AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT/7700 XT review vs RTX 4070/4060 Ti

RT benchmarks: Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Control.

Review by Will Judd Deputy Editor, Digital Foundry

Additional contributions by Richard Leadbetter

Published on Sept. 6, 2023

Since the arrival of Intel Arc and RTX 40-series GPUs last year, we've adopted a revised test suite that aims to better reflect the future of gaming technology. That means we're zeroing in on titles using key engines and low-level gaming APIs, while we've beefed up representation for ray tracing and image reconstruction. 1440p resolution is our core focus here, but we've supplied 1080p and a limited number of 4K metrics too.

Ray tracing is no longer a second class citizen with the latest generation of GPUs, and we're seeing some of the most intensive GPU workloads you can get delivered at really decent frame-rates - even before we factor in image reconstruction technologies like DLSS and FSR2.

Our benchmarking system below offers a number of ways to get to the data you want, the presentation varying according to the device you're looking at right now. You'll get a basic overview of our findings on mobile, with metadata from the video capture of each GPU being translated into simple bar charts with average frame-rate and lowest one per cent measurements for easy comparisons.

On a desktop-class browser, you'll get the full-fat DF experience with embedded YouTube videos of each test scene and live performance metrics. Play the video, and you'll see exactly how each card handled the scene as it progresses. Below the real-time metrics is a bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between actual frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an accurate replay of real performance.

Dying Light 2

AMD's RX 7000 series represents a step forward in terms of ray tracing performance, but rivals Nvidia and Intel are often able to hit higher frame-rates thanks to better dedicated RT hardware. That's certainly the case in Dying Light 2's RT-heavy intro sequence, with the RX 7800 XT falling behind the RTX 4070 it's meant to compete against, delivering only 75 percent of the average frame-rate. RX 7700 XT is more competitive against the RTX 4060 Ti, tying its Nvidia counterpart - and also the last-gen RX 6800 XT.

In terms of the value, the RX 7800 XT is delivering 16 percent extra performance while costing just 11 percent more than the 7700 XT - and that's not taking into account the 4GB of extra VRAM on the higher-end Navi 32 card. The comparison between the RX 7800 XT and the entry-level RX 7600 is also interesting - at 1440p, the former is delivering double the frame-rate while costing less than double the price.

Dying Light 2, High RT, TAA

Cyberpunk 2077

Similar to Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077 is extremely heavy on RT features - and AMD traditionally struggles here, especially as recently-promised FSR 3 support has yet to materialise. It's also well known at this point that Nvidia engineers worked extensively on the RT support for this title.

In the here and now, this massively taxing developer streaming test reveals a narrow 10 percent lead for RTX 4060 Ti over RX 7700 XT, but a huge 41 percent advantage for RTX 4070 over RX 7800 XT. For context, that puts the $599 MSRP RTX 4070 beyond even the RX 7900 XT, AMD's second-fastest consumer graphics card with a launch MSRP of $900.

In terms of the inter-AMD rivalry, there's a 15 percent advantage for RX 7800 XT over RX 7700 XT, again showing the extra $50 investment to be a worthwhile upgrade, though the older RX 6800 XT is able to nearly match the RX 7800 XT in terms of performance.

Cyberpunk 2077, Ultra RT, TAA

Control

Control is another Nvidia playground, so it's not surprising to see the RX 7700 XT come closer to the RTX 4060 in our Corridor of Doom sequence - especially with RT engaged. The 4060 Ti ends up winning its matchup by 43 percent, and effectively ties the higher-tier RX 7800 XT. Meanwhile, the RTX 4070 eclipses the RX 7800 XT by a relatively modest 15 percent margin. The RX 7800 XT versus 7700 XT competition expands to the largest delta we've seen thus far, with the 11 percent more expensive card delivering 20 percent higher frame-rates on average.