Ark Survival Ascended: PC Performance Benchmarks for Graphics Cards and Processors

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

We tested Ark Survival Ascended at the highest graphics settings, on video cards from the GEFORCE RTX and RADEON RX series. Also, during the tests we conducted, we assessed the performance and quality of the graphic display of the game itself.

NEW PRODUCTS PROVIDED FOR TESTS BY ASUS

In our review, we present to you the ASUS ROG Strix B650-A Gaming WiFi motherboard . ROG Strix B650-A Gaming WiFi includes 4 DDR5 DIMM modules with a maximum capacity of up to 64 gigabytes and a frequency of up to 6400 MHz. For the file subsystem, the motherboard supports 3 M.2 PCIe 5.0/4.0 x4 slots and 4 SATA 6 Gb/s ports. You can directly view the testing of this motherboard on our website.

In our review, we present you ASUS Z790-A GAMING DDR4 motherboards . We use this motherboard as a test bench for testing new generations of Intel processors .

This time our test involves the new ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 OC video card . ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 OC Edition is built on the AD103 GPU with 9728 CUDA cores. Test this video card on our website.

 

This time our test involves the top video card from ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC . The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is based on the AD104 GPU and features 7680 CUDA cores and 12GB of GDDR6X memory. Test this video card on our website.

This time our test involves the company's top-end video card ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT OC Edition 20 GB . . This video card is based on the RDNA 3 architecture, operates at a frequency of 2500 MHz and has 20 gigabytes of video memory.

  

This time our test involves the company's top-end video card ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7700 XT OC Edition 12 GB . . This video card is based on the RDNA 3 architecture, operates at a frequency of 2600 MHz and has 12 gigabytes of video memory.

NEW PRODUCTS PROVIDED FOR TESTS BY DEEPCOOL

   

This time we're testing the case from DeepCool CH510 WH - it's an elegant and minimalistic mid-tower case with excellent component compatibility and wide cooling power support for a truly versatile build.

 

Also participating in our test this time is the premium-class DeepCool LS720 WH for processors. DeepCool LS720 WH provides maximum cooling efficiency and low noise levels, as well as a sophisticated design.

NEW PRODUCTS PROVIDED FOR TESTS BY GIGABYTE

In our review, we present to you the GIGABYTE Z790 GAMING X AX motherboards . We use this motherboard as a test bench for testing new generations of Intel processors .

This time our test involves the company's top-end video card Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GAMING OC . Its testing on our website.

NEW PRODUCTS PROVIDED FOR TESTS BY KINGSTON

   

In our review, we used RAM: 32 GB DDR4 3600 CL16 Kingston FURY Renegade , 32 GB DDR4 4000 CL18 Kingston FURY Renegade , 32 GB DDR5 6000 Kingston FURY Renegade, 16 GB DDR4 4600 CL19 Kingston FURY Renegade  and 32 GB DDR5 7 200 Kingston FURY Renegade . And for gaming tests we use an external Kingston XS2000 Portable SSD 1 TB ..

THE GRAFICAL PART

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

SUPPORTED OS AND GRAPHICS API

Ark Survival Ascended is supported on Windows 10/11.

 

The preferred and primary graphics API for Ark Survival Ascended is DX12 .

GAME ENGINE

"ARK: Survival Ascended" isn't just a new game, it's a world where every element has been inspired by cutting-edge technological innovation brought to life by the power of Unreal Engine 5. Since launching into Early Access on October 25, the game has already impressed with its graphics, which are nothing short of is on par with the best in the gaming industry, showcasing a spectacular pre-historical world with incredible detail.

Unreal Engine 5's technology features include Lumen, Nanite, and Instance-Based Rendering, which the game uses to create realistic lighting, amazing geometry, and dynamic animations of vegetation and fluids. These technologies provide a high degree of realism, allowing players to truly immerse themselves in the world of the game. The studio behind the game, Wildcard, even unveiled a new trailer that shows off the power of Unreal Engine 5 in action, featuring updated environments, highly detailed creatures, dynamic destruction, and more.

What makes ARK: Survival Ascended special is its ability to transform every aspect of the gaming experience. The new map system, more detailed and functional, allows players to easily navigate the world, marking points of interest and important objects. Improved dynamic navigation makes creatures behave more realistically, allowing them to intelligently avoid obstacles and react to player actions. This creates a more vibrant and dynamic environment in which players can interact and adapt to constantly changing conditions.

The game's creators have also introduced a number of new modification options, making ARK: Survival Ascended even more attractive to the gaming community. New modding tools allow players to create their own content, accessible even to those who play on consoles. These tools provide direct access to the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5, giving players virtually unlimited possibilities for creativity and modification of the game world.

Thanks to Unreal Engine 5, even the visual aspects of the game, such as fluid and vegetation animations, have received a major boost. These details add depth and realism to the game world, making it more inviting to explore. In addition, the developers emphasized that every aspect of the game world has been reimagined to take advantage of the latest technological advances, offering players new gameplay elements, structures, improved audio and much more.

The game requires optimizing settings for high FPS even on powerful PCs, which indicates high system requirements due to advanced graphics technologies. But that's a small price to pay to immerse yourself in a world as visually stunning and technologically advanced as ARK: Survival Ascended.

DIFFERENT QUALITY MODES

In ARK: Survival Ascended, graphics settings play a key role in ensuring high image quality and performance. At maximum graphics settings, such as the Epic preset, players can enjoy stunning texture detail, high quality post-processing, global illumination and effects. This creates a more realistic and visually appealing game world that fully showcases the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5. However, these high graphics settings can seriously impact performance, especially on older or less powerful graphics cards.

On the other hand, minimal graphics settings help improve the game's performance, making it more accessible to players with less powerful hardware. At the same time, the image quality is noticeably reduced, which can degrade the gaming experience. At the lowest settings, viewing distance, texture quality and effects are reduced, which reduces the load on the GPU and increases the number of frames per second. This may be important for players seeking higher performance at the expense of visual quality.

Thus, the difference between minimum and maximum graphics settings in "ARK: Survival Ascended" ranges from visual splendor and realism to performance optimization, allowing players to choose the optimal balance between graphics quality and performance depending on the characteristics of their computer hardware.

TEST PART

Test configuration
Test benches	ROG Strix X570-E Gaming Z490 AORUS PRO AX        GIGABYTE Z590 VISION    GIGABYTE Z690 AERO G   GIGABYTE Z790 GAMING X AX MSI MPG Z790 Edge WiFi ASUS ROG Strix B650-A Gaming WiFi
Sponsored video cards	MSI GEFORCE RTX 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24 GB    ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT 20G Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GAMING OC
Multimedia equipment	Monitor Philips 326M6VJRMB/00 Seasonic PRIME TX-1000 power supply 16 GB DDR4 4600 CL19 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR4 3600 CL16 Kingston FURY Renegade              32 GB DDR4 4000 CL18 Kingston FURY Renegade              32 GB DDR5 5600 CL40 KingstonFURY Beast                       32 GB DDR5 6000@6400 CL30 KingstonFURY Renegade 32 GB DDR5 7200@7600 CL36 KingstonFURY Renegade Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD            MPG CORELIQUID K240 housing  Case DeepCool CH510 WH  SVO DeepCool LS720 WH
Software configuration
operating system	Windows 10 21H2/ Windows 11(Alder Lake)
Graphics driver	Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 545.92 WHQL AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.20.17.05 For Alan Wake 2
Monitoring programs	MSI Afterburner

 Our video cards were tested at resolutions of 1920x1080 , 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 with maximum graphics quality settings.

GPU TEST

 

In the video card test, the default resolution is 1920x1080; other resolutions are added and removed manually. You can also remove and add any positions of video cards. You can also select any of our test processors from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given video card tests (by default, the most productive solution is selected). The test is carried out on the most powerful CPU in this game and is scaled to other processors, taking into account their testing on NVIDIA and AMD video cards.

At a resolution of 1920x1080, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 6700 XT or GeForce RTX 3070 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of  the Radeon RX 6800 or GeForce RTX 2080 Ti level . A comfortable average FPS of 60 frames can be provided by Radeon RX 7900 XT or GeForce RTX 4080 solutions .

At a resolution  of 2560x1440, an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the  Radeon RX 6800 or GeForce RTX 4070 level . A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 6800 or GeForce RTX 4070 level . 

At a resolution  of 3840x2160,  an average FPS of 25 frames was shown by video cards of the Radeon RX 6950 XT or GeForce RTX 4080 level .  A minimum FPS of at least 25 frames can be provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX or GeForce RTX 4080 level . 

VIDEO MEMORY CONSUMPTION

Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by  MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on results on video cards from AMD and NVIDIA at resolutions of  1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 with various anti-aliasing settings. By default, the graph displays the most current solutions. Other video cards are added and removed from the chart at the request of the reader.

At a resolution of  1920x1080  , video memory consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 8 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 10 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 10 gigabytes , with 24 gigabytes 10 gigabytes .

At a resolution of 2560x1440 , video memory consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 8 gigabytes, with 12 gigabytes 10 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 11 gigabytes, with 24 gigabytes 11 gigabytes .

At a resolution of 3840x2160 , video memory consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 8 gigabytes, with 12 gigabytes 12 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 13 gigabytes, with 24 gigabytes 13 gigabytes .

CPU TEST

Testing was carried out at a resolution of 1920x1080. In the processor test, you can remove or add any processor positions. You can also select any tested video card from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given processor test results  (by default, the most productive solution from NVIDIA is selected). Testing takes place on the most powerful NVIDIA and AMD video cards and scales to low-end models.

When using NVIDIA video cards , Ryzen 3 3100 or Core i 3 10100 processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames per second  , and solutions at the Ryzen 3 3300 or Core i 3 10100 level can provide an FPS rate of at least 60 frames per second .  

When using AM D video cards, Ryzen 3 3100 or Core i 3 10100 processors showed an acceptable rate of at least 25 frames per second  , and solutions at the Ryzen 3 3100 or Core i 3 10100 level can provide an FPS rate of at least 60 frames per second . 

The game can load up to 12 streams. Maximum efficiency uses up to 8 threads.

RAM TEST

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 9 13900K with 32 GB DDR5 6400 MHz pre-installed memory. All used RAM was taken as an indicator. The RAM test for the entire system was carried out on various video cards without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.). In the graphics, you can add and remove any resolutions and video cards as desired.

At a resolution of  1920x1080 ,  RAM consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 15 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 13 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 12 gigabytes, with 24 gigabytes 11 gigabytes .

At a resolution of  2560x1440  , RAM consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 16 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 14 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 12 gigabytes, with 24 gigabytes 12 gigabytes .

At a resolution of  3840x2160 ,  RAM consumption for video cards with 8 gigabytes is 17 gigabytes , with 12 gigabytes 15 gigabytes , with 16 gigabytes 13 gigabytes, with 24 gigabytes 12 gigabytes .

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