Horizon Zero Dawn Benchmark Test & Performance Analysis

on Aug 13th, 2020,

Manufacturer: Sony

Test System

Test System
Processor:	Intel Core i9-9900K @ 5.0 GHz (Coffee Lake, 16 MB Cache)
Motherboard:	EVGA Z390 DARK Intel Z390
Memory:	Thermaltake TOUGHRAM, 16 GB DDR4 @ 4000 MHz 19-23-23-42
Storage:	Crucial MX500 250 GB SSD (OS) Crucial MX500 2 TB SSD (Games)
Power Supply:	Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 850 W
Cooler:	Corsair iCue H100i RGB Pro XT 240 mm AIO
Software:	Windows 10 Professional 64-bit Version 1909 (Sep 2019 Update)
Drivers:	AMD: Radeon Software 20.8.1 Beta NVIDIA: GeForce 451.67 WHQL

Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when this exact same configuration is used.

We tested the public release version of Horizon Zero Dawn, not a press pre-release. We also installed the latest drivers from AMD and NVIDIA, which both have game-ready support for the game.

Graphics Memory Usage

Using a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, which has 11 GB of VRAM, we measured the game's memory usage at the highest setting.

Even at lower resolutions, Horizon Zero Dawn will consume quite a lot of memory—cards with 4 GB and 3 GB could be seriously challenged. At higher resolutions, the requirements are more reasonable because most cards that can drive decent FPS at 1440p and 4K have 8 GB VRAM or more.

GPU Performance

FPS Analysis

In this section, we're comparing each card's performance to the average FPS measured in our graphics card reviews, which is based on a mix of 22 games and should provide a realistic average covering a wide range of APIs, engines, and genres.