Assassin’s Creed Shadows is almost here, and the end of the review embargo brings with it some surprising revelations. In particular, the game seems to perform rather admirably on most PC hardware – including lower end alternatives such as the Steam Deck.
The game has a ton of options to choose and tweak from, and is compatible with the latest and greatest from both Nvidia and AMD. Interestingly, it would appear that Nvidia trails behind AMD this time around, having a lower average FPS in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
Recent Performance Testing Shows An Advantage for AMD in Assassin’s Creed Shadows
The embargo for Assassin’s Creed Shadows is finally up, and numerous reports have arisen regarding its performance. The AAA game from Ubisoft was extensively tested by DSOGaming, against a wide suite of PC hardware in order to extrapolate relevant data.
For the uninitiated, Assassin’s Creed Shadows runs on Ubisoft’s proprietary AnvilNext Engine, and comes equipped with the latest and greatest tech – including, but not limited to frame generation, modern ray tracing methods, DLSS and FSR 3.1.
The game also comes with a robust built-in benchmark tool, which seems to indicate real-world performance. DSOGaming used a multitude of systems for their tests, and came to the conclusion that Shadows is ultimately a GPU-bound title.
GPUs are expected to bottleneck faster than CPUs – even at a 1080p resolution. This means that more powerful, modern GPUs are must when attempting to play through the game. The game can also be quite intensive at 1440p Ultra settings (no DLSS trickery here), mandating a RX 7900 XTX or an RTX 4090 to maintain a solid 60 FPS.
Interestingly, it would appear that AMD has the upper hand here – both in current and last-gen offerings. The RX 7900 XTX eases forward, ahead of the RTX 4090, while AMD’s newest RX 9070 XT can easily keep up with Nvidia’s significantly more expensive RTX 4080.
Additionally, it would appear that even the RTX 5090 cannot keep up with the game at Ultra settings, at 4K resolutions (with ray tracing enabled) – dipping below 50 frames per second occasionally.
While the RX 9070 XT still trails behind the RTX 5090, it still put up a decent fight, with an average of 43 FPS and a 1% low of 37 FPS.
Nvidia’s mysterious performance loss is quite the concern here though, and could be perhaps fixed with future driver updates. Regardless, this is a massive win for team red, and only confirms that AMD managed to create an actually competitive product this time around.
AMD’s RX 9070 XT Obliterates Its Competition Across Multiple Games As Well
We have to keep in mind that the flagship RX 9070 XT is a $599 card (at least, if we take into consideration retail pricing). This card trades blows with the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080, both of which are significantly more expensive and thermally inefficient in comparison.
AMD can keep up and even outperform Nvidia in most titles, at least when there is no use of frame generation and/or upscaling. Things could change though, when FSR 4 officially drops for the RX 9000 series later this year.
The GPU space has finally had some real competition in years, and AMD’s success helps consumers in the end.
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