AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT: Two minute overview
Pay attention, we actually hope you are going to learn the complete overview under, however we will make a giant sweeping assertion proper now that may render all our laborious work nugatory: this GPU did not actually have to exist.
Does that imply it is a unhealthy GPU? Completely not! The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a really strong selection of graphics card, providing wonderful gaming efficiency at a really aggressive value level. Broadly talking, it hits all the identical excessive notes (and has all the identical foibles) as the wonderful flagship RX 7900 XTX – however that is form of the issue.
Let’s take a fast departure from AMD to have a look at Nvidia’s latest GPUs. The RTX 4090 is crazily costly however supplies a monstrous quantity of energy for that value; conversely, the RTX 4080 prices $400 much less at MSRP within the US, and is considerably much less highly effective consequently.
With this in thoughts, the value disparity between the 2 new Radeon playing cards – a mere $100 – feels unusual. As you will see additional down, the efficiency distinction does principally align with the hole in pricing, with the extra highly effective XTX card proving to be barely higher worth for cash general. Should you’ve received the money to drop on a $899 GPU, you possibly can realistically afford a $999 GPU, certainly? Why would not you wait somewhat longer to scrape collectively that further hundred bucks, and purchase the superior product?
Therein lies the issue: whereas AMD has skilfully undercut Nvidia in relation to the price-to-performance ratio of its new playing cards, Workforce Purple is falling again into its outdated methods and repeating the identical errors of the RX 6000 era by already overcrowding the value bands of its GPUs.
The earlier era had a ‘too many cooks’ drawback, the place a number of closely-priced variants (like non-XT and xx50 fashions) prompted shopper confusion. We’re involved that we is perhaps witnessing the start of an analogous mess.
Regardless of this, we won’t actually mark down the Radeon RX 7900 XT itself; the cardboard performs admirably for its $899 price ticket, with huge enhancements over RDNA 2 in relation to ray tracing and FSR efficiency. Should you’re searching for among the finest graphics playing cards for gaming on a 4K monitor, it is a sound choose – and it is rattling good worth for cash, too.
A lot of the criticisms we will stage on the RX 7900 XT line up with our points with the XTX model of the GPU: it lags behind Nvidia in inventive workloads and makes use of quite a variety of energy throughout basic use (although nonetheless nothing in comparison with the mighty RTX 4090 at full load), and whereas ray-traced efficiency has improved considerably it is nonetheless not up at Nvidia’s stage.
Nonetheless, this GPU and its massive sibling each reveal the large potential of AMD’s new RDNA 3 structure, and we won’t wait to see what AMD does subsequent. Should you want a brand new graphics card to your gaming PC and have not been in a position to purchase one – both attributable to scalping or crypto-mining bots hoovering up as many GPUs as potential – then the Radeon RX 7900 XT is certainly price a glance.
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT: Value & availability
- How a lot is it? $899 / £799 / round AU$1,345
- When is it out? December 13, 2022
- The place are you able to get it? Out there within the US, UK, and Australia
The launch MSRP of the AMD Radeon RX 790 XT is $899 within the US, placing it a fair hundred {dollars} under the flagship RX 7900 XTX. UK pricing begins at £799, with Australia anticipated to pay someplace within the area of AU$1,345.
It is price noting that these costs are just for the reference card produced by AMD itself, and nearly all of RX 7900 XT playing cards available on the market can be made by manufacturing companions equivalent to Sapphire, Gigabyte, and XFX. These playing cards are more likely to have their very own particular person retail costs which can be a bit costlier than the unique MSRP.
The cardboard launched on December 13, 2022, which suggests you should purchase one proper now – assuming you will discover one. Inventory availability was predictably spotty throughout the preliminary launch, with scalped playing cards displaying up on eBay and Newegg with horribly inflated value tags. Fortunately it appears that evidently the $999 XTX card has borne the brunt of this, with XT inventory nonetheless out there from some retailers on the time of writing.
In any case, the $899 price ticket is indicative of AMD’s want to be as aggressive as potential in opposition to Nvidia – a scenario mirrored by the equally aggressive pricing of the XTX card. Earlier this yr, the previous-gen RX 6900 XT received an enormous value drop from $999 to $679, additional showcasing AMD’s objective of offering significantly aggressive costs for its gaming GPUs.
Contemplating that the RX 7900 XT is available in at $300 cheaper than the RTX 4080, Nvidia is getting completely destroyed in relation to bang to your buck. That is a 25% cheaper price tag, however as you will see in our benchmark outcomes later on this overview, the RX 7900 XT solely carried out 15% worse than the 4080 on common. We’re totally anticipating Nvidia to reply with a value reduce within the close to future, though we doubt Workforce Inexperienced will admit the rationale behind such a transfer.
Sadly, we cannot be including both of those playing cards to our greatest low cost graphics card rating, although we sorely hope that each AMD and Nvidia give us some finances GPUs within the not-too-distant future. $899 continues to be rather a lot to spend on a single PC element, leaving this GPU out of attain for a lot of avid gamers.
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT: Options & chipset
- New chiplet design hailing from Ryzen CPUs
- Generational enhancements for ray tracing and upscaling tech
- 20GB of VRAM and DisplayPort 2.1 improves 4K and 8K output
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT key specs
GPU: Navi 31
Stream Processors: 5,376
AI Accelerators: 168
Ray Accelerators: 84
Energy draw (TGP): 315W
Base clock: 1,900MHz
Increase clock: 2,400MHz
VRAM: 20GB GDDR6
Bandwith: 800GB/s
Bus interface: PCIe 4.0 x16
Outputs: 1 x HDMI 2.1a, 2 x DisplayPort 2.1, 1 x USB Kind-C
Energy connector: 2 x 8-pin
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT makes use of a cut-down model of the identical Navi 31 GPU discovered within the flagship XTX card, and this alteration is basically mirrored within the pricing, so high marks for AMD there.
The thrilling factor about that is the brand new chiplet design being employed for the RDNA 3 GPU die – or extra precisely, dies plural, because the chiplet design employs a number of dies with ultra-fast interconnects. The principle 5nm node from TSMC is linked with further 6nm dies for cache reminiscence, a design selection that presumably enabled AMD to maintain the manufacturing prices low, because the older 6nm nodes are cheaper to supply.
This chiplet structure was initially seen in AMD’s personal Ryzen and EPYC processors, and proved very profitable in that area. It is not laborious to know why Workforce Purple opted to pursue the identical know-how in its GPU design too.
In the identical vein, each the XT and XTX playing cards use cheaper GDDR6 reminiscence quite than the GDDR6X VRAM present in Nvidia’s new RTX GPUs. The reminiscence chiplets – plus further cache reminiscence – permits AMD to successfully skip over Nvidia and obtain extra reminiscence bandwidth for much less cash, one other clear win.
In complete, there’s 20GB of GDDR6 VRAM to play with right here, 4GB lower than the XTX mannequin however nonetheless lots for no matter you need to throw at this card. Mixed with the brand new DisplayPort 2.1 video output, 4K and 8K are viable (although do not count on to be taking part in the newest triple-A video games at 8K!)
Sadly, AMD continues to be lagging behind Nvidia’s GPU market domination in different areas, even when some severe generational enhancements have been made right here. The second-gen Ray Accelerators discovered within the RX 7900 XT are a giant step up from AMD’s first-gen try, however they do not compete with the ray-tracing capabilities of the RTX 4000 playing cards (though it is price noting that they do beat Nvidia’s personal second-gen ray-tracing cores as seen within the RTX 3090).
We have additionally received new ‘AI Accelerator’ cores, that are roughly corresponding to Nvidia’s Tensor Cores in that they deal with AI-related duties equivalent to deep studying. Nvidia is at the moment on fourth-gen Tensor Cores, so AMD positively has some catching as much as do in relation to the AI capabilities of its GPUs.
Lastly, regardless that the FidelityFX Tremendous Decision (FSR) upscaling tech has made some important course of in enabling ray-traced 4K gameplay on AMD GPUs, Nvidia’s new DLSS 3 fully eclipses it due to full body era (quite than the pixel era utilized by DLSS 2 and the present FSR 2.0). We do know that the currently-in-development FSR 3.0 will function body era too, although, and FSR 2.0 can now be utilized in a a lot wider vary of video games.
- Options & Chipset: 4 / 5
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT: Design
- Makes use of two 8-pin connectors quite than a single 16-pin port
- Comparatively compact for a high-end GPU
- Three various kinds of video output
Fortunately, AMD hasn’t adopted go well with after Nvidia and made its new GPUs stupidly massive. The Radeon RX 7900 XT is rather a lot smaller than the competing RTX 4080, measuring 287mm in size with a traditional two-slot design.
It is a card that ought to match comfortably in most traditional ATX-scale PC instances, and hopefully third-party fashions from different producers will persist with this sizing. It is corresponding to any of Nvidia’s RTX 3000 playing cards in dimension, which seems like a breath of recent air in comparison with the comically big RTX 4090.
It is also only a usually handsome GPU, with a simple reference design that appears significantly better than earlier designs from AMD, which we felt regarded blocky and old school.
Past mere issues of aesthetics, the RX 7900 XT is supplied with a strong cooling answer that features three followers and a strong steel shroud protecting the heatsink. There is a small quantity of lighting, nevertheless it’s principally fairly a reserved design, which we like. There’s room on the far finish of the cardboard for a GPU help bracket to be hooked up.
A key distinction between this card and Nvidia’s new GPUs is the ability connector discovered on the highest of the cardboard. In contrast to the 16-pin connector seen on the RTX 4090 – which has prompted a bunch of quite burning points for Nvidia – AMD has opted for a simple pair of 8-pin PCIe connectors without having for any form of adaptor in the event you’re utilizing an older PSU.
For the reason that RX 7900 XT attracts simply over 300W of energy at full load, the 2×8-pin connector must be greater than ample right here. Apparently, the RTX 4080 can use a complete of three 8-pin connectors (which match through an adaptor into the one 16-pin connector on the cardboard) for nearly the very same quantity of energy, which arguably proves that Nvidia did not have to mess about with these dodgy 16-pin connectors in any respect.
Past the ability connectors, the opposite ports on supply listed here are a wide selection. We have two of the aforementioned DisplayPort 2.1 ports, a typical HDMI output, and a USB-C video out port. The latter is probably the most attention-grabbing inclusion right here, because it permits the help of a greater variety of screens – together with all the perfect USB-C screens.
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT: Efficiency
- Typically nice gaming efficiency
- Improved ray-tracing over the earlier gen
- Blender efficiency actually drags down the common
Take a look at system specs
That is the system we used to check the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
CPU Cooler: Corsair iCue H150i Elite Capellix 360mm AIO
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator LED DDR4-3200
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Grasp X570 (BIOS F36c)
SSD: Samsung 980 Professional 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Energy Provide: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench
Let’s face it: we will bang on in regards to the options and bodily design of the cardboard all day, however none of that may matter if the efficiency does not measure up. Thankfully, the Radeon RX 7900 XT performs properly in most areas – with just a few small failings right here and there.
When it comes to worth for cash, it is glorious. Common gaming efficiency at 4K is nice – all of our gaming take a look at outcomes under are uncooked outcomes that do not use AMD FSR 2.0 for enhancing framerates, so bear that in thoughts – and many manmade benchmarks returned sturdy outcomes.
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Unsurprisingly, artificial assessments equivalent to 3DMark’s suite of benchmarks confirmed efficiency barely under the RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4080, except for ray-traced assessments equivalent to Port Royal, the place the AMD playing cards have been roundly outperformed by Nvidia.
In lots of assessments, the RTX 4080 sits between the 2 new Radeon GPUs. Averaging all our artificial assessments put the RX 7900 XT at about 10% slower than the 4080 – a really spectacular displaying given the 25% value distinction.
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The most important weak point of AMD’s new RDNA 3 GPUs is indisputably the inventive efficiency. Particularly, Blender assessments have been very behind Nvidia’s scores, though Blender is thought to be higher optimized to run on Nvidia’s CUDA cores. On common the RX 7900 XT gave lower than half the efficiency of the RTX 4080 in inventive benchmarks – nonetheless, eradicating Blender from the common brings it again to a ten% distinction, marking that as an outlier.
AMD is seemingly hoping to enhance Blender efficiency through using a rewritten open-source programming language that takes higher benefit of the present {hardware}, modifications that ought to arrive in Blender 3.50 and past.
Till these updates land, although, anybody who’s planning on utilizing Blender (particularly skilled creatives) ought to actually follow Nvidia. It is price noting that the RTX 4090 continues to be the very best choose for some of these workloads – in the event you want a robust GPU for working in Blender, do not accept the 4080.
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AMD has made it clear that it desires to be the ‘avid gamers selection’ of {hardware}, so let’s dig into the gaming efficiency on supply right here.
Broadly talking, artificial take a look at outcomes line up with real-world gaming benchmarks. The RX 7900 XT does wrestle considerably with ray-traced workloads, however really manages to beat the rather more costly RTX 4080 in F1 2022 and nearly match it in Hitman 3 – oddly, each of those benchmarks are set in Dubai in-game. What’s that every one about?
Taking a look at an entire mixture of gaming efficiency, the common framerate throughout all our sport assessments was 76fps – in comparison with 88fps for the RX 7900 XTX and 87fps for the RTX 4080.
That is a good displaying in opposition to the competing Nvidia card, however does not stack up tremendous properly in opposition to the XTX: it is 10% cheaper than the flagship Radeon card, however gaming efficiency is 13.6% worse. Since AMD is attempting to make gaming the main focus, it is a disgrace to see the XT mannequin lag behind a bit – it is laborious to suggest this GPU when the XTX merely presents higher gaming efficiency for the value.
In contrast to the XTX, it isn’t fairly as efficient in relation to 4K Extremely gaming consequently. It could clear 60fps within the majority of video games with out ray tracing turned on, nevertheless it’s not fairly as snug in its efficiency ranges because the XTX. Should you’re keen to drop the settings ever so barely you can hit excessive framerates, although.
It is also price reiterating that this was with out FSR 2.0 turned on. You may see from our scores that the RX 7900 XT did not rating properly in Cyberpunk 2077, however turning on FSR 2.0 supplied an enormous increase with and with out ray tracing enabled. It is a huge distinction, nearly doubling the real-world framerate in supporting video games.
It is not going to be as efficient as DLSS 3 on the brand new Nvidia GPUs, nevertheless it’s significantly spectacular when utilizing the ‘High quality’ preset. As soon as FSR 3.0 lands, we may see a fair greater shift.
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These video games do look nice – with FSR 2.0 turned on, you will get some silky-smooth efficiency at 4K. In the meantime, anybody taking part in at 1440p or 1080p goes to realize some ludicrous framerates; do not buy this GPU in the event you’re solely going to play Valorant and Overwatch, principally, except you will have some form of fetish for triple-digit framerates. Contemplate the refresh fee of your display screen if you are going to purchase this card; in the event you’ve received a 1440p monitor with a 144Hz refresh fee, you are going to max it out and would possibly really need to improve your show too.
It is also price noting that whereas ray-traced efficiency falls far behind Nvidia’s playing cards, not many video games really function ray tracing. It is nonetheless a distinct segment function that the overwhelming majority of avid gamers simply do not care about, so we won’t actually mark the RX 7900 XT down too closely for that. DLSS 3 additionally is not supported by that many video games at this stage, so it is a minor benefit for Nvidia in sensible phrases.
In the case of thermal efficiency and energy effectivity, the brand new Radeon playing cards lose out to Nvidia fairly badly. Whereas the RX 7900 XT has very comparable energy draw and warmth output at most load in comparison with the RTX 4080, our recorded minimums have been massively above these of Nvidia’s competing card. Because of this whereas the TDP of the AMD GPU is definitely decrease than that of the 4080, it will burn via extra electrical energy on common.
Breaking issues all the way down to a remaining efficiency common, although, the RX 7900 XT is nice if not unbelievable in comparison with the opposite next-gen playing cards available on the market proper now. Should you’ve received a $900 laborious restrict, it is a nice selection of GPU. Should you can afford somewhat extra, although, we nonetheless assume its XTX comrade is the rightful proprietor of the perfect AMD graphics card crown.
Must you purchase an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT?
Purchase the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT if…
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Additionally take into account
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Report Card
| Worth | A good price-to-performance proposition, although it is barely worse worth for cash than the RX 7900 XTX. | 4 / 5 |
| Options & chipset | AMD is making nice progress right here, even when new ray-tracing and AI cores do not but measure as much as Nvidia’s newest efforts. | 4 / 5 |
| Design | A clear new design and good, pleasant 8-pin energy connectors make this one handsome GPU. | 5 / 5 |
| Efficiency | A strong displaying, however inventive efficiency is lackluster and it is roundly eclipsed by its XTX massive brother. | 4 / 5 |
| Complete | Positively a very good GPU, nevertheless it’s laborious to suggest when the XTX is simply so wonderful. | 4.25 / 5 |
First reviewed in December 2022
