Radeon RX 6800 XT Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing Performance

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Ray-Traced Features Compared

Now that we have compared the standard Quick Preset options, we wanted to hone in on what specific Ray-Traced features causes the most performance impact.  You can individually turn on Ray-Traced Reflections, Ray-Traced Shadows, and Ray-Traced Lighting.  Therefore, we will compare each one, and look at the performance drop enabling each one by themselves between both video cards.

Ray-Traced Reflections

Cyberpunk 2077 Ray-Traced Reflections Graphics Menu
Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing on Radeon RX 6800 XT Performance Ray-Traced Reflections 1440p

In this graph, we only have the Ray-Traced Reflections option turned on.  What is very evident here is that even just turning one Ray-Traced option on kills AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT performance.  Performance drops from 78FPS down to an unplayable 39-40FPS.  That’s a 50% drop in performance just enabling reflections.

The GeForce RTX 3080 FE on the other hand does very well enabling reflections.  It’s still close to 60FPS gameplay, and playable.  Performance drops by 24%.

Ray-Traced Shadows

Cyberpunk 2077 Ray-Traced Shadows Graphics Menu
Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing on Radeon RX 6800 XT Performance Ray-Traced Shadows 1440p

It seems Ray-Traced Shadows takes less of an impact being enabled than Reflections did, on both video cards.  The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT drops down to 49FPS, a drop of 38%.  That’s not as bad as reflections, but still really at unplayable levels to really enjoy every aspect of the game.  The GeForce RTX 3080 though only drops to 64FPS and is playable, that’s a 15% drop in performance.

Ray-Traced Lighting

Cyberpunk 2077 Ray-Traced Lighting Graphics Menu
Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing on Radeon RX 6800 XT Performance Ray-Traced Lighting 1440p

Here it is, Ray-Traced Lighting seems to take the most toll on performance.  Turning it on “Ultra” drops down to 34FPS on the Radeon RX 6800 XT, a drop of 56%.  The GeForce RTX 3080 FE drops to 52FPS and is on the border of being playable, that’s a drop of 31%.

Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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