Game Ready 419.67 Driver Performance Analysis featuring the GTX 1060/6GB SC and RTX 2070 using 42 Games
As a regular BabelTechReviews’ feature, this driver performance analysis will showcase the performance of the EVGA GTX 1060 SC and the RTX 2070 Founders Edition (FE) with 42 PC games using the latest GeForce Game Ready 419.67 Driver which released earlier this week. We will compare these drivers versus 418.91 for the GTX 1060 and 417.71 for the RTX 2070.
We document the performance changes of the current Game Ready 419.67 Driver on Windows 10 at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440 resolutions using the latest games including The Division 2, Devil May Cry 5, and Metro Exodus. 
Our testing platform is a recent install of Windows 10 64-bit Home Edition, and we are using a Core i7-8700K which turbos all 6 cores to 4.7 GHz, an EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard, and 16GB of HyperX DDR4 3333MHz. The games tested, settings, and hardware are identical except for the drivers being compared.
Test Configuration – Hardware
- Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost are on to 4.7 GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).
- EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
- HyperX 16GB DDR4 (2×8 GB, dual channel at 3333 MHz), supplied by HyperX
- EVGA GTX 1060 6GB SC, stock SC clocks, on loan from EVGA
- RTX 2070 Founders Edition 8GB, at Founders Edition clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
- 480 GB Team Group SSD
- 1.92 TB San Disk enterprise class SSD
- 2 TB Micron 1100 SSD
- Seasonic 850W Gold Focus power supply unit
- EVGA CLC 280mm CPU water cooler, supplied by EVGA
- EVGA Nu Audio stereo PCIe sound card, on loan from EVGA
- Edifier R1280T active desktop speakers
- Grado SR60e headphones
- EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA
- Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K
Test Configuration – Software
- Nvidia GeForce 418.91 WHQL drivers are used for the GTX 1060 SC and 417.71 drivers used for the RTX 2070 FE and are compared with the latest 419.67 Game Ready Driver.
- VSync is forced off.
- AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified
- Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font.
- Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
- Windows 10 64-bit Home edition. All DX11 titles were run under DX11 render paths. DX12 titles are generally run under the DX12 render path unless performance is lower than with DX11. Three games use the Vulkan API.
- Latest DirectX
- All 42 games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication.
- MSI Afterburner, latest beta.
- OCAT, latest version
- Fraps, latest version
42 PC Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests
Synthetic
- Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
- Time Spy DX12
- Superposition
DX11 Games
- Grand Theft Auto V
- The Witcher 3
- Fallout 4
- Rainbow Six Siege
- Battlefield 1
- For Honor
- Ghost Recon Wildlands
- Mass Effect: Andromeda
- Prey
- Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
- Project CARS 2
- Middle Earth: Shadow of War
- Total War: Warhammer II
- Destiny 2
- Star Wars: Battlefront II
- Monster Hunter: World
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance
- Final Fantasy XV
- Far Cry 5
- The Crew 2
- F1 2018
- Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
- Hitman 2
- Just Cause 4
- Resident Evil 2
- Devil May Cry 5
DX12 Games
- Tom Clancy’s The Division
- Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
- Hitman
- Deus Ex Mankind Divided
- Gears of War 4
- Civilization VI
- Sniper Elite 4
- Forza 7
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Battlefield V
- Metro Exodus
- Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
Vulkan Games
- DOOM
- Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
- Strange Brigade
NVIDIA Control Panel settings
Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.
We used MSI’s Afterburner to set the RTX 2070 FE’s and the GTX 1060 SC’s highest Power and Temperature targets. By setting the Power Limits and Temperature limits to maximum, they can maintain their maximum clocks without throttling.
Game Ready GeForce 419.67 WHQL Drivers
This latest GeForce Game Ready 419.67 driver was released primarily for Battlefield V: Firestorm, Anthem, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It is supposed to provide the best experience for RTX GeForce gamers and it is mandatory if you play Anthem with DLSS. It also contains a lot of bug fixes found in earlier drivers, and we also found it introduces some bugs of its own.
The download links for the latest GeForce 419.67 drivers can be found starting here. The release notes can also be found here. The included highlights below are from NVIDIA’s website.
Game Ready Drivers provide the best possible gaming experience for all major new releases, including Virtual Reality games. Prior to a new title launching, our driver team is working up until the last minute to ensure every performance tweak and bug fix is included for the best gameplay on day-1.
Game Ready
Provides the optimal gaming experience for Battlefield V: Firestorm, Anthem, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Gaming Technology
Includes support for G-SYNC compatible surround mode and two new G-SYNC compatible monitors.
Let’s head to the charts to compare the driver changes from the GeForce 417.71 drivers for the RTX 2070 and the GeForce 418.91 drivers using the GTX 1060 SC to the latest 419.67 Game Ready Drivers.
The Summary Chart
Below are the summary charts of 42 games and 3 synthetic tests used to compare the performance changes for the GTX 1060 SC from the 418.91 GeForce drivers and from 417.71 for the RTX 2070 FE to the most recent 419.67 drivers. The highest settings are always chosen and the settings are listed on the charts. The benches were run at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440. Open each chart in a separate window or tab for best viewing.
Most results show average framerates and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. A few games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by the 99th percentile frametime in ms where lower numbers are better.
The first column shows the GTX 1060 SC’s performance on the latest 419.67 driver and columns two represents the 418.91 driver’s performance. The third column shows the RTX 2070 FE’s performance on 419.67 compared with 417.71 results in the fourth column. Wins between the two sets of drivers are shown in yellow text for the GTX 1060 and in orange text for the RTX 2070. If both sets of results are equal, they are both shown in colored text. An “X” means the benchmark was not run or could not be run if it is compared with colored text.
We see mostly incremental performance changes between the latest drivers and the older drivers, although there are some more notable increases as well as regressions. There are some bugs we noted as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Kingdom Come both refused to launch on the latest 419.67 drivers with the GTX 1060 that were fixed by reverting to 417.35. The Crew 2 also refused to run full-screen and performance tanked using the RTX 2070.
Let’s head to our conclusion.
Conclusion
We would generally recommend upgrading to the latest Game Ready 419.67 driver from any older driver set because there are generally stability or performance advantages for the newer games, depending on which game you are playing. We found the latest drivers to be stable and relatively bug-free overall except as noted above.
Although our tested drivers are from the same Game Ready family of the past few months, we mostly see incremental changes from one driver set to the other. Some of these performance changes may be influenced more by game patches than by drivers. But these 419.67 drivers are certainly worth trying and mandatory if you want to check out DLSS ray traced performance using a Turing video card in Anthem.
This is the last time we are going to regularly feature Battlefield 1 and The Division 1. We installed Anthem this evening and will feature it as BTR’s latest benchmark in our upcoming performance analyses and game reviews.
Next up, we are going to track DLSS performance in all of the popular games that support it followed by a return to VR next week.
Happy gaming!