Sons of the Forest review: Laptop and desktop benchmarks

An unforgettable experience. Nearly five years after the debut of their surprise hit The Forest, the developers at Canadian studio Endnight Games have released the sequel to the title. Sons of the Forest once again offers an interesting game design that combines open-world exploration and survival horror. Read our benchmark check to find out whether its hardware requirements are just as terrifying.

Florian Glaser, 👁 Florian Glaser (translated by Zhiwei Zhuang), Published 03/15/2023 🇩🇪 🇸🇪 ...

Technical aspects

Despite still being in Early Access, Sons of the Forest is already very popular. This is obvious when you look at the countless good reviews it has received on Steam as well as the great success it enjoys amongst the YouTube and Twitch community. We can definitely understand this positive reception. Like many Early Access titles, Sons of the Forest still struggles with various minor hiccups such as stuttering (regardless of how powerful your hardware is), clipping issues and other graphical glitches (e.g. flickering and objects popping in). Nonetheless, the game's graphics is mostly quite impressive.

If you ignore the somewhat blurry clouds, Sons of the Forest features crisp textures, luscious vegetation, high draw distance and stylish effects (e.g. lighting) for the most part. In conjunction with various climate zones (green forests, snowy mountains, etc.), the day and night cycle and regular change in weather also lend the game a fantastic and rather unique atmosphere. Another highlight is the beautiful trails that the player character leaves in snow or wet beach. Overall, the developers have managed to get a lot out of the Unity Engine and don't have to be daunted by typical triple-A games from large studios.

From a technical standpoint, the game is already relatively polished and runs quite well in its current state (provided you have at least a mid-range GPU). We'll discuss this later in the benchmark section. Load times are likewise acceptable. Whilst the game launches very quickly, the initial loading process takes a while to complete. That said, other load times are fairly reasonable. One more thing to mention is the small install size: Sons of the Forest is a 9 GB download and occupies 13 GB of storage – astonishingly little for a game in 2023.

The options menu is likewise not too shabby. The graphics tab contains more than 20 options, which can be adjusted collectively by selecting one of the quality presets. One nice thing is that all the settings can be changed without restarting the game. Similar to many other current games, Sons of the Forest supports dynamic upscaling methods such as FSR and DLSS (which we disabled for our testing). The display tab doesn't have much to offer by comparison. Besides resolution, it only lets you adjust the display mode, VSync, gamma, brightness and frame rate limit (20 to 240 or unlocked).

Benchmark

Because Sons of the Forest doesn't have a built-in benchmark, we used a standardised in-game sequence to help us measure frame rates. As shown in the video below, we made the player character walk up and down a predefined path on the beach (one of the spawn points at the start of the game) for roughly 40 seconds. Frame rates were captured using CapFrameX.

Results

FHD (1,920 x 1,080)

Whilst iGPUs such as the Radeon 680M and Iris Xe Graphics G7 already struggle to handle the game at Full HD and Low preset (<40 fps), mid-tier GPUs mostly have enough power to spare for high to max settings. However, as you can see in the table for FHD, the processor quickly ends up being a limiting factor when paired with a mid-range GPU or better. For example, at Ultra preset, our desktop RTX 3070 is hardly any slower than the otherwise much faster desktop RX 7900 XTX. Even more remarkable: our RX 6600M laptop managed to outperform the RX 6800M laptop thanks to better CPU utilisation.

Sons of the Forest
1920x1080 Low Preset 1920x1080 Medium Preset AA:T 1920x1080 High Preset AA:T 1920x1080 Ultra Preset AA:T
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	122.7 (55.5^min, 94.4^P0.1, 99.7^P1) fps ∼51% 119.3 (50^min, 88.5^P0.1, 95.9^P1) fps ∼50% 113.6 (57.5^min, 79.6^P0.1, 92.6^P1) fps ∼51% 113.4 (53.3^min, 84.3^P0.1, 93.9^P1) fps ∼50%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	120.9 (79.2^min, 89.9^P0.1, 98.1^P1) fps ∼50% 116.5 (83.7^min, 87.3^P0.1, 95^P1) fps ∼49% 114 (70.5^min, 84.7^P0.1, 90.8^P1) fps ∼51% 112.4 (41.3^min, 73.5^P0.1, 86.8^P1) fps ∼50%
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	122.1 (39.8^min, 52.2^P0.1, 97.2^P1) fps ∼50% 116.8 (56.6^min, 91.6^P0.1, 97.8^P1) fps ∼49% 113.3 (44.8^min, 87.4^P0.1, 93.3^P1) fps ∼51% 111.6 (40.5^min, 83^P0.1, 92.3^P1) fps ∼50%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	114.7 (47^min, 57.8^P0.1, 85.7^P1) fps ∼47% 104.4 (51.6^min, 63.1^P0.1, 75.9^P1) fps ∼44% 103.3 (47^min, 69.7^P0.1, 76.1^P1) fps ∼47% 102 (37.4^min, 57.8^P0.1, 70.5^P1) fps ∼45%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900HX MSI Titan GT77 12UHS	91.7 (58.7^min, 69.4^P0.1, 74.9^P1) fps ∼38% 87.8 (58.9^min, 63.5^P0.1, 71.4^P1) fps ∼37% 85.7 (53.5^min, 64.8^P0.1, 69.4^P1) fps ∼39% 84.6 (33.6^min, 63.5^P0.1, 68.9^P1) fps ∼38%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, i7-12700H Lenovo Legion 5 Pro	83.8 (46.1^min, 53.8^P0.1, 65.9^P1) fps ∼35% 70.5 (39.8^min, 43.6^P0.1, 48.9^P1) fps ∼29% 65.9 (30.7^min, 36.9^P0.1, 46.8^P1) fps ∼30% 65.4 (36.4^min, 40.1^P0.1, 46.7^P1) fps ∼29%
AMD Radeon RX 6600M, R7 5800H Lenovo Legion 5	71.6 (49.3^min, 57.4^P0.1, 60.1^P1) fps ∼30% 68.4 (51.2^min, 53.5^P0.1, 57.1^P1) fps ∼29% 65.6 (36.4^min, 48.4^P0.1, 54.4^P1) fps ∼30% 64.7 (26.4^min, 43.3^P0.1, 50.3^P1) fps ∼29%
AMD Radeon RX 6800M, R9 5900HX Asus ROG Strix G15	59.2 (40.9^min, 47.8^P0.1, 49.8^P1) fps ∼24% 56.5 (43.9^min, 46^P0.1, 48.2^P1) fps ∼24% 54.6 (43.9^min, 44.5^P0.1, 46^P1) fps ∼25% 53.1 (33.3^min, 35.2^P0.1, 39^P1) fps ∼24%
AMD Radeon 680M, R9 6900HS Asus ROG Zephyrus G14	33.7 (19.4^min, 19.8^P0.1, 22.2^P1) fps ∼14% 24.9 (12.6^min, 15^P0.1, 16.8^P1) fps ∼10% 23.6 (12.9^min, 13.5^P0.1, 15.5^P1) fps ∼11% 23.3 (11.2^min, 13.6^P0.1, 15.8^P1) fps ∼10%
Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs, i7-1165G7 Zotac ZBOX CI665 Nano	9.53 (2.15^min, 2.15^P0.1, 2.6^P1) fps ∼4% 7.73 (2.32^min, 2.38^P0.1, 2.58^P1) fps ∼3% 7.35 (2.42^min, 2.43^P0.1, 2.61^P1) fps ∼3% 7.24 (2.22^min, 2.22^P0.1, 2.34^P1) fps ∼3%

QHD (2,560 x 1,440)

You should use an upper mid-range to high-end graphics card if you want to play the game on a QHD display. Based on our testing, a GeForce RTX 3060 or higher is required to achieve an average of more than 50 fps at 2,560 x 1,440 and Ultra preset.

Sons of the Forest
2560x1440 Ultra Preset AA:T
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	108.5 (5.81^min, 44^P0.1, 88.2^P1) fps ∼51%
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	108.3 (72.3^min, 86^P0.1, 91.1^P1) fps ∼51%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	98.5 (52.2^min, 55.7^P0.1, 62.4^P1) fps ∼46%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	82.3 (45.7^min, 54.5^P0.1, 61.1^P1) fps ∼39%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900HX MSI Titan GT77 12UHS	74 (27.1^min, 27.4^P0.1, 35.4^P1) fps ∼35%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, i7-12700H Lenovo Legion 5 Pro	51.1 (24.8^min, 28.6^P0.1, 37.5^P1) fps ∼24%
AMD Radeon RX 6800M, R9 5900HX Asus ROG Strix G15	49.9 (30.8^min, 32.4^P0.1, 34.6^P1) fps ∼23%
AMD Radeon RX 6600M, R7 5800H Lenovo Legion 5	47.5 (33.7^min, 36.1^P0.1, 39.2^P1) fps ∼22%

UHD (3,840 x 2,160)

In general, there's no getting around using an absolute top-end graphics card if you wish to play the game at 4K (3,840 x 2,160) and Ultra preset. For a portable system, only a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or better can break the 50 fps mark.

Sons of the Forest
3840x2160 Ultra Preset AA:T
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	98.4 (34.2^min, 40.3^P0.1, 71.7^P1) fps ∼46%
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	86 (48.2^min, 62.8^P0.1, 66.8^P1) fps ∼40%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	69.5 (40.2^min, 48^P0.1, 51.4^P1) fps ∼32%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, i9-12900HX MSI Titan GT77 12UHS	53.8 (6.45^min, 30.1^P0.1, 41.2^P1) fps ∼25%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, i9-12900K Desktop-PC	50.5 (33.1^min, 35.4^P0.1, 40.7^P1) fps ∼23%
AMD Radeon RX 6800M, R9 5900HX Asus ROG Strix G15	39.9 (19.7^min, 24.1^P0.1, 30.4^P1) fps ∼19%
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, i7-12700H Lenovo Legion 5 Pro	31.9 (11.9^min, 15.3^P0.1, 22.9^P1) fps ∼15%
AMD Radeon RX 6600M, R7 5800H Lenovo Legion 5	27.7 (21.4^min, 21.5^P0.1, 22.3^P1) fps ∼13%

Note

Because gaming tests are very time-consuming and are often constrained by installation or activation limits, we are only able to provide you with part of the benchmark results at the time of publishing this article. We will be adding more graphics cards over the coming days and weeks.

Overview

Test systems

Device	Graphics card	Processor	RAM	Operating system
Notebooks
MSI Titan GT77 12UHS	Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti @175 W TGP (16 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i9-12900	2 x 16 GB DDR5	Windows 11
Lenovo Legion 5 Pro	Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 @140 W TGP (6 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i7-12700H	2 x 8 GB DDR5	Windows 11
Asus ROG Strix G15	AMD Radeon RX 6800M (12 GB GDDR6)	AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX	2 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 11
Lenovo Legion 5	AMD Radeon RX 6600M (8 GB GDDR6)	AMD Ryzen 7 5800H	2 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 11
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14	AMD Radeon 680M	AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS	2 x 16 GB DDR5	Windows 11
Tower PCs
Custom I	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (24 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT (20 GB GDDR6) MSI GeForce RTX 3080 (10 GB GDDR6X) MSI GeForce RTX 3070 (8 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i9-12900K	2 x 16 GB DDR4	Windows 11
Custom II	Palit GeForce RTX 4090 GameRock OC (24 GB GDDR6X) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 FE (24 GB GDDR6X) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (8 GB GDDR6X) Nvidia Titan RTX (24 GB GDDR6) Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super (8 GB GDDR6) Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super (8 GB GDDR6) KFA2 GeForce GTX 1660 Super (6 GB GDDR6) PNY GeForce GTX 1660 (6 GB GDDR5) KFA2 GeForce GTX 1650 Super (4 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (16 GB DDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6800 (16 GB DDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (12 GB DDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 6600 (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5700 (8 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (6 GB GDDR6) AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (8 GB GDDR6)	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X	2 x 16 GB DDR5	Windows 11
Custom III	Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super FE	Intel Core i9-11900K	2 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 11
Mini-PCs
Zotac ZBOX CI665 Nano	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96 CUs)	Intel Core i7-1165G7	2 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 11
Morefine S500+	AMD Radeon RX Vega 8	AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX	2 x 16 GB DDR4	Windows 11
Minisforum NUCXi7	Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 @125 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6)	Intel Core i7-11800H	2 x 8 GB DDR4	Windows 11
Minisforum HX99G	AMD Radeon RX 6600M @100 W TGP (8 GB GDDR6)	AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX	2 x 16 GB DDR5	Windows 11

4K monitors	Nvidia driver	AMD driver
Philips Brilliance 329P9H, Gigabyte M32U	ForceWare 528.49	Adrenalin 23.2.2

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Editor of the original article: Florian Glaser - Managing Editor Gaming Laptops - 568 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: Zhiwei Zhuang - Translator - 88 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2022

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering, I moved from Singapore to Cologne in 2014 and began pursuing a career as a freelance translator. Much of my translation work focuses on science, engineering and technology. My fascination with computers and mobile electronics began when I was young. And I have fond memories reading countless tech and gaming magazines. Working with Notebookcheck gives me the opportunity to incorporate my personal interests into my professional work.

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> Notebook / Laptop Reviews and News > Reviews > Sons of the Forest review: Laptop and desktop benchmarks

Florian Glaser, 2023-03-15 (Update: 2023-03-15)

Pos	Model	< Prev Next > Sons of the Forest (2023)
Pos	Model	low 1920x1080 Low Preset	med. 1920x1080 Medium Preset TAA	high 1920x1080 High Preset TAA	ultra 1920x1080 Ultra Preset TAA	QHD 2560x1440 Ultra Preset TAA	4K 3840x2160 Ultra Preset TAA
1	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²
2	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX	122.7	119.3	113.6	113.4	108.5	98.4
3	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080		118.1	111.5	108.5	103	92.3
5	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT	122.1	116.8	113.3	111.6	108.3	86
6	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	119.3	116.8	113.4	112.7	109.8	82.7
7	AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT	128.5	123.5	119.8	117.6	116	77.6
8	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU	96.1	90	87.9	85.7	85.2
9	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090	132.4	127.8	123.4	120.3	109.4	72.8
14	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU	78.1	75	74.6	69.7	66.8
16	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080	120.9	116.5	114	112.4	98.5	69.5
17	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070	133	126.3	122.5	120.1	99.9	59.7
20	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU	98.3	86.8	83.3	82.3	69.5
21	AMD Radeon RX 6800	124.2	120.2	115.8	113.9	92.8	54.6
22	NVIDIA Titan RTX	130.8	118.4	113	112.2	87.4	55.7
24	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU	91.7	87.8	85.7	84.6	74	53.8
26	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070	114.7	104.4	103.3	102	82.3	50.5
29	AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT	122.7	110.5	105.9	104.1	74.3	42.5
31	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	123.7	101.5	95.1	94.1	73.7	45.1
36	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²
Pos	Model	< Prev Next >Sons of the Forest
Pos	Model	low	med.	high	ultra	QHD	4K
39	AMD Radeon RX 6800M	59.2	56.5	54.6	53.1	49.9	39.9
40	AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT	126.5	97.7	92.5	90.4	64.4	35.4
44	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU	80.4	75.8	72.8	72.5	57.7	37.8
58	NVIDIA Titan X Pascal	97.7	79.4	76.1	75.5	56	33.1
62	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super (Desktop)	112.7	89.7	85.5	83.4	64.5	38.4
66	AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (Desktop)	112.4	86.9	82.3	80	58.6	32.3
71	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU	83.8	70.5	65.9	65.4	51.1	31.9
77	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super (Desktop)	94.5	78.4	74.9	72.7	54.5	32.3
78	AMD Radeon RX 6600	105.4	82.9	78.9	76.8	53.8	29.3
81	AMD Radeon RX 5700 (Desktop)	100.4	73.3	71.2	69.3	50.6	28.8
83	AMD Radeon RX 6600M	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²	0ⁿ²
109	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050		60.2	56.2	0ⁿ²	39.8	23.7
111	AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (Desktop)	89.5	68.8	66.6	64.7	49.1	25.7
119	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super (Desktop)	71.6	55	52.9	51.4	37.2	20.4
120	AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT	40.4	29.4	26.7	24.5	18.1	10.5
121	AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (Desktop)	59.7	44.9	47.7	44.7	32	17.9
122	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU		68.9	63.5	61.9	42.4	24.5
128	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU	54.9	38.8	35.4	33.3	25.6
132	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (Desktop)	67.2	51.2	47.6	47.1	33.2	18.1
135	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Super (Desktop)	57.8	41.7	39.3	39	26.7	14.5
Pos	Model	< Prev Next >Sons of the Forest
Pos	Model	low	med.	high	ultra	QHD	4K
215*	AMD Radeon 780M	32.8	21.1	19.8	19.4
216	AMD Radeon 680M	33.7	24.9	23.6	23.3
280	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs	9.53	7.73	7.35	7.24
301	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs	10.2	7.74
343	Intel UHD Graphics 64EUs (Alder Lake 12th Gen)	12.4
383	Intel UHD Graphics 770	9.64

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.