Although we've thoroughly benchmarked PlayerUnknown'southward Battlegrounds at this point and it's based on the same UE4 engine as Fortnite, we're still interested to come across just how much better optimized Fortnite is and we know many of you are as well having read all of your requests for this one.

For those of you unaware, Fortnite is a co-op sandbox survival game released as an early on access title for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One terminal July and information technology received a standalone 'Battle Royale' fashion late last year. The title is due for a full costless-to-play release this year after Ballsy Games finishes ironing out its kinks, though in my experience there announced to be few if any issues, peculiarly compared to PUBG.

Update, check this out: Fortnite Affiliate 2 GPU Benchmark Update

Fortnite's Battle Royale manner has proven to be quite popular, alluring more than ten 1000000 players in less than two weeks. Patently the battle royale genre is trending at the moment but helping Fornite'due south cause is the fact that the game seems to play well on just about anything. Fifty-fifty so, there will be those of you with older hardware looking to upgrade to enable loftier quality visuals and our benchmarks should exist handy hither.

For testing, our focus is on High quality settings rather than Ballsy every bit we feel this is where most people playing on older or lower-terminate hardware volition be aiming. The departure in visual quality betwixt High and Epic isn't that noticeable, while the driblet in frame rate is, so High volition make more sense for most.

That said, be enlightened that the '3D Resolution' setting was set to Ballsy as this ensures 100% scaling with the selected display resolution. It's a bit confusing but just setting the brandish resolution doesn't hateful the game volition be rendered at that resolution. This ensures that just the HUD volition be rendered at the designated resolution. The actual game resolution can exist set to 480p, 720p, 1080p or Epic, which should actually just be called 100% scaling to minimize confusion.

For the criterion test nosotros dropped into the game at the verbal same location every time. The test started the moment we hit the ground and we then followed the verbal same threescore 2nd path each time and reported the average result from a three-run average.

Too please note that we're skipping the Radeon RX 400 series every bit for the nearly part the new 500 series is exactly the aforementioned, simply a trivial factory overclocking applied. The RX 550 is the only truly new product while the RX 560 has 2 extra CUs enabled, simply overall isn't much faster than the RX 460. So if y'all accept a 400 serial Radeon GPU, drib a few percentage points off the 500 series figures and you lot'll be in the ballpark for your GPU.

As usual nosotros used the latest AMD and Nvidia display drivers bachelor at the time of testing and all graphics cards were tested on our standard GPU test rig. Inside we have a Core i7-8700K clocked at 5GHz with 32GB of DDR4-3200 retention.

Benchmark Time!

When running Fortnite at 1080p using high quality settings nosotros find playable functioning on almost all the GPUs tested. In fact, the Radeon R7 370, RX 550 and GeForce GT 1030 are the only exceptions and will require players to use medium or possibly even low quality visuals. Looking at the previous-generation GPUs, you'll even so crave a Radeon R9 390 or GTX 970 if you reject to drop below 60fps (based on my feel, keeping this game above 60fps at all times makes it significantly easier to aim).

If we look at those two GPUs, we observe even so another game where the GTX 970 puts a real crush downwardly on the R9 390. Of course the game is built on UE4 and we've typically establish this game engine to favor the dark-green team, but the point is that the GTX 970 is still going strong, offer a whopping 24% more frames than the R9 390.

Fifty-fifty the GTX 960 which has become a scrap of a failure in a number of recently released games manages to trounce the R9 380 and even the 380X. Then we observe the GTX 980 leaving the Fury X behind while the GTX 980 Ti needs draw distance ready to epic before it tin can even meet how far behind the Fury Ten is. Let'due south move on to 1440p and meet how things look there.

If we turn our attention to the newer current generation GPUs nosotros find that the GTX 1080 Ti, Titan 10, GTX 1080 and 1070 Ti are all CPU limited to 150fps on average. This isn't a frame cap either, frame rates would shoot upwards well above 200fps when looking at the sky. For those wondering out standard GPU exam rig was used and that packs a Core i7-8700K clocked at 5GHz with DDR4-3200 memory.

The practiced news here being that for an boilerplate of 60fps y'all'll only need a GTX 1050 Ti or RX 570. The RX 570 also go along the minimum above 60fps and the 1050 Ti was pretty close at 59fps. Dropping downwards to the GTX 1050 wasn't too bad but the RX 560 really struggled to evangelize playable performance.

As we saw when comparing the GTX 970 and R9 390, Nvidia has a commanding lead in this title and we meet numerous examples of this with the current generation models likewise. Take the GTX 1060 6GB and RX 580 for case, here the GeForce GPU was 26% faster hitting 112fps on average.

Here we observe for those wanting to keep the frame rate around 60fps equally the minimum y'all'll crave a GTX 980 or Fury X graphics carte while the GTX 980 Ti and Maxwell Titan Ten streak alee delivering over 80fps at all times. For an average of effectually 60fps, the GTX 970 or R9 Nano will suffice, while the R9 390X and 390 weren't too bad but beyond that you'll need to turn things downward.

The GTX 1060 remained 20% faster than the RX 580 here at 67fps versus 58fps. The GTX 1070 roughly matched Vega 64 Liquid while the GTX 1080 was 17% faster and the GTX 1080 Ti was 46% faster and in danger of being limited by the CPU.

Value-wise, the GTX 1060 3GB is the stand up out hither, though if yous tin can afford it I suggest getting the 6GB model.

For those wanting to play Fortnite at 4K y'all will crave a GTX 1080 Ti for perfectly polish game play with over 60fps at all times. The GTX 1080 wasn't bad simply again I had to lower the quality settings as information technology found dips into the 40s only fabricated aiming too difficult.

Older-Gen GPUs

Earlier wrapping up we decided to look at a few older GPUs again and compare them to the more modern mid-range and entry level offerings at 1080p. Starting from the meridian we have the GTX 780 Ti. As we mentioned, this carte is beginning to look dead in most of the more recently released games, but that wasn't the instance in PUBG and information technology'south certainly non the case with Fortnite, in which the bill of fare offered an average of 101fps at 1080p using the same high quality settings, a mere x% slower than the GTX 1060 and on par with the RX 580.

The R9 290 was quite a chip slower, matching the R9 390 and RX 570. Then we accept the old GTX 680 which only matched the GTX 1050 though this did make it slightly faster than the R9 280X and HD 7970 GHz Edition. The GTX 760 too squeezed in there with those Radeon GPUs. The Hard disk 7950 roughly matched the RX 560 while the GTX 660 Ti was faster than both of them.

Finally, the GTX 750 Ti did surprisingly well for what information technology is. Again, as was the instance with all the entry-level GPUs, you'll want to reduce the quality settings for improved frame rates just 41fps on boilerplate was nonetheless a decent step up from the R7 360.

Wrap Upwards

Well, there y'all have it... a battle royale of 44 GPUs in Fortnite Boxing Royale, all tested nether the same atmospheric condition, and so you should be able to determine what card you need for your desired frame rate.

Going into this nosotros knew Fortnite was a lot like other games that use cartoon style graphics such as Overwatch and Squad Fortress, which makes it somewhat like shooting fish in a barrel for the game to look slap-up artistically while notwithstanding being gentle on the GPU. Notwithstanding, if you want to play at 1440p with high quality settings you'll however want a GTX 1060 or better, especially if you're similar me and tin't aim worth a damn at less than 60fps.

Shopping Shortcuts:

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 on Amazon, Newegg
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 on Amazon, Newegg
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti on Amazon, Newegg
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 on Amazon, Newegg
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Amazon, Newegg
  • Nvidia Titan 10 on Amazon
  • Radeon RX Vega 56 on Amazon, Newegg
  • Radeon RX Vega 64 on Amazon
  • Radeon RX Vega 64 LC on Amazon