Cyberpower PC Ultra 7 RTX Elite Review

👤by Tim Harmer Comments 📅22-12-20
Benchmarks: Gaming (1440p)
NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti straddles the line between 1080p/144Hz and 1440p/60Hz gaming, particularly with advanced visual fidelity features such as hybrid ray tracing enabled. We have chosen to put the card through its paces at the latter resolution to assess the upper limit of its capabilities. Monitors with variable refresh rate support such as NVIDIA G-SYNC are increasingly attractive at 1440p and widespread at 1080p, making frame rates in excess of 60fps valuable even if 144fps cannot be attained consistently.

Where possible we have also chosen to utilise graphically taxing features such as NVIDIA RTX ray-tracing.

Mordor: Shadow of War

The oldest of our titles, Mordor: Shadow of War is still an exceptionally attractive game that utilises the DirectX 11 API. We expect that the Ultra 7 RTX Elite will cope well with the title at 1440p Ultra settings..

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

The second sequel to the rebooted Tomb Raider franchise, Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also one of the first titles to incorporate NVIDIA RTX ray-traced shadows and DLSS. Ray tracing in particular will test the system alongside the highest graphic quality presets, and we'll allow no DLSS to fall back on.

Horizon Zero Dawn

This game was new to PC in August 2020 and already has a reputation for taxing GPU hardware. It doesn't feature ray tracing, but nonetheless has some of the most stunning scenes ever rendered in games. We've used the Ultimate preset here, but Favoured also offers a visual feast with markedly higher performance.

Control

Critically acclaimed on release, Control is the title which makes most comprehensive use of NVIDIA RTX ray tracing to date. Shadows, lighting and reflections all make use of this advanced rendering standard, helping the transition from mundane world to its nightmarish reflection. We opted for the Highest settings preset with RTX features enabled including the default recommended level of DLSS (50% rendering scale).


Tests were performed with the GeForce 460.89 WHQL Game Ready Driver.




The Ultra 7 RTX Elite maintained excellent mean frame rates at 1440p despite the use of RTX ray tracing in two of our tests, and would likely be an ideal candidate for 1080p gaming at high fps (100+) levels. Pushing visual fidelity and resolution would likely necessitate a G-SYNC compatible/Adaptive Sync monitor at 1440p to manage frame rate dips below 60fps while maintaining a smooth and tear-free experience.

Enabling DLSS where supported would similarly boost frame rates, although only the 2.0 implementation provides an adequate mix of performance improvements without impacting image quality. For example, DLSS in Shadow of the Tomb Raider clawed back an additional 10fps in average frame rates when RTX Ray Tracing is set to high, while turning it off in Control tanked average frame rates by >50%.

This review isn’t intended as a direct comparison between the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 2080 SUPER as seen in our previous system review. The two appear to be roughly comparable, but our experiences with them are separated by 4 months, different CPU platforms, and multiple driver/game updates. The RTX 2080 SUPER should still be the slightly better choice for >1440p gaming, but diminishing returns and a large difference in MSRP will make the 3060 Ti a better option for 1080p gaming. This resolution (1440p) is an inflection point where the two are nip and tuck, warranting more detailed examination before pronouncing one or other the victor.



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