Best CPU For Gaming – Top 50 Steam Games Benchmarked

Benchmarking the Top Steam Game Titles

The top 5 game titles on Steam are played by roughly 2.8 million gamers on any given day, which is hard to imagine. The Intel Core i9-9900K leads in all five benchmark tests with higher average frame rates in CS:GO, Dota 2, PUBG, GTAV, and Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.

• CS:GO was benchmarked using a recorded demo on de_dust2 using a 64 tickrate server and the results had the 9900K about 7% ahead of the 3950X.
• Dota 2 was tested using an online match with FRAPS during the playback of a section of that match. The Intel Core i9-9900K had a 28% performance lead.
• PUBG was benchmarked using FRAPS running the same path on the training map and the Intel Core i9-9900K led the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X with a 5% higher average framerate.
• Mount & Blade II: Bannerload was benchmarked using FRAPS on a custom battle during Summer with 500 soldiers (250 per side). The 9900K had a 20% performance lead.
• GTAV was tested using the games built-in benchmark and the Intel Core i9-9900K finished with a 3% performance lead.

The remaining five game titles that make up the Top 10 game titles on Steam are played by about 600,000 people on a given day, so the top 10 game titles on Steam are played by around 3.4 million gamers on a daily basis. We could only benchmark four of these five game titles and it was a clean sweep by Intel on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, ARK: Survival Evolved, Monster Hunter: World and Rust.

• The built-in benchmark was used on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege and the Intel Core i9-9900K had a 10% performance advantage over the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X.
• Football Manager 2020 was not tested since an FPS performance test doesn’t apply here and there is no time-based community benchmark available right now.
• ARK: Survival Evolved was tested using FRAPS by following the same path in the game. The Intel Core i9-9900K was almost 4% faster in this benchmark.
• On Monster Hunter: World we used FRAPS and recorded performance by following the same path in the game. The Intel Core i9-9900K was found to be nearly 10% faster in this benchmark.
• RUST was benchmarked used FRAPS by following the same path in the game. The Intel Core i9-9900K was just shy of being 8% faster in this benchmark.

Almost 700,000 have been playing the game titles that make up the 11th through the 20th top game titles of the Stream platform. The Intel Core i9-9900K was able to tie or best the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X on six of the nine game titles that we were able to test. We did not benchmark the Source SDK Base 2007 since that isn’t an actual game title.

• For Destiny 2 we used OCAT to benchmark performance of a set path we used in the game title.
• In Warframe we used FRAPS to again record a set path in the game title.
• On TF2 we recorded a demo and then used the timedemo benchmark command from the console to get the average FPS.
• Rocket League was benchmarked with FRAPS, but we were hitting the built-in game frame cap of 250 FPS.
• We created a world on Terraria that was used on both systems. FRAPS was used to measure performance.
• Path of Exile was tested using FRAPS to record a set path in the game title.
• FRAPS to record a set path of an online game in Garry’s Mod. The same server was used.
• The same job in Cologne, Germany was measured using FRAPS on Euro Truck Simulator 2.
• The built-in benchmark was used to get the benchmark result in Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.

Just shy of 380,000 people a day are currently playing the next ten game titles that make up the Top 21-30 Steam games. The Intel Core i9-9900K managed to tie or lead in eight of the nine titles tested. Wallpaper Engine was not tested since that puts live wallpapers on your Windows desktop.

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was tested using FRAPS to record a set path in the game title.
• Dead by Daylight testing was done using FRAPS to record a set path in the game title.
• Unturned was tested by city buildings on the Washington map using FRAPS on a set path.
• The Elder Scrolls Online was tested using FRAPS to record a set path in the game title.
• Stardew Valley has a 60 FPS cap and both systems stayed at that cap on FRAPS testing.
• We used the built-in ‘Late Game View Benchmark’ on Sid Meier’s Civilization V.
• PayDay 2 was benchmarked with using FRAPS on a set path.
• World Of Tanks Blitz has a 60 FPS caps and FRAPS was used for testing.

Moving down the list to the top 31-40 game titles we were happy to see nearly 300,000 people a day still playing games like Cities: Skylines and Counter-Strike. The Intel Core i9-9900K managed to tie or lead in nine of the ten game titles in this group.

• The built-in benchmark was used in Borderlands 3.
• FRAPS was used to benchmark a set path in Human: Fall Flat.
• We used a custom map to do a fly over while using FRAPS to get a score on Cities: Skylines.
• A match was played on NBA 2K20 and we averaged 10 FRAPS runs to get a score.
• FRAPS was used to benchmark a set path in Human: Fall Flat.
• FRAPS was used to benchmark a set path in Risk of Rain 2.
• FRAPS was used to benchmark a set path in Lost Oasis.
• FRAPS was used to benchmark gameplay of Hearts of Iron IV.
• FRAPS was used to benchmark a set path in Counter-Strike on cs_Office.

Over 250,000 people a day are playing the Top 41-50 Steam game titles and we found that the Intel Core i9-9900K was able to tie or lead in the nine titles that were tested. Football Manager 2019 is no longer available for purchase and was not tested.

• FRAPS was used to benchmark Farming Simulator 19, Total War: WARHAMMER II, Arma 3, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Stellaris, 7 Days to Die and Europa Universallis IV.
• The official benchmark for Final Fantasy XIV Online: Shadowbringers was used.

Let’s wrap this up!