AMD’s FSR 4.1 gives Radeon RX 7000 owners a cleaner image, but the upgrade does not come free: on RDNA 3 cards, Computer Base found performance losses of 7% to 14% versus FSR 3.1, depending on the GPU, the game, and the upscaling mode. The trade-off is straightforward enough to annoy optimists and tempt anyone who cares more about image quality than a few extra frames.
The test covered the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, RX 7800 XT, and RX 7600 after AMD added FSR 4.1 support for RDNA 3 in Adrenalin 26.6.2. That matters because AMD is effectively widening access to its newest upscaler, but on older hardware it is leaning on INT8-based AI processing rather than the FP8 approach used on RDNA 4 cards such as the Radeon RX 9000 series.
FSR 4.1 on Radeon RX 7000
Computer Base compared FSR 4.1 on RDNA 3 with both FSR 3.1 and FSR 4.1 on RDNA 4, and the picture is mixed in the good old PC-gaming way: better visuals, slower output. The publication says the final INT8 version is much better than the leaked build that surfaced last year, which had obvious image problems, so AMD at least appears to have gotten the quality side of the equation under control.
- Radeon RX 7900 XTX at 4K: FSR 4.1 delivered 40% more performance in ”Quality” mode and up to 73% in ”Performance” mode
- On the same card, FSR 3.1 delivered 57% and 103% respectively
- That makes FSR 4.1 about 11% slower in ”Quality” mode and 14% slower in ”Performance” mode on the RX 7900 XTX
Smaller RDNA 3 cards lose less performance
The gap narrows on lower-tier hardware. On the Radeon RX 7800 XT at 1440p and the RX 7600 at 1080p, FSR 4.1 was only 7% slower in ”Quality” mode and 9% slower in ”Performance” mode. That is a much easier pill to swallow, especially if the alternative is a crisper image with fewer shimmering edges and less of the fuzzy mess that can make upscaling look cheap.
Computer Base’s conclusion is blunt: the image-quality gains are worth the penalty for many users. In ”Balanced” mode, FSR 4.1 reportedly lands at roughly the same performance level as FSR 3.1 in ”Quality” mode, while delivering visibly better image quality. That is exactly the sort of upgrade AMD wants people to notice, even if the benchmark charts still remind you that physics has not been canceled.
AMD’s FSR 4.1 strategy for Radeon RX 7000
This is also a familiar pattern in GPU software: the newest upscaler often arrives first as a quality story and only later becomes a performance story. Nvidia has spent years proving that cleaner reconstruction can sell hardware as effectively as raw frame rates, and AMD is clearly trying to close that gap on both RDNA 3 and RDNA 4. The catch is that older chips rarely get the best version of the software, and FSR 4.1 on RDNA 3 looks like proof that support and parity are not the same thing.
The next question is whether AMD can keep improving FSR 4.1 on RDNA 3 without giving back more speed, or whether this is the ceiling for INT8-based support on Radeon RX 7000. If the quality edge keeps widening, some players will accept the slowdown. If not, FSR 3.1 may stay the practical choice for anyone who still measures success in frames, not screenshots.