Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Benchmarked - 1080p

1080p, also known as FullHD, is still by far the most popular desktop resolution and the one that most gamers are interested in - it is used by nearly 40 percent of gamers according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey results.


Clearly, with all the settings cranked up, Deus Ex is a tough game to run. Only a single card here is able to successfully run the game without dipping below 60fps, and it's the £1,100 GTX Titan X. Thankfully, there are a good number of cards that keep their minimum in the all-important 30-60fps range. AMD seems to do better than Nvidia as well - note that the RX 480 4GB is able to outperform not only the GTX 1060, but also the GTX 980.


Notching things down to 'Very High', most cards improve on average by between 15 and 20 percent, with Nvidia's hardware benefiting the most. At these settings, an overclocked GTX 1080 is now able to provide constant >60fps gameplay, while the GTX 1060, GTX 970 and RX 470 all cross from unplayable into playable i.e. their minimum is now above 30fps. Meanwhile, the RX 480 cards (both the 4GB and 8GB) still look especially strong - they're on par with the previous generation R9 390X and hot on the heels of the R9 Fury and R9 Fury X.


Average frame rates increase by a further 20 percent as you step down to 'High' settings, which are the ones recommended by the developers for the best balance between visual quality and performance. A fair number of high-end cards now average over 60fps, but it's still only the two very best Nvidia cards that never dip below this. The R9 380 and R9 380X join the ranks of >30fps cards as well, but older generation cards like the GTX 660, GTX 670 and R9 280X all struggle. In fact, all cards here with 4GB or more of memory are playable, but those with less than this are not - Deus Ex certainly seems to make heavy use of frame buffers.


Lastly, at 'Medium', which is the lowest settings we'd recommend playing on for a good time, performance is most likely to increase by just under 15 percent or so. Even so, all the 2GB cards still have minimums below 30fps, but the R9 280X 3GB just manages to hit this target. The GTX 1070 also finally exceed 60fps on the minimum, but you're unlikely to buy a GTX 1070 to play at medium settings.