Maybe AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs aren’t midrange after all – early Black Ops 6 benchmark shows a 99fps average at 4K without even needing FSR

LovabledanielsJanuary 8, 202557 Views

AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 scores a 99fps average in Black Ops 6 at native 4K
Early benchmark was done in rig using the new Ryzen 9950X3D
FSR 4 could provide a massive frame rate boost based on this benchmark

While AMD made it clear that it wouldn’t focus on high-end GPUs this generation but instead target the midrange space, a new benchmark using the Radeon RX 9070 GPU in Call of Duty Black Ops 6 suggests otherwise.

Discovered by IGN, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 maintains an average of 99fps (pictured below) at 4K on the Extreme preset without using FSR 3.1 or the new FSR 4 AI-powered upscaling method.

IGN states that Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Super (notably not a midrange GPU) achieves ‘around 129fps’ using the same graphics settings at the 4K resolution, but with DLSS Quality resolution upscaling enabled – I can corroborate this as a 4080 Super user myself, suggesting that AMD’s RDNA 4 GPU may pack a bigger punch than anticipated.

Since these are early benchmark results in a system that uses Team Red’s newly announced Ryzen 9 9950X3D processor with early alpha drivers, much more remains to be unveiled regarding the RX 9070’s performance capabilities. So far, it’s shaping up to be a strong GPU choice in terms of raw power and performance across demanding games.

Pretty impressive results if you ask me… (Image credit: IGN)

Was AMD lowering our expectations for its new GPUs because of Nvidia’s Blackwell offerings?

It’s safe to say that we all anticipated a complete Nvidia domination over AMD in the GPU department leading up to CES 2025. The new RTX 5000 series lineup is slated to outperform Team Red’s RX 9060 and 9070 GPUs (especially using DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation), but this Black Ops 6 benchmark has left me believing that AMD intentionally misled us.

Knowing that Nvidia would most likely take the lead, it wouldn’t surprise me if AMD pushed the ‘midrange’ narrative beforehand to undersell its new GPUs and soften the blow of a visible CES defeat against its main rival. The Radeon RX 9060 and 9070 might not be considered high-end, but these early results tell a different story. It feels a little wild to call a GPU ‘midrange’ and then watch it close in on 100fps at 4K in a recent release with zero upscaling methods at work.

While it’s massively disappointing to hear that FSR 4 will be exclusive to the RX 9070 series (at least for now), Team Red could stand in a better position if the new upscaling tool competes closely with DLSS 4 and the new RDNA 4 GPUs are sensibly priced – as AMD’s own ‘midrange’ label would suggest.