Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Vulkan)

id Software is popularly known for a few games involving shooting stuff until it dies, just with different 'stuff' for each one: Nazis, demons, or other players while scorning the laws of physics. Wolfenstein II is the latest of the first, the sequel of a modern reboot series developed by MachineGames and built on id Tech 6. While the tone is significantly less pulpy nowadays, the game is still a frenetic FPS at heart, succeeding DOOM as a modern Vulkan flagship title and arriving as a pure Vullkan implementation rather than the originally OpenGL DOOM.

Featuring a Nazi-occupied America of 1961, Wolfenstein II is lushly designed yet not oppressively intensive on the hardware, something that goes well with its pace of action that emerge suddenly from a level design flush with alternate historical details.

The highest quality preset, "Mein leben!", was used. Wolfenstein II also features Vega-centric GPU Culling and Rapid Packed Math, as well as Radeon-centric Deferred Rendering; in accordance with the preset, neither GPU Culling nor Deferred Rendering was enabled.

Wolfenstein II - 2560x1440 -

Wolfenstein II - 1920x1080 -

Wolfenstein II - 99th Percentile - 2560x1440 -

Wolfenstein II - 99th Percentile - 1920x1080 -

As we've seen before, Turing and Vega tend to run well on Wolfenstein II. For our games, these results are actually the closest the RX 590 can get to the GTX 1660 Ti, and even here the GTX 1660 Ti is a solid 13-14% ahead. Here, the GTX 1660 Ti also pulls the biggest lead over the GTX 1060 6GB, coming in at more than 1.5X faster, but also loses to the RX Vega 56 by more than other games.

The 6GB of framebuffer doesn't seem to be holding the GTX 1660 Ti back. The GTX 960's 2GB framebuffer, on the other hand, is asphyxiating.

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  • PeachNCream - Friday, February 22, 2019 - link

    This article reads a little like that infamous Steve Ballmer developers thing except it's not "developers, developers, developers, etc" but "traditional, traditional, traditionally, etc." instead. Please explore alternate expressions. The word in question implies long history which is something the computing industry lacks and the even shorter time periods referenced (a GPU generation or two) most certainly lack so the overuse stands out like a sore thumb in many of Anandtech's publications.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, February 23, 2019 - link

    How about the utterly asinine use of the word "kit" to describe a set of RAM sticks that simply snap into a motherboard?

    The Altair 8800 was a kit. The Heathkit H8 was a kit. Two sticks of RAM that snap into a board doth not a kit maketh.
  • futurepastnow - Friday, February 22, 2019 - link

    A triple-slot card? Really, EVGA?
  • PeachNCream - Friday, February 22, 2019 - link

    Yup, for 120W TDP of all things. But it's in the charts as a 2.75 slot width card so EVGA is probably hoping that no one understands how expansion slots actually would not permit the remaining .25 slot width to support anything.
  • darckhart - Friday, February 22, 2019 - link

    lol this was my first thought upon seeing the photo as well.
  • GreenReaper - Saturday, February 23, 2019 - link

    I suspect it was the cheapest way to get that level of cooling. A more compact heatsink-fan combo could have cost more.

    130W (which is the TDP here) is not a *trivial* amount to dissipate, and it's quite tightly packed.
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, February 23, 2019 - link

    I think all performance GPUs should be triple slot. In fact, I think the GPU form factor is ridiculously obsolete.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link

    Judging by techpowerup's reviews, though, the EVGA card's cooling is inefficient.
  • eastcoast_pete - Friday, February 22, 2019 - link

    @Ryan and Nate: What generation of HDMI and DP does the EVGA card have/support? Apologize if you had it listed and I missed it.
  • Ryan Smith - Friday, February 22, 2019 - link

    HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.4.

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