Helldivers 2 is one of the most popular titles on Steam these days. The game doesn’t win any visual quality awards but runs well on most PCs. We tested Sony’s latest Steam released across some of the latest NVIDIA and AMD GPUs and found that it runs much better on GeForce cards, with the RTX 4080 Super beating the Radeon RX 7900 XTX by over 40%. Let’s dig in.
Test Bench
- CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Z790 Maximus Hero
- Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360 AIO
- Memory: 16GB x2 6000MT/s CL30
- Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e
- The testing was conducted on Urbanea with all graphics settings (including FOV) maxed out.
Helldivers 2 Performance: NVIDIA RTX 4090/4080 vs Radeon RX 7900 XTX
At 4K (native), the GeForce RTX 4090 averages 101.5 FPS with 1% lows of 87.4 FPS. The RTX 4080 Super comes in second, scoring 86 FPS on average and lows of 76.6 FPS. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX barely breaks the 60 FPS barrier, with lows of 55.4 FPS. These numbers grant the RTX 4090 a lead of 66% over the RX 7900 XTX, while the RTX 4080 Super leads by 40%.
The Radeon RX 7900 XT (usually on par with the RTX 4070 Ti) is slightly faster than the RTX 4070, with an average of 55.5 FPS and 51.3 FPS lows. The RTX 4070 averages 51.6 FPS with lows of 46 FPS.
The performance deltas between the GPUs contract at 1440p (as the game becomes more CPU-bound). The GeForce RTX 4090, with an average of 171 FPS, is 61% faster than the RX 7900 XTX (106.3 FPS). Averaging 133.5 FPS, the RTX 4080 Super’s lead over the 7900 XTX drops to 25.6%. Conversely, the delta between the RX 7900 XT and the RTX 4070 grows 10% with average frame rates of 97.5 FPS and 88.2 FPS, respectively.
At 1080p, the RX 7900 XTX is CPU and memory-bound and performs the same as the 7900 XT. Hellriders 2 is quite sensitive to memory speeds. We recommend getting a quad-channel (dual-DIMM) DDR5-6000 CL30 kit for high frame-rate gameplay. The RTX 4080 Super is just over 20% faster than the 7900 XT at this resolution, while the latter remains 10% ahead of the RTX 4070.
The frametime variance graph indicates a smooth experience across all GPUs. The RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX experience a few hiccups during gunplay, but it’s minor and inconsequential. Overall, Helldivers 2 is a well-optimized game from Sony.
