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For our game benchmarks we tested at both 1080p and 1440p resolution. Usually we exclusively test using Ultra settings, but this time we made sure to test High settings (or the equivalent) as well. After all, some modern games may be too demanding to play maxed-out on a £799 PC, so it's good to see what it can offer if you dial down the image quality by a small amount.
COD: MW3 plays pretty nicely on the Cobalt Spark R, delivering over 120FPS at 1080p using the Balanced preset, and even managing 80FPS at 1440p using the same settings.
Cyberpunk 2077 is more demanding though, especially so on the CPU, but we still get reasonable performance at 1080p, with the High preset delivering almost 60FPS on average, but you wouldn't be thinking about 1440p in this title.
Forza Horizon 5 is very performant across the board, even 1440p using Ultra settings ran very smoothly with tight 1% lows, so I've got no complaints here.
Likewise for Rainbow Six Siege, it is an older game but still very popular, and its performance is typical of other esports titles – the Cobalt Spark R delivered well over 200 FPS at 1080p, and even at 1440p Ultra settings we're still looking at 120FPS on average.
Starfield, however, shows what can happen if you have a game that's heavy on both CPU and GPU, while also not being the most optimised out there – even at 1080p using the High preset, we get just 39FPS on average, with 1% lows dipping below 30FPS.
Total War: Warhammer III is fine though, it plays best at 1080p but you don't need super-high frame rates in this game, so 45FPS at 1440p High settings is also manageable.
Overall, I have to say the Cobalt Spark R exceeded my expectations. Of course we have to be realistic and no, it won't play every game at ultra settings – after all, it's an i3 and RX 6600 system that costs less than £800. However, if it's for a kid or someone who only wants to play a bit of COD or CS2, then the results here show it can definitely deliver the goods.
