The latest part in the Gears of War series, Gears 5, has just been released on the PC. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, Gears 5 promises to showcase what Epic’s engine can achieve on current-gen systems. As such, it’s time to benchmark it and see how it performs on the PC platform.
For this PC Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i9 9900K with 16GB of DDR4 at 3600Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX580 and RX Vega 64, NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, GTX980Ti and GTX690. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce driver 436.30 and the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.9.1 drivers. NVIDIA has not included any SLI profile for this title, meaning that our GTX690 performed similarly to a single GTX680.
The Coalition has added a huge amount of graphics settings to tweak. Seriously, Gears 5 may feature the most extensive graphics settings we’ve ever seen in a PC game. The game features basically everything; from a resolution scaler to Field of View, Sharpening and Ambient Occlusion Intensity sliders. Not only that, but there is a small description for each option that lets you know whether it affects the CPU, the GPU, or the VRAM.
In order to find out how the game scales on multiple CPU threads, we simulated a dual-core, a quad-core and a hexa-core CPU. We also used the game’s built-in benchmark tool as it’s representative of the in-game performance you’ll be getting. Now even though we lowered our resolution to 720p, we were still GPU-limited on most of our setups. This basically suggests that Gears 5 does not require a high-end CPU.
Without Hyper Threading, our simulated dual-core was able to push a minimum of 34fps and an average of 66fps. When we enabled Hyper Threading, our simulated dual-core system was able to offer a constant 60fps experience. All of our other systems were able to offer a smooth gaming experience (with framerates above 100fps at all times). Still, it’s worth noting that the game can scale on more than four or six CPU cores/threads. Given its very light CPU requirements (and after facing a lot of issues with Microsoft Store), we did not benchmark the game on our Intel i7 4930K system.
At 1080p, most of our GPUs were able to offer a 60fps experience on Ultra settings. Moreover, and contrary to other Unreal Engine 4 games, Gears 5 works like a dream on AMD’s hardware. The AMD Radeon RX580, for example, was almost able to match the performance of the NVIDIA GTX980Ti.
At 2560×1440, the only GPUs that were able to offer a smooth experience were the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080Ti. As for 4K, NVIDIA’s most powerful graphics card struggled to come close to a 60fps experience.
Since the game also comes with some Insane graphics settings, we’ve decided to benchmark all presets in 4K on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX2080Ti. In order to maintain a 60fps experience in 4K, PC gamers will need to run the game on High settings. That, or they can use the game’s minimum framerate option (which basically reduces your resolution whenever the framerate is about to go under 60fps). Owners of G-Sync monitors will be able to enjoy the game in 4K with Ultra settings. As for the Insane settings, we suggest running them at a lower resolution.
Graphics wise, Gears 5 looks great. The characters looks awesome, the lip-syncing is great, the environments look amazing and there are some cool environmental destruction set-pieces. However, there are also some limitations here that really surprised us. For instance, the gameplay environmental physics/destruction are toned down. The lighting is nowhere close to what Metro: Exodus and Control achieved. It still looks great, however, it lacks the depth that ray tracing brings to the table. Ray tracing is not a gimmick and if you’ve played these two games (or even Quake 2 RTX), you know what I’m talking about. Don’t get me wrong; Gears 5 looks great and runs smooth on the PC. However, Gears 5 does not showcase what future games can look in Unreal Engine 4; it feels more like a “refinement” of what modern-day games can look like.
All in all, Gears 5 runs exceptionally well on the PC platform. The game does not require a high-end CPU and we did not experience any stuttering issues even on our simulated dual-core system. The game also packs one hell of graphics settings to tweak, and it plays great with mouse and keyboard. It’s also worth noting that Gears 5 runs incredibly well on AMD’s hardware. While it does not push the PC graphics boundaries, Gears 5 is easily one of the most optimized PC games of 2019.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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“Ray tracing is not a gimmick”
Ahaahhahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe in 10 years it wont but like vr, sure you can have it now but your alpha testing it. Its in infancy now not even worth paying the premium.
“but no one should call it a simple gimmick”
There are many people who don’t know what raytracing is. Or they are simply AMD fans or NV haters. You can choose. These people will call it gimmick for whatever reason they construct.
yea, its too early to buy hardware only to play a game raytracinggame with 16 frames per seconds. the real power isnt there right now… wake me if constant 60fps max settings are available.
“…Gears 5 works like a dream on AMD’s hardware.” “It’s also worth noting that Gears 5 runs incredibly well on AMD’s hardware.”
Really? I tested the game on comparable AMD/AMD vs Intel/Nvidia systems and the latter always comes out 20 FPS more than AMD. Then again I’m testing it on 1440P 144hz monitors, not 1080P…
I’m getting a locked 90 fps (mostly) at 1440p on a RX 5700 at ultra.
They’re really using AMDs hardware on this one.
How expensive the hardware to play as a (in Carl CJ Johnson’s words) Ugly B*tch?
Ultra settings, 720p -> This is a test of absolutely nothing. If you’re trying to benchmark the CPU don’t use ultra settings. If you’re trying to benchmark a real use case don’t use 720p.
How expensive the hardware to play as a (in Carl CJ Johnson’s words) Ugly B*tch?
almost any gaming pc from the last decade or so should be able to play it, just depends on what resolution and/or settings you want though.
You mean hardware from the decade 00 or 10?
Thats very odd, my 1080ti/2700x is getting much higher than where it would fall between the 2080ti and 980ti at 1440p, at ultra im getting around 90ish at average with dips into mid 70s
My bad, I wasnt testing at stock but a heavy OC on my 1080ti.
I was doing In-game runs to see “real use case” results. I dont like synthetic benchmarks too much because they usually dont reflect actual in game results. But thats just my personal methodology
“…Gears 5 works like a dream on AMD’s hardware.” “It’s also worth noting that Gears 5 runs incredibly well on AMD’s hardware.”
It is an AMD sponsored title so of course it is supposed to run properly on their platform.
The fact that it does not support ray tracing, even though the developpers have publicly said that ray tracing is a game changer, is because as stated above the game is sponsored by AMD so the devs have to wait for next AMD cards to support ray tracing before they can use it