Gameplay Performance Ray Tracing
On this page, we are going to focus on the 1080p Ray Tracing gameplay performance with the XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black video card. We will include DLSS and FSR performance on the same graph in the games that are supported. We will use DLSS on NVIDIA GPUs and FSR on AMD GPUs.
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 was launched on the PC in October of 2023 and is based on the Northlight Engine. The game supports detailed graphics and ray tracing with path tracing support. This game defaults to DLSS or FSR but does allow Native AA resolution settings with DLSS or FSR respectively. We can utilize Super Sampling upscaling, and for our graphs, we will just call that DLSS or FSR. We utilize the graphics presets to set High quality, as well as the Ray Tracing presets to set Low or High quality. We use a manual run-through in the Initiation 5: Room 665 chapter.
In the graph above we are running Alan Wake 2 on the “LOW” Ray Tracing preset option, this is because the “High” option kills AMD performance by using Path Tracing. On Low settings, Path Tracing is not used, and so we wanted to show this performance level before the High setting so we could see where the cards all land on the Low Ray Tracing Preset in Alan Wake 2.
The XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black is 10% faster than the Radeon RX 7600, but with Ray Tracing that is only a 3 FPS difference. It performs exactly the same as the RTX 4060. Overclocking improves performance 6%. The game isn’t playable though unless we use upscaling, FSR in this case.
Now in this graph, we have enabled the “HIGH” Ray Tracing preset, which enables Path Tracing. This kills performance on the Radeon RX 7600 and 7600 XT. The XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black is 6% faster, but that is only 1 FPS. The RTX 4060 is not playable either, and only arguably so with DLSS at 1080p.
Returnal
Returnal was launched on the PC in February of 2023 and is based on Unreal Engine 4. The game supports real-time ray tracing effects, particle systems, and volumetric rendering. We utilize the graphics preset to set EPIC graphics settings with an unlocked framerate, and everything is enabled. For ray tracing tests we have enabled Ray Traced Shadows and Reflections at EPIC settings. We use the built-in benchmark.
In Returnal the XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black is 6% faster than the Radeon RX 7600, but the RTX 4060 takes the cake in this one and is more than playable. Overclocking improves performance by 7%.
Forspoken
Forspoken was released on January 24th, 2023, on the PC and uses the Luminous Engine. The game supports all upscaling methods and Ray Tracing. We are going to customize the settings and enable the highest graphics settings, including Ultra High Texture Memory. We are going to enable both Ray Tracing options, Shadows, and Ambient Occlusion. We use the built-in benchmark.
Again, we might have an outlier here in Forspoken, with possible driver changes, but it could be VRAM? At any rate, the XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black is 68% faster than the Radeon RX 7600. When drivers are released that work on both the Radeon RX 7600 and Radeon RX 7600 XT, we shall have to re-visit this game and see if it’s VRAM or a driver change.
Chernobylite Enhanced Edition
Chernobylite was released on the PC in 2021, but the free Enhanced Edition update for the game was released in April 2022. The Enhanced Edition provides a visual overhaul of the game with better textures, plus introduces tessellation and ray tracing features. It features raytraced reflections, raytraced translucency, raytraced caustics, and raytraced dynamic diffuse global illumination. The game is based on Unreal Engine 4. For our Ray Tracing test, we have enabled the Ultra Ray Tracing option.
Now, this result above is not about a driver change, but 100% all about the 16GB of VRAM on the Radeon RX 7600 XT. In this game, it uses Ray Traced Global Illumination and has always been a hard test for GPUs. We can see that the XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black is 115% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 because the Radeon RX 7600 is running into some serious VRAM limitations here. The RTX 4060 does not because, well, it is more efficient at handling its Ray-Traced resources with its L2 cache. This is the effect that limited VRAM can have on performance, and having enough, makes a big difference. Now, the RTX 4060 is still overall faster at Ray Tracing, as is pretty common, but at least the Radeon RX 7600 XT is on the playing field here and somewhat playable with FSR.
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. We use the built-in benchmark.
In Dying Light 2 the XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black is 7% faster than the Radeon RX 7600, but neither is playable without FSR. The RTX 4060 is the fastest card here with Ray Tracing. Overclocking improves performance by 9%.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 was released in December 2020 and uses the REDengine 4. We have the game patched to version 2.0 and use the built-in benchmark. We test using the Graphics Preset option to set graphics settings. We use the Ray Tracing Graphics Preset of either: “Ray Tracing: Low”, or “Ray Tracing: Medium” or “Ray Tracing: Ultra” as indicated. This game supports DLSS and FSR2.
Yeah, Cyberpunk 2077 is not playable on the XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black with Ultra Ray Tracing even at 1080p, and even with FSR. Though we do find the XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT Black to be 13% faster than the Radeon RX 7600, the RTX 4060 wins here, but only with DLSS enabled at 1080p.