Although Intel’s A770 drivers installed easily and we set up our Valve Index, SteamVR refused to recognize the Index and Intel confirmed lack of Arc driver support. Fortunately, we were able to set up a Reverb G2, a WMR (Windows Mixed Reality) headset, and charted A770 performance versus the RTX 3060 using FCAT VR.

The Reverb G2 is a much more demanding headset than the Valve Index. We do not recommend using entry level VR cards like the A770 or RTX 3060 to drive it any more than we would for 4K pancake gaming, but the G2 is our only WMR headset. Fortunately, despite many crashes to desktop, we were able to benchmark six VR games on generally the lowest settings using FCAT VR.

VR Games & Settings

We benchmark using FCAT VR on Windows 11 Pro Edition 2H22 with Intel’s Core i9-13900KF, and 32GB of T-Force Delta RGB 6400MHz CL40 DDR5 2x16GB memory on an ASUS Prime-A Wi-Fi Z790 motherboard with fast SSD storage. All VR games and benchmarks are patched to their latest versions, and we use Intel’s most recent drivers.

For this review, we benchmarked the Reverb G2 using FCAT VR and allowed the default SteamVR 100% render resolution (3168×3096). It uses a factor of ~1.4X (the native resolution is 2160×2160) to compensate for lens distortion and to increase clarity. We are going to compare the performance of the A770 with the RTX 3060, generally at each game’s in-game lowest VR settings.

Here are the six VR games we tested.

VR Games

• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Moss: Book II
• Project CARS 2
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

IMPORTANT: BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” – measuring only one important performance metric – which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS, faster is better.

In addition, FCAT VR does not distinguish between dropped and synthesized frames using the G2.

Let’s individually look at our 6 VR games’ performance using FCAT VR.

First up, Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous (ED)

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets. Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a dedicated following of players.

We picked the Lowest settings but we left the Field of View on its maximum.

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR:

The A770 managed 69.73 unconstrained FPS with 3301 (40%) synthesized or dropped frames but no Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivered 77.41 unconstrained FPS with 4667 (50%) synthesized or dropped frames and no Warp misses.

Although the A770 delivers only ~10% less unconstrained frames per second, the Elite Dangerous VR experience is much better using the RX 3060. The A770 framerate delivery is uneven leading to visible stutters which break immersion.

Let’s look at F1 2022.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The A770 managed 38.58 unconstrained FPS with 5935 (61%) synthesized or dropped frames but no Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivered 59.13 unconstrained FPS with 6202 (54%) synthesized or dropped frames and no reported Warp misses.

The A770 falls way behind the RX 3060 in raw performance. The A770 framerate delivery is fairly even due to Motion Smoothing, but the artifacting is very annoying and there are immersion breaking stutters.

Stay tuned. Rodrigo has two not-to-be-missed in-depth major video card reviews coming shortly.

A personal note from BTR’s now retired E-I-C, Mark Poppin

After a great 15 years since ABT and then BTR were established, I am retiring from my duties as Editor-in-Chief and lead reviewer as of today, January 1, 2023. BTR’s has been acquired by JPR (Jon Peddie Research) splitting ownership with Mario who is now BTR’s manager, and Rodrigo is now the lead reviewer. I’ll continue to contribute some VR reviews regularly.

Thanks to all of our loyal readers who turn to BTR for the best reviews – It will get even better!

Happy New Year & Happy Gaming!

We received an Intel Arc A770 from JPR and were eager to put it through its paces. The drivers installed easily and we set up our Valve Index hoping that we could play VR games and also test performance against competing AMD and Nvidia video cards.

Unfortunately, we were greeted by the above image. Resetting the headset, cables, and moving to different USB ports, as well as trying SteamVR Beta and non-Beta plus installing Intel WHQL and Beta drivers made no difference.

Our next step was to contact Intel customer support. After a very brief waiting time on chat, we got connected with a Support agent who asked for a PC log file which we uploaded.

“Please know that Intel Arc graphics support for VR headsets continues to evolve as we ramp our products and add updates to our software stack”.

Contacting Intel’s representatives in charge of Arc gave us the same canned response with no ETA for VR support:

Intel Arc graphics support for VR headsets continues to evolve as we ramp our products and add updates to our software stack.

Although the A770 launched more than two months ago, there is still no proper SteamVR support from Intel. So if you are doing your last minute holiday shopping and want an Intel Arc video card to play your VR games using a native SteamVR headset like the Valve Index, you are probably out of luck.

However, BTR also tried the Reverb G2 which is a Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) headset, and it set up and works to get into VR, including into several SteamVR games we launched. BTR will test performance and give our experiences with the A770 and the G2 after the New Year.

Happy Holidays and Happy VR gaming!!

The $999 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX arrived at BTR for evaluation last week from PowerColor. We have been comparing it against Nvidia’s new $1199 RTX 4080 Founders Edition (FE) and $1599 RTX 4090 FE plus five additional top cards. We focus on raw performance by benchmarking 42 PC and 10 VR games, GPGPU, workstation, SPEC, and synthetic benchmarks.

We will also compare the performance of these three new competing cards with the RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT reference editions and their competitors, the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3080 FE.

Features & Specifications

Although launched at reference $999 XTX pricing, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX has its factory Game Clock set 30MHz higher than the reference version’s 2300MHz. According to PowerColor specifications, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX can boost its Game Clock to 2330MHz (2270MHz Silent) with the OC BIOS. The Game Clock is the expected GPU clock while running average high-load gaming scenarios with a regular non-overclocked total graphics usage situation. However, the GPU Boost Clock can reach as high as 2525MHz – 25MHz higher than reference – by using the OC BIOS and we will test this.

Here are the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX features.

Additional Information from PowerColor

• The Hellhound has 2 modes, OC and Silent with a BIOS switch on the side of the card. Even on performance mode it’s said to be considerably quieter than reference board and the silent mode is indeed very quiet.
• The 14 layer high TG PCB board has 12+3+2+2+1 Phase VRM design. Hellhounds are over-spec’d in order to deliver the best stability and overclocking headroom. By having high quality VRMs, it will run cooler and last longer.
• DrMos and high-polymer Caps are used without compromise.
• The cooler features three 9-blade ball bearing fans with 8 heat pipes (8X6?) across a high density heatsink with a copper base. The PCB is shorter than the cooler.
• It uses mute fan technology and the fans stop under 60C.
• The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX includes card stands for supporting it so as to not put extra strain on the PCIe slot.

The RX 7900 XTX is AMD’s brand new RDNA 3 flagship card, and the Hellhound represents one of the best choices for a mildly factory overclocked $999 card by virtue of its high-quality components and carefully selected GPUs coupled with good support and great warranty service.

The Test Bed

We benchmark using FCAT VR and FrameView on Windows 11 Pro Edition 2H22 with Intel’s Core i9-13900KF, and 32GB of T-Force Delta RGB 6400MHz CL40 DDR5 2x16GB memory on an ASUS Prime-A Wi-Fi Z790 motherboard with fast SSD storage. All games and benchmarks are patched to their latest versions, and we use recent drivers.

First, let’s take a closer look at the new PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX.

A Closer Look at the PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX

Although the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX advertises itself as a premium 24GB card which features ray tracing, Radeon Boost, and Anti-Lag, the cover of the box uses almost no text in favor of stylized imagery.

The back of the box touts key features which include ray tracing, Anti-Lag, DisplayPort 2.1, RDNA 3, FidelityFX, Infinity Cache, streaming aids, and Boost, as well as states its 800W power and system requirements. There is no mention of VR Ready Premium. Also highlighted are PowerColor’s custom cooling solution, Dual-BIOSes, fan improvements, and output LEDs. The default LED color is an eye-pleasing amethyst.

We open the box and note there are parts for a card stand.

The complete package contents except for the anti-static bag are pictured above together with the card holder parts. Above the stand is fully assembled. Although the Hellhound is relatively heavy, it is not 4090-heavy, and we didn’t feel a need for it.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a large tri-fan card in a three slot design which is quite handsome with PowerColor’s neutral colors and even more striking with the LED on.

Turning it over we see a sturdy backplate featuring the Hellhound logo which also lights up with amethyst being the default color.

Looking at either long edge, we see the entire PCB is covered by heatpipes and heatsink fins. Additional power is provided by the PSU’s 2 x 8-pin Molex cables to the card connectors. There is also a switch to choose between the default overclock (OC) BIOS and the Silent BIOS. We didn’t bother using the Silent BIOS as the card is really quiet anyway, but it is good to have in case a flash goes bad.

The card should perhaps be locked down with two thumbscrews instead of one because it is heavy or the stand can be used.

The Hellhound’s IO panel connectors include 3 DisplayPorts and 1 HDMI connection.

Below is the other end which is very plain.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX looks great inside a case.

The specifications look good and the card itself looks solid. Now let’s check out its performance after we look over our test configuration and more on the next page.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-13900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost at stock settings)
• ASUS Prime-A Z790 LGA1700 motherboard (Intel Z790 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-Force Delta RGB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• Valve Index, 90Hz / 100% SteamVR Render Resolution
• Hellhound RX 7900 XTX, 24GB, factory clocks, supplied by PowerColor
• RTX 4080 16GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4090 24 GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• Gigabyte RX 6900 XT GAMING OC, 16GB, factory clocks
• RX 6800 XT Reference 16GB, factory clocks, supplied by AMD
• RTX 3080 Ti 12GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 3080 10 GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• 2 x 2TB T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 (5,000/4,400MB/s) PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSDs (one for AMD/one for Nvidia)
• T-Force M200 4TB USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C external SSD (2,000x2000B/s), supplied by TeamGroup
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan & 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• BenQ EW3270U 32? 4K HDR 60Hz
• LG C1 48″ 4K OLED HDR 120Hz display

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 526.98 drivers for the RTX 4090/4080 and 527.27 for the RTX 3080/3080 Ti. Adrenalin 22.11.2 for the RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT, and press drivers for the RTX 7900 XTX.
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the Nvidia control panel.
• High Quality textures, all optimizations off in the Adrenalin control panel
• VSync is off in the control panel and disabled for each game
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are Ultra Preset or highest with 16xAF always applied – no upscaling is used
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games
• All games have been patched to their latest versions
• VR charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom; higher is better)
• Windows 11 Pro edition; 22H2 recent clean install for GeForce and Radeon cards using separate but identical NVMe SSDs.
• Latest DirectX
• SteamVR latest beta

Games

Vulkan

• Sniper Elite
• DOOM Eternal
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade
• Rainbow Six: Siege

DX12

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Spiderman: Remastered
• F1 2022
• Ghostwire: Tokyo
• Elden Ring
• God of War
• Dying Light 2
• Forza Horizon 5
• Call of Duty: Vanguard
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
• Far Cry 6
• DEATHLOOP
• Chernobylite
• Resident Evil Village
• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
• Hitman 3
• Godfall
• DiRT 5
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Watch Dogs: Legions
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• Borderlands 3
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

DX11

• Overwatch 2
• Total War: Warhammer III
• Days Gone
• Crysis Remastered
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Grand Theft Auto V

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa: Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Moss: Book II
• No Man’s Sky
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

Synthetic

• Time Spy & Time Spy Extreme (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.3.0 benchmark
• Geekbench
• Sandra 2020 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperfect 2020
• FCAT VR benching tool
• OpenVR Benchmark tool

Adrenalin Control Panel settings

Here are the Adrenalin Control Panel settings.

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

Overclocking, temperatures and noise

We spent little time overclocking the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX for this review as we encountered some unexpected results that require further investigation. The card is very quiet and its fans never spin up even under a heavy load so as to be irritating or even noticeable. It’s quieter than the Gigabyte 6900 XT or the RTX 3080 Ti.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is factory clocked 30MHz higher than the reference version at 2330MHz using the OC BIOS. According to its specifications, the Hellhound boost can clock up to 2565MHz out of the box. From our benching, we generally see it boosting even higher and it generally settles in above 2750MHz with peaks above 2780MHz.

The Hellhound temperatures stay in the low to mid-60s C with the fans quietly running well below 50% even using the OC BIOS under a full gaming load. It is an exceptionally well-cooled and quiet card.

Let’s head to the performance charts to compare the performance of the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX with six other cards.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX vs. the RTX 4080 FE and 5 other cards benchmarked with 42 games

Here are the performance results of 42 games and 3 synthetic tests. The highest settings are used and are listed on the charts. The benches were run at 2560×1440 and 3840×2160. Click on each chart to open in a pop-up for best viewing. Gaming results show average framerates in bold text, and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font which represent a game’s average 1% lows (99th percentiles).

The first set of charts show the seven main competing cards. Column two represents the $999 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX performance in between the $1599 RTX 4090 FE in column one and the RTX 4080 FE, its $1199 primary competitor, in the third column. The RTX 3080 Ti results are in the fourth column next to Gigabyte RX 6900 XT OC version performance results in the fifth column, followed up by the RTX 3080 in the sixth and the RX 6800 XT in the seventh column.

“Wins” between the RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4080 are denoted by yellow text. If there is a tie, both values are in yellow.

Playing with the RX 7900 XTX, Elden Ring locked up the PC even after verifying files and reinstalling Adrenaline drivers and it appears a driver issue prevented ray traced Guardians of the Galaxy running on the RX 6800 XT.

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 are cards that are primarily suited for 4K and high-FPS 1440P gaming and they stand out from the other four cards. The RX 7900 XTX trades blows with the RTX 4080 in rasterized games – they are equivalent cards if ray tracing is not considered.

Although RX 7900 XTX ray tracing has greatly improved over the RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT, it now appears to perform similarly to the RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti but far behind the RTX 4080. FSR 2.0, although still not on the same image quality level as Nvidia’s DLSS 2, will almost double framerates for a very minor IQ hit and will make most of the games quite playable at Ultra/4K in this 52 game benching suite. Gamers who are not so impressed with ray tracing or who are not picky about image quality perfection may well prefer to save $200 on a $1000 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX over buying a $1200 RTX 4080.

Let’s look at synthetic benches.

Synthetic benches

We hold synthetic benches to be meaningless for predicting real world gaming performance versus competing cards with different architectures although they have other practical uses like overclocking and ranking. The RX 7900 XTX performs better in the synthetic tests than in gaming.

Let’s see how the Hellhound performs in ten popular VR (Virtual Reality) games next.

10 VR Games

For this review, we benchmarked the Valve Index using FCAT VR and set the SteamVR render resolution to 100% (2016×2240) which uses a factor of 1.4X (the native resolution is 1440×1600) to compensate for lens distortion and to increase clarity. We are going to compare the performance of the RX 7900 XTX with the RX 4080 and versus the RX 4090 at each game’s Ultra/Highest settings.

Unfortunately, FCAT VR still doesn’t work with MS Flight Simulator 2020 or with Star Wars Squadrons. Here are the ten VR games we tested.

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa: Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Moss: Book II
• No Man’s Sky
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

Synthetic

• Time Spy & Time Spy Extreme (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room

IMPORTANT: BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS, measuring just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our 10 sim-heavy VR games’ performance using FCAT VR.

First up, Assetto Corsa: Competizione.

Assetto Corsa: Competizione (ACC)

BTR’s sim/racing editor, Sean Kaldahl created the replay benchmark run that we use for both the pancake game and the VR game. It is run at night with 20 cars, lots of geometry, and the lighting effects of the headlights, tail lights, and everything around the track looks spectacular.

Just like with Project CARS, you can save a replay after a race. Fortunately, the CPU usage is the same between a race and its replay so it is a reasonably accurate benchmark using the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. iRacing may be more accurate or realistic, but Assetto Corsa: Competizione has some appeal because it feels more real than many other racing sims. It delivers the sensation of handling a highly-tuned racing machine driven to its edge.

Here are the ACC FCAT VR frametimes using VR Ultra using the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX, the RTX 4080 FE, and the RTX 4090 FE.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 7900 XTX managed 85.77 unconstrained FPS with 6339 (50%) synthesized frames with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 118.42 unconstrained FPS with 207 (2%) synthesized frames with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 164.03 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic frame but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The ACC racing experience is best with the RTX 4090 although the RTX 4080 delivers a nearly constant 90 FPS on the Epic VR preset unlike the RX 7900 XTX which requires one-half of its frames to be synthesized.

Next, we check out Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous (ED)

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets. Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a dedicated following of players.

We picked the Ultra Preset and we set the Field of View to its maximum.

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 7900 XTX managed 185.21 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames with no dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 230.98 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized frame and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 brings 296.16 unconstrained FPS together with 2 synthetic frames but with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses.

Although the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX has the lowest performance, the experience playing Elite Dangerous at Ultra settings is not perceptibly different on any tested video card. However, the RTX 4090 has a lot more performance headroom to increase the render resolution or to use a higher resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2.

Let’s look at our newest VR sim, F1 2022.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 156.57 unconstrained FPS with 6 synthesized but no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 achieved 200.24 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 delivered 254.72 unconstrained FPS together with 3 synthetic frames plus with 3 dropped frames and 3 Warp misses.

The experience playing F1 2022 using the Ultra preset is not very different on any of these video cards but the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 have considerably more performance headroom than the RX 7900 XTX to use 120Hz/144Hz or to use a higher resolution headset.

Kayak VR: Mirage

The outstanding near-photorealistic visual fidelity really sets Kayak VR: Mirage apart from other simulators. It boasts a wide range of locales with day/night/sunset options offering tropical, icy, desert, and even stormy scenarios with trips to Costa Rica, Antarctica, Norway, and Australia and occasional interactions with wildlife. It can be played as a relaxing sim or as a strenuous workout with competitive time trials which offer asynchronous multiplayer and ranking on global leaderboards.

We benchmark at 100% resolution with the highest “Cinematic” in-game settings but do not use DLSS or FSR.

Here is the frametime plot for Kayak VR: Mirage.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 198.98 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 257.16 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 got 329.35 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic frame and 1 dropped frame plus 1 Warp miss.

Kayak VR: Mirage looks fantastic at 100% resolution with maximum settings and would be well-suited for play on the Reverb G2 with any of our test cards.

Next, we look at Moss: Book II.

Moss: Book II

Moss: Book II is an amazing VR experience with much better graphics than the original game. It’s a 3rd person puzzle adventure game played seated that offers a direct physical interaction between you (the Reader) and your avatar, Quill, a mouse that bring real depth to the story. Extreme attention has been paid to the tiniest details with overall great art composition and outstanding lighting that make this game a must-play for gamers of all ages.

Moss II boasts very good visuals and we use the in-game highest settings.

Here are the frametimes plots of our four cards.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 189.29 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 308.44 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 436.34 unconstrained FPS no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

Unfortunately, the experience playing Moss II on the Valve Index using the RX 7900 XTX is marred by visual issues including artifacting and shimmering.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky (NMS)

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky frametime plot. We set the settings to Maximum which is a step over Ultra including setting the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgrading to FXAA. We did not use any upscaling method.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RX 7900 XTX brought 108.17 unconstrained FPS with 3536 (50%) synthesized frames but no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 159.10 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthesized frames but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 achieved 201.96 unconstrained FPS together with 17 synthetic frames but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

RX 7900 XTX gamers may want to lower some individual settings to remain above 90 FPS. The RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 have enough performance headroom to increase the refresh rate, render resolution, or to perhaps use a higher resolution headset.

Let’s continue with another VR game, Project CARS 2, that we still like better than its successor even though it is no longer available for online play.

Project CARS 2 (PC2)

There is still a sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur but picked SMAA Ultra instead of MSAA.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 194.77 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized nor dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 got 200.88 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames nor dropped frames and no Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 achieved 253.50 unconstrained FPS together with 3 synthetic frames plus 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 using maximum settings is similar for all three video cards.

Next we will check out a classic VR game, Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked vanilla Skyrim using its highest settings plus we increased the in-game Supersample option to maximum.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 7900 XTX provided 218.2 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 achieved 239.08 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthetic frames plus 2 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 delivered 337.76 unconstrained FPS together with 2 synthetic frame and with 2 dropped frames plus 1 Warp miss.

All cards deliver an identical vanilla Skyrim VR experience with a ton of extra performance headroom to add mods and, in addition, to raise the render resolution using the two faster cards.

Next we check out Sniper Elite VR.

Sniper Elite VR

Sniper Elite VR’s visuals are decent with good texture work that is well-realized. The building architecture and panoramas look good, explosions are convincing and the weapons convey a sense of weight, although not achieving realism. It is primarily an arcade style sniping game featuring its signature X-Ray kill cam, but it offers multiple ways to achieve goals including with explosives and by using three other main weapon choices besides your rifle.

We benchmarked using the Highest settings.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details:

The RX 6900 XT delivered 197.98 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 223.33 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 brought 318.03 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

All three cards deliver a similar playing experience on High with the RTX cards offering more performance headroom. We recommend that any performance headroom be used for increasing the SteamVR render resolution.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 10 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are very good and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its High preset and we left the Pixel Density at 100%. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 7900 XTX delivered 198.93 unconstrained FPS with no synthetic nor dropped frames or Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 got 260.94 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic frames and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 366.41 unconstrained FPS together with 6 synthetic frames and with 4 dropped frames and 4 Warp misses.

The RX 7900 XTX experience was marred by artifacting and shimmering.

Let’s check out synthetic VR tests and unconstrained framerates.

Unconstrained Framerates & Synthetic VR Benchmarks

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our three cards using our 10 VR test games. In addition, we added recent RTX 3080 Ti and 6900 XT results for comparison. The preset is listed on the chart and higher is better. In addition, we present three synthetic VR benchmarks.

Although synthetic VR benches (except for OpenVR benchmark) predicted good VR performance, we were disappointed with our 7900 XTX VR experience, unlike with pancake games. In at least two games, we experienced distracting visual artifacting and texture shimmering. The 7900 series may benefit from some attention to VR from the Radeon driver team as in many cases it even falls behind the RX 6900 XT.

At AMD’s press event in Las Vegas, the presenters noted that AMD drivers continue to improve for the entire life of the architecture – generally with an up to 10% performance gain – often compared to “fine wine” aging well. However, for VR enthusiasts today, the RX 7900 XTX is disappointing and it performs well behind the RTX 4080 not logging a single performance win.

We next look at creative, pro, GPGPU, and workstation apps.

Creative, Pro & Workstation Apps

Let’s look at non-gaming applications next to see if the RX 7900 XTX is a good upgrade from the other video cards that we tested starting with Blender.

Blender 3.3.0 Benchmark

Blender is a very popular open source 3D content creation suite. It supports every aspect of 3D development with a complete range of tools for professional 3D creation.

We benchmarked three Blender 3.3.0 benchmarks which measure GPU performance by timing how long it takes to render production files. We tested seven of our comparison cards using CUDA, Optix, and OpenCL.

For the following chart, higher is better as the benchmark renders a scene multiple times and gives the results in samples per minute.

The RX 7900 XTX sits well ahead of the RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT but well behind the GeForce cards.

Next, we move on to AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks.

AIDA64 v6.80

AIDA64 is an important industry tool for benchmarkers. Its GPGPU benchmarks measure performance and give scores to compare against other popular video cards.

AIDA64’s benchmark code methods are written in Assembly language, and they are well-optimized for every popular AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and VIA processor by utilizing the appropriate instruction set extensions. We use the Engineer’s full version of AIDA64 courtesy of FinalWire. AIDA64 is free to to try and use for 30 days. CPU results are also shown for comparison with both the RTX 3070 and GTX 2080 Ti GPGPU benchmarks.

Here are the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX AIDA64 GPGPU results compared with an overclocked i9-13900KF.

Here is the chart summary of the AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks with seven of our competing cards side-by-side.

The RX 7900 XTX is a fast GPGPU card and it compares favorably with the competing cards being weaker in some areas and stronger in others. So let’s look at Sandra 2020 next.

SiSoft Sandra 2020

To see where the CPU, GPU, and motherboard performance results differ, there is no better tool than SiSoft’s Sandra 2020. SiSoftware SANDRA (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a excellent information & diagnostic utility in a complete package. It is able to provide all the information about your hardware, software, and other devices for diagnosis and for benchmarking.

There are several versions of Sandra, including a free version of Sandra Lite that anyone can download and use. Sandra 2020 R10 is the latest version, and we are using the full engineer suite courtesy of SiSoft. Sandra 2020 features continuous multiple monthly incremental improvements over earlier versions of Sandra. It will benchmark and analyze all of the important PC subsystems and even rank your PC while giving recommendations for improvement.

We ran Sandra’s intensive GPGPU benchmarks and charted the results summarizing them.

In Sandra GPGPU benchmarks, since the architectures are different, each card exhibits different characteristics with different strengths and weaknesses. However, we see some very solid solid improvement of the RX 7900 XTX over the RX 6900 XT and the RX 6800 XT.

SPECworkstation3 (3.0.4) Benchmarks

All the SPECworkstation3 benchmarks are based on professional applications, most of which are in the CAD/CAM or media and entertainment fields. All of these benchmarks are free except for vendors of computer-related products and/or services.

The most comprehensive workstation benchmark is SPECworkstation3. It’s a free-standing benchmark which does not require ancillary software. It measures GPU, CPU, storage and all other major aspects of workstation performance based on actual applications and representative workloads. We only tested the GPU-related workstation performance as checked in the image above.

Here are our SPECworkstation 3.0.4 raw scores for the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX. RTX 4080 raw scores are displayed below the XTX results for a detailed performance comparison.

Here are our RTX 4080 SPECworkstation 3.1 raw scores:

Here are the Hellhound XTX SPECworkstation3 results summarized in a chart along with six competing cards. Higher is better.

Using SPEC benchmarks, since the architectures are different, the cards each exhibit different characteristics with different strengths and weaknesses.

SPECviewperf 2020 GPU Benches

The SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization Group (SPECgpc) has released a new 2020 version of its SPECviewperf benchmark recently that features updated viewsets, new models, support for both 2K and 4K display resolutions, and improved set-up and results management.

We benchmarked at 4K and here are the summary results for the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX.

Here are SPECviewperf 2020 Hellhound RX 7900 XTX benchmarks summarized in a chart together with six other cards.

Again we see different architectures with different strengths and weaknesses. After seeing these benches, some creative users may upgrade their existing systems with a new card based on the performance increases and the associated increases in productivity that they require.

The question to buy a new video card should be based on the workflow and requirements of each user as well as their budget. Time is money depending on how these apps are used. However, the target demographic for the reference and Hellhound RX 7900 XTXs are primarily gaming for gamers.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

The Conclusion

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX improves significantly over the last generation RX 6900 XT, easily exceeds RX 6800 XT performance, and it trades blows with the $200 more expensive RTX 4080 FE in rasterized games although overall it is slightly slower using our 42-game benching suite. The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX beats all of the last generation cards including the RTX 3080 Ti although it still struggles with ray traced games compared with RTX cards.

For Radeon gamers, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a good alternative to GeForce Ada Lovelace cards for the vast majority of modern PC games that use rasterization. The RX 7900 XTX offers 24GB of GDDR6 to the 16GB of GDDR6X that the RTX 4080s are equipped with, but that 8GB of vRAM shouldn’t make any practical difference to game performance in the near future.

At its suggested price of $999, the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX costs about $200 less than the RTX 4080 FE and offers a good value for Radeon gamers. Unlike with the RTX 4080 which increased from $700 for the RTX 3080 to $1200, the RX 7900 XTX is priced the same $999 as AMD’s last generation RX 6900 XT. For Radeon buyers, what makes the Hellhound XTX particularly attractive is that there is no price premium for this mildly overclocked PowerColor card.

The only real issue that we see with Radeon 7000 series cards is that AMD’s FSR solution is still inferior to Nvidia’s DLSS AI upscaling that delivers similar performance but with better image quality. On the flip side, there are still relatively few ray traced games released every year in comparison to thousands of rasterized games where the RTX 7900 XTX trades blows with the much more expensive RTX 4080.

One major issue although affecting relatively few gamers is poor VR RX 7900 XTX performance compared with the RTX 4080. It’s going to need some attention from AMD’s driver team before we can recommend the RX 7900 XTX for the best VR gaming.

We recommend the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX as a great choice out of multiple good choices, especially for any AMD PC gamer looking for good looks with LED lighting, an exceptional cooler, great performance for 2560×1440 or 4K, PowerColor’s excellent support, and overall better value compared with the slower RX 7900 XTX reference version.

Let’s sum it up:

Hellhound RX 7900 XTX Pros

• The PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is much faster than the last generation RX 6900 XT by virtue of new RDNA 3 architecture. It trades blows in the majority of rasterized games with the RTX 4080 FE for significantly less money ($200 less)
• The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX has excellent cooling with very little noise and has a very good power delivery and a 3-fan custom cooling design that is very quiet when overclocked even using the OC mode
• Dual-BIOS give the user a choice of quiet with less overclocking, or a bit louder with more power-unlimited and higher overclocks
• FidelityFX 2.0 allows for upscaling and improved sharpness with almost no performance penalty, and there is a low latency mode for competitive gamers
• LED lighting and a neutral color allow the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX to fit into any color scheme
• 24GB vRAM compared with 16GB for the RTX 4080

Hellhound XTX Cons

• Cost. It’s still very expensive at $999
• VR performance is subpar
• Weaker ray tracing performance than the RTX 4080

The Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a good Radeon card choice for those who game at 2560×1440 or at 4K and want the best that AMD has to offer. It represents a good gaming alternative to the RTX 4080 albeit with weaker ray tracing performance. It is offered especially for those who prefer AMD cards and FreeSync2 enabled displays which are generally less expensive than Gsync displays. And if a gamer is looking for something extra above the reference version, the PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a very well-made and good-looking card that will overclock better.

We are giving the Hellhound RX 7900 XTX BTR’s Recommended Award.

The Verdict:

• PowerColor’s Hellhound RX 7900 XTX is a solidly-built handsome card with higher clocks out of the box than the same-priced reference version. It trades blows with the RTX 4080 in rasterized games. I t is a kick ass RX 7900 XTX.

Stay tuned, there is much more coming from BTR. We will soon return to VR with a mega performance evaluation to test the role of the CPU for VR performance. And we’ll retest the RX 7900 XTX using higher resolution headsets after AMD’s driver team has a chance to address it’s VR issues. We also plan to test Intel ARC video cards in VR.

Happy Gaming!

Although the $1199 RTX 4080 Founders Edition has been out for nearly a month, a lingering bad case of COVID-19 caused BTR’s Part 1 VR review to be a week late and we were then unable to conclude if the card is a good value. This Part 2 RTX 4080 review concludes BTR’s 53 game performance analysis versus the RTX 3080 and 3080 Ti, the RTX 4090, and the RX 6900 XT. Although the RTX 4080 is not a workstation card, we have also summarized VR, workstation SPEC benches and selected popular creative and synthetic apps.

It may be that the RTX 4080 Founders Edition at $1199 delivers a good value as an upgrade from the last generation Ampere RTX 3080 Ti which also launched at $1199 but a $400 launch price increase over the $799 RTX 3080 may be very difficult to accept. We benchmark using FCAT VR and Windows 11 Pro Edition 2H22 with Intel’s Core i9-13900KF, and 32GB of T-FORCE DELTA RGB 6400MHz CL40 DDR5 2x16GB memory on an ASUS Prime-A Wi-Fi Z790 motherboard. All games and benchmarks are patched to their latest versions, and we use recent drivers.

Let’s check out our test configuration.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-13900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost at stock settings)
• ASUS Prime-A Z790 LGA1700 motherboard (Intel Z790 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-Force Delta RGB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• Valve Index, 90Hz / 100% SteamVR Render Resolution
• RTX 4080 16GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• Gigabyte RX 6900 XT GAMING OC, GV-R69XTGAMING OC-16GD 16GB, factory clocks
• AMD reference RX 6800 XT 16GB, stock clocks, supplied by AMD
• RTX 3090 24GB Founders Edition, factory clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4090 24GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• 2 x T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440; 2TB PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSDs (5,000/4,400MB/s – one for AMD/one for Nvidia)
• T-Force M200 4TB USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C external SSD (2,000/2000MB/s – supplied by TeamGroup
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan & 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• BenQ EW3270U 32? 4K HDR 60Hz
• LG C1 48? 4K OLED HDR 120Hz display

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 526.98 drivers for RTX 4080/4090 and 527.37 for RTX 3080/3080 Ti, and Adrenalin 22.11.1 for the RX 6900 XT.
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the Nvidia control panel.
• High Quality textures, all optimizations off in the Adrenalin control panel
• VSync is off in the control panel and disabled for each game
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are Ultra Preset or highest with 16xAF always applied – no upscaling is used except for the nine DLSS games tested using the Quality preset.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games
• All games have been patched to their latest versions
• VR charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom; higher is better)
• Windows 11 Pro edition; 22H2 clean install for GeForce and Radeon cards using separate identical NVMe SSDs.
• Latest DirectX
• SteamVR latest beta

Games

Vulkan

• Sniper Elite
• DOOM Eternal
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Wolfenstein Youngblood
• World War Z
• Strange Brigade
• Rainbow Six: Siege

DX12

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Spiderman: Remastered
• F1 2022
• Ghostwire: Tokyo
• Elden Ring
• God of War
• Dying Light 2
• Forza Horizon 5
• Call of Duty: Vanguard
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
• Far Cry 6
• DEATHLOOP
• Chernobylite
• Resident Evil Village
• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
• Hitman 3
• Godfall
• DiRT 5
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Watch Dogs: Legions
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Death Stranding
• Borderlands 3
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Civilization VI – Gathering Storm Expansion
• Battlefield V
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider

DX11

• Overwatch 2
• Total War: Warhammer III
• Days Gone
• Crysis Remastered
• Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
• Total War: Three Kingdoms
• Grand Theft Auto V

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa: Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Moss: Book II
• No Man’s Sky
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

Synthetic

• Time Spy & Time Spy Extreme (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.3.0 benchmark
• Geekbench
• Sandra 2020 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperfect 2020
• Octanebench
• FCAT VR benching tool
• OpenVR Benchmark tool

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings. Let’s check out performance using 41 pancake and 5 VR games plus Workstation and creative benches on the next page.

BTR received a $1199 RTX 4080 Founders Edition (FE) from Nvidia but are late because we got a bad case of COVID-19 after the AMD Event in Las Vegas over two weeks ago. This Part 1 RTX 4080 review is a 10-VR game performance analysis versus the RTX 3080 Ti, the RTX 4090, and the RX 6900 XT using the Valve Index. Although the RTX 4080 is not a workstation card, we have included workstation SPEC benches and selected popular creative and synthetic apps. Next week, Part 2 will feature the performance of more than 40 games and we will include DLSS 3.0 results.

We will focus on raw VR performance to consider whether the new RTX 4080 Founders Edition at $1199 delivers a good value as a compelling upgrade from the last generation Ampere RTX 3080 Ti which also launched at $1199. We will also compare performance with Nvidia’s current flagship, the $1599 RTX 4090, and the former AMD flagship, the RX 6900 XT, which launched at $999. In addition to gaming, VR, and SPECworkstation3 GPU results, we have added creative results using Geekbench, the Blender 3.3.0 benchmark, and complete Sandra 2020 and AIDA64 GPGPU benchmark results plus some pro applications including Blender rendering and OTOY OctaneRender.

We benchmark using FCAT VR and Windows 11 Pro Edition 2H22 with Intel’s Core i9-13900K that we just upgraded from i9-12900K, and 32GB of T-FORCE DELTA RGB 6400MHz CL40 DDR5 2x16GB memory on an ASUS Prime-A Wi-Fi Z790 motherboard. All games and benchmarks are patched to their latest versions, and we use GeForce Game Ready 526.98 drivers for GeForce cards and Adrenalin 22.11.1 for the RX 6900 XT.

Let’s first take a quick look at the RTX 4080 Founders Edition before we go to the test configuration

The RTX 4080 FE

The RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 are externally physically identical twin cards. Refer to the RTX 4090 unboxing as the features and sizes are the same.

The primary differences lie inside in the RTX 4080’s cut down GPU chip capabilities with about 40% fewer CUDA cores and its lesser power draw requirements. Nvidia recommends a 850W minimum PSU for the 450W TDP RTX 4090 and includes a 4X Molex cable adapter while the 320W TDP RTX 4080 only needs a 750W minimum PSU and a 3X Molex cable adapter is included in that box.

Newer PSUs may offer the new PCIe Gen5 single cable connector instead of using a bulky quad or tri cable adapter. Nvidia advises that the adapter should be firmly inserted into the card before installing it in the PC as an improperly seated connection may cause overheating and melting of the connector.

Both the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 Founders Edition cards are beautifully designed using a very unique industrial style, and they are each much larger than the RTX 3080 Ti which is itself an imposing card. However, these new 40×0 FE cards tend not to heat up like the smaller last gen cards and they are also much quieter under full load. Either card looks great installed inside a case.

Disassembly appears to be difficult and should give pause to any enthusiast who may have custom watercooling in mind. In fact, we think that watercooling is a waste for the RTX 4080 Founders Edition as it doesn’t have any thermal issues.

Let’s check out our test configuration.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-13900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost at stock settings)
• ASUS Prime-A Z790 LGA1700 motherboard (Intel Z790 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-Force Delta RGB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• Valve Index, 90Hz / 100% SteamVR Render Resolution
• RTX 4080 16GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• Gigabyte RX 6900 XT GAMING OC, GV-R69XTGAMING OC-16GD 16GB, factory clocks
• RTX 3090 24GB Founders Edition, factory clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4090 24GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• 2 x T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440; 2TB PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSDs (one for AMD/one for Nvidia)
• T-Force M200 4TB USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C external SSD, supplied by TeamGroup
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan & 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• BenQ EW3270U 32? 4K HDR 60Hz
• LG C1 48″ 4K OLED HDR 120Hz display

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 526.98 drivers for Nvidia cards, and Adrenalin 22.11.1 for the RX 6900 XT.
• High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display, set in the Nvidia control panel.
• High Quality textures, all optimizations off in the Adrenalin control panel
• VSync is off in the control panel and disabled for each game
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are Ultra Preset or highest with 16xAF always applied – no upscaling is used except for five DLSS games tested using the Quality preset.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games
• All games have been patched to their latest versions
• VR charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom; higher is better)
• Windows 11 Pro edition; 22H2 clean install for GeForce and Radeon cards using separate identical NVMe SSDs.
• Latest DirectX
• SteamVR latest beta

Games

VR Games

• Assetto Corsa: Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Moss: Book II
• No Man’s Sky
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

Synthetic

• Time Spy & Time Spy Extreme (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• Superposition
• VRMark Blue Room
• AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks
• Blender 3.3.0 benchmark
• Geekbench
• Sandra 2020 GPGPU Benchmarks
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperfect 2020
• Octanebench
• FCAT VR benching tool
• OpenVR Benchmark tool

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

Unfortunately, we also did not have time to check out overclocking, but temperatures and noise levels are much lower than the RTX 3090 or RTX 3080 Ti FEs. We plan to follow up with a 40-plus pancake gaming review including DLSS 3.

Let’s check out performance using 10 VR games plus Workstation and creative benches.

First, we look at VR performance.

10 VR Games

For this review, we benchmarked the Valve Index using FCAT VR and set the SteamVR render resolution to 100% (2016×2240) which uses a factor of 1.4X (the native resolution is 1440×1600) to compensate for lens distortion and to increase clarity. The Index is still considered one of the best overall headsets due to its outstanding tracking and solid feature set, and we are going to compare the performance of the RX 4080 versus the RX 4090, the RX 3080 Ti, and against the RX 6900 XT at each game’s Ultra/Highest settings.

IMPORTANT: BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS, measuring just one important performance metric, faster is better.

We had planned to include Star Wars: Squadrons and MS Flight Simulator 2020, but neither game records properly with FCAT VR. So let’s individually look at our 10 sim-heavy VR games’ performance using FCAT VR.

First up, Assetto Corsa: Competizione.

Assetto Corsa: Competizione (ACC)

BTR’s sim/racing editor, Sean Kaldahl created the replay benchmark run that we use for both the pancake game and the VR game. It is run at night with 20 cars, lots of geometry, and the lighting effects of the headlights, tail lights, and everything around the track looks spectacular.

Just like with Project CARS, you can save a replay after a race. Fortunately, the CPU usage is the same between a race and its replay so it is a reasonably accurate benchmark using the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

iRacing may be more accurate or realistic, but Assetto Corsa: Competizione has some appeal because it feels more real than many other racing sims. It delivers the sensation of handling a highly-tuned racing machine driven to its edge.

Here are the ACC FCAT VR frametimes using VR Ultra using the RTX 3080 Ti, the RTX 4080, and the RTX 4090. Unfortunately, the latest ACC patch made it impossible to bench the RTX 6900 XT.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 91.83 unconstrained FPS with 4649 (36%) synthesized frames with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4080 delivered 118.42 unconstrained FPS with 207 (2%) synthesized frames with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 164.03 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic frame but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The ACC racing experience is best with the RTX 4090 although the RTX 4080 delivers a nearly constant 90 FPS on the Epic VR preset unlike the RTX 3080 Ti which requires more than one-third of its frames to be synthesized. Only the RTX 4090 has the performance headroom to increase the render resolution to above 100% or use the Index’ faster refresh rate (120Hz/144Hz) or even to use a higher resolution headset like the Reverb G2.

Next, we check out Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous (ED)

Elite Dangerous is a popular space sim built using the COBRA engine. It is hard to find a repeatable benchmark outside of the training missions.

A player will probably spend a lot of time piloting his space cruiser while completing a multitude of tasks as well as visiting space stations and orbiting a multitude of different planets. Elite Dangerous is also co-op and multiplayer with a dedicated following of players.

We picked the Ultra Preset and we set the Field of View to its maximum. The RX 6900 XT wouldn’t run with the latest driver according to the error message.

Here are the frametimes.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR:

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 182.93 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthesized frames plus 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4080 delivered 230.98 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized frame and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 brings 296.16 unconstrained FPS together with 2 synthetic frames but with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses.

The experience playing Elite Dangerous at Ultra settings is not perceptibly different on any tested video card but the RTX 4090 has a lot more performance headroom to increase the render resolution or to use a higher resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2.

Let’s look at our newest VR sim, F1 2022.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 132.21 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 152.67 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 achieved 200.24 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 delivered 254.72 unconstrained FPS together with 3 synthetic frames plus with 3 dropped frames and 3 Warp misses.

The experience playing F1 2022 using the Ultra preset is not very different on any of these video cards but the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 have considerably more performance headroom to use 120Hz/144Hz or to use a higher resolution headset.

Kayak VR: Mirage

The outstanding near-photorealistic visual fidelity really sets Kayak VR: Mirage apart from other simulators. It boasts a wide range of locales with day/night/sunset options offering tropical, icy, desert, and even stormy scenarios with trips to Costa Rica, Antarctica, Norway, and Australia and occasional interactions with wildlife. It can be played as a relaxing sim or as a strenous workout with competitive time trials which offer asynchronous multiplayer and ranking on global leaderboards.

We benchmark at 100% resolution with the highest “Cinematic” in-game settings but do not use DLSS or FSR.

Here is the frametime plot for Kayak VR: Mirage.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 189.78 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 201.89 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic frame plus 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4080 delivered 257.16 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 got 329.35 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic frame and 1 dropped frame plus 1 Warp miss.

Kayak VR: Mirage looks fantastic at 100% resolution with maximum settings and would be well-suited for play on the Reverb G2 with any of our test cards.

Next, we look at Moss: Book II.

Moss: Book II

Moss: Book II is an amazing VR experience with much better graphics than the original game. It’s a 3rd person puzzle adventure game played seated that offers a direct physical interaction between you (the Reader) and your avatar, Quill, a mouse that bring real depth to the story. Extreme attention has been paid to the tiniest details with overall great art composition and outstanding lighting that make this game a must-play for gamers of all ages.

Moss II boasts very good visuals and we use the in-game highest settings.

Here are the frametimes plots of our four cards.

Here are the details are reported by FCAT-VR:

The RX 6900 XT delivered 260.40 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 242.83 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 308.44 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic and 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 436.34 unconstrained FPS no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The experience playing Moss II on the Valve Index is identical between cards. It is not demanding so it can be played on a high resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2 and supersampling may also be used.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky (NMS)

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to Maximum which is a step over Ultra including setting the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgrading to FXAA+TAA. Since DLSS is available for RTX cards and the Quality setting improves performance without impacting image quality, we used it. Updated: We did not use any upscaling method.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RX 6900 XT brought 104.13 unconstrained FPS with 1601 (23%) synthesized frames plus 9 dropped frames and 9 Warp misses.

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 119.88 unconstrained FPS with 14 synthetic frames and with 1 dropped frame and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4080 delivered 159.10 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthesized frames but no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 achieved 201.96 unconstrained FPS together with 17 synthetic frames but with no dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The experience playing No Man’s Sky using the highest settings is not very different using the three GeForce video cards but RX 6900 XT gamers may want to lower some individual settings to remain above 90 FPS. The RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 have enough performance headroom to increase the refresh rate, render resolution, or to perhaps use a higher resolution headset.

Let’s continue with another VR game, Project CARS 2, that we still like better than its successor even though it is no longer available for online play.

Project CARS 2 (PC2)

There is still a sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra rather than to use MSAA.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 163.67 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthesized and 1 dropped frames plus 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 142.16 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthetic frames plus 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 got 200.88 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized frames nor dropped frames and no Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 achieved 253.50 unconstrained FPS together with 3 synthetic frames plus 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 using maximum settings is similar for all four video cards but the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 have far more performance headroom to increase the frequency to 120Hz or to use a higher resolution headset.

Next we will check out a classic VR game, Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked vanilla Skyrim using its highest settings plus we increased the in-game Supersample option to maximum.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6900 XT provided 162.13 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 194.63 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 achieved 239.08 unconstrained FPS with 2 synthetic frames plus 2 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 delivered 337.76 unconstrained FPS together with 2 synthetic frame and with 2 dropped frames plus 1 Warp miss.

All cards deliver an identical vanilla Skyrim VR experience with a ton of extra performance headroom to add mods and, in addition, to raise the render resolution using the two faster cards.

Next we check out Sniper Elite VR.

Sniper Elite VR

Sniper Elite VR’s visuals are decent with good texture work that is well-realized. The building architecture and panoramas look good, explosions are convincing and the weapons convey a sense of weight, although not achieving realism. It is primarily an arcade style sniping game featuring its signature X-Ray kill cam, but it offers multiple ways to achieve goals including with explosives and by using three other main weapon choices besides your rifle.

We benchmarked using the Highest settings.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details:

The RX 6900 XT delivered 222.93 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 3080 Ti got 239.07 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4080 delivered 223.33 unconstrained FPS with no synthesized or dropped frames nor Warp misses.

The RTX 4090 brought 318.03 unconstrained FPS together with 1 synthetic and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

All four cards deliver a similar playing experience on High with the faster two cards offering more performance headroom. We recommend that any performance headroom be used for increasing the SteamVR render resolution. Since the RTX 4080 only matches the RX 6900 XT and is behind the RTX 3080 Ti, we suspect it may be a driver issue.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 10 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are very good and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its High preset and we left the Pixel Density at 100%. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6900 XT delivered 240.00 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic frames and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 3080 Ti managed 222.18 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic frames and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4080 got 260.94 unconstrained FPS with 1 synthetic frames and 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss.

The RTX 4090 achieved 366.41 unconstrained FPS together with 6 synthetic frames and with 4 dropped frames and 4 Warp misses.

Playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game Ultra preset and 100% Pixel Density is similar for all 4 cards but there is significantly more performance headroom for the RTX 4090 and to a lesser extent the RTX 4080 for increasing the render resolution or using a higher resolution headset.

Let’s check out synthetic VR tests and unconstrained framerates.

Unconstrained Framerates & Synthetic VR Benchmarks

The following chart summarizes the overall Unconstrained Framerates (the performance headroom) of our two cards using our 10 VR test games. The preset is listed on the chart and higher is better. In addition, we present three synthetic VR benchmarks.

The RX 4080 FE averages close to one-third higher unconstrained frames for many VR benchmarks and sits in between the RTX 3080 Ti and the RTX 4090 FE in this important performance metric. However, unconstrained framerates are just one metric that has to be taken together with the frametime plots to have real meaning.

It is clear that the RTX 4090 and the RTX 4080 are ready for higher resolution headsets than the Valve Index. In many cases, either card may be able to use the higher refresh rates of 120Hz/144Hz for fast-paced and/or sim racing games.

Creative, Pro & Workstation Apps

Let’s look at Creative applications next to see if the RTX 4080 is a good upgrade from the RTX 3080 Ti or RX 6900 XT. We test starting with Geekbench.

GeekBench

GeekBench is an excellent CPU/GPU benchmarking program which runs a series of tests and times how long a GPU (in this case) takes to complete its tasks. It benchmarks OpenCL, Vulkan, and CUDA performance

OpenCL, Vulkan, and CUDA Performance

The RTX 4080 OpenCL, Vulkan, and CUDA performance are charted below.

Next we test the summary charts below show the overall comparative performance scores.

Again, the RTX 4090 performance is outstanding.

Next up, Blender benchmark.

Blender 3.3.0 Benchmark

Blender is a very popular open source 3D content creation suite. It supports every aspect of 3D development with a complete range of tools for professional 3D creation.

For the following chart, higher is better as the benchmark renders a scene multiple times and gives the results in samples per minute.

Blender’s benchmark performance is highest using the RTX 4090, and often the amount of time saved is substantial over using the next fastest card, the RTX 4080.

Next, we look at the OctaneBench.

OTOY Octane Bench

OctaneBench allows you to benchmark your GPU using OctaneRender. The hardware and software requirements to run OctaneBench are the same as for OctaneRender Standalone.

We run OctaneBenc 2020.1.5 for Windows and here are the RTX 4080’s complete results and overall score of 946.30

Here is the summary comparing the three cards that can run this render benchmark.

The RTX 4090 is a beast of a card when used for rendering and the RTX 4080 sits in between, above the RTX 3080 Ti.

Next, we move on to AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks.

AIDA64

AIDA64 is an important industry tool for benchmarkers. Its GPGPU benchmarks measure performance and give scores to compare against other popular video cards.

AIDA64’s benchmark code methods are written in Assembly language, and they are well-optimized for every popular AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and VIA processor by utilizing the appropriate instruction set extensions. We use the Engineer’s full version of AIDA64 courtesy of FinalWire. AIDA64 is free to to try and use for 30 days.

Here is the chart summary of the AIDA64 GPGPU benchmarks with the RTX 4090, the RTX 4080, the RTX 3080 Ti, and the RX 6900 XT side-by-side.

Generally the RTX 4090 is faster at almost all of AIDA64’s GPGPU benchmarks than the other cards with the RTX 4080 in second place. So let’s look at Sandra 2020 next.

SiSoft Sandra 2020

To see where the CPU, GPU, and motherboard performance results differ, there is no better tool than SiSoft’s Sandra 2020. SiSoftware SANDRA (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a excellent information & diagnostic utility in a complete package. It is able to provide all the information about your hardware, software, and other devices for diagnosis and for benchmarking. Sandra is derived from a Greek name that implies “defender” or “helper”.

There are several versions of Sandra, including a free version of Sandra Lite that anyone can download and use. 20/21-R16a is the latest version, and we are using the full engineer suite courtesy of SiSoft. Sandra 2020 features continuous multiple monthly incremental improvements over earlier versions of Sandra. It will benchmark and analyze all of the important PC subsystems and even rank your PC while giving recommendations for improvement.

With the above in mind, we ran Sandra’s intensive GPGPU benchmarks and charted the results summarizing them. The performance results of the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 are compared with the performance results of the RTX 3080 Ti, and the RX 6900 XT.

Second only to the RTX 4090, the RTX 4080 is faster than the RTX 3080 Ti and it distinguishes itself in every area – Processing, Cryptography, Financial and Scientific Analysis, Image Processing, and Bandwidth.

Next up, SPEC benchmarks.

SPECworkstation3.1 Benchmarks

All the SPECworkstation 3 benchmarks are based on professional applications, most of which are in the CAD/CAM or media and entertainment fields. All of these benchmarks are free except for vendors of computer-related products and/or services.

The most comprehensive workstation benchmark is SPECworkstation 3. It’s a free-standing benchmark which does not require ancillary software. It measures GPU, CPU, storage and all other major aspects of workstation performance based on actual applications and representative workloads. We only tested the GPU-related workstation performance as checked in the image above.

Here are our RTX 4080 raw SPECworkstation 3.1 raw scores:

Below are the SPECworkstation 3.1 RTX 4090 results summarized in a chart along with the three competing cards, the RTX 4090, the RTX 3080 Ti, and the RTX 6900 XT. Higher is better since we are comparing scores.

The RTX 4090 is not a workstation card, yet it uses brute force to win most of the benches against the other cards with the RTX 4080 in second place.

Finally, we benchmark using SPECviewperfect GPU benches.

SPECviewperf 2020 GPU Benches

The SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization Group (SPECgpc) has released a 2020-22 version of its SPECviewperf benchmark that features updated viewsets, new models, support for up to 4K display resolutions, and improved set-up and results management. We use the highest available 3800×2120 display resolution for high end cards.

Here are SPECviewperf 2020 GPU RTX 4080 benchmarks summarized in a chart together with our three competing cards.

Although we see three architectures with different strengths and weaknesses, the RTX 4090 is a beast in SPEC benchmarks followed by the RTX 4080 in a solid second place.

After seeing the totality of the benches, creative users may choose to upgrade their existing systems with a new RTX 4080 or 4090 based on the performance increases and the associated increases in productivity that they require. The question to buy a RTX 4080 should be based on the workflow and requirements of each user as well as budget. Time is money to a professional depending on how these apps are used.

Let’s head to our conclusion.

Final Thoughts

Besides suffering with COVID-19, this has been an enjoyable exploration evaluating the new Ada Lovelace RTX 4080 FE versus the RTX 4090 FE, the RTX 3080 TI FE, and Gigabyte RTX 6900 XT Gaming OC. The RTX 4080 performed brilliantly performance-wise, blowing away its other two former flagship competitors and slotting in almost one-third slower than the RTX 4090.

The RTX 4080 at $1199 is a decent upgrade from the $1199 RTX 3080 Ti although it is not as impressive as upgrading from a RTX 3090 ($1499) to a RTX 4090 ($1599). If a VR enthusiast wants the very fastest card, then the RTX 4090 is the best choice for high resolution VR headsets and for creative/workstation apps. For $400 less, the RTX 4080 is a solid choice and it will provide a performance uplift over the RTX 3080 Ti, but not as dramatically as the RTX 4090.

In the last Ampere generation, the $699 RTX 3080 provided the best value, but almost unbelievably, the RTX 4090 provides the best performance bang for buck in Nvidia’s new Ada Lovelace lineup so far. We also notice that there is plenty of performance room for a possible future RTX 4080 Ti to slot in between the RTX 4080 and the RTX 4090.

We are very impressed with the RTX 4080 raw performance after testing it over the past few days in VR. It currently stands as the second fastest video card in the world and would be a solid choice for a high resolution VR headset.

The Founders Edition of the RTX 4080 is well-built, solid, good-looking, and it stays cool and quiet even when overclocked – the big card does not get hot like the RTX 3090 and under load it is quieter than the RTX 3080 Ti FE. The RTX 4080 Founders Edition offers a big performance improvement over the previous $1199 RTX 3080 FE for VR and pro apps although it doesn’t give as great a value as when the RTX 3080 FE launched for $699 two years ago.

However, we cannot give any final verdict now as there is a lot more RTX 4080 benchmarking results on the way next week. We will more extensively test the RTX 4080, RTX 4090, RTX 3080 Ti, and RX 6900 XT using 40-plus pancake games including testing DLSS 3 to determine overall value. Future reviews will hopefully test AMD’s upcoming 7000 series cards and we also plan to test the role of the CPU for VR performance. Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy Gaming!

Star Wars: Squadrons will be given away free to Epic gamers next week, November 24 to 30. This game is especially awesome in VR.
Squadrons drops you into the cockpit of various Star Wars ships for very intense single- and multiplayer action. The issues that plagued the game when it first released two years ago have been mostly resolved. It’s best played with a HOTAS/throttle but a gamepad will suffice.

BTR is late with its RTX 4080 review because the reviewing editor got COVID-19 at the Las Vegas AMD Event two weeks ago and is recovering now. However, expect a 10-VR game RTX 4080 VR review versus the RTX 3080 Ti, the RTX 4090, and the RX 6700 XT by this upcoming weekend again using the Valve Index.

Happy VR Gaming!

A few weeks ago, it was our turn with the streaming controller. (Taking turns eliminates a lot of arguments) so we finally got a chance to watch Netflix’s End of the Road. We’re a sucker for Queen Latifah action projects.

We really enjoyed it. My wife watched intensely. Daughter followed the film in between her social media “duties.” Son probably saw some of it in between his online computer game play.

That just about sums up the entertainment activities for the ordinary family – Millennials plus are satisfied with series/movie entertainment, Gen Z’s have their own favorites when it comes to entertainment: social media, video games, music and then streaming content.

Sure, they’re never far from their online social communities; but according to Deloitte, when it comes to entertainment, playing video games is their first choice (26 percent), followed by listening to music (10 percent),

Watching movies/shows came in fifth with the younger crowd with only 10 percent saying it was their favorite form of entertainment.

Netflix has often said his biggest competition isn’t HBO Max or Disney +. Or for that matter, not even sleep … it’s video gaming!

Before buying Next Games and Boss Flight, Netflix officials told its shareholders, “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.”

It will be a long time before the two mobile gaming companies turn any profit for the company, but this isn’t about winning in streaming media or the gaming industry.

It’s about winning in the entertainment industry.

Sure, video gaming is important. It’s projected to be a $103.5B industry this year, double the size of the movie industry.

The industry has about 3+B video game consumers.

With a subscriber base of 222+ M (on a good day), that’s a huge new target market and the churn isn’t as bad as it is in today’s streaming video market.

Part of that is because video gaming opens the entertainment door wider than just passive screen viewing.

Video gaming enables Gen Z (and every generation) to step into totally new, different, impossible worlds that enhance and deepen player/subscriber engagement.

It’s not a Netflix epiphany.

Actually, it’s a page out of Disney’s Flywheel playbook that Walt Disney developed back in the mid-1950s. Disney (or one of its team) sketched out how the company could feed its own success.

Things went slowly until Bob Iger became boss in 2005, Flywheel cogs were added, including an official fan club and today’s Disney +.

Netflix already has their own online shop, titles based on video games – Witcher, Castlevania, Cuphead, Arcane – titles that are becoming games – Squid Game, Strange Things, F1/Drive to Survive – and more opportunities to blur the lines between video content and gaming.

Gaming blends perfectly with Netflix global aspirations, giving subscribers sit-back entertainment as well as downloadable content about the show/characters and the ability to express themselves, become immersed/part of the story, connect with others and just relax.

Put together, it could/should reduce churn!

Part of the increased interest in cloud/streaming gaming is the fact that it’s now available to almost everyone.

Sure, there are a lot of dedicated gamers like our friends Jon, Mark and Rob who are constantly in newer, better, more powerful hardware to pit their skills against the latest, most demanding games. But they aren’t our kids or the millions of folks of all ages around the globe who like to be a part of the gaming community.

Of course, Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon and the other streaming video services are also entering an arena where there are also some major competitors with lots of extensive experience.

Nvidia’s GeForce Now, Google’s Stadia, Sony’s PlayStation Now and Xbox’s Project xCloud already have a heady lead in the serious gaming arena and are very interested in moving down-market to attract the casual gamer with multiplayer opportunities, branded content and virtual goods to provide folks of all ages with a totally involved social experience.

We realize that a lot of people are trying to convince us that now is the time to step into the Metaverse. You know, strap on a headset and go about your work/play like it’s absolutely natural, logical.

Sorry but if we’re going to be in a meeting, we want to actually be in a meeting … how dangerous can it be?

The idea of virtual shopping isn’t as satisfying as touching the fabric, trying the clothes on, thumping a watermelon or test driving a couple of different EVs.

However, when it comes to taking on a bunch of lizard people, fending off zombies, or battling to save the universe on a distant planet, actually being there isn’t such a smart idea.

In other words, meta stuff is great for a break from the real world when we want to unwind and take a break from the challenges around us to log a few hours of virtual game play.

If you want to really understand VR, the best place to learn about it is to go back to its real beginning – Disney’s Light & Magic–docuseries that you can watch on Disney +.

Of course, George Lucas and the ILM crew didn’t have a clue that when they were trying to make a movie called Star Wars that they’d give movies and video games something new, different and more real.

The stepchild of VFX we now know as virtual reality is tied to VR headsets; and since then, idea borrowers have struggled to make people believe that the headset should be/is a natural part of tomorrow.

Dude…it ain’t!

The VR headset technology is improving, and the headsets are becoming lighter, more comfortable, more portable (free of wires) and less expensive, but a natural part of your everyday life?

Sorry, we just don’t buy it.

Every year, industry analysts and headset manufacturers tell us VR and AR (augmented reality) sales will double; but every year, they continue to be a niche made popular by people who want to not just play a game but be a part of it.

Before you say, “but what about…”, let us say yes, VR/AR technology is proving invaluable in training, healthcare and similar areas where plunging headlong into stuff without some advanced education and experience can be dangerous and even lethal.

All of the responsible companies in the industry (Nvidia, Microsoft, Google and Apple) are careful and professional as to how they refer to the technologies and their applications because they’re not interested in overstepping the boundaries of credibility and ruining their reputations with their boss … the consumer.

Sooner or later, metaverse hawkers will get a warning similar to what JJ Collins gave Alexander in Interceptor… “Hey. Another thing. Never call a woman by anything other than her name. Not honey, or honey pie, or sugar, or sugar pie, or sweetie, or sweetie pie. Not baby, sweetheart, ho, bitch, and above all, most of all, beyond all else, don’t ever, ever, call her darlin’.”

Especially if you’re stuck on a small platform in the middle of the ocean!

# # #

Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com – is an author of more than 700 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertainment, consumer electronics, software and applications. An internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant with a broad range of technical and industry expertise especially in storage, storage management and film/video production fields; he has an extended range of relationships with business, industry trade press, online media and industry analysts/consultants.

Video card prices have normalized and most prices of new video cards in the USA have dropped to at or below MSRP, plus there are sales and bundles to be found. This VR review of the Hellhound RX 6650 XT is our follow-up to BTR’s original review in May. We found that the RX 6650 XT beats up on the RTX 3060 but falls short of the RTX 3060 Ti in rasterized pancake gaming. This time, we want to see how the Hellhound performs compared to its faster sibling, the RX 6700 XT, and against the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti to see if it is a good entry level VR value.

The Hellhound RX 6650 XT is currently below MSRP for $369.99 at Newegg which AMD has positioned against entry level RTX 3060s which can be found starting at $380. RX 6700 XTs can be found starting at $430 and the RTX 3060 Ti can be found starting at $470. We have found the RX 6650 XT to be faster than than the RTX 3060 in rasterized pancake games but outclassed by the Ti which is in turn is slightly slower than the RX 6700 XT. For this VR value showdown, we will use the Valve Index and 10 VR games to compare the performance of the RX 6650 XT and the RX 6700 XT versus the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti.

We want to see if the RX 6650 XT is adequate as an entry level mainstream card to power a Valve Index. Although a fast CPU is important for geometry and other processing, smooth VR delivery depends primarily on the video card. An underpowered video card can even cause reprojecting and artifacting for a substandard playing experience that may even lead to VR sickness.We currently benchmark ten VR games using the Valve Index that features 2880×1600 resolution (1440×1600 pixels per eye), and we have changed our benching suite and added three new VR games: F1 2022, Kayak Mirage, and Sniper Elite VR.

BTR’s testing platform is an Intel Core i9-12900K, an ASUS ROG Maximus Apex Z690 motherboard, and 32 GB of T-Force DDR5 at 6400MHz on a recent clean install of Windows 11 Pro Edition.

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames can make a VR experience unpleasant. It’s also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. But before we benchmark our VR games, check out our Test Configuration below.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-12900KF (HyperThreading and Turbo boost at stock settings)..
• ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Apex LGA 1700 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 5.0, DDR5)
• T-FORCE DELTA RGB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 CL40 2x16GB kit, supplied by TeamGroup
• Valve Index, 90Hz
• Hellhound RX 6650 XT 8GB, factory clocks, on loan from PowerColor
• Red Devil RX 6700 XT 12GB, factory clocks, on loan from PowerColor
• RTX 3060 Black 12GB, factory clocks, on loan from EVGA
• RTX 3060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition, stock clocks, on loan from NVIDIA
• T-FORCE CARDEA Ceramic C440 2 x 2TB PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD (one for AMD/one for NVIDIA)
• T-FORCE DELTA MAX White 1TBSATA III SSD (Storage), supplied by TeamGroup
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan; 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• Samsung G7 27? 1440P HDR600, 240Hz FreeSync/Gsync monitor

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 516.79 drivers – Stock settings in the NVIDIA control panel
• Adrenalin 22.6.1 drivers. Stock settings in the AMD control panel
• Windows 11 latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All 10 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT VR Capture (non-public) Beta
• FCAT VR Beta 18 (non-public)
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution

10 VR Game benchmark suite

SteamVR Games

• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Elite Dangerous
• F1 2022
• Kayak Mirage
• Myst
• No Man’s Sky
• Skyrim
• Sniper Elite VR
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our ten VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution as we benchmark the Hellhound RX 6650 XT to see how it compares with the EVGA RTX 3060 XC Black and against the Red Devil RTX 6700 XT and RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition.

First up, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

F1 2022

Codemasters has captured the entire Formula 1 2021 season racing in F1 2022, and the VR immersion is good. The graphics are customizeable and solid, handling and physics are good, the AI is acceptable, the scenery is outstanding, and the experience ticks many of the necessary boxes for a racing sim. Best of all, it runs well on the cards we tested.

Here is the frametime plot for F1 2022.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3060 struggled with 97.37 unconstrained FPS with 10 dropped frames and 10 Warp misses plus 4565 (46%) synthetic frames generated.

The RX 6650 XT managed to deliver 108.63 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 50 (1%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti 131.63 delivered unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses plus 14 synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6700 XT achieved 141.20 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses and no synthetic frames were generated.

The RTX 3060 really struggled with the F1 2022 VR Medium preset unlike the RX 6650 XT, and the RX 6700 XT edged out the RTX 3060 Ti with a bit more performance headroom.

Next we check out Kayak VR: Mirage.

All cards deliver an identical vanilla Skyrim VR experience with a little bit of extra performance headroom for the RX 6650 XT, unlike with the RTX 3060, and a ton of extra headroom to add mods or to Supersample for the two faster cards.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Although The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an older first generation VR game built on the Unreal 4 engine, it still boasts amazing visuals even on entry-level cards. Although it is considered by some to be a walking simulator, it is also an excellent detective game with great puzzles. However, be aware that its style of locomotion tends to make some of its players VR sick.

There are only a few in-game graphics options available, so we picked the highest 130% resolution with TAA.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RTX 3060 managed 219.82 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss but no synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6650 XT achieved 258.13 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, and no frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti produced 270.97 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss, but no synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6700 XT delivered 304.39 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, and no synthetic frames were generated.

The experience playing The Vanishing of Ethan Carter on our medium VR settings is identical for all cards. The RX 6600 XT is faster than the RTX 3060 as the RX 6700 XT is faster than RTX 3060 Ti, which means there is a lot of performance headroom to increase the SteamVR render resolution.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 10 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are very good and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its High preset and we left the Pixel Density at 100%. Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RTX 3060 managed 108.22 unconstrained FPS with 4 dropped frames and 4 Warp misses. In addition, 2565 (33%) synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6650 XT provided 128.54 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, and but 324 (4%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 Ti delivered 152.75 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frames and 1 Warp miss and 55 (1%) synthetic frames were generated.

The RX 6700 XT achieved 155.17 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 9 synthetic frames were generated.

Playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game High preset and 100% Pixel Density is too optimistic for both of our lower end cards and some individual setting should be lowered. However, the RX 6700 XT and the RTX 3060 Ti deliver a decent and similar High preset experience.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

It is great to see AMD and NVIDIA delivering two mainstream cards that are both again priced below $400 that are adequate for entry level VR using a Valve Index (or Vive Pro). AMD appears to have addressed the micro stutter VR driver issues we found when we tested the RTX 6600 XT versus the RTX 3060 last August, and the Radeon is now a faster card that offers slightly more VR performance headroom.

Both the RTX 3060 and the RX 6650 XT can max several VR games in our benching suite if the resolution is left at 100% or slightly subsampled, or if the in-game settings are lowered. But if a VR enthusiast is going to spend $1000 for a premium HMD, it makes sense to pair it with a faster video card like the RTX 3060 Ti or the RX 6700 XT. However, one cannot pair a high resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2 with any of our four tested cards without lowering the resolution or settings.

To recap pricing: The Hellhound RX 6650 XT is currently below MSRP for $370 at Newegg versus entry level RTX 3060s which can be found starting at $380. The RX 6700 XT can be found starting at $430 and the RTX 3060 Ti can be found starting at $470. Make sure to check for new game bundles, sales, and promotions as both AMD’s and Nvidia’s promos recently ended. Video card pricing changes almost daily.

The RX 6650 XT offers a stronger VR performance at a slightly lower price than the RTX 3060 while the RTX 3060 Ti offers a similar VR experience to the RX 6700 XT. The advantage the GeForce cards hold over the Radeons is that they offer more DLSS supported VR games.

We did not test DLSS in VR nor did we use FSR and will leave that comparison for future reviews. We are going to take a break this week to play Spiderman: Remastered for PC and will be back with more great reviews next week.

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!

BTR received the RTX 3050 XC Black Edition 8GB video card from EVGA and we have tested its VR performance by benchmarking nine virtual reality games using the Vive Pro. Although it’s a gaming card, we have added synthetic gaming and workstation benches. We will see if the RTX 3050 is a better entry level card for VR and an improvement over the GTX 1660 Super.

The RTX 3050 XC Black is a $249.99 MSRP EVGA card, but because of supply/demand issues, all suggested pricing is meaningless as only a very lucky few gamers will get them at or close to MSRP/SEP. It is out of stock at most retailers and can mostly be found on eBay starting around $450. The RTX 3050 is generally priced lower than the GTX 1660 Super which sells for around $500 currently.

There is hope in sight as the end of the COVID-19 pandemic may be in view, Etherium is transitioning to Proof of Stake from Proof of Work, and we may see lower prices and better availability before end of this year. Plus it is possible to buy video cards at close to retail if buyers exercise patience by signing up for EVGA’s queue, watch for Best Buy stock to come in, and participate in Newegg’s Shuffle.

Specifications

The RTX 3050 is a solid step up over the GTX 1650 which it replaces. The RTX 3050 is NVIDIA’s 1080P entry level gaming card. The RTX 3050 has also been equipped with Tensor and RT cores for ray tracing and DLSS. It’s also an upgrade over the GTX 1660, 1660 Super, and 1660 Ti which do not have these specialized cores. DLSS is now available on over 145 games and applications and it is also available in some VR games. We will specifically test No Man’s Sky to see if the RTX 3050’s DLSS VR performance is better than the GTX 1660 Super which cannot use DLSS.

We benchmark using Windows 11 Pro Edition with an Intel Core i9-12900KF at 5.3GHz/5.1 GHz and 32GB of T-FORCE Delta 6400MHz DDR5 on a ASUS ROG Maximum Apex Z690 motherboard. All games and benchmarks use the latest versions and the most recent drivers.

Let’s first look at the EVGA RTX 3050 XC Black before we check out the test configuration.

A Close-up of the EVGA RTX 3050 XC Black Edition

The 8GB XC Black Edition is EVGA’s entry level 2-slot dual-fan RTX 3050 which is rather small at 4.33 inches high by 7.94 inches long.

The back of the card is a bare PCB.

The RTX 3050 Black uses a single 8-pin connector and a 550W PSU is recommended as minimum.

The IO panel has four connectors. Three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors are included, and the HDMI port 2.1 allows for 4K/120Hz over a single HDMI cable and variable refresh rate (VRR) is supported.

As a small two-slot card, the EVGA RTX 3050 XC Black will fit into most cases and it looks good installed inside our Corsair 5000D.

Let’s check out our test configuration.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-12900KF (Overclocked to 5.3GHz, Cores 1-2; 5.1GHz, Cores 3-8)
• ASUS ROG Maximus Apex motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, latest BIOS with Resizable BAR enabled, PCIe 5.0/4.0/3.1/3.1 – USB 4.0 Type-C specification)
• T-FORCE DELTA 2x16GB DDR5 6400MHz CL40, supplied by TeamGroup
• GeForce RTX 3050 XC Black 8GB, supplied by EVGA
• ASUS GTX 1660 OC Super 6GB, supplied by ASUS
• T-FORCE CARDEA A440 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD, supplied by TeamGroup as primary storage for games and benchmarks
• T-FORCE CARDEA Ceramic C440 2TB PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD, C: drive
• Super Flower LedEx, 1200W Platinum 80+ power supply unit
• MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID 360R (AIO) 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Corsair 5000D ATX mid-tower (plus 1 x 140mm fan; 2 x 120mm Noctua fans)
• BenQ EW3270U 32? 4K HDR 60Hz FreeSync monitor

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 511.65 drivers
• Windows 11 Professional edition; latest updates/build
• Latest DirectX
• All benchmarking programs are updated to their latest versions
• All 9 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication.
• FCAT-VR Capture v0.9.3202.0 UAC
• FCAT-VR Beta 17

VR Games

• Elite Dangerous
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• Myst 2021
• No Man’s Sky
• Obduction
• Skyrim
• The Walking Dead; Saints & Sinners
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
• Zombieland

Synthetic

• TimeSpy (DX12)
• 3DMark FireStrike – Ultra & Extreme
• VRMark – Orange & Cyan Benchmarks
• OpenVR Benchmark
• Superposition
• Blender 2.93.1 benchmark
• SPECworkstation3
• SPECviewperf 2020
• OctaneBench

NVIDIA Control Panel settings

Here are the NVIDIA Control Panel settings.

Let’s look at the RTX 3050 and GTX 1660 Super VR gaming using the Vive Pro and FCAT VR.

Next up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are outstanding and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its lowest preset and we left the Pixel Density at 100%.

Here is the frametime chart.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The GTX 1660 Super produced 154.16 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthesized frames.

The RTX 3050 gave 165.65 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthesized frames.

Playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is similar for both of our cards on the Low Preset although the RTX 3050 has a little extra performance headroom. Unfortunately, neither card can manage to deliver a steady 90 FPS on the Medium Preset, so we would suggest that a gamer experiment with the individual setting to give the best balance of performance to visuals.

Last up, Zombieland.

Zombieland

Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever is a fun arcade style light gun wave shooter that adds split-second racing mechanics while featuring just one mechanic – headshots that slow down time.

Here is the frametime chart using the Medium Preset.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The GTX 1660 Super produced 257.52 unconstrained FPS.

The RTX 3050 managed 252.52 unconstrained FPS. Neither card could deliver a steady minimum of at least 90 FPS using the High Preset because it boosts the resolution from 100% to 140%. We would again suggest that the player experiment with raising individual settings and adjusting the SteamVR resolution to deliver the best balance of performance to visuals

We see that overall the RTX 3050 is a stronger VR card than the GTX 1660 Super and it also has the advantage of being able to use DLSS.

Myst (2021), by Cyan Worlds Inc, is the latest remake of the iconic 1990s puzzle-adventure game. Myst was rebuilt to play in PC VR and for flatscreen gamers. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, the pancake game features gorgeous advanced ray traced graphics and support for both AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technologies to boost performance. Unfortunately, the VR edition does not support ray tracing or FSR, so we will focus on DLSS as the game is especially demanding on the Epic Preset with a Vive Pro/Valve Index class VR headset and much more so with a Pro 2.

We offer a review of Myst‘s PC VR graphics performance using the latest AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.9.2 driver with the RX 6800 XT/RX 6800/6700 XT/RX 6600 XT, and the latest GeForce Game-Ready 472.12 driver with the RTX 3080/3080 Ti/3070/3060 Ti/3060. We will also make suggestions for setting the best balance of visuals to performance for each card.

BTR received a Steam Myst key from NVIDIA. It is available as a $29.99 Steam game that is playable as a pancake game or in VR on multiple HMDs including the Valve Index, Vive HMDs, and Oculus Rift HMDs, but not for WMR like the Reverb G2. This isn’t a game review, but rather we are concentrating on its performance as measured by FCAT-VR using nine video cards on their latest drivers at factory settings.

Here are the cards that we benchmarked Myst with the very latest drivers from NVIDIA (472.12) and from AMD (21.9.2):

• RTX 3080 Ti (12GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 3080 (8GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 3070 (8GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 3060 Ti (8GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RTX 3060 (12GB Founders Edition, on loan from NVIDIA)
• RX 6800 XT (16GB Reference Edition, on loan from AMD)
• RX 6800 (16GB Reference Edition, on loan from AMD)
• RX 6700 XT (12GB Red Devil, on loan from PowerColor)
• RX 6600 XT (8GB Red Devil, on loan from PowerColor)

BTR’s testing platform is an Intel Core i9-10900K at 5.0/5.1GHz, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard and 16GB of T-Force XTREEM DDR4 at 3866MHz on Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition. We benchmark using a Vive Pro which gives identical results to the Valve Index as well as using the Pro 2 for our top cards.

Settings

Myst has 4 basic in-game user settings: Low, Medium, High, and Epic Presets. There aren’t a lot of visual differences between Epic and High, but dropping to Medium is noticeable, and Low is rather low.

The Supersampling Method in the pancake version allows for either FSR or DLSS, but DLSS is the only option available in the VR game. And there are four levels of DLSS choices: Quality, Balanced, Performance, and Ultra Performance.

• Quality DLSS is upscaled the least and it offers the highest image quality above the Balanced mode and is indistinguishable from the native resolution.
• Balanced offers higher performance than Quality and offers a great balance of visuals to performance.
• The Performance mode offers higher performance than the Balanced mode with only slight visual differences in motion.
• The Ultra Performance mode offers the highest performance increase but it is upscaled the most.

There are also multiple individual settings that may be changed by the user although we are just concentrating on preset performance.

DLSS versus FSR

AMD does not have a direct competitor to DLSS although they offer FSR which also improves performance.

FSR improves performance by first rendering frames at a lower resolution and then by using an open-source spatial upscaling algorithm with a sharpening filter in an attempt to make the game look nearly as good as at native resolution. NVIDIA’s DLSS is a more mature temporal upscaling solution that uses AI/Deep Learning. With DLSS, data is accumulated from multiple frames and combined into a final image with AI reconstruction running on RTX Tensor cores.

In contrast, FSR is a post-process shader which also makes it easy for game developers to implement across all graphics cards. So far, there are about a dozen pancake games that use it and we have tested three games that use FSR. Although Ultra FSR is not the equal of DLSS – and especially not of DLSS 2.0 Quality which rivals and sometimes improves on the native image – it is still a very solid non-AI/temporal upscaler that provides good performance improvements.

Ultra FSR is more than a standard Lanczos implementation plus sharpening and it brings good value to Radeons and for all video cards for higher “free” performance with a minimal hit to visuals. The issue is that FSR has not been implemented into any VR game yet. We hope that AMD and the Cyan developers will bring native FSR to Myst as they have done for the pancake version since using the OpenVR_FSR mod brings very inconsistent results.

The maximum meaningful resolution for VR is approximately one and a half times the native display resolution of the headset since the runtime warps the image to correct for optics’ warping, and a 1.5x rendered resolution results in pixels matching the native headset resolution at the center of the headset’s viewing area. But for complex games played on demanding headsets (especially like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2), the render resolution should probably be set lower than 1.5x.

Generally, the render resolution has the biggest impact on a game’s performance so it can consistently render frames at least as fast as the refresh rate of the headset which is usually 90 FPS. The render resolution should be selected to ensure consistently delivered framerates above 90 FPS, and it’s independent of the headset resolution. Of course, a minimum render resolution is needed to deliver a quality VR experience that varies from headset to headset.

DLSS Scaling

There are two scaling stages in the VR pipeline. When both are enabled, they work together to produce the final frame. When NVIDIA DLSS is enabled, it reduces a game’s render resolution by a predetermined scaling factor. Afterward, the driver uses AI to scale the rendered resolution to the original requested runtime. From an example NVIDIA gives, if the requested render resolution is 1848 x 1872 per eye, and DLSS is running in Performance mode, the game will render to 924 x 936 per eye, and DLSS will scale it back to 1848 x 1872.

The VR runtime takes the frame rendered by either the game or generated by DLSS and scales it to approximately 1.5x the native headset resolution to compensate for optics and image warping. This scaling is usually part of the lens distortion compensation. So when DLSS is supported in VR you want to maximize the scaling done by DLSS and minimize the scaling done by the runtime to maximize performance.

Whenever you enable DLSS you change the render resolution of the game and its performance. It’s important to keep this in mind when finding the ideal configuration. NVIDIA gives another example that a configuration that can maintain 90 fps at 982 x 1000 with DLSS off will likely maintain 90 fps at 1424 x 1408 with Quality DLSS, 1720 x 1774 with Balanced DLSS, 1960 x 1984 with Performance DLSS, and 2704 x 2736 with Ultra-performance DLSS. It is up to the end user to determine the best balance of visuals to performance, remembering that 90 FPS is the minimum target framerate.

Performance

Myst has very good to excellent VR visuals, and it generally runs well on BTR’s flagship i9-10900K with a variety of video cards depending on the settings. The map where we had universal issues was in Channelwood where there was considerable microstutter for all cards, and we have concluded that it is not currently representative of the game’s VR performance.

Unfortunately, Myst is very challenging to benchmark in VR because the maps are relatively small requiring a lot of turns, so we use a 60 second benchmark run over one of the more visually demanding maps in the game in the Selentic age.

Myst should not be played with constant reprojection, synthetic frame synthesis, or with Motion Smoothing applied. Continually delivering frames at half the HMD’s optimum rate refresh by using Motion Smoothing tends to cause artifacting and it may even cause some upset or even VR sickness for the gamer.

All nine video cards were tested by FCAT-VR using the in-game presets which include Ultra, High, Medium, and Low. Of course, we did not test a RTX 3080 Ti on Low settings nor did we test a RX 6600 XT on Epic settings, but we tried to keep the settings realistic and close to optimal for each card with a goal of a steady 90 FPS being delivered to the headset without requiring synthetically generated frames.

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which show what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to 90 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures one important performance metric, faster is better. Also, please note that FCAT-VR does not differentiate between dropped and synthesized frames for cards tested with the Pro 2 as it does not use SteamVR’s Motion Smoothing.

Vive Pro at 100% SteamVR render resolution (2016×2240)

Lets start by testing the video cards that appear to run best at Low or Medium settings using the Vive Pro at 100% SteamVR render resolution.

Low/Medium Settings

The first card we test is an RX 6600 XT and is the only card we tested that requires the Low preset. Unfortunately, from our earlier testing, we discovered it is a relatively weak card for VR – unlike the rest of the RX 6000 series. We originally tested Myst with Adrenalin Software 21.8.2 but found that the latest driver, 21.9.2, improves performance so we retested all AMD cards using it.

RX 6600 XT 8GB

Here is the frametime plot of the RX 6600 XT comparing Medium with Low settings.

Here are the details.

The RX 6600 XT really struggles at Medium settings delivering 102.60 unconstrained frames, and it requires 1344 (25%) frames to be synthesized while dropping 17 frames and delivering 17 Warp misses.

It does better on Low settings by delivering 112.05 unconstrained frames, dropping 6 frames with 6 Warp misses, and requiring 248 (5%) to be synthesized. However, at even the Low setting, microstutter is still noticeable. It may be a driver issue exacerbated by the RX 6600 XT’s limited bandwidth when used with a non-Ryzen PC.

Next up we test the RX 6700 XT.

RX 6700 XT

Here is the frametime plot of the RX 6700 XT tested at the High and Low preset.

The RX 6700 XT cannot handle either the High or Medium preset without synthesizing frames. Here are the details.

On the High preset, the RX 6700 XT delivers 98.45 unconstrained frames, but it drops 13 frames and delivers 13 Warp misses. In addition, it requires 1540 (28%) frames to be synthesized, and microstutter is evident while playing.

It does better with the Medium preset but our goal is an absolute minimum of delivering 90 FPS, so we had to drop to the Low Preset. On Low it delivered 154.70 unconstrained frames with no dropped frames or Warp misses and it only required 11 frames to be synthesized for a good VR experience. Playing on the Medium preset is a possibility for players who can tolerate synthetically generated frames.

Next we test the cards that can mostly handle High settings.

High Settings

The first High preset card we test is an RTX 3060.

RTX 3060

The RTX 3060 can handle High setting only if DLSS is used. Otherwise it would require using the Low/Medium preset. Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details.

On the High preset without DLSS, the RTX 3060 delivers 69.54 unconstrained frames, and although it drops no frames nor delivers any Warp misses, it requires 2631 (50%) of its frames be synthesized. However, even without DLSS, microstutter is not evident while playing, unlike with the RX 6600 XT.

The RTX 3060 does much better with 105.61 unconstrained frames on the High preset with Balanced DLSS – with no dropped frames or Warp misses but with 219 (4%) synthetic frames. It is very playable and the Balanced DLSS image quality is very good.

However, since our goal is a minimum of delivering 90 FPS without synthetic frames, we also tested Performance DLSS. On the High preset it delivered 116.22 unconstrained frames with no dropped frames or Warp misses and it only required 2 frames to be synthesized for a very good VR experience.

It should be noted that Performance DLSS compromises VR visuals very slightly, so High/Balanced DLSS is a real possibility for players who don’t mind if some frames are synthesized or if they are willing to drop some individual settings.

Next we check the performance of the RX 6800.

RX 6800

Here is the frametime plot of the RX 6800 run at the Epic and High preset.

Here are the details.

The RX 6800 cannot handle the Epic preset as it delivers 92.55 unconstrained frames but it drops 17 frames and delivers 17 Warp misses and it requires 2222 (41%) of its frames to be synthesized, and microstutter is evident.

Myst gameplay becomes smooth using a RX 6800 at the High preset, delivering 127.81 unconstrained frames with no Warp misses or any frames dropped, but it requires 15 synthetic frames.

Next we test the performance of video cards that can play at the High to Epic Preset

High/Epic settings

The first card we test is a RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition.

RTX 3060 Ti

Here is the frametime plot of the RTX 3060 Ti run at the Epic preset with no DLSS, Quality DLSS, and with Balanced DLSS.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3060 Ti struggles at the Epic preset with 82.73 unconstrained FPS, and although it doesn’t drop frames or deliver any Warp misses, it requires 2562 (49%) of its frames to be synthesized. It does much better with Quality DLSS and doesn’t compromise image quality with 108.36 unconstrained FPS, dropping no frames or having any Warp misses, but it still requires 149 frames (8%) to be synthesized.

Using Balanced DLSS on the Epic Preset, the RTX 3060 easily hits its target of a locked-on 90 FPS with 122.61 FPS with one dropped frame, one Warp miss, and 3 synthetic frames. The ‘Balanced’ visuals are still very good although some players may prefer to play on the High preset with Quality DLSS with some synthesized frames.

The next card we test is a RX 6800 XT.

RX 6800 XT

Here is the frametime plot of the RX 6800 XT run at the Epic and High preset.

Here are the details.

Using the Epic preset, the RX 6800 XT delivers 107.42 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses but it requires 314 (6%) of the frames to be synthesized.

Using the High preset, it delivers 154.15 unconstrained FPS, dropping no frames nor having Warp misses but requiring 7 frames to be synthesized. It would be acceptable to play with a mix of mostly Epic settings with a few High settings if the goal is a minimum of 90 FPS with zero synthetic frames.

Next up, the RTX 3070.

RTX 3070

Here is the frametime plot of the RTX 3070 run at the Epic preset.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3070 cannot meet our goal of 90 FPS without synthetic frames by using the Epic preset without DLSS. It delivers 99.17 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but it requires 1353 (26%) frames to be synthesized.

Using Epic with Quality DLSS, the RTX 3070 delivers 124.39 unconstrained frames with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but it requires 7 frames to be synthesized. There is no reason not to use Quality DLSS as the image quality is the equivalent of playing without it and the VR experience is excellent.

The next Epic preset card we test is an RTX 3080. But this time, using Quality DLSS, we attempt using the Epic preset with 150% SteamVR render resolution.

The Epic Preset with 150% SteamVR Render Resolution

RTX 3080

Here is the frametime plot of the RTX 3080 run at the Epic preset at 100% SteamVR render resolution, first with no DLSS and then at 150% render resolution with Quality DLSS.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3080 is suitable for using with the Epic preset with no DLSS, delivering 117.72 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but it requires 10 frames to be synthesized.

It is not playable without synthesizing mass frames on the Epic preset with 150% render resolution without DLSS but it does great using Quality DLSS. It delivers 119.48 unconstrained FPS only requiring 8 frames to be synthesized and it neither drops frames nor has Warp misses. However, the visuals and clarity become noticeably better using SteamVR’s 150% render resolution with Epic/Quality DLSS than by using Epic at 100% without DLSS.

Next up, the RTX 3080 Ti.

RTX 3080 Ti

Here is the frametime plot of the RTX 3080 Ti run on the Epic preset comparing 100% with 150% SteamVR render resolutions with Quality DLSS on versus off.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3080 Ti can easily handle the Epic preset without DLSS at 100% SteamVR render resolution delivering 138.07 unconstrained FPS with no Warp misses or dropped frames, although 4 frames were synthesized. However, increasing the SteamVR render resolution to 150% drops the unconstrained framerate to 100.23 FPS, and without DLSS, it requires 942 (18%) of its frames to be synthesized although again, no frames are dropped.

Using Quality DLSS at 150% render resolution, the RTX 3080 Ti delivers 135.71 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames or Warp misses, and only 1 frame was synthesized. There is no reason not to use Quality DLSS at 150% render resolution as its Epic preset visuals are far superior to not using DLSS at 100%.

Next we test our two fastest cards, the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3080 Ti with a much more demanding headset, the Vive Pro 2. Please note that FCAT-VR does not distinguish between synthesized and dropped frames using the Pro 2 since it uses the Vive Console’s Motion Compensation (which we do not use) instead of SteamVR’s Motion Smoothing.

Vive Pro at 100% SteamVR render resolution (3184×3184)

High/Epic Presets

RTX 3080

Here is the frametime plot of the RTX 3080 using the Epic preset with the Vive Pro 2. This time we test the Epic and High presets but find that we cannot use Quality DLSS without requiring synthetic frames as the Pro 2’s render resolution is so high.

Here are the details.

The RTX 3080 on Epic without DLSS delivers 51.97 unconstrained FPS with 1 Warp miss, and it drops or requires 1914 (43%) frames to be synthesized. Using Performance DLSS which compromises visuals slightly using the same settings, it manages 95.78 unconstrained frames with only 8 dropped or synthesized frames.

Without using DLSS, the RTX 3080 performs better on the High preset over Epic, delivering 83.72 unconstrained FPS, while dropping or synthesizing 1952 (39%) frames and suffering 1 Warp miss. Using the same settings with Balanced DLSS, it gives 97.86 unconstrained FPS with 1 Warp miss, and dropping or synthesizing 10 frames.

It is a toss up between using Epic/Performance DLSS and High/Balanced DLSS. Next we check the performance of the RTX 3080 Ti.

RTX 3080 Ti

Here is the frametime plot of the RTX 3080 Ti using the Pro 2 at 100% SteamVR render resolution.

Here are the details.

Although NVIDIA’s top gaming card produces no Warp misses, the RTX 3080 Ti cannot handle the Epic preset without DLSS as it delivers 55.08 unconstrained FPS, and it drops or requires 2049 (45%) frames to be synthesized. Using Quality DLSS, it still falls short of our 90 FPS minimum goal, delivering 91.71 unconstrained FPS but it still drops or synthesizes 656 (13%) frames.

Using the same settings but with Balanced DLSS, the 3080 Ti delivers 98.54 frames with only 8 dropped or synthesized frames. We would suggest playing either Epic/Balanced DLSS or with Quality DLSS and a mix of Epic and High settings to stay above 90 FPS for an awesome visual experience on the Pro 2.

Conclusion

After spending many hours playing and benchmarking Myst 2021 in VR with nine video cards, we have concluded that it is a decently-optimized game that delivers reasonably good performance with very good VR visuals that really draws the player into its world. The map where we had universal issues was in Channelwood where there was considerable microstutter and we have concluded that it’s not representative of the game.

The Radeons that are normally equivalent to their GeForce counterparts in pancake gaming are somewhat held back by microstutter, but far more so by not having a DLSS competitor for VR. All of the competing GeForce cards were able to deliver similar visuals but with much higher performance by using Quality or Balanced DLSS. And using DLSS is the only way to play Myst at 100% SteamVR render resolution with a Pro 2 without synthesizing frames. DLSS works great for the three VR games that we have tested, and we highly recommend its use.

We hope that AMD and the Cyan devs will bring native FSR support to Myst as they have done for the pancake version since using the OpenVR_FSR mod brings inconsistent results. We are still holding out hope since AMD told us, “FSR is not supported with VR in Myst at this time.”

Next up, expect Rodrigo to deliver a brand new 472.12 driver performance analysis shortly. And he is also working on a Myst pancake game performance review while we are working on a budget TeamGroup SATA SSD evaluation. Stay tuned to BTR.

Happy VR Gaming!

The RX 6600 XT is priced starting at $379 while the factory overclocked Red Devil is priced higher than the $399 RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition, yet AMD has positioned its newest mainstream video card against the entry level $329 RTX 3060. We have found the Red Devil RX 6600 XT to be a bit faster than than the RTX 3060 in rasterized pancake games but outclassed by the Ti. For this VR showdown, we will use the Valve Index and 10 VR games to compare the performance of the RX 6600 XT with the RTX 3060.

We want to see if the RX 6600 XT is worthy of AMD’s claim of VR premium and how it compares with the RTX 3060 which is adequate as an entry level mainstream card to power a Valve Index. Although a fast CPU is important for geometry and other processing, smooth VR delivery depends mostly on the video card. An underpowered video card can even cause reprojecting and artifacting for a substandard playing experience that may even lead to VR sickness.We currently benchmark ten VR games using the Valve Index that features 2880×1600 resolution (1440×1600 pixels per eye), the same as the Vive Pro and with similar performance at 90Hz/90FPS. BTR’s testing platform is an overclocked Intel Core i9-10900K, an EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard, and 32 GB of Vulcan Dark Z DDR4 at 3600MHz on a recent clean install of Windows 10 64-bit Pro Edition.

It is important to be aware of VR performance since poorly delivered frames can make a VR experience unpleasant. It’s also important to understand how we accurately benchmark VR games using FCAT-VR as explained here. But before we benchmark our VR games, check out our Test Configuration below.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i9-10900K (HyperThreading/Turbo boost On; All cores overclocked to 5.1GHz/5.0Ghz. Comet Lake DX11 CPU graphics)
• EVGA Z490 FTW motherboard (Intel Z490 chipset, v1.3 BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1/3.2 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA
• T-FORCE DARK Z 32GB DDR4 (2x16GB, dual channel at 3600MHz), supplied by Team Group
• Valve Index, 90Hz
• EVGA RTX 3060 Black 12GB, stock clocks, on loan from EVGA
• Red Devil RX 6600 XT 8GB, stock clocks, on loan from PowerColor
• 2 x 1TB Team Group MP33 NVMe2 PCIe SSD for C: drive (one for AMD; one for NVIDIA)
• 1.92TB San Disk enterprise class SATA III SSD (storage)
• 2TB Micron 1100 SATA III SSD (storage)
• 1TB Team Group GX2 SATA III SSD (storage)
• 1TB T-FORCE DELTA MAX SATA III SSD (storage), supplied by Team Group
• ANTEC HCG1000 Extreme, 1000W gold power supply unit
• Samsung G7 Odyssey (LC27G75TQSNXZA) 27? 2560×1440/240Hz/1ms/G-SYNC/HDR600 monitor
• DEEPCOOL Castle 360EX AIO 360mm liquid CPU cooler
• Phanteks Eclipse P400 ATX mid-tower (plus 1 Noctua 140mm fan)

Test Configuration – Software

• GeForce 471.68 drivers – Stock settings in the NVIDIA control panel
• Adrenalin 21.8.1 drivers. Stock settings in the AMD control panel
• Windows 10 64-bit Pro edition; latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All 10 VR games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication
• FCAT VR Capture (non-public) Beta
• FCAT VR Beta 18 (non-public)
• SteamVR – at 100% resolution

10 VR Game benchmark suite & 1 synthetic test

Synthetic

• OpenVR Benchmark

SteamVR Games

• Assetto Corsa Competizione
• Borderlands 2
• Boneworks
• Elite Dangerous
• Half Life: Alyx
• No Man’s Sky
• Pavlov
• Project CARS 2
• Skyrim
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

It is important to remember that BTR’s charts use frametimes in ms where lower is better, but we also compare “unconstrained framerates” which shows what a video card could deliver (headroom) if it wasn’t locked to either 90 FPS or to 45 FPS by the HMD. In the case of unconstrained FPS which measures just one important performance metric, faster is better.

Let’s individually look at our ten VR games’ performance using FCAT VR. All of our games were benchmarked at 100% SteamVR resolution as we benchmark the Red Devil RX 6600 XT to see how it compares with the EVGA RTX 3060 Black.

The OpenVR benchmark ranks the RX 6600 XT and the RTX 3060 almost identically.

But we really want to see gaming benchmarks. First up, Assetto Corsa Competizione.

Half Life: Alyx

Half Life: Alyx uses an adaptive/dynamic scaling algorithm which uses a card’s performance headroom to subsample in demanding scenes and to supersample in less demanding scenes. We used its console commands to lock the SteamVR resolution to 100% so that it did not supersample or subsample and we set the graphics preset to High.

Here is the frametime plot for Half Life Alyx.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 114.87 unconstrained FPS with 2 dropped frames and 2 Warp misses, but 222 (4%) of its frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 managed 114.43 unconstrained FPS with no Warp misses but with 2 dropped frames and 399 (6%) synthetic frames.

Half Life: Alyx isn’t particularly demanding unless the Super Resolution increased in SteamVR settings, but unless console commands are used, the game will automatically subsample or supersample as needed and it will run fine with High settings on both cards. Unfortunately, while playing the game, Warp misses happened too frequently with the 6600 XT to mar an otherwise good VR experience.

Next, we will check out another demanding VR game, No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky is an action-adventure survival single and multiplayer game that emphasizes survival, exploration, fighting, and trading. It is set in a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion unique planets using its own custom game engine.

The player takes the role of a Traveller in an uncharted universe by starting on a random planet with a damaged spacecraft equipped with only a jetpack-equipped exosuit and a versatile multi-tool that can also be used for defense. The player is encouraged to find resources to repair his spacecraft allowing for intra- and inter-planetary travel, and to interact with other players.

Here is the No Man’s Sky Frametime plot. We set the settings to Standard, but we also set the anisotropic filtering to 16X and upgraded to FXAA+TAA. Although DLSS is available for RTX cards and the Quality setting improves performance without impacting image quality significantly, we did not test with it.

Here are the FCAT-VR details of our comparative runs.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 76.91 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, but 3221 (50%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 produced 103.61 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses, and it only required 191 (3%) synthetic frames.

Although, the RTX 3060 gives a better experience over the RX 6600 XT in No Man’s Sky using the Standard preset, it isn’t strong enough to play on the Enhanced setting without synthesizing frames.

Next we check out Pavlov.

Pavlov

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Pavlov in VR. Pavlov is the most popular multiplayer VR shooter with a primary focus on its community. Realistic fast-paced combat is a large part of its core experience, and even tanks have been added.

We benchmarked using the training sessions with the highest settings.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the details:

The RX 6600 XT delivered 165.97 unconstrained FPS with no dropped, synthesized frames, or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivered 175.96 unconstrained FPS also with no dropped, synthesized frames, or Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 delivers an identical VR experience to the RX 6600 XT although it has a little more performance headroom. We recommend that it be used for increasing the SteamVR render resolution or for playing at 120Hz.

Next we will check out another demanding VR game, Project CARS 2

Project CARS 2

There is a real sense of immersion that comes from playing Project CARS 2 in VR using a wheel and pedals. It uses its in-house Madness engine, and the physics implementation is outstanding. We are disappointed with Project CARS 3, and will continue to use the older game instead for VR benching.

Project CARS 2 offers many performance options and settings and we prefer playing with SMAA Ultra.

We used maximum settings including for Motion Blur although it looks best to us on Low or Medium. For lesser cards, we would also recommend lowering grass and reflections to maximize framerate delivery as motion smoothing or reprojection tends to cause visible artifacting.

Here is the frametime plot.

Here are the FCAT-VR details.

The RX 6600 XT managed 100.15 unconstrained FPS with 17 dropped frame and 17 Warp misses but 566 (6%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 achieved 77.43 unconstrained FPS with 1 dropped frame and with 1 Warp miss but with 4820 (50%) synthetic frames. It had no Warp misses.

The experience playing Project CARS 2 on our medium VR settings is unsatisfactory for both cards and we would recommend lowering individual settings or even lower the resolution a bit as needed to stay out of reprojection. The RX 6600 XT is faster, but the VR experience is spoiled by dropped frames and Warp misses.

Let’s benchmark Skyrim VR.

Skyrim VR

Skyrim VR is an older game that is no longer supported by Bethesda, but fortunately the modding community has adopted it. It is not as demanding as many of the newer VR ports so its performance is still very good on maxed-out settings using its Creation engine.

We benchmarked Skyrim VR using its highest settings but we did not increase or Supersample the resolution.

Here are the frametime results.

Here are the details of our comparative runs as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6600 XT delivered 128.30 unconstrained FPS with no dropped or synthetic frames and there were no Warp misses.

The RTX 3060 managed 129.39 unconstrained FPS, also with no dropped frames or Warp misses, but 26 synthetic frames were produced

Both cards deliver an identical experience with a little bit of performance headroom to add mods or to Supersample.

Last up, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinner is the last of BTR’s 10 VR game benching suite. It is a first person survival horror adventure RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Its visuals using the Unreal 4 engine are outstanding and it makes good use of physics for interactions.

We benchmarked Saints and Sinners using its highest settings and we left the Pixel Density at 100%.. Here is the frametime chart. Please note that the Pixel Density is 100%.

Here are the details as reported by FCAT-VR.

The RX 6600 XT produced 120.55 unconstrained FPS with 7 dropped frames and 7 Warp misses, but 114 (2%) frames were synthesized.

The RTX 3060 managed 115.00 unconstrained FPS with no dropped frames nor Warp misses and 37 (1%) synthetic frames were generated.

Playing The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners using the in-game maximum settings and 100% Pixel Density should be similar for both of our cards although the RX 6600 XT has too many dropped frames and Warp misses.

Let’s check out our conclusion.

Conclusion

It is great to see AMD and NVIDIA delivering two mainstream cards that are both priced below $400 – if they can be found at all at MSRP – that drop the entry price for VR. The EVGA RTX 3060 Black sits in a unique position as the fastest $329 MSRP video card available for VR and it offers reasonable performance for use with a Valve Index, and no doubt it would offer excellent performance for an original Vive, Rift CV1, or even for a Rift S. The Red Devil RX 6600 XT at above $400 should be slightly faster, but unfortunately it suffers from microstuttering together with excessive dropped frames and Warp misses, and we suggest that AMD’s driver team should address this.

Both the RTX 3060 and the RX 6600 XT can max multiple VR games in our benching suite if the resolution is left at 100% or slightly subsampled, or if the in-game settings are lowered. But if someone is going to spend $1000 for a premium HMD, it makes sense to pair it with a faster video card like the RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition which is MSRP/SEP priced below the Red Devil RX 6600 XT. However, one cannot pair a high resolution headset like the Reverb G2 or the Vive Pro 2 with either card.

The RTX 3060 is a good card for high/medium quality PC VR at a rather bargain price of $329 – if it can be purchased at this price – and the RTX 3060 Ti is a more solid offering for $70 more. Unfortunately, the RX 6600 XT at $379 barely matches the experience of the RX 3060 at $329 – never mind the Red Devil at above $400 – and it needs some attention from AMD’s driver team before we can give it a solid recommendation for VR. We did not test DLSS in VR nor did we use FSR and will leave that comparison for a future review.

Next up, we plan to review Myst which launches tomorrow on Steam also in VR. It features ray tracing in the pancake version and DLSS in both versions.

Stay tuned to BTR!

Happy VR Gaming!