Cyberpunk 2077 Performance Analysis
Technology
Cyberpunk 2077 relies on a proprietary engine known as REDengine. It was developed by CD Projekt Red. As you can see from the screenshots, the visuals in Cyberpunk 2077 are very impressive and not only for an RPG. Cyberpunk is one of the prettiest games on PC, despite the fact that it is a massive open-world title.
All in all, the first-person game puts all other competitors to shame, thanks to its highly detailed and rich world. When you look around in the game—whether you are indoors or outdoors—the massive amount of detail makes you realise why it took so long to develop. The effects are also incredibly impressive. The game world is chock-full of neon lights, which are reflected in a dreamlike manner off of metallic and wet surfaces.
There is also nothing bad to say about the textures. On high settings, most objects in the game look very sharp and well-defined. However, there are occasional graphical glitches here and there. And there are also drops in performance. Howbeit, these flaws do not spoil the overall grandiose atmosphere.
In our testing, the game ran surprisingly well—at least in terms of stability. In the past, ambitious releases from CD Projekt (the Witcher 1) had plenty of technical issues at launch. Cyberpunk starts relatively quickly and the loading times are quite short. The game size for a 2020 release is not that large as well. Cyberpunk only takes up about 60 GB of storage space. Moreover, CD Projekt did not use any DRM with Cyberpunk 2077.
Those who like to tinker with graphics settings will be happy to learn that Cyberpunk 2077 offers a robust graphics settings menu. While the Video
tab offers only 6 settings, the Graphics
tab offers over 30 settings. There are also helpful descriptions, which explain what each setting does. Fortunately, Cyberpunk 2077 features a number of graphical presets, which change all settings in one fell swoop. Moreover, the game also includes presets for ray tracing, which can only be enabled on supported GPUs. The same applies to Nvidia’s DLSS feature. Positive: Settings can be changed without a restart.
In the few hours that we spent playing the game, Cyberpunk 2077 proved to be quite impressive. The superb character creator, cleverly made tutorial, fascinating missions that take you to different places, and the freedom to play in whatever manner you like all combine to create a very memorable gaming experience. In Cyberpunk 2077, you can focus on developing stealth or hacking skills, or alternatively you can put all your efforts into becoming the deadliest gunfighter in Night City. However, we think that CD Projekt slightly overdid it with the content. Because there are so many objects and activities in the game world the inventory screen, the map and the Analysis Mode become so overloaded with stuff that sometimes it is easy to lose track of things.
Benchmark
Because Cyberpunk 2077 does not offer a built-in benchmark, we had to create our own benchmark sequence. As you can see in the video below, our 70-second benchmark run consists of a ride in a car driven by an NPS known as Jackie through the Japantown district of Night City. Our benchmark sequence ends right before our car is attacked by a squad of thugs in a van. We chose to play as a Street Kid and the mission in the benchmark is called “The Rescue”. It takes place about one hour in. We use CapFrameX to record the frame rates. It is also worth mentioning that the performance we saw in our benchmark is representative of the overall performance you are like to see in the game.
Results
FHD (1920x1080)
Owners of notebooks with weaker GPUs can simply forego buying Cyberpunk 2077. iGPUs and entry-level cards such as the GeForce MX330 and the MX350 cannot handle the game even at 720p on the lowest settings. The same applies to some older lower mid-range GPUs such as the GeForce GTX 1050. To run Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p, you will need a current mid-range GPU. The GeForce GTX 1650 (Ti) and the Radeon RX 5500M can achieve playable frame rates on the low preset, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti can run the game smoothly on the medium preset, and the GeForce RTX 2060 can handle Cyberpunk on ultra settings.
Cyberpunk 2077 1.0 | |
1920x1080 Low Preset 1920x1080 Medium Preset 1920x1080 High Preset 1920x1080 Ultra Preset | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile | |
AMD Radeon RX 5500M | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce MX350 | |
NVIDIA GeForce MX330 | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (Desktop) | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (Desktop) | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (Desktop) | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Desktop) | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop) |
QHD (2560x1440)
To game at 1440p, you will need a true high-end GPU. Presently, only laptops with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 can achieve decent frame rates (40+ FPS) in Cyberpunk 2077 on the highest settings at this resolution.
Cyberpunk 2077 1.0 | |
2560x1440 Ultra Preset | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Mobile, i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop), i7-8086K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile, i7-7820HK | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile, 6820HK | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile, i7-10750H | |
AMD Radeon RX 5500M, R7 3750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile, i7-10750H |
UHD (3840x2160)
At the moment, there are no laptop GPUs that can achieve playable frame rates at 4K in Cyberpunk 2077. Notebooks with the highest-end GPU deliver slide-shows on the ultra preset at UHD resolution.
Cyberpunk 2077 1.0 | |
3840x2160 Ultra Preset | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Mobile, i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop), i7-8086K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile, i7-7820HK | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile, 6820HK | |
AMD Radeon RX 5500M, R7 3750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile, i7-10750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile, i7-10750H |
Ray Tracing
The game gets even more demanding with ray tracing enabled. There are no laptops that can achieve playable frame rates at 1080p with RT effects set to ultra. Playing at 4K with ray tracing set to ultra is out of the question for any laptop and the vast majority of desktop PCs. However, we must mention that we did not use DLSS in our benchmarks.
Cyberpunk 2077 1.0 | |
1920x1080 Ray Tracing Ultra Preset (DLSS off) 3840x2160 Ray Tracing Ultra Preset (DLSS off) | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Mobile, i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (Desktop), i9-9900K | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile, i7-9750H | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Mobile, i7-9750H |
Note
Because benchmarking video games is very time consuming and is often constrained by installation/activation limits, at the time of publishing, we were able only to provide a part of our performance analysis of Cyberpunk 2077. Other graphics cards will be added in the coming days and weeks.
Overview
Test Systems
Device | GPU | CPU | RAM | OS |
---|---|---|---|---|
Desktop PC I | MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (11 GB GDDR6) MSI GeForce RTX 2080 (8 GB GDDR6) MSI GeForce RTX 2070 (8 GB GDDR6) MSI GeForce RTX 2060 (6 GB GDDR6) |
Intel Core i9-9900K | 4 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Desktop PC II | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (11 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) |
Intel Core i7-8086K, Aorus Z370 Ultra Gaming | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Desktop PC III | Nvidia Titan RTX (24 GB GDDR6) Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super (8 GB GDDR6) Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super (8 GB GDDR6)Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super (8 GB GDDR6)Nvidia Titan X (Pascal) (12 GB GDDR5X) KFA2 GeForce GTX 1660 Super (6 GB GDDR6) PNY GeForce GTX 1660 (6 GB GDDR5) KFA2 GeForce GTX 1650 (4 GB GDDR5) Zotac GeForce GT 1030 (2 GB GDDR5) Asus GeForce GT 710 (2 GB GDDR5) AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5700 (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (8 GB HBM2) |
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GT76 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 (8 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i9-9900K | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GP65 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 (8 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-9750H | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GE65 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 (6 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-9750H | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GP65 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (6 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-9750H | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GP75 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti (4 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-10750H | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GL75 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 (4 GB GDDR6) | Intel Core i7-10750H | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Alienware 17 R4 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB GDDR5X) | Intel Core i7-7820HK | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
Asus G752VS | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-6820HK | 2 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GT62VR | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-6820HK | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GE72 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-7700HQ | 2 x 4 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI GL62 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-7700HQ | 2 x 4 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI Prestige 14 | Nvidia GeForce MX350 (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-10710U | 1 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI Prestige 14 | Nvidia GeForce MX330 (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Core i7-10510U | 1 x 16 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
MSI Alpha 15 | AMD Radeon RX5500M (4 GB GDDR6) | AMD Ryzen 7 3750H | 2 x 8 GB DDR4 | Windows 10 64 Bit |
4K Monitors | Nvidia drivers | AMD drivers |
---|---|---|
Asus PB287Q, Philips Brilliance 329P9H, Acer Predator XB321HK | ForceWare 460.79 | Adrenalin 20.12.1 |