I'm considering upgrading my RTX 3080 to an RX 9070 XT. The 9070 XT would provide a substantial improvement for AAA games on my 4K TV, and I've heard AMD's newer drivers may have lower CPU overhead, which could help in a CPU-limited game like Valorant. However, the RTX 3080 supports NVIDIA Reflex, which is designed to reduce system latency. How significant is Reflex compared with the 9070 XT's higher raw performance in a competitive FPS? I play Valorant at competitive settings on a 1440p 360Hz OLED monitor with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory, and a lightweight high-polling-rate mouse. I'm primarily interested in latency and consistently high FPS rather than visual quality. I'd also like to know whether shader-cache stutter is still noticeable after installing an AMD card or driver, and would appreciate real measurements or firsthand experience.
5 Answers
Shader compilation isn’t unique to AMD. Both NVIDIA and AMD systems can stutter while a game builds or updates its shader cache, particularly after a driver change or game update. Once the relevant shaders have been compiled, the issue generally settles down. Valorant is not usually considered a particularly demanding shader-compilation case, so I wouldn’t treat that as a major reason to avoid the 9070 XT.
I’ve used both a 3080 Ti and a 9070 XT in high-refresh competitive games. The AMD card sometimes produced higher FPS, especially with a 480Hz display, but in practical use the difference in Valorant was negligible. The larger improvements came from the higher-refresh monitor, consistent frame times, and the input device. For a 360Hz setup, either card should be capable of excellent performance if the CPU and game settings are configured properly.
Valorant is heavily CPU-limited, so the GPU upgrade probably won’t make a meaningful difference to how the game feels. Even relatively old graphics cards can push several hundred FPS. The 9070 XT may produce higher FPS in some systems, but your 5800X3D and 360Hz monitor are likely to matter more than the choice between these two GPUs.
Higher FPS does reduce input latency, including when it exceeds your monitor’s refresh rate, but Reflex isn’t magic. It mainly prevents the GPU render queue from becoming bloated and helps when the GPU is saturated. If the game is CPU-bound and the GPU is already lightly loaded, Reflex has much less to do. In that situation, the card that delivers the higher FPS and steadier frame times will generally have the lower latency.
The 9070 XT is a substantial rasterization upgrade over the RTX 3080 and is much better suited to modern 4K gaming, with more VRAM and stronger ray-tracing performance. AMD also has Anti-Lag 2 as its latency feature, although game support is not as broad as Reflex. If Valorant latency is the only goal, keeping the 3080 is reasonable; if you also want a clear 4K AAA upgrade, the 9070 XT makes much more sense.
I’m using the 5800X3D with 32GB of DDR4, so it sounds like Valorant itself probably won’t justify the upgrade. The 4K gaming improvement is the main reason I’m still considering it.
That makes sense. I’m already using a 1440p 360Hz OLED, so the upgrade would mainly be for better performance in AAA games on my 4K TV.