Skyrim Unreal Engine 5.5 - PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards and Processors

Author Maximum Games, March 13 2025. Published in Test Video Cards

We have tested Skyrim fan project on Unreal Engine 5.5, which is being developed independent developer Greg Coulthard. During testing, we assessed performance, graphics quality and work advanced technologies UE5.5, applied in complete reconstruction The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

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THE GRAFICAL PART

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

Skyrim fan project on Unreal Engine 5.5, which is being developed by an independent developer Greg Coulthard, represents a complete reconstruction of the classic role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim using advanced technologies of the UE5.5 game engine.

The original Skyrim was released in 2011 and has since been re-released many times, but the technical limitations of the old Creation Engine became apparent. That's why Coulthard decided to bring the game to a modern platform, which will improve the visuals, lighting and detail.

Work on the project began in 2023, when Unreal Engine 5 has received a major update, including Nanite, Lumen and support for large open worlds. The main task of the developer was Recreating the world of Skyrim with photorealistic graphics, improved textures and high frame rates.

Coulthard uses original game assets, but significantly reworks them, adapting them to modern technologies. The project has already been implemented main world mapbut for now it remains empty - it lacks NPCs, quests and interactive elements.

The developer plans to add an improved animation system, full-fledged NPC AI, as well as realistic water physics and interactions with the environment. Despite being an unofficial remake, it has already attracted the attention of the gaming community due to its impressive visual changes and the prospect of bringing Skyrim fully up to modern standards.

GRAPHICS

The main advantage Unreal Engine 5.5 is new rendering technologies that can significantly improve image quality but require powerful hardware. Greg Coulthard makes extensive use of nanite, which makes it possible to display objects with millions of polygons, but at the same time creates a huge load on the systemThis is especially noticeable in the elaboration of stone walls, urban architecture and landscapes.

Lighting system Lumen completely changed the way light and shadows are rendered. Now all light sources interact dynamically with the environment, creating natural shadows and reflections. Thanks to this, caves, forests and cities in Skyrim look much more realistic. The changes are especially noticeable at night, when the light of torches and the moon now correctly spreads across the environment.

Another important innovation is new technology for physical modeling of waterIn the original Skyrim there was water static, and the physics of its movement is limited. In Unreal Engine 5.5 water now has realistic waves, dynamically reacts to wind and interacts with objects. Coulthard also improved the particle system, which made weather effects - such as rain and snow - significantly more detailed and natural.

GAME ENGINE

Porting Skyrim to Unreal Engine 5.5 is not only about graphical improvements, but also increased system requirements. The UE5.5 engine significantly loads PC resources, and for comfortable gaming you will need very powerful hardwareEven in its current state, without NPCs and complex interactions, the project requires top video cards and processors, as Nanite technology creates a serious load.

One of the main problems with the original Skyrim was loading screens when entering buildings and caves. Unreal Engine 5.5 uses streaming download technology (World Partition), which allows players Move seamlessly through an open world without loadingHowever, such a system requires large amounts of RAM and high-speed SSD, otherwise performance drops may occur.

The physical model of the world is still not implemented in full. Unlike the original Skyrim, where objects could be moved and interacted with the environment, in the current version destructibility and complex mechanics have not yet been implemented. Coulthard focuses on graphics and overall structure of the world before adding physical interactions and combat mechanics.

thanks Nanite and a new method of data compression managed significantly reduce the load on the system, but even with these improvements Unreal Engine 5.5 remains demanding. In its current form the game not optimized for average PCs, and comfortable work is possible only on high-performance systems with flagship graphics cards.

TEST PART

Below you will find a table of equipment that was kindly provided by our sponsors: GIGABYTE, ASUS, Kingston и Deep Cool. It reflects the list of motherboards, video cards, memory modules and cooling systems used in the tests, and also indicates the current configuration of the operating system and drivers.

Test configuration
GIGABYTE
motherboards	Z490 AORUS PROAX GIGABYTE Z590 VISION Gigabyte X670E AORUS PRO X GIGABYTE Z690 AERO G

ASUS
motherboards	ASUS ROG Strix B650-A Gaming Wi-Fi ASUS Z790-A GAMING DDR4
Video Cards	ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER OC ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT 20G
KINGSTON
RAM	16 GB DDR4 4600 CL19 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR4 3600 CL16 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR4 4000 CL18 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR5 5600 CL40 Kingston Fury Beast 32 GB DDR5 6000 CL30 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR5 7200 CL36 Kingston FURY Renegade 48GB DDR5 7200 CL36 Kingston FURY Renegade 48GB DDR5 8000 CL36 Kingston FURY Renegade
Storage devices	Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Kingston NV3 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 Kingston XS2000 4TB SSD

Deep Cool
Cases and cooling	Case DeepCool CH510 WH Case DeepCool CH780 WH SVO DeepCool LS720 WH Deepcool PX1200G 1200W Power Supply
Software configuration

Operating system	Windows 11 24H2

Graphics driver	Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 572.75 WHQL AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.3.1
Monitoring programs	MSI Afterburner 4.6.6 Beta 5 Build 16555

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. Below is a video of a test segment from the game:

Our video cards were tested at different screen sizes 1920x1080, 2560x1440 и 3840x2160 with maximum graphics quality settings.

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TEST GPU

In the video card test, the default resolution is 1920x1080; other resolutions are added and removed manually. You can also remove and add any positions of video cards. You can also select any of our test processors from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given video card tests (by default, the most productive solution is selected). The test is carried out on the most powerful CPU in this game and is scaled to other processors, taking into account their testing on NVIDIA and AMD video cards.

Skyrim Unreal Engine 5.5 test GPU

Ultra

When resolved 1920x1080:

Average FPS (25 frames): Achieved on Radeon RX 6800 or GeForce RTX 2080 Ti level graphics cards.
Minimum FPS (25 frames): Provided by video cards of the level of Adeon Radeon RX 6800 XT or GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.
Comfortable average FPS (60 frames): Possible with GeForce-level video cards RTX 4090.

When resolved 2560x1440:

Average FPS (25 frames): Reached on video cards of the level of Radeon RX 9070 or GeForce RTX 4070.
Minimum FPS (25 frames): Provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 9070 XT or GeForce RTX 3080 Ti level.
Comfortable average FPS (60 frames): Possible with video cards of the GeForce RTX 5090 level.

When resolved 3840x2160:

Average FPS (25 frames): Achieved on GeForce-level video cards RTX 4090.
Minimum FPS (25 frames): Provided by video cards of the level of adeon GeForce RTX 4090.

VIDEO MEMORY CONSUMPTION

after

Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the program MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on the results on video cards from AMD and NVIDIA with separate screen sizes 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 with various anti-aliasing settings. By default, the graph displays the most current solutions. Other video cards are added and removed from the chart at the request of the reader.

Skyrim Unreal Engine 5.5 VRAM test

Ultra

GEFORCE RTX 5090 32GB

10988

8286

7043

GEFORCE RTX 4090 24 GB

10381

7866

6959

GEFORCE RTX 4080 16GB

10621

8086

6999

GEFORCE RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB

9921

7829

6607

Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB

11811

8991

8032

Radeon RX 9070XT 16GB

11158

8402

7750

Radeon RX 6700XT 12GB

9610

7941

6973

GameGPU

- 3840x2160, Mbyte

- 2560x1440, Mbyte

- 1920x1080, Mbyte

Resolution 1920x1080:D

Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB
Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB
Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB
Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB

Resolution 2560x1440:

Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 8 GB
Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 8 GB
Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 8 GB
Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 8 GB

Resolution 3840x2160:

Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 9 GB
Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 11 GB
Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 11 GB
Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 11 GB

CPU TEST

Testing was carried out at a resolution of 1920x1080. In the processor test, you can remove or add any processor positions. You can also select any tested video card from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given processor test results (by default, the most productive solution from NVIDIA is selected). Testing takes place on the most powerful NVIDIA and AMD video cards and scales to low-end models.

Skyrim Unreal Engine 5.5 CPU test

Ultra

When using NVIDIA video cards:

Processors for acceptable FPS (not lower than 25 frames per second):
- AMD Ryzen 3 3100
- Intel Core i3-10100
Processors for comfortable FPS (at least 60 frames per second):
- AMD Ryzen 7 7600
- Intel Core i5-12400

When using AMD video cards:

Processors for acceptable FPS (not lower than 25 frames per second):
- AMD Ryzen 3 3100
- Intel Core i3-10100

Skyrim Unreal Engine 5.5 Cores test

Ultra

Intel Core i9 10900K 3.7 GHz

1 core

10 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

5 core

6 core

7 core

8 core

9 core

1 HT

10 HT

2 HT

3 HT

4 HT

5 HT

6 HT

7 HT

8 HT

9 HT

Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz

1 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

5 core

6 core

7 core

8 core

1 HT

2 HT

3 HT

4 HT

5 HT

6 HT

7 HT

8 HT

Intel Core i5 10600K 4.1 GHz

1 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

5 core

6 core

1 HT

2 HT

3 HT

4 HT

5 HT

6 HT

Intel Core i3 10100 3.6 GHz

1 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

1 HT

2 HT

3 HT

4 HT

AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8GHz

1 core

10 core

11 core

12 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

5 core

6 core

7 core

8 core

9 core

1 SMT

10 SMT

11 SMT

12 SMT

2 SMT

3 SMT

4 SMT

5 SMT

6 SMT

7 SMT

8 SMT

9 SMT

AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 3.9GHz

1 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

5 core

6 core

7 core

8 core

1 SMT

2 SMT

3 SMT

4 SMT

5 SMT

6 SMT

7 SMT

8 SMT

AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8GHz

1 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

5 core

6 core

1 SMT

2 SMT

3 SMT

4 SMT

5 SMT

6 SMT

AMD Ryzen 3 3300 3.8GHz

1 core

2 core

3 core

4 core

1 SMT

2 SMT

3 SMT

4 SMT

GameGPU

- 1920x1080,%

Loading and using streams:

Maximum load: The game can load up to 24 streams.
Optimal loading: Uses up to 12 threads as efficiently as possible.

RAM TEST

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 9 13900K with 32 GB DDR5 6400 MHz pre-installed memory. All used RAM was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various video cards without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.). In the graphics, you can add and remove any resolutions and video cards as desired.

Skyrim Unreal Engine 5.5 RAM test