High Refresh Rate Gaming CPU & GPU Analysis

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

We use the DirectX 12 mode, anti-aliasing disabled, and the Highest quality preset.

We consistently see Shadow of the Tomb Raider distinguishing between more and less powerful CPUs at 1080p with our testing configuration. That point is particularly true when looking at the Ryzen 5 3600XT CPU’s performance. A mix of lower clock speed versus the Intel chips and less cache and cores versus the 3950X sees AMD’s affordable Zen 2 offering deliver notable bottlenecks for high-end graphics cards. Similar behaviour is exhibited with the 3950X versus the higher-clocked Intel parts.

With that said, all of the solutions on show deliver above 120 FPS on average, so there really is not a bad solution to pick from. The Core i9-10900K is ludicrously fast, but even it cannot offer up enough performance for the RTX 3080 to show its might past 180 FPS.

1440p continues to show Intel outperformance, but this time the Ryzen 9 3950X is able to close the gap by virtue of reduced overall FPS numbers. All of the solutions with the RTX 2080 Ti or RTX 3080 manage close enough to 140 FPS or higher.

Even the RTX 2070 Super delivers triple-digit average FPS numbers using the highest preset in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, making it an alluring proposition for gamers with tighter budgets.

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