Game Benchmarks

Frames per second or FPS is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems.

In these particular examples it is the best way to be able to give a relatively accurate measurement of how well a system is able to run a particular game at a defined setting and resolution, in other words how good each system is at gaming but using real world examples.

For each system we list 4 popular games generally suitable for the system in question, each of those games have an expected FPS estimate listed at 1080p, 1440p and 4k (for some higher end PCs). It is important to state that each FPS given here is an estimate and is no way any guarantee of performance however just because these numbers are estimates does not mean they are inaccurate, quite the opposite actually. Both Games & Drivers update almost daily meaning as time goes on performance of games changes over time, this is usually for the better as game engines become more efficient over time and drivers generally offer better performance as technologies mature, however these can change for the worse when a game developer does something wrong with an update/patch or there is a hiccup within a driver which is usually rectified in a matter of days or even hours and so for this very reason we are putting this clause in just to cover ourselves. 

Generally speaking we as PC gamers deem 60 FPS as smooth & buttery performance, this is the minimum you should aim for although if you are used to consoles then you would probably be happy with 30FPS however we wouldn't recommend it as PC gaming is very much so a step up. For scale, historically your average console would output up to 30 FPS on "low" to "low/medium" PC equivalent settings however as time has moved on consoles are catching up and are able to do a much higher FPS however this is done by either lowering the graphics quality or resolution. With PC's, FPS is done at a set resolution at a set graphics quality, and in our examples "high" graphics settings. With high paced E-Sports and FPS (first person shooter) genres then the target maybe around 120-165 FPS provided the system is paired with a 120-165 Hz monitor. Anything more is reserved for elite pro E-Sports gamers that simply want the very best regardless of money as currently anything north of the 120-165 FPS is both expensive and actually not always possible due to game limits despite little Timmy telling their parents they want 300FPS on Fortnite for Christmas. You can see how high FPS is not easily possible here (great guide for parents if you have a little Timmy!).

All of our FPS estimations are taken from howmanyfps.com - a massive database listing a multitude of both games, modern hardware and estimated FPS combined with hardware combinations. Each game preset is set to "high" and we publish both 1080P and 1440P resolutions. Whilst we do our own in house benchmarks here it to check performance of systems and suitability running 8 benchmarks for the 50+ systems we sell became unmanageable to keep up to date so have now switched to howmanyfps in order to maintain both up to date numbers and a decent number of example games and whilst we are unable to verify each and every estimation on the whole we are in close agreement what they publish is relatively  accurate.

Of course if you want to find out the FPS of other titles we don't list then do feel free to head over there, pick the game you are interested in along with the hardware in the system and provided they have it listed (they currently list just under 100 popular demanding titles) will give you an estimated FPS!