• AMD launched a brand new path tracing demo operating on RX 9000 {hardware}
• Some PC players have cited muddy textures, blurriness, and artifacting
• It is created a wider dialogue on RDNA 4’s price-to-performance

An official path tracing demo revealed on AMD Gaming’s YouTube channel has revealed that the RDNA 4 graphics playing cards fall behind what’s doable with rival Nvidia’s RTX 50 collection relating to price-to-performance.

AMD revealed the Toyshop real-time path tracing neural rendering tech demo, which has highlighted the spectacular capabilities of the RX 9070 XT, contemplating its sub-$600 MSRP. Nevertheless, that is when taking the 75-second video in isolation, whereas some tech fans and anxious players have made comparisons with Nvidia’s newest.

As noticed by Notebookcheck, some dissenting voices have claimed that this RX 9000 collection path tracing benchmark is marred with blurry textures and visible artifacts, with the spectacular lighting results changing into problematic throughout sooner moments.

A selected concern has arisen relating to how the RTX 9070 XT handles AI-powered supersampling and the way the noise discount is applied when cleansing the general picture up. Particularly, consideration has been positioned on the automobiles driving alongside the road, as visible artifacts are reportedly current, because the static buildings get fuzzy and the foliage turns into blurred while you look a little bit nearer. That is (seemingly) with out factoring within the built-in compression that comes with YouTube as a video internet hosting platform.

In the meantime, quite a few feedback on the r/pcgaming sub-Reddit are blunter with their criticisms. The highest-voted remark merely reads: “The ghosting on the robotic arms is fairly agregious”, with one other stating: “That is numerous noise”, and an extended response from one other person arguing: “What is the level of releasing a demo with loopy noise, ghosting, and each RT-releated artifacts doable. It is not going to awe anyone, it simply simply exhibits how far behind Nvidia they’re”.

It opens a wider dialog about simply how good at path tracing a $600 graphics card actually needs to be, with the RX 9070 XT retailing for a similar value because the newly arriving Nvidia RTX 5070, itself not with out controversy. Our overview of the weakest Blackwell GPU famous near-identical efficiency with the earlier mainstream chief, the RTX 4070 Tremendous from January 2024, with the apparent exception of DLSS 4’s Multi Body Technology; the characteristic is less-than-stellar right here than on the corporate’s flagship fashions.

Equally, we (seemingly) get to see the restrictions of FSR 4 towards DLSS 4 with noise discount and AI-assisted path tracing in lower-end {hardware}. The outcomes are actually spectacular on the floor, however trying nearer, some PC players worry that if that is AMD’s greatest foot ahead, then it nonetheless has numerous catching as much as do. For direct comparability, you possibly can see Nvidia’s official Zorah rendering tech demo, which had not obtained wherever the identical stage of backlash when it debuted in January 2025.

An early signal of issues to come back for AMD’s RDNA 4 GPU technology

It is there’s one factor that is obvious with the 2 introduced (and shortly to be launched) AMD RX 9000 collection graphics playing cards, and it is that they are marketed on their worth proposition fairly than the uncooked efficiency energy. Whereas native 4K is focused in keeping with the advertising materials, and the corporate is showcasing a renewed deal with path and ray tracing in gaming, the producer clearly is not making an attempt to compete with what its main rival can do on the higher-end.