Following upwards on the mini-test we did for PlayerUnknown'due south Battlegrounds back in June, it was about time we checked where the game's performance is at after receiving countless updates, non to mention all the hardware releases along the fashion.

At the time, nosotros compared graphics card performance using various presets and concluded that the best value combo for 60fps/1080p performance was the Ryzen 5 1400 and GTX 1060. Since so, updates to the game claim to have addressed the game's poor optimization issues including a patch about 4 months dorsum that improved CPU utilization by assuasive the game to employ half dozen or more than cores.

That being the case, we thought it would exist interesting to focus on CPU performance for this one. Today's testing involves all of the 8th-gen Intel Cadre serial CPUs, all the Ryzen CPUs, and a few from the seventh-gen Core serial, so nosotros have test results for xvi different processors at 1080p on very depression, medium and ultra quality presets.

The chips were paired with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti using the 388.43 driver and the CPU utilization of all 16 CPUs has besides been included, for those interested. All unlocked Intel CPUs forth with all Ryzen CPUs have been tested using DDR4-3200 CL14 memory. Meanwhile the locked Intel CPUs were tested using DDR4-2400 CL14 memory. And so, for case, the Core i3-8350K was tested with 3200 retentiveness only the Core i3-8100 used 2400 retentiveness.

For testing nosotros walked through the town of Pochinki for thirty seconds, which is more than enough time to gather the data nosotros demand. The laissez passer fourth dimension was reduced from the normal 60 seconds to just 30 seconds to endeavour and minimize the frequency at which we were killed before completing a pass as this is a high loot area, so high hazard just high reward for those seeking proficient gear.

The test starts and ends at the exact same signal every time and the results are based on an average of three runs. Allow'due south cheque them out…

Benchmarks

Outset up we accept the 'very low' quality results and visual quality settings are prepare to their everyman value, so this should remove the GTX 1080 Ti as the performance limiting component. That said, nosotros are clearly seeing a GPU bottleneck with the majority of the 7th and 8th-gen Core processors.

The GTX 1080 Ti is only good for 120fps on average with dips to effectually 100fps.

Previously, when testing with the ultra quality preset the 7700K and R5 1600 delivered the same functioning. Here the 7700K is 20% faster than the 1600X as the Ryzen CPUs announced to exist struggling in comparison. Of grade, with well over 60fps at all times the Ryzen CPUs nonetheless provided playable functioning merely in a game that claims to support high core count CPUs, the results are disappointing.

Shockingly, the Ryzen 7 1800X was just fourteen% faster than the Ryzen 3 1200 for the average frame rate and simply vi% faster than the 1300X. This suggests that the game isn't really utilizing the college core count CPUs well at all and instead prefers cadre frequency over core count.

It appears as though a quad-core is sufficient and it doesn't necessarily require HT or SMT support. That said, for optimal performance a dual-cadre with HT isn't enough and we see this with the Pentium G4560 which was considerably slower than any other CPU tested. It was still playable however, and would be a good pairing for a budget-minded $100 graphics card.

Increasing the visual quality settings to the medium quality preset reduces the GTX 1080 Ti's performance by around ten% with the fastest CPUs tested.

There is a little bit of reshuffling with the Ryzen CPUs and at present those with more cores are doing meliorate, at least when compared to what we saw previously. The 1800X is 25% faster than the R3 1200 and 16% faster than the 1300X. So the medium quality settings appear to identify more than load on the CPU though this wasn't apparent when monitoring CPU utilization as the overall usage figure was much the same.

Once more, nigh of the Intel CPUs are able to find the limits of the GTX 1080 Ti. so it'southward probable the 8 and 12 thread models could go faster once again.

Finally we have the ultra quality preset results and here nosotros see very niggling change from the medium quality results. For the well-nigh office a few frame are dropped though it'due south the Intel quad-cores that are the biggest losers here. The 1% low effect for the Core i3-8100 and 8350K dropped by around 15% whereas the Ryzen 5 1500X and Ryzen 3 1300X, for example, were just 8% slower.

Quality Presets

So far the results seem to be somewhat all over the place and that's something we frequently see with poorly optimized games. This graph gives the states a meliorate look at what'south going on. Looking at the Core i7-8700K we see a 10% drop from very depression to medium and so just a three% drop from medium to ultra.

The Core i5-7600K on the other paw falls 10% from very low to medium and then a further 12% from medium to ultra. So that's interesting: the ultra quality preset certainly hurts the quad-core more only then we have the Ryzen 3 1200 results which are more inline with what we saw from the 8700K, confusing to say the least. So the 1600X shows fairly consistent scaling across the three quality presets.

The Pentium G4560 is different again showing similar results with the very low and medium presets but then dropping quite a bit when using the ultra preset, while the Cadre i5-7600K and Ryzen 5 1600X are the but CPUs to prove consistent scaling.

CPU Utilization

Yet more interesting results. What you lot're looking at hither is the average CPU utilization recorded from the xxx second pass, so it's not the tiptop, but rather the average. The G4560 for example at times did striking 100% only it likewise dropped downwardly to around 80%, though for the entire exam the average utilization figure was 91%.

What'due south interesting to note here is how heavily under-utilized the Ryzen v and 7 serial CPUs are. The Ryzen 5 1500X for example has four cores and 8 threads that clock upward to 3.7GHz depending on load. Yet the Core i7-8700K which packs six cores, 12 threads and a minimum operating frequency of three.7 GHz actually saw a higher utilization figure, quite a bit higher.

AMD'south own 6 core/12 thread Ryzen v 1600X saw an average utilization figure of just 28%, which is considerably lower than the 45% figure seen when testing with the 8700K. You would expect a lower clocked CPU of the same core count to run across higher utilization, not drastically lower. So at that place is clearly an optimization consequence here for the Ryzen CPUs.

Conclusions

Information technology'due south been six months since we concluding tested PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and information technology's condom to say that the game still requires further optimization. Shoddy Ryzen support aside, even the Cadre i7-8700K and GTX 1080 Ti combo was very underwhelming -- an average of 123fps at 1080p using the minimum quality settings is pathetic.

Helping to put that result into context, the same combo pushes over 220fps in Battlefield one on medium settings, 200fps in Warhammer Ii, 240fps in F1 2022, 260fps in Rainbow Six Siege, 220fps in Call of Duty WWII, 250fps in Dirt four, and the list goes on. And once again, all of those games were running on medium instead of the minimum quality preset.

In anticipation of the statement that PUBG is an open-world shooter and therefore hammers the CPU, we saw that this simply wasn't the example when using the very low quality settings. Quad-cadre Intel chips and greater hit a GPU bottleneck at just 120fps while the Ryzen CPUs were heavily under-utilized.

1 thing seems articulate, if you're a massive PUBG fan or y'all're building a PC solely to play this title, something similar the Core i3-8100 or 8350K for example will offer yous the most bang for your buck. Nosotros'd normally never recommend the 8350K, simply PUBG makes it a valid option.

We're yet to examination older CPUs but chances are anything back to the Core i5-2500K will play the game but fine, providing a balmy overclock is applied. It was surprising to find that in that location's footling divergence between the very low and ultra quality settings in terms of frame rate functioning when using a high-end GPU. Visually though, there'due south a massive difference.