FSR 4 “a lot nearer in high quality” to DLSS 4 as AMD closes the hole to Nvidia

AMD appears to have lastly found out how one can stand out within the GPU market, with its RX 9070 sequence GPUs exhibiting outstanding uncooked efficiency towards Nvidia’s RTX 50 sequence rivals at a lower cost level. The inexperienced crew isn’t the one one with shiny AI stickers on its new GPUs, as AMD has additionally improved its upscaling expertise with the newest FSR 4, which, in contrast to earlier iterations, would be the first to make use of a neural community, one thing Nvidia has been doing for the reason that introduction of DLSS 2.0.

FSR 4 will likely be unique to RDNA 4 GPUs, and whereas we’ve but to see it in full motion, we did get a preview of its capabilities at CES 2025. The expertise regarded noticeably higher than FSR 3.1 by way of visible high quality, picture stability, and total easy upscaling outcomes. Nevertheless, the true comparability for the upcoming FSR 4 shouldn’t be with its predecessor however quite with Nvidia’s DLSS 4 expertise. And spoiler alert: the outcomes are shut.

AMD FSR 4 vs. DLSS 4

Beforehand, evaluating AMD’s upscaling expertise with Nvidia’s appeared pointless, because the distinction was nearly all the time in favor of the inexperienced crew. Nevertheless, with FSR 4, the scenario has modified considerably. In reality, FSR 4 is far nearer in high quality to DLSS 4 SR with the transformer mannequin than FSR 2, FSR 3, and even FSR 3.1 ever was. Even when in comparison with the “older” DLSS 3 with the CNN mannequin, it holds up very well, with FSR 4 simply producing related high quality on common.

As an example, in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Aside, FSR 4 didn’t present any noticeable weaknesses towards DLSS 4 and is sort of shut by way of high quality. Except you look arduous sufficient, most gamers in all probability received’t discover any distinction. There are some circumstances the place DLSS 4 has slight benefits, corresponding to higher picture stability on a couple of objects and extra detailed rendering. However there are additionally situations the place FSR 4 has the sting, corresponding to much less ghosting and distant objects like confetti rain showing barely higher.

There may be nonetheless a while earlier than FSR takes the crown

That stated, whereas FSR 4 surpasses Nvidia’s DLSS 3 CNN mannequin in lots of circumstances, it nonetheless falls in need of matching the efficiency of the DLSS 4 Transformer. On high of that, AMD nonetheless lacks an equal to Nvidia’s Ray Reconstruction. In supported video games, Nvidia’s AI-driven RT denoiser considerably enhances ray tracing visuals in comparison with normal denoisers. Since RDNA 4 goals to enhance ray tracing over older Radeon GPUs, having an identical function can be a giant benefit.

Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless spectacular to see AMD come near DLSS 4 on its RDNA 4 GPUs, which embrace the upcoming RX 9070 XT and 9070, that are set to go dwell right now. So, in the event you’re planning to select one up, make certain to regulate our countdown clock, and don’t fear; these GPUs usually are not anticipated to have inventory points.