Ray Tracing Game Performance
On this page, we are going to look at games where we can optionally enable Ray Tracing-specific features, and turn them ON to see how Ray Tracing performance lines up. Keep in mind, some of the games on the previous pages had baked-in Ray Tracing, such as Unreal 5’s Lumen, or custom engines. Now, however, we are going to enable the Ray Tracing options in games that have them in our testing suite. We don’t expect wonders with these levels of graphics cards, therefore we will have Upscaling ENABLED in all of these tests at 1440p, so this is not Native Resolution, but rather 1440p with Upscaling at either “Quality” or “Balanced” also enabled, so that you can actually play the game with Ray Tracing. Otherwise, the same testing parameters apply, with custom manual run-throughs and the same video card configurations.
Alan Wake 2
In Alan Wake 2, we are running at the game’s “High” preset, and we have enabled the Ray Tracing “High” preset. This is not the highest level available with NVIDIA GPUs, but this is the highest level allowed with AMD GPUs. Due to the performance demand, we also had to increase our Upscaling aggression and therefore are using “Balanced” Upscaling mode at 1440p.
The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is barely playable, but the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is about the same. The Radeon RX 9070 is truly playable at this setting. However, we can see that the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is 31% faster than the Radeon RX 9060 XT, but 18% slower than the Radeon RX 9070. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is also 2% slower than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti.
Black Myth: Wukong
In Black Myth: Wukong, we are using the “High” game preset only, and only “Medium” Ray Tracing; we also had to lower the Upscaling to “Balanced” setting. Only at this can we almost achieve near 60FPS AVG on the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is 29% faster than the Radeon RX 9060 XT and 11% slower than the Radeon RX 9070. However, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is much faster than anything here in this game; the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is 23% slower.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 performs rather well on the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC, and we are able to run at Ray Tracing “Ultra” with “Quality” Upscaling enabled. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is 32% faster than the Radeon RX 9060 XT and 11% slower than the Radeon RX 9070. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is also faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti by 16%.
Dying Light: The Beast
Dying Light: The Beast is very demanding with Ray Tracing enabled, so we had to use “Balanced” Upscaling, and even then, only the Radeon RX 9070 could provide the smoothest experience. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is 35% faster than the Radeon RX 9060 XT and 16% slower than the Radeon RX 9070. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is 12% faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, however.
Resident Evil Requiem
For Resident Evil Requiem, we are using the Ray Tracing “Max” option enabled, but not the Path Tracing, which isn’t supported on AMD GPUs. In this game, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 9070 GRE GAMING OC is playable, and it is 35% faster than the Radeon RX 9060 XT and 17% slower than the Radeon RX 9070. It is also 27% faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, which is remarkable.