The Black Ops 7 beta is almost over – it ends soon (recently extended to October 9) and has been available as early as October 2 for those with early access, later opening up to all players on the 5th. As always, the latest entry to the Call of Duty franchise is geared towards being accessible for a wide range of PC hardware; there are no crazy high system requirements. Benchmarks performed during the beta also show that AMD hardware is being favored, with the RX 9070 XT proving to be 31% faster than the 5070 Ti at 1440p.

Obviously Nvidia’s flagship RTX 5090 is top of the pack, but AMD’s 9000 series’ top GPU isn’t as far behind as you’d expect despite the large gap in power. The IW engine has historically favored AMD graphics cards, as we saw in Black Ops 6, and Black Ops 7 doesn’t look to deviate from this pattern.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 beta benchmarks

These benchmarks are courtesy of German publication ComputerBase. The folks over there have tested the beta version of the game in 1440p, 1440p (ultrawide), and 4K resolutions. Sadly there are no 1080p benchmarks to go off, but it’s safe to say that any of the cards tested would manage at least 60 FPS on the extreme preset. However, it’s important to note that upscaling is being utilized in these tests.

• Extreme graphics preset
• Upscaling enabled
  • DLSS 4 for Nvidia GPUs (quality mode, 1.5x upscaling)
  • FSR 4 for Radeon RX 9000 GPUs (quality mode, 1.5x upscaling)
  • XeSS Ultra Quality Plus for Intel Arc and Radeon RX 7000 GPUs (1.3x upscaling)

The RX 9070 XT aims to go toe-to-toe with RTX 5070 Ti, but in reality, it falls slightly behind the Nvidia card when you look at the bigger picture. But in Black Ops 7, it’s clear that the RX 9070 XT pulls ahead. The gap between the two mid-high tier cards is closer in 4K, with the 9070 XT and 5070 Ti averaging 116 FPS and 97.5 FPS, respectively (meaning the Radeon GPU is 19% faster at this resolution). It should be taken into account, however, that the 9070 XT is a considerably cheaper graphics card.

Sadly we don’t have any native benchmarks to go off, so there’s also the factor of DLSS and FSR 4 implementation to consider. Black Ops 6 is an AMD-sponsored game, so its sequel could also be favored in this respect. Both rival technologies are strongly supported in BO7 regardless. ComputerBase also opted to use Intel’s XeSS upscaler for the older AMD graphics cards; FSR 4 is currently exclusive to the 9000 series, but this may soon change. The last-gen 7800 XT is a close match for Nvidia’s RTX 4070 when using XeSS and DLSS 4, respectively, while the only Intel GPU tested – the Arc B580 – averages around 70 FPS at 1440p.

Overall, Black Ops 7 is shaping up to be well optimzed for AMD Radeon GPUs, and we don’t expect this to change by the time the game is fulled released. In any case, it should still be noted that these benchmarks are not performed on the final version of the game and do not reflect the exact launch day performance. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is set to release on November 14, just over a month after rival Battlefield 6.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.