, BitcoinMinersHashrate divided the test field into three different performance classes. Each of them receives its own resolution and level of detail, which is appropriate for its representatives. The fastest performance class includes the Radeon RX 5700 XT and the GeForce RTX 2070 Super. In the middle class, for example, the GeForce GTX 1060 and the Radeon RX 580 have to duel, while typical representatives for the slowest class are the Radeon RX 390 and the GeForce GTX 970.

In the highest performance class, the goal was to achieve around 50 to 60 FPS on a Radeon RX 5700 XT in 3,840 × 2,160. One class below were 50 to 60 FPS in 2,560 × 1,440 with a GeForce GTX 1060, while in the slowest class 50 to 60 FPS in 1,920 × 1,080 were to be achieved with a Ryzen 5 3400G.

An identical setting for all benchmarks

However, in order to be able to compare all products directly with one another, there is a fourth series of tests that come with a single comprehensive resolution and quality setting. It is a compromise that does not fully utilize high-end graphics cards and still completely overwhelms low-end APUs – but there is no other way to compare all 29 graphics cards and 5 iGPUs directly with each other.

The following quality settings were used for the four scenarios in Rainbow Six Siege.

A 25-second sprint on the map is selected as the test sequence shortly after the start of a new lap. There are no enemies to be seen, so there is no battle. The frame rate can be lower in these.

DirectX 11 or Vulkan – good depending on the hardware

Since the beginning of the year, Rainbow Six Siege has not only supported DirectX 11, but also the low-level API Vulkan. By default, the game always loads with DirectX 11. However, if you start it via the Uplay interface, you can also select Vulkan. The test showed that depending on the hardware used and the quality setting, sometimes one and sometimes the other API is faster. In order not to confuse readers, the better variant is always chosen for each graphics card, without mentioning this every time.

Even if there is no general rule in the game, when which API is faster, there is definitely a system. Mostly, AMD graphics cards benefit from Vulkan: Vulkan is in on all models of the Vega (RX Vega 56, RX Vega 64, Radeon VII) and Navi generation (RX 5500 XT, RX 5600 XT, RX 5700, RX 5700 XT) all test series faster than DirectX 11. This applies to the frame rate, but especially to the frame times.

The three fastest offshoots of the Polaris generation (RX 570, RX 580, RX 590) are still convinced by Vulkan, but this only applies to the benchmarks in Full HD. Then the FPS will no longer increase, but the frame times are even better. DirectX 11 is faster in higher resolutions. DirectX 11 is then consistently faster with all even slower AMD graphics cards.

GeForce graphics cards benefit less and less

Nvidia graphics cards can also benefit from Vulkan. However, only if the GPU load is not too high. And then only the frame times improve, the images in the second usually do not change. Only the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and the GeForce RTX 2080 Super are made faster by Vulkan in both high and low resolutions. The remaining GeForce RTX models of the Turing generation (RTX 2060, RTX 2060 Super, RTX 2070, RTX 2070 Super, RTX 2080), on the other hand, only increase in Full HD. From the old Pascal generation, only the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti gets faster through Vulkan, and then only in Full HD.

It should be borne in mind that the observations with other hardware components apart from the GPU can be different, especially the CPU can make a difference. It is questionable whether a computer with a Core i3-9100, for example, behaves in the same way with regard to Vulkan in Rainbow Six Siege as the Ryzen 5 3700X used in the test.

Benchmarks in Full HD, WQHD and Ultra HD

Full HD with entry-level graphics cards & iGPUs

Rainbow Six Siege in Full HD with reduced details does not place high demands on the hardware. Already a Ryzen 5 3400G (Radeon Vega 11) breaks the 60 FPS mark and a Ryzen 3 2200G (Radeon Vega 8) still represents the game properly. Intel's graphics units integrated in desktop CPUs are also for the tactical shooter too slow, be it the UHD Graphics 610 or the UHD Graphics 630. The same applies to the Athlon 3000G (Radeon Vega 3).

The Ryzen 5 3400G not only achieves 60 FPS, but also makes a good impression against the GeForce GT 1030 and the Radeon RX 550. All three products are at the same level, the APU is just ahead. The Athlon 3000G combined with a GeForce GT 1030 or Radeon RX 550, on the other hand, does not manage at all. The CPU is obviously too slow for the game. With a graphics card such as a GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon RX 560 in combination with the Ryzen, the 100 FPS mark is not far away, the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti cracks it.

WQHD with mid-range graphics cards

The requirements are not high for 2,560 × 1,440 either, all test candidates achieved at least 60 FPS in Rainbow Six Siege. Even a GeForce GTX 1650 or an old GeForce GTX 970 can do this. The Radeon RX Vega 56 and the Radeon R9 390 perform remarkably well in this series of measurements, which consistently run away from their competitors. Apart from that, there are no abnormalities. The new Turing and RDNA architectures cannot stand out from the older technology. This is not surprising, since the game is already over four years old.

Ultra HD with high-end graphics cards

In 3840 × 2.160, of course, the requirements increase, but the 60 FPS mark is nevertheless achieved by most models. When the GPU load is high, it shows that the Radeon graphics cards do a bit worse than usual in comparison to the GeForce rivals in the frame rate, but are closer than the average in the frame times.

Full HD benchmarks across all classes

There is little to report on the higher-level benchmarks in Full HD with high graphics details, because the graphics cards behave very similarly. There are some shifts every now and then, but they are rarely particularly large. The biggest change is the consistently good performance of AMD's Polaris generation, which applies to the Radeon RX 560 and the Radeon RX 590.

closing Remarks

Rainbow Six Siege does not place too high demands on the graphics card, even integrated graphics units from AMD perform well in Full HD with reduced graphics details in the tactical shooter – the Ryzen 5 3400G even breaks the 60 FPS mark. It doesn't get faster with small, discrete graphics cards.

The requirements remain moderate even in higher resolutions. 60 FPS is rarely a problem, most graphics cards also easily manage higher frame rates. The newly integrated Vulkan API brings a decent boost depending on the graphics card and settings, but is not the API of choice. Here everyone should try out for themselves which API runs better on their home computer. The new graphic architectures like RDNA and Turing bring no advantages in the game.

The following games have already been tested

Apart from Fortnite, the following content has appeared in the article series so far:

• Apex Legends in the 2020 benchmark
• Fortnite in the 2020 benchmark

Part 4: Counter-Strike: GO

The next game in this series will be Valve's tactical first-person shooter Counter-Strike: GO. The article is expected to appear in the course of the next week. As always, the editors would be happy to receive feedback in the forum on the series of articles.

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