Not sure. I might try to do my own comparison at some point. But it looked pretty good and the pop-in issues seems to be pretty much gone.
If they managed to release some sort of higher texture pack or maybe with mods this would be one of the best looking recent games imo.
I don't believe you still need it. I changed the file name. entered the game, set everything to high and put the command "vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly" into the console and it came up with the 8k texture size.
I haven't really been following the game but I feel this has to be something being held off on for the beta. Meaning the release will have better textures.
As a side note I do love the fact that everything is fully voiced.