Ray Tracing Gameplay Performance
Now we will specifically look at Ray Tracing performance in games that support it in our gaming suite. We have Ray Tracing enabled and DLSS and FSR also used if available. In the graphs “RT” stands for Ray Tracing and “FSR” stands for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution.
In Cyberpunk 2077 we will start at 144op and enable just the “Medium” Ray Tracing preset option. Even with just “Medium” Ray Tracing enabled the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT struggles for performance at 1440p in this game. It is not playable. The Radeon RX 6900 XT is 6% faster than the Radeon RX 6800 XT, but it isn’t enough to make medium Ray Tracing playable at 1440p in this game. In order to have playable Ray Tracing you’ll have to lower Ray Tracing settings manually down even further, or lower the graphics preset quality. The GIGABYTE RTX 3090 is however playable at 1440p with Medium Ray Tracing. It’s 40% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT. Turn on DLSS and performance jumps way up on it to very playable, it’s now 113% faster than the RX 6900 XT.
We did push Ray Tracing even further at 1440p by enabling “Ultra” Ray Tracing which is the highest Ray Tracing preset setting. The Radeon RX 6900 XT is of course not playable still, but now the GIGABYTE RTX 3090 isn’t really that playable either until we enable DLSS. With DLSS performance is well above 60FPS with the highest form of Ray Tracing and graphics preset.
We also wanted to see what performance looked like at 4K with “Medium” Ray Tracing turned on in Cyberpunk 2077. It’s pretty poor all around on every video card here. DLSS helps performance on the GIGABYTE RTX 3090, but it still isn’t what we’d consider playable. Therefore, if you want Ray Tracing at 4K in this game, you’ll be lowering game settings at 4K regardless.
Godfall supports AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, commonly called FSR. The great thing about FSR is that it works on every GPU, AMD and NVIDIA included. We have enabled FSR in this game at the “Ultra Quality” option which is the highest quality option of this feature. You can see how it adds to performance on every video card. All of these results also represent Ray Tracing being enabled. So you are looking at 1440p with Ray Tracing Enabled “RT” and then FSR added on to that, FSR and RT.
First off, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT at 1440p is playable with Ray Tracing turned on providing 102FPS. Adding FSR increases performance by 24%, and that’s still with Ray Tracing. The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is 5% faster than the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT with Ray Tracing. With FSR enabled the Radeon RX 6900 XT is also 5% faster than the Radeon RX 6800 XT. The GIGABYTE RTX 3090 is technically faster with and without FSR. Without FSR and just Ray Tracing it’s 14% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT. With FSR enabled it’s 17% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT. All that said, they both offer a similar gameplay experience since the framerates are so high to begin with at 1440p.
In this graph above we have increased to 4K resolution Godfall with Ray Tracing enabled, and then also adding in FSR. FSR does improve performance on every video card once again and brings performance over 70+ FPS on all cards with Ray Tracing enabled at 4K. The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is 5% faster than the Radeon RX 6800 XT without FSR, and with FSR it’s 10% faster. The GIGABYTE RTX 3090 is 20% faster than the RX 6900 XT, and with FSR it’s 15% faster.
In Dirt 5 we have Ray Tracing enabled at 1440p. All the video cards here are very playable with Ray Tracing on at 1440p, the Radeon RX 6900 XT provides well above 100FPS. The RX 6900 XT is 6% faster than the RX 6800 XT. The GIGABYTE RTX 3090 is 5% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Even at 4K this game is playable with Ray Tracing on the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT. The RX 6900 XT doesn’t offer much in performance over the RX 6800 XT here though. The RTX 3090 is 8% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
In Watch Dogs Legion at 1440p enabling “Ultra” Ray Tracing is not playable on the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT. It just isn’t fast enough to handle it at 1440p here. It’s also not much faster than the Radeon RX 6800 XT. You’d have to lower settings quite a bit to make it playable. The GIGABYTE RTX 3090 on the other hand is playable with Ray Tracing at 1440p. Enabling DLSS on it makes it even better and much smoother. The RTX 3090 is 45% faster than the RX 6900 XT without DLSS, and with DLSS it’s 100% faster.
Trying to run Ray Tracing at 4K on the Radeon RX 6900 XT is devestating here. It is also not playable on the GIGABYTE RTX 3090. However, enabling DLSS does make it playable.