Which is better at FSR: AMD or NVIDIA?

If you’re a gamer, you probably know about the technology called AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). It boosts graphics performance and works on almost any graphics card, even older ones! With FSR, you can enjoy higher frame rates and smoother gameplay, whether you have a Radeon or a GeForce card. It even works on Intel graphic cards. However, the question remains: does FSR offer the same performance boost on an NVIDIA graphics card as it does on an AMD GPU? To answer this question, I explore the latest features in AMD FSR 3 and FSR 3.1 and what they do. I also analyze how the AMD Radeon RX 7600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphic cards perform in a range of demanding games. Let’s get started:

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution: fps booster for everyone?

Both AMD and NVIDIA have their own upscaling technologies. AMD’s technology is called FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), while NVIDIA’s is named Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). One key difference is compatibility: NVIDIA’s DLSS is exclusive to its GeForce RTX GPUs, while AMD’s FSR is open-source and GPU-agnostic, making it available on far more hardware.

So, does FSR work on NVIDIA cards? Yes, AMD FSR can be enabled on NVIDIA GPUs, including the GeForce RTX series, as long as the game supports FSR. This means you can use FSR on NVIDIA GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4060 or even older GTX models, which makes it a versatile tool for boosting performance. You can even use FSR with any Intel graphics card.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3

Just like NVIDIA’s DLSS technology, AMD FSR uses upscaling to enhance performance and image quality. It renders a game at a lower resolution and then scales it up using advanced algorithms. For example, a game running at 1080p can be upscaled to 4K, providing higher performance and a visually appealing experience. The introduction of AMD FSR 3 and FSR 3.1 adds new features like Frame Generation, which interpolates and generates additional frames to further boost smoothness, especially in demanding titles.

Hundred of games support AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution

If you’re asking “Will FSR 3.0 work on NVIDIA?”, the answer is again a resounding yes. The Frame Generation and upscaling features in FSR 3 are fully compatible with NVIDIA and Intel GPUs that meet the requirements for FSR. Still, you should keep in mind that AMD doesn’t recommend enabling Frame Generation on very old graphics cards. It’s a feature the company says you should use if you have an AMD Radeon RX 5000, RX 6000, RX 7000 series card or above. Or, if you have an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20, RTX 30, RTX 40 series GPU or above. For Intel cards, I couldn’t find any recommendations on AMD’s websites, but it’s safe to say that all of them will work well with AMD FSR’s Frame Generation. That’s because Intel is a relatively new player on the market of dedicated graphics cards, and its GPUs are all pretty modern.

Regarding how to use AMD FSR on NVIDIA RTX GPUs, as well as AMD or Intel cards, you should know that it’s as simple as enabling it in your game’s settings menu, provided the game supports this technology. For instance, here’s how to enable AMD FSR 3 on the Balanced upscaling mode, with Frame Generation, in Horizon Forbidden West:

How to enable FSR in games

I’ve tried AMD FSR in more than just a few games, and I have to say I’m impressed by how well it works. With its help, I could play demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, or Final Fantasy XVI in 4K resolution, at high settings, with excellent framerates. The image quality is really good, and even on FSR’s Balanced mode, I can barely notice any difference from the native 4K resolution.

One question I couldn’t get out of my head was: Which is better at FSR? If I ran a game using FSR on an AMD graphics card, would I get better performance than with a similar NVIDIA card? Does AMD somehow favor its own GPUs when using FSR? Or is this upscaling technology truly GPU-agnostic, as AMD says? To get an answer, I decided to run a little experiment:

AMD vs. NVIDIA: How did I benchmark AMD FSR?

Test AMD FSR on AMD and NVIDIA… sure, but how? Well, I ran a couple of games on the same desktop computer, with and without AMD FSR, using first an AMD Radeon card and then an NVIDIA GeForce card. I chose two entry-level GPUs that are more or less competitors, as they have relatively close prices:

The other hardware (and software) components of the test PC were these:

The test computer I used for benchmarking AMD FSR

Next, the games: since just one or two games would have been too few, I chose six titles. I believe it’s enough to get a relatively clear picture of what to expect from AMD FSR. These games have steep system requirements and are quite demanding in terms of graphics performance. They are: Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy XVI, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West, Remnant II, and Starfield. Except for Cyberpunk 2077 where I used the ray-tracing mid preset, I enabled the highest graphics quality settings in all the other games. I then tested each game with FSR off, FSR on (Balanced preset), and FSR plus Frame Generation on. The charts show the results of each graphics card, resolution and FSR setting. Here are my findings:

AMD FSR 3 benchmark results on AMD and NVIDIA GPUs

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most demanding games, especially with ray tracing. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 7600 in all resolutions and in every graphics preset. In native 4K resolution, the GeForce RTX 4060 starts from the pole position, being 80% faster than the Radeon RX 7600. With FSR enabled on the Balanced preset, both cards see huge gains, with the Radeon RX 7600 improving by 200% and the GeForce RTX 4060 by 167%. Activating Frame Generation boosts performance even further. Still, NVIDIA stays about 20% ahead overall. At lower resolutions like 1440p and 1080p, the Radeon RX 7600 closes the gap slightly but still trails behind NVIDIA.

Benchmarking Cyberpunk 2077: AMD FSR on NVIDIA vs. AMD

In Final Fantasy XVI, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 generally outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 7600, but the gap between them varies depending on the resolution and settings used. At native 4K, the GeForce RTX 4060 starts 22% ahead, delivering 11 frames per second compared to the 9 fps rendered by the Radeon RX 7600. Enabling FSR on the Balanced preset boosts performance slightly for both cards, with the Radeon RX 7600 improving to 10 fps and the GeForce RTX 4060 to 12 fps. At 1440p, the GeForce RTX 4060 trails a bit, delivering 40 fps with FSR, compared to 43 fps on the AMD Radeon RX 7600, a modest 7.5% lead. The most noticeable difference appears with FSR and Frame Generation combined. At 1080p, the Radeon RX 7600 reaches 97 fps, while the GeForce RTX 4060 trails slightly at 90 fps.

Benchmarking Final Fantasy XVI: AMD FSR on NVIDIA vs. AMD

The competition between the two cards gets more interesting when it comes to Ghost of Tsushima. At 4K, they perform similarly, with the GeForce RTX 4060 ahead by just 4%. With FSR, the Radeon RX 7600 improves by 40%, but the GeForce RTX 4060 gains 77%, keeping a solid lead. Frame Generation further boosts both cards, with the Radeon RX 7600 reaching 55 fps and the GeForce RTX 4060 hitting 67 fps, a 22% advantage for NVIDIA. However, this pattern doesn’t always hold in the other two resolutions. In 1440p, things are mixed, but in 1080p, it looks like AMD’s Radeon RX 7600 gets ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 with and without FSR or Frame Generation.

Benchmarking Ghost of Tsushima: AMD FSR on NVIDIA vs. AMD

In Horizon Forbidden West, I saw smaller and more consistent differences. At 4K resolution, the Radeon RX 7600 lags 30% behind the GeForce RTX 4060. Enabling FSR narrows the gap slightly, but NVIDIA still leads by about 27%. Frame Generation gives a slight bump to both cards, with the Radeon RX 7600 peaking at 25 fps and the GeForce RTX 4060 at 26 fps. Looking at all the results, NVIDIA remains the better choice for smoother gameplay, outperforming AMD. However, it’s also quite clear that both graphics cards benefit from AMD FSR and Frame Generation.

Benchmarking Horizon Forbidden West: AMD FSR on NVIDIA vs. AMD

In Remnant II, the Radeon RX 7600 starts with a 4% lead at native 4K resolution. However, with FSR, NVIDIA flips the table, gaining 18% compared to AMD’s card. Frame Generation boosts both GPUs significantly, but the GeForce RTX 4060 achieves 47 fps, maintaining a 38% lead over the Radeon RX 7600’s 34 fps. At 1440p with FSR and Frame Generation, the GeForce RTX 4060 outpaces the Radeon RX 7600 by a small margin (3 – 5%), while in 1080p, it’s the opposite (1 – 2%).

Benchmarking Remnant II: AMD FSR on NVIDIA vs. AMD

Last but not least, Starfield, which gave me an interesting mix. At 4K resolution, the Radeon RX 7600 starts with a 30% lead, but with FSR enabled, NVIDIA regains the advantage, improving by 110% compared to AMD’s 50%. Frame Generation makes AMD get its edge back, with the Radeon RX 7600 reaching 67 fps, ahead of the GeForce RTX 4060’s 60 fps. In 1440p and 1080p resolutions, the GeForce RTX 4060 proves faster than the Radeon RX 7600 when using FSR. However, when enabling Frame Generation too, the GeForce RTX 4060 trails behind the Radeon RX 7600 (between 2 to 28%).

Benchmarking Starfield: AMD FSR on NVIDIA vs. AMD

As you can see from the charts, AMD FSR lives up to the hype offering impressive performance gains across different games, and it does so without compromising too much on image quality. Unfortunately, looking at the framerates in each game and resolution, with and without FSR, still doesn’t answer clearly which one’s better: AMD or NVIDIA. For that, I had to compile these results and look at the statistics. Let’s get to it:

Which one’s better at FSR? AMD or NVIDIA?

While the benefits of AMD FSR may vary depending on your hardware configuration, the general statistics should hold true. To create them, I calculated the geometric mean for each game and for each resolution tested, both for the scenario where AMD FSR is enabled and when it’s not.

Are you wondering what a geometric mean is and why I chose to compile the results this way? Well, what you should know is that this is a method of calculating the average of a group of numbers by multiplying them all together and then getting the nth root. While it may sound complicated, it actually isn’t (see this Wikipedia article for more insight). Furthermore, the geometric mean is helpful when you need to compare the growth rates of various things. For instance, if you’d like to know how much money interest rates will get you yearly in a bank account, you should use the geometric mean. The same applies to this AMD FSR experiment: I want to get a better idea on the average framerate over the entire pack of games, all put together, so that I can then calculate the percentage increase when using AMD FSR.

AMD vs. NVIDIA: Which is better at FSR?

This is what I learned from analyzing the numbers in the table above:

• In 4K resolution, the GeForce RTX 4060 starts slightly ahead without FSR. With FSR enabled, both cards see big improvements, 59% for NVIDIA and 48% for AMD, bringing their performance closer. With FSR and Frame Generation combined, the Radeon RX 7600 improves by 127%, which is just a tiny bit more than the GeForce RTX 4060’s 126% boost. This means both graphics cards benefit a lot from FSR when gaming in 4K.
• At 1440p, the Radeon RX 7600 gains 49% with FSR, while the GeForce RTX 4060 boosts its fps by 50%. With Frame Generation turned on, AMD’s card gets a massive 127% improvement, which is noticeable more than what I got with the GeForce RTX 4060. However, the GeForce RTX 4060 also delivers smoother gameplay, with a framerate boost of 103%!
• In 1080p resolution, the Radeon RX 7600 sees impressive gains with FSR and Frame Generation, improving by 108%, compared to the GeForce RTX 4060’s 95%. However, when Frame Generation isn’t enabled, but FSR upscaling is, the GeForce RTX 4060 maintains an edge over the Radeon RX 7600, offering a framerate increase of 49%, versus the 39% achieved by the Radeon RX 7600.

Phew, lots of numbers! To draw a conclusion from all that, I’d say that overall, the GeForce RTX 4060 performs better with FSR upscaling, offering higher fps across all resolutions. However, the Radeon RX 7600 makes slightly larger percentage improvements with FSR and Frame Generation, making it a strong choice for budget-conscious gamers. And, in the end, it’s clear that AMD FSR is a fantastic technology that works great on any GPU, whether you’re using AMD, NVIDIA, or Intel, which makes it completely platform-agnostic and accessible to all gamers. Kudos, AMD!

What’s your opinion about FSR on AMD vs. NVIDIA?

That’s all for today’s gaming experiment. I hope you found the insights as interesting as I did while testing these two graphic cards. If you enjoyed this analysis, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! Do you use AMD FSR on your gaming machine? What graphics card are you using, and which games do you find benefit the most from it? Have you noticed smoother gameplay or higher frame rates after turning it on? Don’t hesitate to share your feedback, and until next time, happy gaming and may your frame rates stay high!