AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Video Card Review

Brent_Justice

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Introduction Let’s face it, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series video cards are the fight of the year we’ve all been waiting for. It’s time to put AMD’s new RDNA 3 architecture against NVIDIA’s new Ada Lovelace architecture GPUs. AMD’s next-gen versus NVIDIA’s next-gen, head-to-head. This is our AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX review. Also, […]

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Pretty much what I expected. On par or better than the 4080 at rasterization. But gets stomped to death in ray tracing.

Still...for raster workloads it's a bargain.

Now it's just a waiting game for EK to make water blocks for the OC non-reference cards.
 
Yup - no surprises, which I think is good because I had pretty high expectations to begin with and it pretty well met them.

Now to see how availability and the scalpers play out.

Also can’t wait to see what the power data shows.
 
Seems better then my 3080 now to see European prices.
 
Very nice this card is something to be excited about. ESPECIALLY with AMD's 'Fine wine' methodology to their drivers.
 
Ray Tracing. 4K is for Ray Tracing.
price is acceptable, but why is the XT even a thing at 899? It wont sell.
Too bad AMD cant figure out how to do more for RayTracing......
 
Ray Tracing. 4K is for Ray Tracing.
price is acceptable, but why is the XT even a thing at 899? It wont sell.
Too bad AMD cant figure out how to do more for RayTracing......
Considering they are pretty much on par with 3090's for RT performance that isn't bad. The question is did they revise their RT processing ability to make it stronger and just haven't been able to properly flex it in drivers yet?
 
Considering they are pretty much on par with 3090's for RT performance that isn't bad. The question is did they revise their RT processing ability to make it stronger and just haven't been able to properly flex it in drivers yet?
I'm perfectly fine with slower RT performance myself - it isn't an important feature. By the time I actually care about RT we will probably be 3+ generations removed from today's cards.
 
price is acceptable, but why is the XT even a thing at 899? It wont sell.
If it's anything like the 5000 and 6000 gens of XT and XTX -- the XT would overclock to darn near the same performance level as the XTX for a few dollars less, and that made it a pretty attractive option.
 
I don't run RT in any game other than CP2077. I'm an FPS wh0re. So rasterization performance is king in my court. The 7900XTX gets it done for an attractive price....hopefully. LOL We'll see what the AIB OC cards come in at. I have a feel that those with 3x 8 pin power are going to be overclock beasts so long as you can keep them cool. Well, dangit, I watercool all the things. So, we'll see.
 
Pretty much what I expected. On par or better than the 4080 at rasterization. But gets stomped to death in ray tracing.

Still...for raster workloads it's a bargain.

Now it's just a waiting game for EK to make water blocks for the OC non-reference cards.
I never thought I'd see the day where a $999 card would be considered a bargain... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
I did expect more from the XTX, sure it beats the 4080 at 1080p and meets or beats it at 1440p, but it looses at 4k for the most part and this is where this card should shine. And that's not even taking DLSS2.x and 3.0 into account.

Not a bad card by all means, but I really hoped for a real RTX4080 KILLER, you know? that card that's been promised generation after generation, but has yet to come.
 
Refreshing review, nicely done. Very modern RT titles that had exposer to RNDA2, current gen consoles, FarCry6 and Spiderman does very well with RT. Older mostly driven Nvidia RTX titles, DXR 1.0 era takes a significant hit.

Point is RT performance is also heavily dependent upon how programed or optimized for. I don't think AMD rt performance is as powerful as Nvidia's but also think it may not really be that far behind. Newer games will show this or not.

Very tempting buy for a number of reasons.
 
but it looses at 4k for the most part and this is where this card should shine.
Maybe I'm looking at the wrong numbers, but the XTX beats the 4080 in every single rasterizing benchmark FPSR threw at it with just one exception: When upscaling is used and DLSS is available and FSR is not (Watch Dogs)


It's not beating a 4090, but it's certainly knocking on the door there. But the 4080? Yeah, the XTX has is beat, until you turn on RT.

Even looking at RT - you are still at 3090/Ti levels, which even just that still costs more than the XTX MSRP.
 
Maybe I'm looking at the wrong numbers, but the XTX beats the 4080 in every single rasterizing benchmark FPSR threw at it with just one exception: When upscaling is used and DLSS is available and FSR is not (Watch Dogs)


It's not beating a 4090, but it's certainly knocking on the door there. But the 4080? Yeah, the XTX has is beat, until you turn on RT.

Even looking at RT - you are still at 3090/Ti levels, which even just that still costs more than the XTX MSRP.
I have to say I'm not looking at just this review benchmarks, but what I've seen in other reviews.

One thing is for sure, nvidia will have to reduce the price of the RTX4080. $200 for the "nvidia tax" is just too much even at that price range.
Its clear people were waiting for the 7900XTX release and it may have payed off one way or the other.
 
Some points to note about other reviews I have seen:

I have seen many reviews not done on an AMD platform, but rather Intel platform, with 13900K's used. That's fine, CPU-wise. However, those systems do not take into account AMD Smart Access Memory, which does improve performance on AMD cards in several games. I've also seen some reviewers purposefully turn off AMD Smart Access Memory, thinking it is more of a fair comparison. I'd argue it is fairer to use it. For example, NVIDIA has Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Windows, and it's turned "On" by default. Therefore, if you really want to be "fair" by claiming you turn off AMD Smart Access Memory, you'd also need to turn that off as well, but they don't. In addition, I think it is absolutely fair to use AMD Smart Access Memory/Resize BAR on ALL GPUs, if you turn it on everything, then it is FAIR. Just as it is fair to have Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in Windows turned on for NVIDIA GPUs. In our reviews, we use AMD Smart Access Memory/Resize BAR ENABLED for EVERY GPU, as well as Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling, we take those things into account, as any gamer would, because you'd want to do everything you can system-wise to optimize your experience with said hardware. So those also not using AMD platform systems, won't benefit from AMD Smart Access Memory, and I think that is a travesty, and misleading.

I have also seen a lot of reviews focus more heavily on the RTX 4090 comparison to RX 7900 XTX, and I believe that is not the intended comparison. AMD made it clear the RX 7900 XTX is an RTX 4080 competitor. That is the closer GPU in price and the primary one that should be compared and focused on with the RX 7900 XTX. You could even throw the RTX 4090 out, it's the outlier in price. That said, I think it is telling that the 7900 XTX can come that close to the 4090. I've seen so many people overlook how competitive the RX 7900 XTX is to the 4080, and how close it comes to the 4090 and they forget the 4090 is 60% more expensive, and in a completely different price segment, a halo pricing. It doesn't make sense to me when you see the 7900 XTX come that close to it, yet costs $600 less, to me, that's a value. RT performance, notwithstanding, which I do agree could be a justification to spend more money. But then, as stated, I don't think the 7900 XTX is that far behind RT performance in newer, more optimized RT games. It is on par with NV's last-generation top-end GPUs, so it has made improvements.
 
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Budget and desire wise.. unless I get a larger than expected windfall I will skip 2023 for hardware upgrades. Maybe a big 4k oled monitor.. but I think I'm good where I'm at and expect prices to normalize next generation. They need to keep the new Gen it kids into building computers or we will simply only be the halo market and people will stop targeting gaming to pc at all.
 
Another thing I will add, so many reviewers are only focusing on the result, the number, "bigger bar is better" value, instead of the actual gameplay experience that the card delivers. Instead of just looking squarely at which card is 10% one or the other below or above the other, why not actually look at the performance the card is delivering, and determine if that is a playable enough experience for you? For example, the 4090 may give 120fps in one game, and the 7900 XTX gives you 100fps, well that is a 20% difference, and one could say the 4090 is the better buy, BUT LOOK AT THE ACTUAL FRAMERATE MY GOSH, 100FPS is playable too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In this example, the 7900 XTX delivers a playable gameplay experience, plenty of performance in the game, and smooth gameplay. If it's $600 less, well that would be a much better value, and all you need to enjoy the game, right?

Perhaps I need to make a video editorial, to get these points across. Not enough people are hearing this.
 
and one more thing, FSR is completely being overlooked in reviews I've watched... FSR 2.1 and upcoming FSR 2.2 are viable options to improve Ray Tracing performance and does make it usable, upscaling is here to stay, and this needs to be considered in its playable gameplay performance experience
 
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