AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT review

Even though the RDNA 3 competitor might not be as strong as we thought before, it will still have performance levels between 3090 Ti and 4080 and compete with Nvidia’s next-generation GPUs. For the first launch, two cards are available: the 7900XT and the 7900XTX. Both are based on the Navi 31 GPU, which uses a new chiplet design and has RDNA3 architecture.

The cyber skies have turned crimson red because AMD announced its new Radeon RX 7900 series of graphics cards and architecture based on RDNA3. The Radeon RX 7900 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XTX are the first gaming GPUs to use chiplets. They are the top of the line. In this review, we’ve put together everything we know about the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.

The biggest change in the new Radeon cards is that they no longer have a single chip. Instead, they have a number of smaller chips called “chiplets.” AMD has been making Ryzen CPUs for several generations, which are similar to how many chips can be put together to make a whole that works well.

The Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX are built on the Navi 31 chip. On a single die, there can be up to seven chiplets. The Graphics Compute Die is the most important and holds all shader processors. In addition to the Infinity Cache and 64-bit memory controller for the GDDR6 memory, these extra chiplets, called Memory Cache Dies, surround the central GCD.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT review: Design and Features

The RX 7900 XT has a gunmetal gray frame with bits of red and silver that give it a gundam-like look. It’s a little bit thinner and shorter than the XTX. Its frame is 276 x 113 mm, while the XTX’s frame is 287 x 123 mm. The 7900 XT is a welcome return to the norms of the 2010s. The XTX was already a nice step down in size from Nvidia’s huge 40-series cards.

Inside are 84 RDNA 3 compute units and 20GB of GDDR6 memory. The game/boost clock is 2.0/2.4 GHz. That adds up to about 52 shader teraflops of computing power, while the RX 7900 XTX has 61. It has a cooling system with three fans, just like the XTX, but its cooling fins are a little shorter, making it a little thinner than the bigger card.

We said in the XTX review that that card made much more noise than Nvidia’s most recent cards, but things are quieter here. I still think Nvidia is the quietest, but the XT has more points than the XTX in its Sneak stat. This is likely because the TDP of the board is lower than that of the XTX, which is 355W. The TDP of the board is between 300W and 315W. You can buy this graphic card from its official website.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT review: Analysis

We use a sound meter that is 1 foot away from the graphics card to measure how loud it is. I measured the noise floor to be 32 dBA, so anything louder than that is probably coming from the graphics cards. We tested all of the graphics cards in a range of power outputs, and the power supply was passive the whole time.

All of the CPU and system fans were also turned off. Running Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition for 30 minutes gives you a “reading under load.” The level of noise is also fine. The 7900 XT isn’t the quietest card on the market, but it’s not too loud either. Under long-term load, we saw the fans speed up to 64%, or 1710rpm.

Our sample also had some coil whine, but it wasn’t a big deal. You can hear this in our video review. Here are the power consumption numbers for the graphics card alone for each of the twelve 1080p games we tested. The Power Capture Analysis Tool (PCAT) from Nvidia is used to measure this.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT review: Gaming performance

That’s almost as much as a 120Hz monitor can handle. We still think that 4K gaming is overrated because 1440p looks great, and you might not even notice the difference between the two. But I’ll admit that NVIDIA’s DLSS3 upscaling technology has spoiled me. It let me play Cyberpunk in 4K with ray tracing at 74 frames per second.

That’s the closest I’ve ever been to gaming heaven. But these AMD GPUs have something that NVIDIA GPUs don’t have: reasonable street prices. You can still get the 7900XT and XTX close to retail, even after they came out. At online stores, many RTX 4080 models are getting closer and closer to $1,500. (assuming you can find them in stock at all).

It’s still hard to spend close to $1,000 on a video card, but it makes more sense than going all the way up to $1,500. AMD has made a good step forward with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT, especially when it comes to 4K gaming. But I hope the company can fix its driver problems and, in the process, maybe get better ray tracing performance.

Pricing and available

The price of all three cards, the RX 7900 XT, the RX 7900 XTX, and the RTX 4080, will have a lot to do with which one is worth buying, since all three have problems with price or availability. Except for one or two cases, the 7900 XTX is usually worth the extra money, but that could change if the difference gets bigger.

Another question is whether or not you can find an RTX 4080 for what should be $300 more than a 7900 XT. A quick look at Newegg shows that the 7900 XTX is the one that has pricing and availability problems, while the 7900 XT and RTX 4080 are both available and priced close to MSRP.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT review: Final Words

However, creative performance is lacking, and it is somewhat difficult to justify its existence when the more powerful XTX version is only $100 more expensive. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a solid GPU that offers great gaming performance and massive improvements across the board compared to AMD’s previous generation.