In-Game Benchmarks
Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 8 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of whether turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. Cyberpunk 2077 is also tested with Super Sampling (DLSS/FSR/XeSS). In total, each video card is tested 60 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier-to-read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors, and 240 helps show the performance ideal for the latest higher refresh displays.
So how did the Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC do? At 1080p every result was over 60 FPS, with all but one over 120 FPS, and 10 were even over 240 FPS. For comparison with the 5070, the 9070 has two more results in the over 240 FPS range. At 1440p, once again none of the results are under 60 FPS, three are in the 60-119 range, 9 are in the 120-239 FPS range, and 6 are over 240. The 5070 was similar but had 4 results over 240 FPS. Then at 4k, the Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC has one result in that questionable 30-59 FPS range, 9 in the 60-119 range, 7 in the 120-239 range, and then one over 240 FPS. The 5070 was similar but once again the Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC has two more results in the 120+ range in comparison.
To get a better look at some of the cards that are the closest competition to the Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC I have the results averaged out by each resolution and listed out in the table below. While AMD’s slideshow talked about targeting between the 7900 XT and the 7900 GRE the Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC came in in front of the RX 7900 XT in all three resolutions. It is close at 4k with just a 2 FPS gap there but the gap is wider at 1440p and 1080p. The Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC when compared to the RTX 5070 was 1.7% faster at 1080p, 7.8% at 1440p, and 4.1% at 4k. That doesn’t tell the complete picture though because that does include our Cyberpunk SS tests which had the 5070 out in front with DLSS 4. Removing those the Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC is 5.7% ahead at 1080p, 11.2% at 1440p, and 9.9% at 4k which is a raster-to-raster comparison.
Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below.
Another new addition to my testing was a few additional tests using Cyberpunk 2077. This is one of only a few games that support most of the tech from all three of the GPU companies. So I did tests at medium and ultra detail while having Super Sampling on for all of the cards. Using whatever the latest and greatest is supported. In this case, I tested with FSR 3. Just a note here, the AMD cards only allowed FSR when running windowed mode whereas Nvidia only performed well in fullscreen mode, I’m not sure why that happens. In the medium detail results the Acer RX 9070 Nitro OC is just above the 7900 XT in the base test, it moves up the chart farther with FSR on at 1440p but does struggle a little more at 4k and comes in behind the 5070 at that resolution. The ultra detail tests were similar with the 5070 out in front with its DLSS 4, I hope we see FSR 4 on Cyberpunk soon to see how they compare then.
