Basemark has just launched its latest benchmark, GPUScore: Breaking Limit. Naturally, I’ve wasted no time in seeing how my GeForce RTX 3080 Ti measures up against it. Sure enough, its awesomely heavy test sequences have proven a humbling experience and should similarly cut other high-end systems down to size.
Part of the fun of having one of the best graphics cards at your disposal is seeing how well it scores in benchmarking software. It is for me, anyway. These applications are also useful for our reviews, helping us to gauge performance across competitors and generations. So, with Basemark describing GPUScore: Breaking Limit as a ray tracing benchmark that “reflects the current and future landscape of this technology,” I of course had to take a look.
Even with though my GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has a Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor and 32GB of 7,200MT/s DDR5 RAM supporting it, GPUScore: Breaking Limit proves too much. Using the Vulkan renderer, the graphics card managed an average of 28 frames-per-second (fps). Things sadly only get worse switching to DirectX 12, dropping to 26fps. Credit to Basemark here as results proved consistent across multiple runs.
This is a far cry from the 69-73fps average I experience when running GPUScore: Relic of Life (as shown above). Although, it is great to see software pushing the performance of today’s graphics cards to their… well, breaking limit. Even adjusting the resolution of the benchmark to 4K, mirroring the newer test, results were still more positive at 38-41fps.
With such disappointing results out the gate, we didn’t hold out hope for our Ryzen 5 7600X and Radeon RX 7900 XT test system. But, of course, we ran the benchmark anyway. Sure enough, the Radeon card put in a solid if expected effort, mustering a 25/26fps average depending on the renderer.
You can download and try out GPUScore: Breaking Limit for yourself, but do mind the system requirements before running it. You’ll find installers for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS on its download page.
We’re still working out whether we’ll include GPUScore: Breaking Limit in future reviews, but I’m mighty curious to see how the likes of RTX 4090 handle it. Better still, this could be a ripe proving ground for Nvidia RTX 50 series graphics cards, whenever they emerge.