AMD Says Nvidia Released Ray Tracing Before It Was Ready

AMD Respond To Nvidia Criticism

Following the official announcement of the upcoming release of the new graphics card from AMD, the Radeon VII, there has been something of a war of words between them and Nvidia. While, admittedly, it seems that most of the shots seemed to be firing from Nvidia, AMD is keen to emphasise that despite their graphics card not having ray tracing it’s still a highly powerful design.

It has, in fact, led to the AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su firing a little shot back at Nvidia. She claims that while their card might not have ray tracing, Nvidia released it when it wasn’t ready.

Shots Fired!

In a report via PCWorld, Dr Su has said that Nvidia essentially only released ray tracing for bragging rights. In a nutshell, because they wanted to be the first to do it.

“Technology for technology’s sake is okay; technology done together with partners, and really getting the development community fully engaged, I think is really important.”

Now, you can, of course, interpret this in one of two ways. Either you believe she is right and Nvidia released it before it was really market ready or it’s AMD trying to defend their lack of it. While there is a good case to make for either, I think if I had to make a choice, I’d pick AMD’s narrative. I do, however, add some caveats and, of course, more reasoning to that.

Ray Tracing

Don’t get me wrong, what we’ve seen from ray tracing in the 20XX graphics cards has been very impressive. What is clear, however, is that when you crank up the graphics, ray tracing drags the performance down hugely. In realistic terms, you could argue that while ray tracing can be fully-experienced, it’s currently a 1080p experience. At least for best results.

This may, of course, change as both Nvidia, Microsoft and game developers all look to work together to get better results. When AMD does release a ray tracing capable card, however, rest assured that Nvidia will remember these remarks! Particular since AMD announced that when they do introduce ray tracing, “it’ll be worth it”!

We should note that AMD has just also announced that the Radeon VII will be sold directly for MSRP. You can read more about that in the link here!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!