Synthetic benchmarks:
Our first series of tests will be dedicated to synthetic benchmarks. These are often used for overclocking competitions but are also very interesting to compare different GPUs. So we will focus on the 3DMark benchmarks. We will test the following benchmarks:
- Fire Strike (1080p)
- Fire Strike Ultra (2160p)
- Time Spy (1440p)
- Time Spy Extreme (2160p)
- DirectX Raytracing
- Intel XeSS
- Mesh Shader
3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra :
Let’s start with 3DMark Fire Strike, which is one of the most used benchmarks today. It consists of two graphics tests, a CPU test and a fourth test that combines GPU and CPU. Don’t forget to deactivate the demo which doesn’t bring anything in the final score and prolongs the benchmark duration (unnecessarily). The version used for these tests is of course the latest one 
First benchmark that we realize with this MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X and the least we can say is that it starts with a bang! The score obtained is 52 239 leaving the RX 6950 XT at 4942 points. As you will notice later, the balance of the graphics is maintained thanks to the fact that the benchmark is done in 1080p. 
The same is true for Fire Strike Ultra. Well no, it’s an even more obvious observation since with its 25132 points, our RTX 4090 exceeds the RX 6950 XT by 9694 points, that is to say a gain of 62% for the latest arrival of NVIDIA. The gap is widening since we are now in a 2160p benchmark.
3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme:
The second test is 3DMark Time Spy. Although this one is done in 1440p, it has the particularity of using DirectX 12. It consists of two graphical tests and a CPU test. As for Fire Strike, don’t forget to disable the demo. These two first benchmarks are proposed by UL Benchmark. 
The performance obtained in Time Spy is often representative of what we will have in games. And here, the MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X once again slams the competition. Just look at the shape of the graphics to realize the imbalance that has just set in. If this is confirmed in games, we risk having a gulf between this new generation and the previous one. 
Under 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, it is an incredible score that we obtain with almost 20K for the graphic score! For information, the current world record in Time Spy Extreme with a CPU and a 3090 Ti under LN2 is 14977 points. So, without any overclocking, it is already largely beaten !
3DMark DirectX Raytracing:
UL Benchmarks has added a new test to its series of benchmarks to measure Ray Tracing performance. The idea will be to use the 3DMark DirectX Raytracing test to compare the performance of Ray Tracing hardware dedicated to AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards but now also to Intel! The 3DMark DirectX Raytracing test is designed to make Ray Tracing the limiting factor. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the entire scene is traced and drawn in one pass. The test result will depend entirely on the performance of the Ray Tracing. It will be easy to measure and compare the performance of the different cards between them. 
This benchmark has always been dominated by NVIDIA cards and we continue to be surprised with a score of 141.61 FPS. The addition of the CUDA cores and the increase in frequency has a huge impact on the performance gain.
3DMark Intel XeSS
UL Benchmarks in collaboration with Intel will add this new benchmark to the 3DMark suite. We had early access to this new test for our testing. This Intel XeSS test is designed to evaluate and compare the performance and image quality of XeSS (Xe Super Sampling). There are four XeSS modes to choose from: Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced and Performance. The 3DMark inspection tool helps you compare image quality with a side-by-side view of XeSS rendering and native resolution rendering. You need a graphics card that supports Intel XeSS to run this test. So we’ll have two scores, a FPS number with XeSS disabled and then on the right with XeSS enabled. The mode chosen is “Ultra Quality” which is actually the default mode for the benchmark. 
In this new benchmark, all graphics cards without exception take advantage of XeSS but it is Intel that has the best gain. ARC models see a gain of 50% while NVIDIA and AMD models, more or less 30 to 35%. This does not prevent our MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X to dominate once again the ranking.
3DMark Mesh Shader:
Here is the new test we added to the synthetic benchmarks: Mesh Shader. We added it because it is managed by the RDNA 2 architecture of AMD and therefore our RX 6000. It allows us to analyze the performance level of GPUs concerning this feature. As a reminder, it allows to exploit more complex calculations at the geometry level, in a more flexible way, for each meshlet . The displayed result is the one with the Mesh Shaders active. 
Well, as we conclude this first series of synthetic tests, we are stunned by the performance. In all the time I’ve had the chance to review graphics cards, I’ve never been confronted with such a difference in gain between two successive generations.
