Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl GPU Benchmark

We have spent a considerable amount of time over the past few days staring at the Shader Compilation loading screen in a new game called Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. For some of you, the game needs no introduction. But frankly, that experience has been more enjoyable than testing half the products we’ve reviewed in 2024, so probably not even cracking the top 10 most boring things I’ve done this year (that was a joke – I love what I do)…
Shader compilation loading screens aside, we’ve managed to test Stalker 2 this week, right after the day-one patch was released, benchmarking 31 different GPUs across three resolutions using three quality presets, plus results from quality upscaling (!). So there’s plenty to go over.
Stalker 2 is a first-person shooter/survival horror single-player game developed using Unreal Engine 5. It’s the fourth main game in the Stalker series, and shockingly, it’s been 15 years since the last release, Call of Pripyat. That game was a staple for our CPU and GPU testing back in the day, so it’s exciting to finally see a new Stalker title.
So without wasting any more time, let’s get into it. The benchmark pass we used for this analysis takes place in the Lesser Zone, one of the first towns you encounter. This location was chosen because it is highly demanding on both the CPU and GPU.
As we just mentioned, we tested multiple quality presets. Changing the quality settings requires restarting the game, and this triggers shader rebuilding – a process that takes several minutes. Performing this process at least three times per GPU, for a total of 31 GPUs, made for an interesting (and lengthy) testing experience.
We tested the Epic preset both at native resolution and with quality upscaling, alongside the High and Medium presets. For upscaling, we used DLSS on GeForce GPUs, FSR on Radeon GPUs, and XeSS for the Arc A770. Although the game supports FSR and DLSS frame generation, we did not include those in this analysis.
Before diving into…