Group test of 54 graphics cards in Atomic Heart

Atomic Heart has certainly become one of the most ambitious and awaited titles of recent years, especially for our compatriots. In a recent review, we were convinced that the game was a success despite all the difficulties the developers faced and the postponement of the release date. All that remains is to check what hardware Atomic Heart needs with certain graphics parameters and to test traditional NVIDIA, AMD and now also Intel devices in the new benchmark.

Graphics quality settings

The Atomic Heart menu contains a large number of fine graphics settings, but most of these are subject to a common five-level quality switch. At the same time, the extreme presets (“Low” and “Atomic” profiles) bring all parameters to minimum and maximum values. As a method of full-screen anti-aliasing, the game, like almost all modern titles, uses TAA. Two popular frame scaling algorithms are available – FidelityFX Super Resolution and DLSS Version 3.0. The latter not only handles the upscaling, but also the generation of intermediate images, provided a suitable graphics card is installed in the system (ie the GeForce 40 series).

Another important graphical option is temporarily absent from Atomic Heart. Although Mundfish studio collaborated with NVIDIA in the early stages of work and the game itself appeared in ray tracing demonstrations on GeForce RTX accelerators, it was not possible to implement ray tracing until release. It will appear in future patches, but unfortunately they don’t specify exactly when.

We tested the performance of graphics cards, depending on the performance of specific models, with three quality presets: minimum, medium and maximum (“atomic”). The screenshots below show how the game’s appearance changes along with the settings.

Low quality		Medium quality		Maximum quality
Low quality		Medium quality		Maximum quality
Low quality		Medium quality		Maximum quality
Low quality		Medium quality		Maximum quality
Low quality		Medium quality		Maximum quality
Low quality		Medium quality		Maximum quality

Test bench, test methodology

Performance tests with the OCAT utility during a boat ride at the very beginning of the game. The average and minimum frame rates are derived from the array of individual frame render times that OCAT writes to the result file. The average frame rate in the charts is the reciprocal of the average frame rendering time. To estimate the minimum frame rate, the number of frames generated in each second of the test is calculated. The value that corresponds to the 1st percentile of the distribution is taken from this number field.

test taker

• AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (1720/2499MHz, 20Gb/s, 24GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT (1387/2394MHz, 20Gb/s, 20GB);

• AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (1825/2250MHz, 16Gb/s, 16GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (1825/2250MHz, 16Gb/s, 16GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 6800 (1700/2105MHz, 16Gb/s, 16GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (2321/2581MHz, 16Gb/s, 12GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (2064/2607MHz, 16Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 6600 (1626/2491MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (2420/2825MHz, 18Gb/s, 4GB);

• AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (1605/1905MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 5700 (1465/1725MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (1235/1620MHz, 12Gb/s, 6GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (1607/1845MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);

• AMD Radeon VII (1400/1750MHz, 2Gb/s, 16GB);
• AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (1247/1546MHz, 1.89Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (1156/1471MHz, 16Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 590 (1469/1545MHz, 8Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 580 (1257/1340MHz, 8Gb/s, 8GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 570 (1168/1244MHz, 7Gbps, 4GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 560 16CU (1175/1275MHz, 7Gb/s, 4GB);
• AMD Radeon RX 560 14CU (1090/1175MHz, 7Gb/s, 4GB);

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (2235/2535MHz, 21Gb/s, 24GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (2205/2505MHz, 22.4Gb/s, 16GB);

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (1395/1695MHz, 19.5Gb/s, 24GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (1365/1665MHz, 19Gb/s, 12GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (1440/1710MHz, 19Gb/s, 10GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (1575/1770MHz, 19Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (1500/1730MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (1410/1665MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (1320/1837MHz, 15Gb/s, 12GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (1550/1780MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition (1350/1635MHz, 14Gb/s, 11GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (1650/1815MHz, 15.5Gbps, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition (1515/1800MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER (1605/1770MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition (1410/1710MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER (1470/1650MHz, 14Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (1365/1680MHz, 14Gb/s, 6GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (1500/1800MHz, 12Gb/s, 6GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (1530/1830MHz, 14Gb/s, 6GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (1530/1785MHz, 8Gb/s, 6GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER (1530/1770MHz, 8Gb/s, 4GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (1485/1725MHz, 8Gb/s, 4GB);

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (1480/1582MHz, 11Gb/s, 11GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (1607/1733MHz, 10Gb/s, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (1607/1683MHz, 8Gbps, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (1506/1683MHz, 8Gbps, 8GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (1506/1708MHz, 9Gb/s, 6GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (1506/1708MHz, 8Gb/s, 3GB);
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (1290/1392MHz, 7Gbps, 4GB);

• Intel Arc A770 (2100/2400MHz, 17.5Gbps, 16GB);
• Intel Arc A750 (2050/2400MHz, 16Gbps, 8GB);
• Intel Arc A380 (2000/2450MHz, 15.5Gbps, 6GB).

Note. In parentheses after the names of the graphics cards are the base and boost frequencies according to the specifications of the respective device. Graphics cards with factory overclocking are adjusted to the reference parameters (or close to them) if this is possible without manual adjustment of the clock frequency curve. Otherwise the manufacturer settings are used.