Custom PC - UK (2020-02)

Wemainlyevaluategraphics

cards on the performance they

offer for the price. However,

we also consider the efficacy

and noise of the cooler, as well

as the GPU’s support for new

gaming features, such as real-

time ray tracing. Every graphics card is tested in the same PC,

so all the results are directly comparable. Each test is run

three times, and we report the average of those results.

We test graphics cards at 1,920 x 1,080, 2,560 x 1,440 and

3,840 x 2,160, although we omit the latter resolution on

cheaper cards that are unable to produce playable frame

rates at this setting. We also try to overclock every graphics

card we test to assess the performance impact.

TEST KIT

Intel Core i7-8700K overclocked to 4.7GHz on all cores, 16GB

Corsair Vengeance LED 3000MHz DDR4 memory, Gigabyte

Z370 Aorus motherboard, Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240

CPU cooler, Corsair HX750 PSU, Cooler Master MasterCase

H500M case, Windows 10 Home 64-bit.

GAME TESTS

Battlefield V Tested in DirectX 11 at Ultra settings on every

card. If a GPU also supports real-time ray tracing, we then test

it in DirectX 12 with DXR enabled on Low and High settings.

We run through a one-minute custom benchmark in the

‘Under No Flag’ War Story, recording the frame rate

with Fraps.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Tested at the Highest settings

preset, with TAA. We run the built-in benchmark, and record

the frame rate from the GPU test.

Total War: Warhammer II Tested in DirectX 11, as the DirectX

12 beta currently causes stuttering issuesonsome GPUs. We

test at Ultra settings with FXAA, and runthebuilt-in

‘Battle’ benchmark.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Tested at the Very High preset in

DirectX 12, running the built-

in benchmark.

POWER CONSUMPTION

We run Unigine Superposition at 4K

Optimized DirectX settings. We measure the power

consumption of our whole graphics test rig at the mains

during the test, and record the peak power draw. Bear in mind

that this result is for the whole system, not the graphics

card alone.

GRAPHICS CARDS

CUSTOM PC REALBENCH

Our own benchmark suite, co-developed with Asus, is

designed to gauge a PC’s performance in several key areas,

using open source software.

GIMP IMAGE EDITING

We use GIMP to open and edit large images, heavily stressing

one CPU core to gauge single-threaded performance. This

test responds well to increases in CPU clock speed.

HANDBRAKE H.264 VIDEO ENCODING

Our heavily multi-threaded Handbrake H.264 video encoding

test takes full advantage of many CPU cores, pushing them to

100 per cent load.

LUXMARK OPENCL

This LuxRender-based test shows a GPU’s compute

performance. As this is a niche area, the result from this test

has just a quarter of the weighting of the other tests in the

final system score.

HEAVY MULTITASKING

This test plays a full-screen 1080p video, while running a

Handbrake H.264 video encode in the background.

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C

US

TOMK

IT

CUSTOM KIT

For those gadgets and gizmos that really

impress us, or that we can’t live without,

there’s the Custom Kit award.

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AP

PROVED

APPROVED

Approved products do a great job for the

money; they’re the canny purchase for a

great PC setup.

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PR

OF

ESSION

AL

PROFESSIONAL

These products might not be appropriate for a

gaming rig, but they’ll do an ace job at

workstation tasks.

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P

RE

MI

UM GR

AD

E

PREMIUM GRADE

Premium Grade products are utterly desirable,

offering a superb balance of performance and

features without an over-the-top price.

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EX

TR

EME ULT

R

A

EXTREME ULTRA

Some products are gloriously over the top. They

don’t always offer amazing value, but they’re

outstanding if you have money to spend.

AWARDS