AMD's FSR 4 running on RDNA 2 and 3 GPUs shows a 23% performance improvement over native

Although unofficial, it's possible to get FSR 4 working on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPUs, with the lighter INT8 model delivering impressive performance.

AMD's FSR 4 running on RDNA 2 and 3 GPUs shows a 23% performance improvement over native
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TL;DR: AMD's FSR 4 AI upscaling offers significant performance gains and improved image quality over FSR 3.1, especially on RDNA 4 GPUs. An unofficial INT8 FSR 4 version extends compatibility to RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 cards, boosting performance by up to 23% at 1440p with minor quality trade-offs, enhancing gaming experiences.

Using upscaling or 'Super Resolution' technologies like NVIDIA's DLSS, AMD's FSR, or Intel's XeSS is always a trade-off. You're essentially sacrificing visual quality and fidelity for improved performance, with the best examples actually delivering native-like or even better-than-native results thanks to advanced AI models.

FSR 4 running on the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT shows performance gains over native rendering, image credit: Computer Base.
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FSR 4 running on the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT shows performance gains over native rendering, image credit: Computer Base.

NVIDIA's DLSS (especially the new DLSS 4) and AMD's FSR 4 are the two best examples of AI-powered upscaling for PC gaming; however, the latter is limited and exclusive to the new Radeon RX 9000 Series of GPUs due to its AI hardware requirement. This means RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 owners with a Radeon RX 6800 XT or Radeon RX 7800 XT are limited to using the inferior FSR 3.1, which delivers improved performance at the cost of image fidelity that's a step or two behind DLSS and FSR 4.

The good news is that, thanks to an unintended leak of FSR 4 code and files, an unofficial INT8 version of FSR 4 is circulating. It works on all Radeon GPUs, including RDNA 2 and RDNA 4 cards - but requires a bit of manual work. And with that, German outlet Computer Base has conducted an in-depth look at the performance and image quality of FSR 3 and FSR 4 running on three generations of Radeon hardware.

With the Radeon RX 9060 XT (RDNA 4), Radeon RX 7800 XT (RDNA 3), and Radeon RX 6800 XT (RDNA 2), the report looks at a wide range of games, including Assassin's Creed Shadows, Borderlands 4, Cronos: The New Dawn, Cyberpunk 2077, F1 25, and many more. We learn that the smaller INT8 version of FSR 4, compatible with RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPUs, delivers worse image quality than the "full fat" version of FSR 4 that runs on RDNA 4 cards. However, image quality is still noticeably improved over FSR 3.1, and the performance drop-off is only in the 9-13% range.

The more impressive stat, however, is that using the FSR 4 'Quality' preset at 1440p, you're still looking at a 23% performance improvement, on average, on the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT, when compared to native rendering. So, yeah, it kind of sounds like AMD is just sitting on a version of FSR 4 that works on multiple generations of Radeon GPU hardware, but for some reason, it hasn't decided to release it. Hopefully, that's set to change, as there are still many gamers with RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 graphics cards, which the latest Steam data shows are more popular than the RDNA 4 models.