Card prices still vary greatly
The authors of the Hardware Unboxed channel decided to test the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and GeForce RTX 4080 video cards again, pitting them against each other in a head-to-head battle. But unlike most other tests, in the new one they decided to fully address both regular raster performance, and performance with ray tracing, and performance with ray tracing with active upscale technologies.
Since the tested cards are top-end solutions, it makes sense to talk only about 4K resolution, although the authors tested cards in all major resolutions.
So, the raster performance of the RX 7900 XTX is higher than the RTX 4080, which is not news. In the case of the specific selection of games available here, we are talking about a 7% advantage, but it is worth noting that the result in Fortnite stands out strongly from the rest and shifts the overall result in favor of the Nvidia card. If this game is removed, Radeon’s advantage will be significantly higher.
Radeon RX 7900 XTX vs GeForce RTX 4080 with and without tracing, with and without DLSS/FSR.
When ray tracing effects are activated, the RTX 4080 takes the lead, 7% ahead of its competitor. At the same time, for example, in Cyberpunk 2077 the difference reaches an impressive 30%, and in Ratchet & Clank, it even exceeds 40%.
If you activate both tracing and DLSS/FSR in games, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX will lag behind its competitor by 11%. Interestingly, in the same Fortnite, where the AMD card is much inferior to the Nvidia card in raster performance, it is also ahead of the RTX 4080 in the last tested mode.
We can summarize that the maps are generally close. The AMD flagship is faster without ray tracing, and the Nvidia card is faster with ray tracing regardless of upscale technologies.
At the same time, the RTX 4080 has lower power consumption and more widespread DLSS technology. However, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX has a completely different trump card. This card is much cheaper. If the RTX 4080 in the US costs about $1,100, the RX 7900 XTX can be purchased for $900, and sometimes there are even cheaper offers.
