Game Performance Testing
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn is an action-adventure game released for PC on August 7th, 2020. The game makes use of the DX12 API as its only option. Graphics options in this game are fairly simple, with a total of nine options for the user to adjust. We will be utilizing the game’s built-in benchmark and graphics presets, which range from Favor Performance, Original (PS4 Fidelity), Favor Quality, and Ultimate Quality.
In Horizon Zero Dawn we see that the XFX 5500XT 4GB takes the lead in both Stock and Overclocked scenarios with the Ultimate Quality Preset. At stock settings, we see that the 5500XT is 4.46% faster than the 1650 Super. In a real-world sense, it’s negligible and within the margin of error. When Overclocked, we see the difference grow by an equally small margin to 5%. Both GPUs give you playable framerates for a single-player action-adventure game like Horizon Zero Dawn, but AMD takes the victory technically.
It’s worth noting that when settings are reduced to Favor Quality, we see averages for both GPUs reach above 60 frames per second. The same story plays out when comparing the two, with the 5500XT coming out ahead. We saw an average of 66 frames per second when stock and 70 frames per second when overclocked in this setting.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game that needs no introduction to our community. This title is demanding and neither GPU had an easy time rendering at 1080p. The settings used were Ultra Textures, with all other basic graphics options set to high, excluding any anti-aliasing options, which were disabled. With the GPUs at stock, there is next to no difference in performance. Both GPUs can provide close to 50 FPS AVG with minimums that dip into the high 30s and low 40s. Each GPU gets a healthy performance boost when overclocked, but the XFX 5500XT takes the lead with a higher average framerate. You really can consider this a toss-up, with both GPUs taking a win and a loss here.
F1-2020
With F1-2020, we utilized the Italy Map for our review, as we saw it stress the GPUs the most on average in our testing. In this game, we really see the 5500XT stretch its legs and take the lead. Even with a healthy overclock, the 1650 Super could not match the stock 5500XT performance, which was 12.64% faster than the 1650 Super. Once you apply an overclock, the difference grows to 13.04%, another great showing. This game is solidly optimized for AMD GPUs and it shows. I would caution anyone to reconsider before they go reading too far into the results from this one title.
Wolfenstein Youngblood
Wolfenstein Youngblood gives Nvidia’s Turing architecture some love with a great showing in both stock and overclocked scenarios. The difference here is the largest so far, with a 24% average frame rate advantage going to the 1650 Super at stock and only decreasing to 17.79% once both GPUs are overclocked. It’s worth noting that the 4GB of RAM limited both GPUs to only being truly playable with High settings. Once you pushed things past High settings, both GPUs would encounter an out of video memory error and horrifically low minimum frames that were accompanied by massive stutter.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 came out only recently and has quickly become a go-to benchmark for users who really want to push their systems. In this title memory, core, and thread count matter just as much as GPU muscle. Don’t forget that even your internet connection matters in this title if you are looking for the full experience. For both GPUs, we had to lower settings down to the medium preset to achieve playable frame rates. This title really only needs about 30 fps average to be considered playable, but of course, more frames are always wanted.
Our results are a bit shocking and I almost wonder if AMD has some driver optimization left on the table in regards to this title. I say this because at stock we see a performance delta between the 5500XT and 1650Super of 33.33%, which is massive. When we overclock these GPUs, that gap only widens to 36.36%. Both GPUs are technically playable at these settings, but the scale is tipped in Nvidia’s favor here. It’s possible that these numbers may even out with subsequent driver updates, but only time will tell.