AMD's RX 7900 XTX is 10% slower on average versus RTX 4090 according to extrapolated preliminary graphs

The official presentation of the RDNA 3 top-tier gaming GPUs was filled with quite a lot of hardware spec details, yet AMD did not seem too generous when it came to actual performance numbers. There was no direct comparison with Nvidia, either, since the estimates referenced the previous gen RX 6950 XT at 4K, but maybe AMD is looking to confuse the competition with underwhelming and vague stats, only to overdeliver at launch time. Fortunately, some good folks over on Twitter plus Linus himself took the time to dig through existing RTX 4090 results and pit these against AMD’s rough estimates, so now we have a clearer picture regarding the actual RX 7900 XTX performance, which appears to be more than fair considering its price.

Twitter user Lock Gamer took AMD’s “up to 1.7X faster” slide, which actually shows that the 4K performance uplift from the RX 6950 XT is averaging at 1.5X, as well as another slide that presents maximum FPS counts achieved in some games, and corroborated this info with average RTX 4090 FPS counts provided by Hardware Unboxed. It turns out that out of 14 titles, the RX 7900 XTX managed to beat the RTX 4090 only in 3 games. In Dying Light 2 the AMD card was only a few percent faster, while in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Far Cry 6, the lead was extended to ~10%. In all other games, the AMD card appears to be lagging behind the RTX 4090 between 5% and 30%. Combining the wins and the losses, the AMD card lags by 10% on average.

Linus based his extrapolations on his own RTX 4090 results and found out that the RX 7900 XTX is 1 fps behind the RTX 4090 in Cyberpunk 2077, while the AMD card is lagging by 6% in CoD: Modern Warfare 2 and by 10% in Watch Dogs: Legion. AMD stated that the ray tracing performance is around 50-60% better over the RX 6950 XT, but, unfortunately, that still seems almost two times slower than what Nvidia offers with the RTX 4090.

If AMD’s estimates are indeed confirmed through third party tests by mid-December, the RX 7900 XTX could prove a very competitive alternative to Nvidia’s RTX 4090, as it would be only 10% slower, but cost 60% less at US$999, as well. It would also cost US$200 less than the RTX 4080 and provide slightly higher performance. Of course, AIB partner cards will get beefier specs with higher prices, but this applies on Nvidia's side, too. Not to mention that the AMD cards offer better monitor support with the inclusion of the DP 2.1 port, and, most importantly, do not require new power supplies with fancy power connectors that might lead to fire hazards.

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