2023 has been a year of blockbuster game releases, kicking off in January with Dead Space: Remake and followed by high-quality AAA titles almost every month. In December, alongside the highly anticipated TGA Awards, Ubisoft capped off the year with , offering players a breathtaking journey through the vibrant world of Pandora.
To achieve next-gen visuals, Ubisoft utilized an upgraded Snowdrop engine for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which includes support for ray tracing.
For upscaling, AMD is Ubisoft’s official partner, so the game launched with FSR 3 support. However, our tests confirmed that DLSS is also functional on NVIDIA GPUs, though XeSS remains unsupported.
The game displays the AMD logo at the beginning.
In-game visuals and upscaling comparisons
During gameplay, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora excels in lighting, especially at night when fluorescent plants create a magical atmosphere. The dense vegetation, detailed plant models, and high color saturation make the visuals stunning.
After years of development, DLSS and FSR now deliver near-native image quality. However, FSR still falls slightly short in sharpness compared to DLSS, as shown in our screenshot comparisons.
Test Platform and Methodology
The test setup mirrors our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 configuration: an Intel Core i7-14700K CPU, MSI MPG Z790 EDGE TI MAX WIFI motherboard, and the latest GPUs from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. Testing covered 1080p, 2K, and 4K resolutions. Lower-tier GPUs like the RTX 4060, RX 7600, RX 6750 GRE 12GB, and Arc A750 were excluded from 4K testing.
AMD GPUs tested included the Yeston Sakura Sugar Radeon RX 7900 XTX, Yeston Sakura Sugar Radeon RX 7900 XT, Yeston Sakura Radeon RX 7800 XT, Yeston Sakura Radeon RX 7700 XT, and Yeston Game Ace Radeon RX 7600. For the RX 6750 GRE, we used the XFX Speedster RX 6750 XT GRE 12GB.
Like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora includes a built-in benchmark tool that records average FPS and hardware utilization. Average FPS data comes from this tool, while 1% lows were measured via FrameView.
GPU Testing Requirements
4K Resolution – Rasterization Settings
4K Resolution – Ray Tracing Settings
At 4K, NVIDIA’s high-end GPUs outperformed AMD in both rasterization and ray tracing. Only the RTX 4090 achieved 60+ FPS with ray tracing enabled. For 4K rasterization, RTX 4080 or higher is required.
AMD’s RX 7000 series struggled: only the RX 7900 XTX hit 60+ FPS in rasterization, dropping to 46 FPS with ray tracing. Moreover, as shown in the charts above, the RX 7000 series GPUs performed poorly in 1% low frame rates, with their test results falling short of the RTX 40 series GPUs.
2K Resolution – Rasterization Settings
2K Resolution – Ray Tracing Settings
As the current mainstream resolution, we tested all selected GPUs at 2K resolution. NVIDIA’s RTX 40 series GPUs remain the top performers: the RTX 4070 is sufficient for smooth gameplay at 2K rasterized settings. For 2K ray-traced settings, the minimum requirement is an RTX 4070 Ti, though the RTX 4070 still achieves an average of 57 FPS in this scenario, which is largely playable.
The AMD team also delivers solid performance at this resolution. In 2K rasterized settings, the RX 7900 XTX surpasses 100 FPS, and the RX 7800 XT is the minimum for smooth gameplay. Even the RX 7700 XT manages an average of 58 FPS in these settings. However, ray tracing remains a weakness for the AMD team: the RX 7900 XT is required as the baseline for playable 2K ray-traced performance.
As for Intel’s Arc GPUs, both the Arc A770 and A750 fail to deliver smooth gameplay at 2K resolution.
1080P Resolution – Rasterization Settings
1080P Resolution– Ray Tracing Settings
At 1080p, both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs face minimal pressure. Under rasterized settings, all GPUs from the AMD (red team) and NVIDIA (green team) deliver smooth gameplay. For 1080p ray-traced settings, NVIDIA’s RTX 40 series requires only an RTX 4060 Ti, while AMD needs just an RX 7700 XT for playable performance.
However, Intel’s Arc A770 (16GB) and A750 GPUs failed to achieve an average of 60+ FPS at 1080p, whether in ray tracing or rasterization.
Upscaling Performance Test
Since the game natively supports both FSR 3 and DLSS, we used the RX 7800 XT and RTX 4070 to test the performance of FSR 3 and DLSS respectively at a native 4K resolution with the "Ultra" graphics preset.
The data shows that without frame generation enabled, the RX 7800 XT achieves playable frame rates using AMD FSR 3’s Performance mode. When enabling frame generation with FSR 3 Quality mode, the average frame rate jumps to 84 FPS—nearly doubling performance.
For DLSS, while the game does not support DLSS Frame Generation, NVIDIA’s RTX 4070 still delivers up to a 3.5x performance boost with DLSS enabled. To achieve smooth 4K ray-traced gameplay on the RTX 4070, DLSS Balanced mode meets the 60 FPS target.
CPU Requirements Test
In this section, we simulated the game’s performance across different CPUs by adjusting the core counts and clock speeds of an Intel Core i7-14700K. Beyond default settings, E-Cores were disabled, and only P-Cores were active, configured with 4, 6, or 8 cores at frequencies of 4.0GHz or 5.0GHz. Hyper-threading was enabled throughout.
Testing conducted at 1080p resolution using an RTX 4080 GPU.
The results demonstrate that neither core count nor clock speed significantly impacts the game’s average FPS. However, adjusting these parameters affects the 1% low frame rates. This suggests Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has modest CPU demands: a quad-core, eight-thread processor suffices for smooth gameplay, while a mainstream hexa-core, twelve-thread CPU improves stability, ensuring 1% lows stay above 60 FPS.
Conclusion
Based on the comprehensive performance testing above, we conclude that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has modest hardware requirements at 1080p and 2K rasterized settings. For 1080p displays, any NVIDIA RTX 40-series or AMD RX 7000-series GPU will deliver a smooth experience. At 2K resolution, an RTX 4060 Ti or RX 7700 XT achieves 60+ FPS averages. Across both GPU brands, NVIDIA’s RTX 40 series outperforms AMD’s RX 7000 series in both average and 1% low frame rates.
For enthusiasts seeking ray-traced or 4K visuals, NVIDIA’s 40-series GPUs are recommended. Our tests show only the RTX 4090 exceeds 60 FPS in 4K ray-traced settings, while 4K rasterization requires an RTX 4090, RTX 4080, or AMD’s RX 7900 XTX for playable performance.
For CPU requirements, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is very accommodating—a quad-core, eight-thread processor can handle the game effortlessly.
In summary, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is well-optimized for mainstream 1080p and 2K gaming with current mid-tier GPUs. However, 4K and ray tracing enthusiasts will need the highest-end GPUs to fully experience its next-gen visuals.