After a preliminar look at Battlefield V during the open beta phase, we're back to check out GPU performance for the official release of the game. It was early September when we gave the game a first whirl and found solid performance from both AMD and Nvidia GPUs.

The only problem we faced with that test was that our benchmarks were limited to the multiplayer portion, which makes gathering accurate and reliable data quite challenging.

For testing a single hardware configuration, the multiplayer portion of the game is useful as it’s very taxing, and it'll give you a good idea of how that setup handles the game. But directly comparing that data with a second system is difficult and time consuming to do accurately as the margin of error is larger. Therefore comparing half a dozen or more hardware configurations isn’t a viable option.

With that in mind, for this test we are using the single player campaign and since we’re only looking at GPU performance for now, this should not be an issue. This has allowed us to benchmark a total of 38 new and previous generation graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia.

'Operation Dragoon' has been selected for this benchmark session. The test starts at a checkpoint where the objective is to destroy anti-air positions and runs for 60 seconds. We begin by taking a few shots with a sniper rifle, then move left and take a path up the side of the base and from there we take a few more shots and continue to move along the left side of the base until the test ends. The results are based on an average of three runs.

Testing was performed at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions using the ultra quality preset and DirectX 11. We found during the game's beta that DX12 caused frame time issues with noticeable stuttering and unfortunately that still appears to be the case. That’s also terrible news for the yet to be included ray tracing features.

Update: Now live TechSpot's Real-Time Ray Tracing Battlefield V Performance Test

For this benchmark we're using our newly updated GPU test rig sporting a Core i9-9900K clocked at 5 GHz with 16GB of DDR4-3400 memory. For GeForce cards the 416.81 driver was used, and for Radeon GPUs, the Adrenalin 18.11.1 driver.

Benchmarks

Starting with previous generation GPUs, we find that for an average of 60 fps at 1080p you’ll need a Radeon R9 390 or GeForce GTX 970 graphics card. If you want to keep frame rates above 60 fps at all times, the R9 390X or GTX 980 will do better. We're seeing even performance between the older AMD and Nvidia GPUs in Battlefield V, in fact, the Maxwell optimization seems a bit better than what we’ve been seeing recently, so that’s great news.

Looking at current generation GPUs, for an average of 60 fps you’ll want the GTX 1060 3GB or RX 570, both of which did well at 1080p. However with the RX 570 selling for as little as $150 right now, that would be my go to budget option for Battlefield V without question.

Then for those that want to keep 1080p frame rates above 60 fps at all times, the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 580 will do the trick nicely. Beyond that we’re starting to get into overkill territory for a lot of gamers. I’d be targeting something like the GTX 1080, RTX 2070 or Vega 64 for 1080p high refresh rate Battlefield V action.

Please note we're not including Radeon RX 400 series GPUs as for the most part they were just rebranded as the RX 500 series.

Jumping up to 1440p and we find a very console-ish 30fps from the GTX 960 and R9 380. The R9 390 and GTX 970 are about as slow as I’d consider going here and even then I’d drop the quality preset to high at 1440p.

For a smoother experience you’ll require a Fury or GTX 980 Ti GPU. Oddly, our Nano graphics card which shouldn’t be that much slower than the Fury was performing strangely in Battlefield V, coming in much slower than expected. We’ll double check these results as soon as we're able to, but for now we’ve been locked out of Battlefield V on every Origin account we have access to... due for excessive hardware changes, cheers EA!

From the current generation GPUs you’re going to need a 6GB 1060 or RX 580, with the Radeon GPU looking to be the prefered option as it delivered 16% more performance. We also see Vega 56 beating the GTX 1070 by a 9% margin, while Vega 64 matched the GTX 1080 and RTX 2070. Still, if you want big frame rates, then you can’t go past the RTX 2080 or GTX 1080 Ti and then some, delivered by the insane RTX 2080 Ti.

Moving on, we have the 4K benchmark results and unsurprisingly the flagship GPUs from 2014 and 2015 aren’t cutting it anymore (when using 'ultra' quality settings, of course).

The GTX 1080 Ti and RTX 2080 do well at 4K, but this is where the RTX 2080 Ti comes into its own delivering over 60 fps at all times, making for a breathtaking 4K gaming experience. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, the RTX 2080 Ti really is something else for 4K gaming. It’s an absurdly expensive GPU, but it’s the only RTX graphics card that can enable an experience seen by no other GPU.

Capping off our benchmark tests, we’ve got some quality scaling performance with the GTX 1060 6GB and RX 580. Dropping down from Ultra to High boosts performance of the RX 580 by 22%, while we see a slightly larger 25% gain for the GTX 1060.

Then from High to Medium sees a massive 33% boost for the GTX 1060 and 34% for the RX 580 and at this point there isn’t much need to seek out the low quality preset.

Closing Remarks

In a perfect world we'd have shown you even more results, particularly a test with a dozen or so older GPUs at 1080p using the medium quality preset, to give those of you running older hardware a good idea of what to expect. Unfortunately, due to Origin/EA’s ridiculous hardware limitations our accounts got locked a few times until we could test again 24 hours later. And so we've been hammering at this for a while and believe we've built a strong enough case to make recommendations.

Now live: TechSpot's Real-Time Ray Tracing Battlefield V Performance Test

As before, those wanting to play Battlefield V at 1080p/60 fps in all of its glory you need nothing more than a GTX 970/1060, R9 390 or 570. Then at 1440p the Radeon Fury, Fury X, RX 580, GTX 980 Ti or GTX 1060 6GB will be required. Honestly, given how great the game looks that’s not a tall order. On that note, despite the still buggy DX12 implementation the game plays extremely well when using DirectX 11.

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