Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is currently available for those who pre-ordered the Gold or Ultra editions. The game will be available to everyone on September 9. Before we release our PC performance analysis, we decided to test the game at native 4K with Ultra settings on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. Can NVIDIA's high-end GPU run it at over 60 fps? Time to find out.
For these early benchmarks, we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000MHz, and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit and the GeForce 560.94 WHQL driver. In addition, I disabled the second CCD on our 7950X3D.
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 does not have a built-in benchmark. This is a bit disappointing since World War Z had one. For those who don't know, World War Z and Space Marine 2 use the same engine. However, as you will see, Space Marine 2 is much more demanding than WWZ. It also looks better than that one.
The good news is that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 can run the game at over 60 frames per second at native 4K resolution and ultra settings, even during chaotic battles. Space Marine 2 doesn't use ray tracing effects. However, the game can display A LOT of enemies on screen. It also looks fantastic, despite using rasterization techniques.
What I found interesting is the last screenshot. As we can see, the shot with all the marines is just as challenging as the scene with the swarm. Saber did a great job here. Yes, the game is challenging. However, the large number of enemies won't bring high-end PCs to their knees, so that's good news.
At launch, Space Marine 2 does not support NVIDIA DLSS 3 or AMD FSR 3.0. Instead, the game uses older versions of these technologies. Frame generation is also not supported, so that's a bummer, especially for those who may be CPU-limited. However, Saber has announced that both technologies will be added via a post-launch update.
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 can't compete visually with Hellblade 2 or Black Myth: Wukong. But that doesn't mean it's a bad looking game. Don't get me wrong. What we have here is a great looking title. And while the Swarm Engine doesn't seem to be as advanced as UE5, Space Marine 2 has an incredible art style.
As I said, we'll definitely be comparing the game to numerous AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, so expect a PC performance analysis in the next few days. I've also recorded a video (which will be added to the article once it's available on YouTube). Note that the footage was shot using the NVIDIA app. The app brought a 10 frames per second performance hit, so keep that in mind when watching.
Have fun and stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and editor-in-chief of DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fanatic and is a huge supporter of the modding and indie communities. Before founding DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. Although he is a diehard PC gamer, his gaming roots lie on consoles. John loved – and still loves – the 16-bit consoles and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. However, the PC platform won him over consoles. This was mainly due to 3DFX and its legendary dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on “The Evolution of PC Graphics Cards”.
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