AMD previews game performance with “Big Navi” and Zen 3

The technology autumn continues to roll at a continued high pace and after several Nvidia-edged weeks, AMD is now taking over. On October 28, the company will meet the green team with new graphics cards in the Radeon RX 6000 series, while the next generation Ryzen and the associated Zen 3 architecture were on the agenda for tonight’s event.

With four unveiled processors that boast up to 16 cores and real architectural improvements, CEO Lisa Su takes the opportunity and offers a sneak peek of what is to come, namely the Ryzen 5000 series paired with the Radeon RX 6000. Furthermore, it is proclaimed that the enthusiast-named name “Big Navi” will be the official name for the latter, and that playing in 4K UHD resolution will be possible to a very high degree.

Borderlands 3 is the first to run with the upcoming hardware, where Lisa Su reveals that in terms of processor it is a 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X but an unnamed card in the Radeon RX 6000 family. This title uses the “Badass” level of detail and the all-red hardware combination reaches an average of 61 frames per second (FPS).

AMD shows that also action-packed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Gears of War 5 can be driven around in the resolution 3,840 × 2,160 pixels, which is said to be done with 88 and 73 FPS, respectively, and the setting controls turned to “Ultra”. Whether it is the series’ top cards that tense the muscles behind the scenes can only be speculated.

Since these are AMD-signed performance figures, they should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it’s still a clue as to where the performance level lands. The latter two games are part of SweClocker’s test suite, where Nvidia’s recent Geforce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 reach average frame rates of 124 and 110 FPS in the Call of Duty title in 4K UHD resolution, but here the settings are “High”. At the same resolution and with “Ultra” settings, the cards are capable of displaying 86 and 77 FPS in Gears of War 5.

AMD reveals complete details for “Big Navi” in a separate event that kicks off on October 28, 2020. In addition to specifications and its own performance figures, the company is expected to reveal price and availability, details that are now known for the next generation Ryzen. The processors will be available on November 5, and price and product information can be read in the Ryzen-specific article.

What do you think of the Radeon RX 6000 series? Do you mainly hope for performance wonders or, or good performance at a competitive price compared to Nvidia?