EA Sports WRC in review: Laptop and desktop benchmarks

Technically average.

In association with EA, the British firm Codemasters, known for the F1, Dirt, and Grit series among others, has released a brand-new racing game. We reviewed the WRC hardware specifications in further detail.

Florian Glaser (translated by Carmen Pol), Published 11/21/2023 🇩🇪 🇸🇪 ...

Test systems

Asus TUF Gaming Advantage A16 (RX 7600S & 780M)

be quiet! Silent Base 802 (RTX 4080 & RX 7900 XT)

Philips Evnia 8000 Series 41,5" UHD OLED gaming monitor

We have been running gaming benchmarks on these devices. Clicking on the images will take you to the company's website. More information about the requirements may be found at the end of the article.

Tech

EA Sports WRC is based on the Unreal Engine 4, which has always delivered decent to very good graphic results. In the case of WRC, however, the developers do not fully exploit the potential. While adjacent things are extremely clear and crisp, distant objects, even on the highest settings, are somewhat muddy, if they are presented at all, and do not "pop" into the screen, which regrettably happens quite frequently.

We would even characterize WRC as ugly at low or minimal settings. Below high details, the title appears rather small (the image also tends to flicker a lot owing to lesser edge smoothing). In addition, regardless of the hardware installed, we frequently had to deal with ugly intermediate jerks and low minimum FPS during the test, which further reduced the enjoyment of driving.

Codemasters deserve credit for their successful vehicles. Aside from the overall driving style, the engine sound, the level of realism, and the destruction model are all remarkable.
Furthermore, the title offers a lush density of vegetation (at least at close range), varied regions and tracks, and some nice effects (dust etc.). Racing wheel support is also included in WRC and for example the Thrustmaster T248 was instantly recognized and worked without changing any settings.

The graphics menu scarcely has anything to be unhappy about. The Advanced tab offers nearly 20 quality and detail options, which can be conveniently adjusted in one go via preset and do not require a restart. The Basic tab handles resolution, picture mode, anti-aliasing, VSync, anisotropic filtering, and optional upscaling (FSR and DLSS are supported). Another useful feature is that all options are described, although the creators have omitted comparative images. Apart from a solitary, non-reproducible crash, WRC ran stable. The Steam version we tested required around 85 GB on the hard disk (approximately 72 GB download).

Benchmark

Because the WRC lacks an integrated benchmark, we used a time trial in Croatia for the speed measurements, specifically on the Bliznec track in dry circumstances using the Puma Rally1 Hybrid (see video). The frame rate is captured using the CapFrameX tool from the beginning until the first time measurement, which takes around a minute. 40 FPS is sufficient for proper gaming; 60 FPS or above is optimal.

▶ load Youtube video

Results

FHD (1,920 x 1,080)

Despite iGPUS's moderate graphics appetite, the title often overpowers it. When using a combination of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels and the Low preset, even AMD's Radeon 780M only achieves about 30 frames per second (the Ultra Low preset, on the other hand, runs at a consistently high 70 frames per second). However, you are well positioned in Full HD with a pretty modern mid-range GPU. Here, the GeForce RTX 4050 and the Radeon RX 7600S both surpass 60 frames per second at high detail.

EA Sports WRC
1920x1080 Low Preset AA:Low AF:16x 1920x1080 Medium Preset AA:Medium AF:16x 1920x1080 High Preset AA:High AF:16x 1920x1080 Ultra Preset AA:Epic AF:16x
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, i9-13900K Desktop-PC Asus ROG Strix Z790-F	179.5 (53.6^min, 123.2^P0.1, 148.2^P1) fps ∼100% 170.1 (51.6^min, 106.6^P0.1, 140.5^P1) fps ∼100% 153 (53.9^min, 85.3^P0.1, 126.4^P1) fps ∼100%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX XMG Neo 17 E23	124.4 (19.3^min, 21.3^P0.1, 95.7^P1) fps ∼69% 117.2 (17.7^min, 20.7^P0.1, 88.6^P1) fps ∼69% 105.4 (6.67^min, 21.8^P0.1, 81.2^P1) fps ∼69%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, i9-13950HX Razer Blade 16 Mid 23	115.1 (27.9^min, 36.1^P0.1, 72.4^P1) fps ∼64% 107.3 (33.3^min, 41.3^P0.1, 69.1^P1) fps ∼63% 97.8 (29.5^min, 37.1^P0.1, 68.5^P1) fps ∼64%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900H Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733ZX	107.8 (6.76^min, 34.2^P0.1, 69.8^P1) fps ∼60% 101 (22.6^min, 37.8^P0.1, 63.7^P1) fps ∼59% 91.6 (11^min, 36.3^P0.1, 60.9^P1) fps ∼60%
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-13900K Desktop-PC Asus ROG Strix Z790-F	104.4 (38.8^min, 71.3^P0.1, 82.7^P1) fps ∼58% 97.9 (14.3^min, 56.6^P0.1, 78.1^P1) fps ∼58% 90 (6.75^min, 42.1^P0.1, 71.8^P1) fps ∼59%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX XMG Pro 15 E23	94.9 (9.52^min, 37.4^P0.1, 70.6^P1) fps ∼53% 89.6 (25.2^min, 38.6^P0.1, 66.7^P1) fps ∼53% 81.2 (22.7^min, 42.3^P0.1, 61.1^P1) fps ∼53%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, R9 7940HS Razer Blade 14 Mid 23	91.5 (24.1^min, 41.3^P0.1, 70.3^P1) fps ∼51% 85.7 (26.1^min, 39.8^P0.1, 62.5^P1) fps ∼50% 78.4 (21.9^min, 39.1^P0.1, 58.5^P1) fps ∼51%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, i7-13700H Medion Erazer Scout E20	79 (35.8^min, 58.7^P0.1, 65.9^P1) fps ∼44% 72.9 (20.6^min, 51.5^P0.1, 60^P1) fps ∼43% 67.3 (41.9^min, 49.4^P0.1, 55.9^P1) fps ∼44%
AMD Radeon RX 7600S, R9 7940HS Asus TUF Gaming Advantage A16	80.4 (15.1^min, 50.5^P0.1, 63.2^P1) fps ∼45% 73.7 (32.2^min, 46.2^P0.1, 58.9^P1) fps ∼43% 66.6 (5.87^min, 37.1^P0.1, 55^P1) fps ∼44%
AMD Radeon 780M, R9 7940HS Asus TUF Gaming Advantage A16	30.6 (9.13^min, 11.6^P0.1, 18.1^P1) fps ∼100% 20.8 (5.42^min, 10.8^P0.1, 17.1^P1) fps ∼12% 18.5 (7.01^min, 10^P0.1, 15.5^P1) fps ∼11% 17.3 (11.4^min, 13.2^P0.1, 14.9^P1) fps ∼11%

QHD (2,560 x 1,440)

A quick mid-range model is also enough for QHD. The aforementioned RX 7600S or RTX 4050 gets better than 40 FPS with 2,560 x 1,440 pixels and the Ultra setting.

EA Sports WRC
2560x1440 Ultra Preset AA:Epic AF:16x
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, i9-13900K Desktop-PC Asus ROG Strix Z790-F	149.4 (49.4^min, 94.9^P0.1, 121.8^P1) fps ∼100%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX XMG Neo 17 E23	103 (13.4^min, 21.3^P0.1, 76.4^P1) fps ∼69%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, i9-13950HX Razer Blade 16 Mid 23	94.3 (9.64^min, 31.9^P0.1, 61^P1) fps ∼63%
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-13900K Desktop-PC Asus ROG Strix Z790-F	87.9 (38^min, 58.2^P0.1, 71.2^P1) fps ∼59%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900H Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733ZX	72.9 (4.49^min, 27.7^P0.1, 49.6^P1) fps ∼49%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX XMG Pro 15 E23	68.8 (13.6^min, 30.9^P0.1, 54.1^P1) fps ∼46%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, R9 7940HS Razer Blade 14 Mid 23	59.6 (20.4^min, 30.1^P0.1, 45.8^P1) fps ∼40%
AMD Radeon RX 7600S, R9 7940HS Asus TUF Gaming Advantage A16	48.2 (13^min, 27.4^P0.1, 40.4^P1) fps ∼32%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, i7-13700H Medion Erazer Scout E20	42.9 (8.54^min, 20.3^P0.1, 36.4^P1) fps ∼29%

UHD (3,840 x 2,160)

It only gets demanding in the 4K range. While a GeForce RTX 4060 is sufficient for full details with quality DLSS, a genuine high-end or top model (GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or better) is required without DLSS.

EA Sports WRC
3840x2160 Ultra Preset AA:Epic AF:16x 3840x2160 Ultra Preset + Quality DLSS AA:Epic AF:16x
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, i9-13900K Desktop-PC Asus ROG Strix Z790-F	89.1 (37.7^min, 49.4^P0.1, 75.3^P1) fps ∼100% 128.9 (21.8^min, 84.4^P0.1, 107.4^P1) fps ∼100%
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-13900K Desktop-PC Asus ROG Strix Z790-F	81.6 (7.6^min, 36.1^P0.1, 63.3^P1) fps ∼92%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX XMG Neo 17 E23	67.9 (10.1^min, 17.7^P0.1, 39.2^P1) fps ∼76% 95.8 (7.58^min, 20^P0.1, 71.3^P1) fps ∼74%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, i9-13950HX Razer Blade 16 Mid 23	57.3 (19.1^min, 25.4^P0.1, 43.9^P1) fps ∼64% 81.2 (25.9^min, 38.2^P0.1, 56.6^P1) fps ∼63%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900H Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733ZX	42.9 (21.9^min, 25.4^P0.1, 35.5^P1) fps ∼48% 61.5 (22.9^min, 29.1^P0.1, 49.6^P1) fps ∼48%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, i9-13900HX XMG Pro 15 E23	37.7 (5.06^min, 19.8^P0.1, 31^P1) fps ∼42% 56.2 (19.5^min, 30^P0.1, 46.5^P1) fps ∼44%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, R9 7940HS Razer Blade 14 Mid 23	32.6 (3.47^min, 6.88^P0.1, 26.3^P1) fps ∼37% 49.3 (7.23^min, 25.8^P0.1, 38.6^P1) fps ∼38%
AMD Radeon RX 7600S, R9 7940HS Asus TUF Gaming Advantage A16	26.6 (8.35^min, 10.8^P0.1, 22.8^P1) fps ∼30%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, i7-13700H Medion Erazer Scout E20	22 (7.87^min, 17.6^P0.1, 19.1^P1) fps ∼25% 38.2 (23.7^min, 29.2^P0.1, 32.9^P1) fps ∼30%

Overview

Test system details

Notebook	Graphics card	Processor	Memory
XMG Neo 17 E23	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 @175 W TGP (16 GB GDDR6X)	Intel Core i9-13900HX	2 x 16 GB DDR5
Razer Blade 16 Mid 23	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 @175 W TGP (12 GB GDDR6X)	Intel Core i9-13950HX	2 x 16 GB DDR5
XMG Pro 15 E23	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 @140 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i9-13900HX	2 x 16 GB DDR5
Razer Blade 14 Mid 23	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 @140 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6)	AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS	2 x 8 GB DDR5
Medion Erazer Scout E20	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 @100 W TGP (6 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i7-13700H	2 x 8 GB DDR5
Asus ROG Strix Scar 17	Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti @150 W TGP (16 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i9-12900H	2 x 16 GB DDR5
Asus TUF Gaming Advantage A16	AMD Radeon RX 7600S (8 GB GDDR6) & AMD Radeon 780M	AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS	2 x 8 GB DDR5

Tower-PC	Graphics card	Processor	Memory
Asus ROG Strix Z790-F	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 (16 GB GDDR6X) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT (20 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i9-13900K	2 x 24 GB DDR5 G.Skill

4K monitor	Operating system	Nvidia driver	AMD driver
Philips Evnia 42M2N8900	Windows 11	ForceWare 546.17	Adrenalin 23.11.1

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Editor of the original article: Florian Glaser - Managing Editor Gaming Laptops - 638 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2009

I discovered my interest in computers in my childhood, growing up with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 in the early 1990s. I was especially fascinated with computer games, even from an early age. From Monkey Island through Lands of Lore to Doom, I tried every game I could get my hands on. I have been working for Notebookcheck since 2009 with my focus mostly being on high-performance gaming laptops.

Translator: Carmen Pol - Translator - 383 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2023

Having spent the greater part of my early years in Germany facilitated my upbringing as a bilingual kid. In 2007, I found myself having to reinstall my Windows weekly ... So, one day I bought a MacBook Black. It was during this period that I developed a profound appreciation for technology, which significantly improved my life.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Reviews > EA Sports WRC in review: Laptop and desktop benchmarks

Florian Glaser, 2023-11-21 (Update: 2024-08-15)

Legend
5	Stutters – This game is very likely to stutter and have poor frame rates. Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, average frame rates are expected to fall below 25fps
	May Stutter – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, stutters and poor frame rates are expected.
30	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 25fps
40	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 35fps
60	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 58fps
	May Run Fluently – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, fluent frame rates are expected.
?	Uncertain – This graphics card experienced unexpected performance issues during testing for this game. A slower card may be able to achieve better and more consistent frame rates than this particular GPU running the same benchmark scene.
	Uncertain – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game and no reliable interpolation can be made based on the performances of surrounding cards of the same class or family.
The value in the fields displays the average frame rate of all values in the database. Move your cursor over the value to see individual results.