EEVEE Next vs. Cycles - Blender 4.2

I thought I'd throw together a short comparison video between the two main render engines in Blender: Cycles and the upcoming EEVEE Next (in 4.2 beta).
This isn't a definitive, nor fully objective comparison. Remember that how you render your animations, along with any post-processing, will change how any render looks - regardless of render engine!

For reference (WRT render times):
CPU: Ryzen 7 5700X (OC'd with PBO + Curve Optimizer)
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3070 (OC'd to 2070 MHz)
RAM: 32GB @ 3600 MHz CL16
Blender Version: 4.2 Beta (14/06/2024)

Cycles Render Settings:
Res.: 2048 x 858
Samples: 4096
Noise Threshold: 0.02
Light Paths: Full Global Illumination
GPU Accelerated Denoising and Compositing

EEVEE Next:
Res.: 2048 x 858
Samples: 128
Shadows: 2 rays, 8 steps, full resolution
Raytracing: Screen-Trace, 1:1
Fast GI Approx.: Global Illumination, 1:1, 6 rays, 24 steps
High Quality Normals enabled
Shadow Pool: 1GB
GPU Accelerated Compositing

Music Used: Unrailed! OST - Steampipe Sonata
Also, if you're curious, I used the AgX, High Contrast view transform.

[PixelsAndPolygonsCGI]

Wow! This video has gotten a lot more attention than I expected! Thanks for all your comments, suggestions, questions and critiques - it's much appreciated.
I've seen a few comments on the bloom between Cycles and EEVEE - this purely down to my own mistake of changing the exposure in EEVEE and not adjusting the bloom for the Cycles render. Oops...
Why 4096 samples? I had tested out lower samples, but you could still see noise in the animation - using multipass or temporal denoising. So, since this was a final render, I bumped out the sample count to eliminate noise!

[AlexisRiveraD]

The flickering in EEVEE Next is noticeable

[ThreeDCreate]

Well the glass looks better in cycles and eevee looks more like plastic and the lighting on the screen looks blurred in eevee. Getting better for sure. Thanks for sharing

[containedhurricane]

I hope Blender developers will be able to get rid of the flickering in Eevee

[ArTech_Artist]

A critical limitation of EEVEE is that it is based on screen space.
If the lighting source that will cause diffuse reflection is not visible on the screen, GI will not be displayed.
For example, try hiding an object with an emission value behind another object.
Cycles correctly projects the illuminant's light into the environment via path tracing, but EEVEE will not capture the rays of the occluded illuminator, so it will have no effect.

The only time EEVEE can measure the quality of a cycle is when it has a very limited number of camera angles.

[matchdance]

Nice Comparision! I think for this specific scene, Eevee came off a little bit better to the eyes. And it seems like cycles has no glare. Overall huge W for Eevee being this close to Cycles.

[syaoranli]

Cycles still wins by a wide margin given its ray tracing properties, but the progress that Eevee has made is astounding. I'm excited to see what the future has in store for it

Edit: Obviously render time is where Eevee shines the most. But the closer Eevee can approximate cycles, the better. Fewer operations, cleaner image, what a sight that would be

[EladBarness]

The jittering reflections and shadows are the things that disturb me the most, other than that, all other things can be fixed/manipulated

[Blenderbarn]

Cycles is just so clean! but I am exited for the future development of eevee

[Whalester]

You were really that patient to render an animation at 4096?!?!! Hope you had a second machine for it. Thanks for the test <3 <3

[tle]

EEVEE has really come a long way, just WOW!!

[humbleraider]

Very cool comparison! Thanks for sharing.

[Nevil_Ton]

For now EEVEE Next is just a refactor of the old EEVEE. they rewritten that to make easier the enhancing and developing more future. EEVEE will have greater abilities in future release.

[xalener]

I wonder if there's a node setup to recreate the TAA in modern game rendering engines to eliminate that flickering

[godnyx]

EEVEE Next is AWESOME!!! For someone like me who doesn't care to make the most realistic and high quality renders, it's the render engine of choice!

[moreboss]

Trust me both rendering engines are amazing

[Lord]

You werent able to get rid of flikering in eevee? It looks gameish bsc of that. it looks like a game overall but I think it is the most noticable

[AlexeyDesign]

Please compare EEVEE Next and EEVEE in Blender SSGI Build

[Jason-rvoq]

How to set see through glass materials in Eevee next?

[christinekellylouisehaylet]

Why are people comparing these 2, one is for the final result the other disigned to give you the rough idea what things will look like.