PC Graphics

[Artich]

I recently bought a 7800 XT graphics card to replace the RTX 4060. Before purchasing, I was excited by the good performance that tests from last year showed, which was comparable to the RX 6900 XT and Nvidia cards like the 3080 Ti and even 4070 Super. I clearly remember that throughout its lifecycle, the 6000 series was more powerful than Nvidia's 3000 series. But now, in new games and those that have been updated (like Warzone), the situation has become very strange and oposite.

In many new tests, including those from major publications like Techpowerup, the performance of the most part GPUs of 7000 series has become equal to or even lower than its counterparts from the 6000 series. I personally experienced a significant performance drop when updating Call of Duty: Warzone - according to my tests, performance fell almost by half (from 370 FPS to 220 FPS), and this happened without any changes to the game's engine. At the same time, Nvidia cards also show performance drops, but not as dramatic. Currently, old RTX 3080 cards deliver similar performance to the 7800 XT, although they previously lagged significantly behind in this game series.

Furthermore, even more strange things: I clearly remember that in the Matrix tech demo on UE5, Radeon cards' performance was on par with or even surpassed Nvidia cards. Currently, in new games like STALKER 2, Silent Hill 2 Remake, and Black Myth: Wukong, the performance of the 7000 series has become significantly inferior to Nvidia cards, both old and new, which is still somewhat understandable. More peculiar is that the performance of the 7800 XT is sometimes worse than the 6800 XT like in Ghost of Tsushima, Resident Evil 4, Spider Man, AC Mirage, especially with a higher resolution, and start from the 6800 XT, 6900 XT, 6950 XT to the 7700 XT, 7800 XT, and 7900 GRE, the performance is practically identical, which is very strange.

It also looks odd that driver updates from December 24.12.1 did not change performance in games with claimed support. In some new titles not using UE5, like Dragon Age Veilguard, Marvel Rivals and God of War Ragnarök, the 7800 XT's performance is practically at the level of a 4060. The situation is slightly better in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Star Wars Outlaws, and Final Fantasy XVI, but the trend remains the same: cards from 6800 XT to 7900 GRE have almost identical performance. At the same time, all of the above does not apply to the 7900 XTX, whose performance remains at the level higher than 4070 Ti Super and lower than 4080, from game to game.

As a result, I have a question: what is happening and what will happen next? Currently, according to news, AMD is preparing to release a new graphics card lineup, and how will support for previous generations of graphics cards be handled? I'm afraid that the recent layoff of around 1000 employees from graphics accelerator development departments will only worsen this situation. And it's very concerning that the new 8800 XT will have performance comparable to the 7900 XTX, and what a coincidence - the performance of precisely this card remains consistent from game to game, while other cards seem to be stuck at the same level.

I'll be glad to hear from more experienced users whether there was a similar situation in the past that was later resolved.
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Spoiler

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