Gameplay Performance – Ray Tracing Specific
On this page, we will look at ray tracing-specific settings in games turned on. While some of the games on the previous page run with ‘always on’ ray tracing now, there are other games that we can turn on ray tracing in the traditional sense, so we’ll explore that on this page. All the games on the previous page already that use ray tracing are: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Doom: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, and Star Wars Outlaws. All games are tested in native resolution as well as upscaled performance using the relative “quality” upscaling option. Because ray tracing is more intensive, we will show some 1440p and some 1080p testing below.
Note that every video card being used for comparison is a factory overclocked video card: the Radeon RX 9060 XT, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, and the Radeon RX 7600 XT. Only the Intel Arc B580 LE is a reference clocked card.
Alan Wake 2
In Alan Wake 2, we are kind of pushing things beyond their playable limits here at 1440p native resolution. We have enabled just the “Low” ray tracing option in the game, just the low one, and well, nothing is playable without upscaling. Only two cards are actually playable though with upscaling, and one is the new SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT and the other is the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC video card. Yeah, we actually got faster performance with the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT using Ray Tracing in this game compared to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT was 9% faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC video card! The upscaling performance is better as well, giving a smoother experience at 1440p using RT.
We did have an issue with the Radeon RX 7700 XT, it refused to work properly. We would start the level, and about 15 seconds in, it would consistently lock up and error out of the game, so it just wasn’t possible to get a run-through with it. However, in the brief time it ran, about 10 seconds, the FPS counter was around 31 FPS, so it is looking like the Radeon RX 9060 XT is faster than the 7700 XT in this game with Low RT enabled.
Cyberpunk 2077
In Cyberpunk 2077, we are going to look at two resolutions and ray tracing settings. First up is at 1440p with the “Low” RT preset. Well, look at that, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT can provide a playable experience with Low RT at 67FPS native resolution 1440p! The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is also faster than the Radeon RX 7700 XT by 5% as well. It is, though, slower than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti by 5%.
We also wanted to push Ray Tracing hard, so we lowered the resolution to 1080p and enabled “Ultra” Ray Tracing. The game is not playable at native 1080p, but with upscaling it is. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is a pretty big 19% faster than the Radeon RX 7700 XT, showing the improvements in RT here with RDNA 4. Though it is still 9% behind the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC.
Star Wars Outlaws
Even though Star Wars Outlaws already runs ray tracing at all times, there is an additional option to enable more ray tracing using the NVIDIA RTX Direct Lighting option. We enabled this at “Low” quality at 1080p. This option is very demanding, even on Low, and the game isn’t playable without Upscaling. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is faster than the Radeon RX 7700 XT by 5% but slower than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti by 9%.
Discussion (13 replies)
Join Discussion →Looks like a solid product. Nice.
LoL....Trixx in Chinese.
From what I've seen, it trades blows with the RTX5060 Ti 16GB, what surprises me is that it's very close on RT, even wins in a couple of games.
so why isn't anyone making fuzz about no RX9060XT 8gb reviews? or is it wrong only when nvidia does it?
People are. Ltt went after them for it. But amd didn't prescribe "review parameters " and Nvidia specifically did for access to drivers. Different sort of thing.
Gamers Nexus went after AMD too regarding the 8GB variant.. AMD would have hit a home run if they could have just kept their mouth shut, but we all know that's not possible..
I think AMD would have hit a home if they released a 12gb card instead of the 8gb, even at a price premium. Otherwise only 16gb cards.
That'd require a redesign of the PCB since the bus width for the memory would be different for the 12GB version vs. 16GB/8GB version. I could be wrong but I believe that is the reason why you don't see 12GB variants with 16GB options for the card.
That depends on the density of the moduls. If they are running 4 2 gig modules for 8 gig upping.those to 3 gig modules would keep the bus the same and give 12 gig. But tje cost difference is probably a lot more. Same reason the top and just below top were 16 and 24 gig historically.
I realized it uses DDR6 had it used DDR 7 it could use 3GB ram chips. I guess they are also more expensive than 2GB chips.
Were there different NDA/embargo dates based on MSRP ?
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Honestly I think it's based on region. But I can't say for sure as I'm not behind the scenes.
Yes there were two embargo dates based on MSRP, and this is not uncommon; also happens with NVIDIA, nothing new or odd about this practice. Always important to confirm the embargo date/time you are allowed to publish with the specific card you have. I confirmed the NDA for both cards we had.