Ashes of the Singularity Notebook and Desktop Benchmarks
For the original German article, see here.
Ashes of the Singularity is an RTS game with massive battles and the option to zoom way out of the battlefield. At the time of writing, Metacritic awards the game with a Metascore of 70 (mixed or average reviews). The first mission in the Single Player Campaign is pretty solid, but not really outstanding. The graphics are very convincing, however. Especially when viewed from a distance, the maps and the battle units look pretty spectacular.
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Benchmark
For our test, we rely on the integrated GPU benchmark, which happens to be - when compared to the campaign itself - fairly demanding. Although we recorded 30 fps for the benchmark sequence, we were able to play the first campaign mission without major stutters at an average of 40 fps (determined during a spot-check). The performance is likely going to take a hit during extensive multi-player battles, so for those scenarios we recommend higher frame rates. Above 40 fps during the benchmark should be enough of a cushion, however.
We use the pre-defined settings from 1280 x 768 (not all notebooks can handle 1280 x 800) "Low" up to 3840 x 2160 (4K) "Crazy". For the benchmark tests we used the retail version of the game, since the beta-version still had quite a few issues on notebooks.
Results
Ashes of the Singularity is without a doubt one of the most hardware-intensive titles we've had on our test bench. The RTS title requires at least a dedicated GeForce GTX 950M or similarly fast graphics card to be playable. With the resolution increased to Full-HD, the GTX 950M lost 4.6 fps and dropped to 27.6 fps (-14%). In single-player mode, the game ran basically stutter-free, although it didn't look particularly great. The GeForce 940MX-equipped notebook produced an interesting result, as the integrated HD Graphics 530 (same system!) actually managed to outperform it. Since the GeForce 940M - which is based on the same chip and features similar clock speeds as the 940MX - didn't have any issues, the likely reason is the fact that we are using a pre-production sample.
Medium details ("standard" setting) in Full-HD required a GTX 965M (refresh) respectively a Radeon R9 370 (desktop) for satisfying performance. The "high: setting didn't impact performance much during our test, so less demanding users can certainly select it if they so desire. For enough performance headroom, we suggest powerful GPUs like the desktop graphics card GeForce GTX 970 (and therefore also the GTX 980M).
4k at maximum details requires top-of-the-line graphic cards like a Radeon R9 Fury or a Geforce GTX 980 Ti.
Our overview below lists all of the notebooks and desktops we used to conduct our test. We continually maintain and expand this table. Please also take a look at our benchmark list of graphic cards (notebook and desktop).
Top 10 Laptops
Multimedia, Budget Multimedia, Gaming, Budget Gaming, Lightweight Gaming, Business, Budget Office, Workstation, Subnotebooks, Ultrabooks, Chromebooks
under 300 USD/Euros, under 500 USD/Euros, 1,000 USD/Euros, for University Students, Best Displays
Top 10 Smartphones
Smartphones, Phablets, ≤6-inch, Camera Smartphones
Ashes of the Singularity | |
1280x768 low 1920x1080 Standard 1920x1080 high 3840x2160 extreme 3840x2160 crazy | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, 4790K | |
AMD Radeon R9 Fury, 4790K | |
AMD Radeon R9 Nano, 4790K | |
AMD Radeon RX 480 (Desktop), 4790K | |
AMD Radeon R9 290X, 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, 4790K | |
AMD Radeon R9 280X, 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M, 6700HQ | |
AMD Radeon R7 370, 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M, 6700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce 940M, 5700HQ | |
AMD Radeon R9 M280X, FX-7600P | |
NVIDIA GeForce 920M, 2970M | |
NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M, 4200M | |
Intel HD Graphics 530, 6700HQ | |
Intel HD Graphics 530, 6700HQ | |
Intel HD Graphics 5600, 5700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce 940MX, 6700HQ |
Overview
Test Systems
Desktop PCs | Custom Nvidia | Custom AMD |
---|---|---|
Mainboard | Asus Z170-A | Asus Z97-Deluxe |
Processor | Intel Core i7-6700K (Skylake) | Intel Core i7-4790K (Haswell) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 (4 GB GDDR5) PNY GeForce GTX 950 (2 GB GDDR5) |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB GDDR5X) Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti (6 GB GDDR5) XFX Radeon R9 Fury (4 GB HBM) Sapphire Radeon R9 290X (4 GB GDDR5) Sapphire Radeon R9 280X (3 GB GDDR5) MSI Radeon R7 370 (2 GB GDDR5) |
RAM | 2 x 8 GB DDR4-2133 | 2 x 4 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Crucial MX100 SSD (256 GB) Crucial M500 SSD (480 GB) OCZ Trion 100 SSD (480 GB) OCZ Trion 150 SSD (960 GB) |
Intel SSD 530 (240 GB) OCZ Trion 100 SSD (480 GB) |
Operating System | Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit | Windows 10 Home 64 Bit |
Schenker Notebooks | Schenker W504 | Schenker XMG A505 | Schenker S413 |
---|---|---|---|
Mainboard | Intel HM87 | Intel HM87 | Intel HM87 |
Processor | Intel Core i7-4700MQ (Haswell) | Intel Core i7-4720HQ (Haswell) | Intel Core i7-4750HQ (Haswell) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M (8 GB GDDR5) GTX 970M (6 GB GDDR5) GTX 880M (8 GB GDDR5) GTX 870M (6 GB GDDR5) GTX 860M Kepler (4 GB GDDR5) |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 |
RAM | 2x 4 GB DDR3-1600 | 2x 4 GB DDR3-1600 | 2x 8 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (250 GB) Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD (500 GB) |
Micron M600 SSD (128 GB) HGST Travelstar 7K1000 HDD (1.000 GB) |
Intel SSD |
Operating System | Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit | Windows 10 Home 64 Bit | Windows 10 Home 64 Bit |
MSI Notebooks | MSI GE72 | MSI PE60 | MSI GP62 | MSI CX61 | MSI CX61 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mainboard | Intel HM170 | Intel HM170 | Intel HM86 | Intel HM86 | Intel HM86 |
Processor | Intel Core i7-6700HQ (Skylake) | Intel Core i7-6700HQ (Skylake) | Intel Core i7-5700HQ (Broadwell) | Intel Celeron 2970M (Haswell) | Intel Core i5-4200M (Haswell) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M 2016 (2 GB GDDR5) | Nvidia GeForce GTX 950M (2 GB GDDR5) | Nvidia GeForce 940M (2 GB DDR3) | Nvidia GeForce 920M (2 GB DDR3) | Nvidia GeForce GT 720M (2 GB DDR3) |
RAM | 1 x 8 GB DDR4-2133 | 2 x 4 GB DDR4-2133 | 1 x 8 GB DDR3-1600 | 1 x 8 GB DDR3-1600 | 1 x 8 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Toshiba THNSNJ128G8NU SSD (128 GB) WDC WD10JPVX HDD (1.000 GB) OCZ Trion 100 SSD (480 GB) |
Toshiba MQ01ABF050 HDD (500 GB) | WDC Scorpio Blue HDD (1.000 GB) | ||
Operating System | Windows 10 Home 64 Bit | Windows 10 | Windows 10 | Windows 10 | Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit |
Other Notebooks | HP Envy 15 | Asus N551ZU |
---|---|---|
Mainboard | Intel HM87 | AMD K15.1 |
Processor | Intel Core i5-4200M (Haswell) | AMD FX-7600P (Kaveri) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GT 740M (2 GB DDR3) | AMD Radeon R9 M280X (4 GB GDDR5) |
RAM | 1 x 8 GB DDR3-1600 | 2 x 4 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Samsung SSD 830 (256 GB) | Samsung SSD 830 256 GB |
Operating System | Windows 10 Home 64 Bit | Windows 10 64 Bit |
4K Monitor | Nvidia driver | AMD driver | Intel driver |
---|---|---|---|
2 x Asus PB287Q | ForceWare | Crimson |