In an era where new PC games often consume more resources than a black hole consumes its neighborhood, the PC port of “Horizon Forbidden West” shines like a Gallic village in a world occupied by Roman legions – unbending, unshakable and sturdy as an oak tree. Meanwhile, elsewhere, the latest blockbusters, led by “Dragon’s Dogma 2”, swirl through the gaming landscape, forcing players to choose between gaming enjoyment and the integrity of their hardware. “Horizon Forbidden West” also makes no demands on hardware that make you want to pawn your firstborn for a new graphics card. Or at least donate a kidney. Instead, it offers a world so rich, opulent and vibrant that you almost forget that the battle between graphics settings and FPS numbers is raging elsewhere.
But while “Horizon Forbidden West” walks the tightrope of stable gameplay with the elegance of a balancing acrobat, the loud roar of hyperventilating influencers is more likely to draw gamers to games like “Dragon’s Dogma 2”. There, in a world where high-end graphics are so detailed that you could almost count the individual drops of sweat on an NPC’s forehead (also because it often jerks and you can then gallantly analyze the still image) you pay a high price – not only in the form of hardware upgrades, but also through an endless flood of microtransactions cleverly disguised as an “enhanced gaming experience”.
“Horizon Forbidden West” politely reminds you that true beauty lies not in the number of pixels, but in gliding smoothly through a world so captivating that time itself becomes a mere concept. At a time when the market is flooded with titles that are more focused on squeezing the wallet than the gaming experience, it offers a refuge – a place to simply enjoy without fear that the next hour of play will require the purchase of a new PC. Yes, the game also has weaknesses in terms of content, but that is often the nature of a sequel when (almost) all the secrets have already been revealed and the players are known. The two-year wait for the PC version is also rather unpleasant, but at least Nixxes has used the time to create a stable implementation. Chapeau!
Cinema format: Thanks to super sampling, the couch becomes a striker and the living room a gaming hell
Which brings us smoothly to my Easter project. I treated myself to a nice, portable PC for the living room and meeting room and put it together in the evening after work. This means that today’s benchmarks are not from my benchtable, but from a real PC that now shuttles back and forth between the office, meeting room and living room. The components are rather mid-range, because an RTX 4080 or even RTX 4090, or the equivalents from AMD in the RX 7900 portfolio, would be pretty decadent. Whereby two cards are competing against each other in the benchmarks today that perform almost identically fast on paper, at least without super sampling. And then came DLSS and FSR. But I’ll come to the benchmarks in the usual detail in a moment. In any case, the fact is that it would work without it, but not as smoothly.
However, I still had the PNY RTX 4070 Super Verto OC lying around, which I had bought for the last individual review. And because there were repeated calls in the forum to keep up with the pulse of the times rather than using the Sapphire RX 7900GRE Nitro, which is a heavy drinker, I also bought this somewhat more frugal card as the currently cheapest competitor and tested it as an alternative. The graphics accelerator should not cost more than 600 euros and still be able to power the 77″ OLED in the living room in full Ultra HD resolution. Not possible? Yes, it works! At least with this game and all others that don’t run out of steam even in Ultra HD thanks to smart super sampling. You can read about which card was finally allowed to remain in my bathroom furniture PC at the very end. If you’re spoiled for choice, you’ll have to suffer a little beforehand, even when testing.
As far as the substructure is concerned (because I had opted for a Streacom DA6 XL) – in the Mini-ITX format, the choice of current mainboards is a little more difficult. In the end, I opted for a very well-equipped Z790 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4, as the few AM5 boards with a decent chipset were unfortunately more expensive. I still had the Core i5-14600K left and the flat Jonsbo cooler also performed better on the LGA1700 socket. I also added 32 GB DDR5 6000 and a 2TB SSD in the form of the SPATIUM M480 from MSI. The gaming box is ready. Well, not quite yet…
As I already have enough lighting next to the TV due to the Ambilight, all the illuminated PC parts were dimmed by force, so to speak. I simply unplugged the ARGB connector on the Jonsbo cooler, covered a few more LEDs on the board with black insulating tape and the power LED on the case is pointing downwards anyway. The graphics card didn’t have a firmware on board from the factory anyway, which is very commendable and saves work. The mouse and keyboard are wireless, because the only way to use a PC without input devices is via software. But I didn’t want that at all, because I need the classic style in the meeting room anyway. That will have to suffice as an insight into my private life.
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