Microsoft has just unleashed the Forza Horizon 4 demo, and AMD has been busy using the built-in benchmark to show that its GPU are in the overtaking lane when compared to Nvidia, with the Radeon RX Vega 64 outdoing Nvidia’s GTX 1080 from Full HD (1080p) resolution up to 4K.

AMD’s test system comprised of an Intel Core i7-7700K (running at 4GHz) with 16GB of system memory, and (naturally) the latest publicly available Radeon and GeForce graphics drivers.

Using the near-three-minute long benchmark available in the DX12 demo, at 1080p resolution with high details, AMD’s RX Vega 64 managed 155 frames per second (fps) with air cooling (162 fps with liquid). That neatly outpaces the GeForce GTX 1080 which recorded 141 fps (all these scores are drawn from three benchmark runs, with the median average taken).

Ultra details dropped the air-cooled RX Vega 64 to 125 fps compared to 111 fps for the GTX 1080.

Cranking the resolution to 2560 x 1440 with ultra detail levels meant the RX Vega 64 recorded 100 fps compared to 89 fps for the GTX 1080.

And hitting 4K with high details meant the air-cooled RX Vega 64 achieved 85 fps, and 68 fps on ultra details, with the GTX 1080 managing a comparative 78 fps and 62 fps respectively.

Vega victory

That’s quite an impressive showing, which is clearly why AMD has taken the time to highlight all this, particularly when you consider that broadly speaking, the Vega 64 is pitched at around the same sort of price level as Nvidia’s GTX 1080. Indeed, in the UK the AMD GPU is actually a touch cheaper than many GTX 1080 models going by prices online at the time of writing (albeit stock of the AMD card is still thinner on the ground, as ever).

Of course, we have to sprinkle the usual salt around here, given that this is AMD’s own internal testing, and at any rate, going by a single game is a very narrow viewpoint of GPU performance.

AMD notes that it “worked closely with Playground Games to give Radeon players the best performance in this demo”.

The firm also ran a number of other benchmarks with the Forza Horizon 4 demo, and claims that its RX Vega 56 ran 13% to 22% faster than Nvidia’s GTX 1070 across the gamut of 1080p to 4K resolutions, and indeed that it was 2% to 12% faster than the GTX 1070 Ti.

AMD further boasted that its Radeon RX 580 was 12% to 16% faster than the GTX 1060 (6GB model).