Gameplay Performance
On this page, we are going to focus on the 1440p gameplay performance with the Overclocked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition video card and Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE video card. We will include DLSS and FSR performance on the same graph in the games that are supported shown in the Upscaling Bar, DLSS for NVIDIA, and FSR for AMD. Ray Tracing performance will be shown on a separate page. For both video cards, this is the overclocked performance shown.
Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West was released to the PC on March 21st, 2024, and uses the Decima game engine. The game supports the full suite of Upscaling technologies, including DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. It also supports DLAA and DLSS 3 Frame Generation. For testing, we use the Preset of “Very High” and then manually enable the highest 16X Anisotropic filtering, this provides the highest possible graphics settings for testing. We use a manual run-through about two hours into the game, in the open world traveling from point to point, with machines along the way, through a desert scene, forest, and village.
In Horizon Forbidden West at 1440p and maximum settings, both the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE resulted in the exact same performance of 95FPS! This means both video cards offer the exact same playable performance, well into acceptable framerates for this game. When upscaling is applied, we do see DLSS Quality leading by 5% over FSR Quality in performance.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was released in December of 2023 and is based on an updated Snowdrop engine. This engine supports real-time ray tracing, and Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is unique in that it supports hardware ray tracing turned on by default, with no options to disable it. If a video card doesn’t support ray tracing, it falls back to a software ray tracing mode. With ray tracing baked in, all the results shown reflect the use of ray-traced global illumination, ray-traced reflections, and ray-traced shadows, these are always on. We utilize the graphics quality preset option of “Ultra.” We use the built-in benchmark.
In Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Ray Tracing is always enabled, and we find that the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is faster than the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE by 14%. In terms of playability, the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER does offer a better experience, at 1440p with maximum settings due to the higher framerate. Comparing DLSS to FSR the Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER is 22% faster than the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE with Quality FSR. However, at 91FPS Quality FSR is definitely playable and smooth on the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE.
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 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 Alan Wake 2 the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE edges out the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER by 3%. However, both video cards are more than playable when overclocked in this game, at very enjoyable framerates with the highest settings at 1440p. We also find Quality FSR to be 11% faster than Quality DLSS performance.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
Assassin’s Creed Mirage was released in October of 2023 and is based on the Ubisoft Anvil game engine. We are using the “Ultra High” graphics quality preset, and all adaptive framerate measures are disabled. We use the built-in benchmark.
Assassins’s Creed Mirage more than playable on both video cards when overclocked. The Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is 6% faster than the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE. DLSS performance is 5% faster.
Starfield
Starfield was released on the PC in September of 2023 and is based on the Creation Engine 2. We are using the highest Ultra settings in the game for all testing, and upscaling is disabled for standard testing, with no dynamic resolution. We use a manual run-through in the New Atlantis area encompassing all areas.
Starfield is very playable at 1440p with the highest settings on both video cars when overclocked. The Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE just edges out the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER by 3%. However, DLSS on the Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER is 9% faster than FSR on the RX 7900 GRE.
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 unlocked framerate, and everything is enabled except ray tracing, we have screen-space reflections on. We use the built-in benchmark.
In Returnal both video cards are very playable when overclocked. The Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE is 11% faster than the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER. With FSR, the Overclocked RX 7900 GRE is 22% faster than the Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER.
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 use the built-in benchmark.
In Forspoken both overclocked video cards are equally just as playable and have almost exactly the same performance delivered at 100FPS. With upscaling, the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE just edges out the Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER with DLSS.
Chernobylite Enhanced Edition
Chernobylite, based on Unreal Engine 4, was released on the PC in 2021, but the 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. It supports upscaling, and we use the highest quality. We use the built-in benchmark.
In Chernobylite Enhanced Edition both video cards provide more than playable performance well over 130FPS at 1440p. We do find that the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is 21% faster than the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE. The Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER with DLSS is 24% faster than the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE 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. We use the built-in preset to set “HIGH QUALITY” which sets the highest game graphics, without Ray Tracing. We manually enable DX12 and ASYNC Compute. We use the built-in benchmark.
In Dying Light 2 both video cards provide a playable experience at 1440p with very high framerates. The Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE outperforms the Overclocked GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER by 4%. The Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE with FSR upscaling is 5% faster than the Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 was released in December 2020 and uses the REDengine 4. We have the game patched to version 2.0 and utilize the built-in benchmark. We test using the Graphics Preset option to set graphics settings to “Ultra”. We utilize the highest quality upscaling.
In Cyberpunk 2077 with both video cards overclocked this game is very playable at 1440p and Ultra settings. The Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE is 16% faster than the Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER. With FSR upscaling the Overclocked PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE is 14% faster than the Overclocked RTX 4070 SUPER.
Discussion (10 replies)
Join Discussion →Interesting review glad to see the cards trading blows more or less. Only standout is RT.
But... what does it say that a mid tier card is 600 bucks! OOf.
RDNA 4 will comfortably beat the 4070 super. Priced around the same as 7900 GRE hopefully. Not sure when AMD wants to launch it tho
...There'll be a '5070' of some sort coming too. The game of one upping never ends. Hopefully AMD will have their RT up to par with Intel and Nvidia at least.
That people are willing to buy them!
Willing or Have No Choice?? I think the latter..
Will RT continue to be a thing now that AI is the latest “it”?
Seems like RT really only was there for nVidia to have a marketing point over AMD and a potential Intel rivalry, and a good excuse to raise the price up. But even today - nVidias talk is mostly all about DLSS and AI - they have totally shifted gears. Sure they still mention RT because they beat the pants off everyone else with it, but it’s mostly just become a marketing bulletpoint and not the item that gets slides and slides about it
You're not forced to buy GPUs, so, 'willing' :)
Absolutely. 'AI' has almost no practical meaning for desktop users in general (until it does). Whereas we know that AMDs weak RT performance thus far has been holding back RT implementations in games, particularly due to the console effect.
DLSS is still huge, and represents a significant advantage in overall refinement as well as having broad support. I see the level of support evening out over time of course, but it's still something that Nvidia has simply developed further and anything else represents a compromise in either performance (XeSS either not running on an Intel GPU, or in having to run an Intel GPU...), or FSR just being inferior.
For AI... marketing buzzwords and SEO are going to dominate marketing, reason be darned. Local 'AI' hardware is likely to be useful in augmenting LLMs for those that use them but we're still waiting for those 'killer apps' to make a case for general consumer investment. Right now, it seems to me that these tech giants are mostly just capitalizing on fervor and not wanting to be seen as being behind in the new hotness.
I really cannot see local AI hardware today being of the same importance to gaming as RT and smart upscaling and frame generation technologies. Maybe tomorrow?
You're not forced to buy a GPU, but if you want a GPU, and you want a mid-tier card, you're forced to spend $500+ for it. Unless you settle for a much lesser powered card in the $200-$300 range..
You can always make compromises elsewhere, like your monitor and/or resolution, for the same performance on a lower end/cheaper card. But I think you can still play most games at 1440p/60 with high or near maxed settings on a $300-$400 card these days. The numbers on this review on the RT slides are completely maxed out with RT, and that doesn't make sense for most people anyways if you care about optimization where you can get 95% of the IQ with 150% of the performance if you tweak the right settings.
I thought RDNA 4 was to match the RTX4080, anyway that's not what it's going to compete with.
But if its priced right, it will force nvidia to price their cards accordingly, consumer win!!!.
Well, MS is betting big on AI on the desktop, so nvidia will surely try to grab a large chunk of that market.