AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Review: Excellent 4K performance

Verdict

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT affords good worth contemplating the sheer quantity of energy it gives. It supplied a tremendous efficiency in 4K gaming with body charges constantly hitting over 100fps and is greater than able to taking up heavy-duty content material creation duties. The efficiency could also be overkill for many players, nevertheless it’s an awesome choose for anybody searching for an entire powerhouse.

Introduction

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is likely one of the strongest graphics playing cards in the marketplace and is outrageously compelling contemplating the value; with a booming 4K efficiency and the most recent FSR 2 know-how intact, it’s a really tempting possibility.

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is barely extra inexpensive than its juggernaut sibling, the RX 7900 XTX, at $899/£899. Its Nvidia equal – the RTX 4080 – might be present in two variations, 12GB and 16GB, which begin at $899/£949 and $1199/£1269 respectively, however that pales compared to the whopping 20GB of video reminiscence that the RX 7900 XT comes with.

On account of its high-end specs, the RX 7900 XT is a starlet in terms of efficiency, simply working video games in 4K at a excessive body fee. It additionally has the good thing about FSR 2 know-how, permitting it to deal with ray tracing in supported video games with out breaking a sweat. I examined this card over a number of weeks in opposition to the opposite GPUs in the marketplace – from each AMD and Nvidia – and here’s what I discovered.

Specs and Design

• Constructed on RDNA 3 structure
• Boosted clock velocity
• Affordable energy consumption

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is constructed on the most recent AMD RNDA 3 structure, which AMD claims affords a 50% better efficiency per watt than the earlier era. It comes with 58 billion transistors due to the 5nm course of node, which ought to enhance efficiency over the RNDA 2 structure. 

One other enchancment introduced in by RNDA 3 is the inclusion of 2nd era ray tracing accelerators. That is paired up with FSR (aka FidelityFX Tremendous Decision), which is the AMD equal of DLSS. FSR 2 is supported right here, permitting the cardboard to spice up body charges in supported video games.

The improved ray tracing accelerators allowed for a lift in efficiency, leading to extra life like in-game lighting and shadow results for a extra immersive expertise. These have been hallmark options of AMD’s graphics playing cards for a few years now and the outcomes have solely improved over time. 

AMD elevated the Stream Processor depend on the RX 7900 XT, at 5376, in comparison with the 5120 on the RX 6900 XT. The enhance clock velocity additionally jumped up from 2.25GHz to a whopping 2.4GHz, nevertheless, it does fall behind the RTX 4080, which sits at 2.5GHz. The RX 7900 XT is available in only one reminiscence configuration, at an enormous 20GB GDDR6, which ought to guarantee a easy efficiency throughout intensive duties. 

The RX 7900 XT might be bought from AMD and from third-party sellers alike, so the scale and look of the cardboard might be depending on the place you purchase it. It comes with a number of connectivity ports, together with HDMI 2.1, USB-C and DisplayPort 2.1. The latter ensures assist as much as 4K at 240Hz and 8K at 60Hz. 

Options

• FSR gives an enormous efficiency enhance for supported video games
• Help for ray tracing

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT affords assist for FSR 2, with the extremely anticipated FSR 3 replace nonetheless someplace on the horizon. Nevertheless, it’s price declaring that FSR is on the market on just about any trendy graphics card, together with these made by AND and Nvidia, and so isn’t an unique characteristic for the Radeon RX 7000 collection.

FSR was designed to ship higher than native picture high quality and enhance the body fee in supported video games. It does this by rendering video games at a decrease decision, which is much less taxing on the graphics card, then upscaling the decision utilizing an “superior edge reconstruction algorithm”.

I examined this card with FSR 2 enabled in each Cyberpunk 2077 and F1 22 with ray tracing activated to see the way it carried out. Each the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX are utilizing FSR 2 on this check, whereas the Nvidia RTX 4000 playing cards are utilizing DLSS 3. All assessments had been set to a Quad HD (1440p) decision with ray tracing activated with balanced settings in each FSR/DLSS.

The Cyberpunk 2077 check illustrated how FSR 2 struggles to match the efficiency of Nvidia’s DLSS know-how. In Cyberpunk 2077 in Quad HD, activating FSR 2 resulted in a grand 100% enhance, with the body fee leaping from 35fps to 70fps. That is spectacular, nevertheless it was massively outpaced by not solely its sibling – the RX 7900 XTX – however the RTX 4070 Ti, which noticed an 189% efficiency soar.

The F1 22 outcomes are much more promising on paper, with the body fee leaping from 112fps to 182fps, leading to a 63% uptick in efficiency.

I additionally ran assessments at 4K to see whether or not high-end gaming was doable with the RX 7900 XT. With ray tracing activated it managed to hit 17fps in Cyberpunk, however that shot as much as 39fps with FSR turned on. For comparability, the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti proved to be extra environment friendly when it got here to ray tracing on Cyberpunk, with a 4K common efficiency of 19fps, which shot as much as 70fps with DLSS activated.

So whereas AMD has made big strides for its ray tracing and FSR know-how, Nvidia nonetheless leads the best way by a substantial margin. If you would like a card primarily for ray tracing, you’re higher off with an RTX 4000 Collection card.

Nevertheless, it’s crucial to notice that not each sport helps FSR 2, with some video games solely being appropriate with FSR 1 and a few having no assist by any means. AMD claims that over 116 video games assist the most recent FSR 2.2 variant, with the most recent additions together with God of Conflict Ragnarök, Deathloop, Resident Evil Village and Baldur’s Gate 3. Extra video games must be added over time however not each sport is assured to get assist, particularly older or indie titles.

Efficiency and Benchmarks

• Superb 4K efficiency
• Can play trendy video games with ray tracing with out a drawback
• Improbable content material creation and rendering outcomes

I examined this AMD card alongside the flagship RX 7900 XTX in addition to a number of Nvidia RTX 4000 and 3000 Collection playing cards to see the way it stacked up in opposition to its competitors.

With the intention to make all of my assessments as truthful as doable, I ensured to make use of the identical PC configuration all through all of my graphics card assessments the place doable. You’ll be able to see the breakdown of the rig I used under:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte Expertise X670E AORUS Grasp
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• SSD: PNY CS3140 1TB
• PSU: Corsair HX 850
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro Collection H150i PRO RGB 360mm liquid cooler
• OS: Home windows 11

To start out, I benchmarked all the playing cards with the industry-standard 3DMark Time Spy Excessive benchmark check. This can be a artificial benchmark that evaluates the general graphics efficiency of a GPU.

The Radeon RX 7900 XT scored very effectively, being crushed out solely by the flagship RTX 4090 and RX 7900 XTX. It massively outpaced the remainder of the RTX playing cards in my check, scoring nearly 2000 extra factors than the RTX 4070 Ti, which is its closest equal in our check. We didn’t have entry to the RTX 4080 throughout testing.

To see how the RX 7900 XT handles gaming, I ran quite a lot of assessments in a collection of video games, together with Dust Rally, Horizon Zero Daybreak, Cyberpunk 2077, Returnal and extra.

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is highly effective sufficient to deal with 4K gaming with out breaking a sweat, constantly reaching above 60fps in each check and each title – apart from Warhammer 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. 

It was crushed out by its older sibling, the RX 7900 XTX, in nearly each check, nevertheless it comfortably outpaced the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4060 Ti in each single sport.

4K efficiency was constantly spectacular; the RX 7900 XT managed to hit 124fps in Rainbow Six Extraction, 272fps in F1 22 and 159fps in Dust Rally. However with the RX 7900 XT solely hitting 56fps in Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K, it demonstrates that the cardboard might float across the 60fps mark for probably the most taxing trendy video games at the moment out there.

I’d advocate upgrading to the RX 7900 XT in case you’re trying to sport in 4K with a constantly excessive body fee. The closest Nvidia equal we have now examined to date is the RTX 4070 Ti, which scored significantly decrease however is cheaper, at £799/$799 in comparison with the RX 7900 XT’s £899/£899.

The primary benefit that the RTX 4070 Ti has is that DLSS 3 gives a bigger body fee enhance by share in sure video games over FSR 2, whereas ray tracing efficiency is extra environment friendly. Nevertheless, when you think about that the bottom body fee of the RX 7900 XT appears to be larger total, it evens out the enjoying discipline.

Energy Consumption

• Requires a 750W PSU at minimal
• Increased peak energy draw than the RTX 4000 Collection

AMD recommends utilizing not less than a 750W PSU for the RX 7900 XT.

In response to my assessments, the AMD Radeon RX RX 7900 did guzzle up loads much less energy than its older sibling, the RX 7900 XTX. It did devour extra energy than the RTX 4070 Ti – by 49W – however the distinction is mirrored within the efficiency distinction and isn’t essentially massive sufficient to make an enormous affect in your electrical energy payments.

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