Gameplay Performance at 4K with Ray Tracing
On this page we are going to focus on the 4K gameplay performance with Ray Tracing enabled on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX video card. We will include FSR and DLSS performance on the same graph in the games that are supported. We will use DLSS on NVIDIA GPUs and FSR on AMD GPUs. For video card comparisons we are using an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition.
F1 2022
F1 2022 was released on June 28th, 2022 on the PC and uses Codemasters Ego engine. The game supports Ray Tracing, DLSS, AMD FidelityFX, and FSR. We are going to run the game with the highest quality settings of “Ultra High” and TAA+FidelityFX. We will enable all Ray Tracing options in the game to “On.” We will enable DLSS and FSR as needed at the Quality setting for both. We will utilize the built-in benchmark in the Imola track, in dry conditions with a far-chasing cam.
In F1 2022 we have turned on all the Ray Tracing features to the “Ultra High” setting, which is the highest Ray Tracing setting at 4K resolution. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is not playable at 47FPS at these settings, it just cannot push the game fast enough without upscaling when Ray Tracing is enabled at the highest settings at 4K. However, it is 57% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT from the previous generation which was at 30FPS. It seems to be a bigger uplift with Ray Tracing than it was with pure raster in this game, but it just isn’t enough to be playable without upscaling like FSR used. When we compare the Radeon RX 7900 XTX to the GeForce RTX 4080 we find the 7900 XTX is 18% slower than the GeForce RTX 4080 and 41% slower than the GeForce RTX 4090. The GeForce RTX 4080 and especially 4090 are playable in this game with Ray Tracing at 4K without DLSS. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX seems to be almost on par with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti in terms of Ray Tracing performance, so that is a big improvement from the last gen.
Now, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX can use FSR in this game, and it is going to be getting FSR 2.2 support in January 2023. With the current version of FSR, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX improves performance by a whopping 115%! That’s right, 115%, bringing its performance up to 101FPS. At 110FPS the game is now more than playable with Ray Tracing at 4K. Also, at 110FPS the Radeon RX 7900 XTX with FSR performs exactly the same as the GeForce RTX 4080 with DLSS! That’s right, exact same performance with upscaling between the two video cards. FSR saves the Radeon RX 7900 XTX in this game by making it playable with Ray Tracing and competing with the RTX 4080 with Ray Tracing.
Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 was released in February 2022 on the PC and uses Techland’s C-Engine. The game supports Ray Tracing, DLSS, and FSR2. This game supports Ray Tracing environmental effects including Ray Traced Soft Shadows, Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion, Ray Traced Global Illumination, and Ray Traced Reflections. We utilize the built-in preset option to set “HIGH-QUALITY RAYTRACING” which enables the game’s highest graphics settings plus the environmental effects explained above at the highest values. The game is run in DX12 Ultimate mode with ASYNC Compute turned on. For our benchmark, we are using a custom manual run-through at the end of the game hopping between rooftops, as well as free-roaming on the ground city level, as well as a forested area, in the daylight.
Dying Light 2 is a very demanding game at 4K with the highest Ray Tracing quality enabled, as is shown by way of the GeForce RTX 4090 not even being able to break 60FPS at 4K with it. That said, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX does exceptionally poorly in this game with Ray Tracing at 4K, as far as gameplay goes. It runs at about 28FPS, which is not playable. Compared to the Radeon RX 6900 XT, the RX 7900 XTX is 68% faster, which is a pretty big uplift from generation to generation. Even though it is 68% faster than the previous generation video card, however, that doesn’t translate into actual playable gameplay. If you look at where the Radeon RX 7900 XTX compares on Ray Tracing performance, it is on par with the GeForce RTX 3090 level of performance. Compared to the last generation, that’s a big improvement, it appears to be now on par with NVIDIA’s upper-tier last generation on Ray Tracing performance.
So doing the numbers, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is 29% slower than the GeForce RTX 4080 and 50% slower than the GeForce RTX 4090. FSR2 does add performance on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, by a very large 83% in fact, on the Ultra Quality setting. However, even at 52FPS the game still isn’t playable at 4K with Ray Tracing. In order to make the game playable you will need to drop to the “Performance” level of FSR2 on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, and then you will break 60FPS. Whereas the GeForce RTX 4080 can do 70FPS with Quality DLSS, and the 4090 does almost 100FPS with Quality DLSS.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry 6 was released in October of 2021 and uses the Dunia Engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and turned on. We utilize the “Ultra” graphics preset which sets all options to the highest game settings. This game supports Ray Tracing via two DXR settings, one for Reflections and the other for Shadows, we turn on both for testing. This game supports FSR upscaling.
Unlike the previous two games, in Far Cry 6 at 4K with both DXR options enabled the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is more than playable at 100FPS. It’s 45% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT previous generation video card. At 100FPS it’s also faster than the GeForce RTX 4080 by 6% and only 12% slower than the GeForce RTX 4090. It’s slightly closer to the 4080, but not that far off from the 4090 really. What’s more, FSR adds 32% more performance bringing it to 132FPS and now it’s actually 7% faster than the GeForce RTX 4090 with FSR!
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 was released in December 2020 and uses the REDengine 4. We have the game patched to version 1.52 and perform a long manual run-through driving in the game’s open world. We test using the Graphics Preset option to set graphics settings. We use the Ray Tracing Graphics Preset of either: “Ray Tracing: Low”, “Ray Tracing: Medium” or “Ray Tracing: Ultra” as indicated. This game supports DLSS and FSR.
Similar to Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077 is incredibly intense with “Ultra” Ray Tracing at 4K. We pretty much expected the results we saw in this game, once again the GeForce RTX 4090 itself cannot even exceed 44FPS at 4K with Ray Tracing, so we know the Radeon RX 7900 XTX will be slower. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is not playable at 4K with “Ultra” Ray Tracing, giving us only about 20FPS. This is 68% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT, so that is large from generation to generation, but not near enough to actually make the game playable at 4K with it. Once again we see that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX lies within the range of the GeForce RTX 3090 on Ray Tracing performance, which is a big upgrade from the last gen, but still only matches NVIDIA’s last-gen top-tier GPU. The RX 7900 XTX is 34% slower than the RTX 4080 and 54% slower than the RTX 4090.
FSR does add performance, on Ultra Quality mode FSR adds a bit 89% more performance, but even with that at 38FPS the game is not playable. Unfortunately, to make this game playable with Ray Tracing on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX you will have to lower the resolution to 1440p and enable FSR. We did do a test at 1440p with “Ultra” Ray Tracing and the Radeon RX 7900 XTX performed at 42FPS average, but with FSR enabled it was 70FPS. Therefore even at 1440p, you will end up having to use FSR to make the game playable with “Ultra” Ray Tracing in this game.
Watch Dogs Legion
Watch Dogs Legion was released on the PC in October of 2020 and uses the Disrupt game engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and enabled for testing. We use the built-in graphics preset of “Ultra” for testing. We utilize the “Ultra” preset quality option for Ray Tracing. This game supports DLSS upscaling.
In Watch Dogs we are running at 4K and “Ultra” Ray Tracing. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is again not playable in this game either at 4K and “Ultra” Ray Tracing providing 40FPS. Unfortunately, there is no upscaling supported in the game for the video card, so the only way to make it playable is to lower the Ray Tracing setting, or resolution, or just not use it. We did find the game playable at 1440p with “Ultra” Ray Tracing. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is 67% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT, so that is rather a large increase from the previous generation. It puts the Radeon RX 7900 XTX on par with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti in Ray Tracing performance. Again, this is a big upgrade from the last generation, but it is just matching NVIDIA’s flagship last-gen GPU. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is 13% slower than the GeForce RTX 4080 and 38% slower than the GeForce RTX 4090.
Metro Exodus Enhanced
Metro Exodus Enhanced is being run with Shading Quality at “Extreme” and Ray Tracing at “Ultra.” This is a demanding game, that heavily focuses on Ray Tracing utilization, including Global Illumination. We are utilizing the built-in benchmark.
Metro Exodus Enhanced is a good game to test Ray Tracing, like Dying Light 2 it is another game that uses Ray Tracing well. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX did better than we thought it would in this game, once again it seems to be on par with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti in Ray Tracing performance. While it does only produce 42FPS, the game is of course not playable with it. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is 58% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is 18% slower than the GeForce RTX 4080 and 42% slower than the GeForce RTX 4090.