Starfield Runs Better on AMD GPUs Thanks to Architectural Advantages, New in-Depth Analysis Suggests

Starfield, the new huge role-playing game developed by Bethesda, generally runs more efficiently on AMD GPUs than NVIDIA GPUs thanks to some architectural advantages, as suggested by a new in-depth analysis shared online this week.

ChipsAndCheese took a good look at the game’s performance on both manufacturers’ current flagship cards, RTX 4090 and RX 7900 XTX, highlighting how AMD’s card provides better efficiency at all resolutions, although the gap gets narrower at higher resolutions. As summarized by Reddit user Mikereysalo, ChipsAndCheese highlights how the AMD card overachieves in this game thanks to some architectural advantages, which include having fewer cores with bigger register files, which allow the GPU to track more threads per core, leading to higher occupancy that benefits performance, a higher L2 bandwidth granted by smaller L2 cache, and using wave 64 instead of wave32, which tracks only half the threads as wave32, but with some performance benefits.

As such, it’s not that NVIDIA GPUs are underperforming in Starfield’s case but that AMD GPUs are overperforming. Even so, ChipsAndCheese concludes that NVIDIA’s strategy is ultimately validated by the RTX 4090’s massive shader array, which allows it to come out on top with 55.2 FPS, executed in 18.1 ms in the analyzed frame. AMD’s 7900 XTX falls a bit short at nearly 50 FPS, rendered in 20.2 ms.

The full analysis provides plenty of interesting facts on the matter, so make sure to check it out to understand how Bethesda’s game takes advantage of the unique architectural features of AMD GPUs.

While performance is an issue for some, Starfield is still a more than worthy role-playing game to get, thanks to an engaging story, huge amount of meaningful content, and solid combat, as I highlighted in my review.

With an engaging story, well-developed characters and lore, and a huge amount of meaningful content, Starfield is one of Bethesda’s finest games and one of the best role-playing games released in the past few years. The lack of seamless exploration and real innovation of the typical gameplay formula from the studio are noteworthy, but those willing to forego these issues will find a reactive and sprawling sci-fi universe to lose themselves in for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours.

Starfield is now available on PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S worldwide. The game is also available as part of the Xbox Game Pass library on PC and consoles.