In addition to the Radeon RX 7900 XTX that I already covered today, AMD is also launching its brother the Radeon RX 79000 XT and we have had that card in the office as well. This is also an RDNA 3 architecture card and it shares the same Navi 31 GPU as the 7900 XTX but with a few changes. So today I’m going to check out what those changes are and then we can see what the AMDs reference card looks like and how it differs from the 7900 XTX then see how it performs in our test suite as well. So let’s dive in!
Product Name: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Review Sample Provided by: AMD
Written by: Wes Compton
Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE
RNDA 3
So what sets the new Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT apart from the 6000 series cards? Well at their core, this is a new architecture RDNA 3. AMD has taken their experience on the CPU side to bring their chiplet design into their GPU architecture. This means that the GPU uses multiple dies, not just everything on one die, and this offers a few advantages. It offers more flexibility in their product stack and more importantly, it means that they can combine different manufacturing processes. So the GCD or graphics compute die is made on the new 5nm process but the memory cache die or MCD is made on the larger 6nm process. This puts their GDDR6 interface and 2nd generation infinity cache on the more mature process and the GPU itself on the newer smaller 5nm process for better performance per watt. This design can help keep costs down as well. You can see the smaller process at work in the specs with the 7900’s having 57.7 billion transistors to the 6950 XT’s 26.8 billion transistors but with the 300 mm GCD and 220 mm² MCD vs the 520 mm² of the 6950 XT.
AMD changed up their infinity cache as well this time around which can be seen in the specification listing down below when we compare the 6950 XT to either of the 7900 models. The 6950 XT had 128MB of infinity cache with a 256-bit memory bus and 18 GB of GDDR6 memory. The 7900 XT on the other hand has 80MB of the 2ng gen infinity cache and a larger 320-bit memory bus, the 7900 XTX has a little more at 96 MB of infinity cache and a larger 384-bit memory bus with both having the same 20GB of GDDR6 memory. But those changes take the memory bandwidth from 1793.5 GB/s on the 6950 XT to 2912 GB/s on the 7900 XT and 3494.4 GB/s on the 7900 XTX, a big improvement while using less cache.
The new architecture also introduces new AL accelerator cores similar to Nvidia’s Tensor cores which the 7900 XTX has 192 AI cores and the 7900 XT has 168 AI cores. These will help with FidelityFX performance and open up more options for AMD there in the future. They have also improved the ray tracing cores with a new Gen 2 design. Those match with the compute cores 1 for 1 so the 7900 XTX has 96 of each and the 7900 XT has 84 which both are an improvement over the 9650 XT which had 80 each with the older gen 1 RT cores. As far as clock speeds, AMD has stayed in the same range as the 6950 XT before which had a game clock speed of 2100 MHz and would run up to 2310 MHz for boost clock. The 7900 XT is a little lower on the game clock at 2000 MHz but higher on the boost clock at 2400 MHz and the 7900 XTX is higher on both with the game clock at 2300 MHz and the boost up to 2500 MHz.
Specifications |
RX 7900 XTX |
RX 7900 XT |
RX 6950 XT |
Architecture |
RDNA 3 |
RDNA 3 |
RDNA 2 |
Manufacturing Process |
5nm GCD + 6 nm MCD |
5nm GCD + 6 nm MCD |
7nm |
Transistor Count |
57.7 billion |
57.7 billion |
26.8 billion |
Die Size |
300 mm² GCD 220mm² MCD |
300 mm² GCD 220mm² MCD |
520 mm² |
Compute Units |
96 |
84 |
80 |
Ray Accelerators |
96 |
84 |
80 |
AI Accelerators |
192 |
168 |
- |
Stream Processors |
6144 |
5376 |
5120 |
Game GPU Clock |
2300 MHz |
2000 MHz |
2100 MHz |
Boost GPU Clock |
Up to 2500 MHz |
Up to 2400 MHz |
Up to 2310 MHz |
Peak Single Precision Performance |
Up to 61 TFLOPS |
Up to 52 TFLOPS |
Up to 23.65 TFLOPS |
Peak Half Precision Performance |
Up to 123 TFLOPS |
Up to 103 TFLOPS |
Up to 47.31 TFLOPS |
Peak Texture Fill-Rate |
Up to 960 GT/s |
Up to 810 GT/s |
Up to 739.2 GT/s |
ROPs |
192 |
192 |
128 |
Peak Texture Fill-Rate |
Up to 480 GP/s |
Up to 460 GP/s |
Up to 295.7 GP/s |
AMD Infinity Cache |
96 MB |
80 MB |
128 MB |
Memory |
24GB GDDR6 |
20GB GDDR6 |
16GB GDDR6 |
Effective Memory bandwidth w/AMD Infinity Cache |
Up to 3500 GB/s |
Up to 2900 GB/s |
Up to 1793.5 GB/s |
Memory Bus Interface |
384-bit |
320-bit |
256-bit |
PCIe Interface |
PCIe 4.0 x16 |
PCIe 4.0 x16 |
PCIe 4.0 x16 |
Board Power |
355W |
315W |
335W |
AMD took a few different stabs at Nvidia in their presentation on the new cards. They put together a direct comparison showing how both cards are significantly smaller than the RTX 4080 which will help a lot when it comes to fitment. They also point out that their cards aren’t using the new 12VHPWR plug which has caused some people issues.
Another jab at Nvidia comes with their inclusion of what they call AMD Radiance Display Engine which is what brings the support for DisplayPort 2.1 connections on the cards. This opens up long-term support for much higher refresh rates. At 1440p for example the connection is capable of 900 Hz where 480 Hz is the limit for DP 1.4. This bandwidth becomes more important at higher resolutions like 4k which is capped at 240 Hz with DP 1.4 but can do 480 Hz with DP 2.1. Then at 8K DP 1.4 is limited to 60 Hz but DP 2.1 can do 165 Hz.
They also highlighted the adoption rate of FidelityFX Super Resolution and Super Resolution 2 which is available or upcoming in 226 games after one year of availability.
The new cards also have AV1 support which is going to be an important feature when consuming video content online and especially for streamers as it can open up higher-quality video streaming at lower bandwidth. AMD has included support for two simultaneous encode or decode streams similar to what the 4090 and 4080 can do.
The other big feature is of course AMDs pricing. They have the base suggested price for the 7900 XT at $899 and the 7900 XTX at $999 which is an improvement over the RTX 4080’s Founders Edition price of $1199. Once I get into testing we will have to see how they compare performance-wise, but AMD has themselves positioned well here.
Before getting into testing I did also run GPUz which I normally do to double-check clock speeds but as of writing this GPUz hasn’t added support for the new GPUs yet and the clock speed readings are all over the place. The BIOS revision also isn’t shown but we can at least document that I am testing with the prerelease press driver which is Adrenalin 22.40.00.57.
Packaging
The box for the Radeon RX 7900 XT has the same size, shape, and design as the 7900 XTX that I just took a look at. That means it has a black background and the fog-like effect behind the large picture of the card on the front that I love. The front of the box has the model name in the top left corner as well as AMD's branding all with a silver metal finish which is subtle but looks good. But the big difference here compared to the XTX is they have updated the picture of the card with the 7900 XT which while very similar doesn’t have the lighting on the card so that isn’t on the box. The back of the box has the same information on the AMD Adrenalin software and our sample has no UPC but you can see where that would be along with all of the certification logos that are needed under that.
I love that when you open the 79000 XT up AMD has it featured like a watch or ring case with the card out in the open and no static protective bag hiding it. They have it sitting in a foam tray cut to fit the card and on that, they have a printed layer that continues the fog from the front and has the Radeon RX 7900 XT branding. This also continues into the top under the lid which has a ring of foam that holds the card in place when closed and then in the middle it says Welcome to the Red Team.
The 7900 XT doesn’t have the same foam to tilt the card under it but you can see the foam all around in the cutout to keep the card safe. There is also a pull-out section that has the documentation under it. You get a small card with a QR code to join the red team and a fold-out user manual which also has a QR code on it with more instructions for installing the card if you need them.
Card Layout and Photos
Well if you are coming from our previous review of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX then this view might seem familiar. That’s because both cards share a lot in their styling, but they aren’t the same. AMD has given the XTX a few extra touches on top of the base styling that both cards have which is just enough to make the flagship card stand out but I love that the 7900 XT still looks amazing. As I mentioned on the XTX, I am impressed with the overall construction of both cards. This design is all metal and is well above the feel of any of the standard aftermarket designs while also being much more compact and realistic. The fan shroud is cast aluminum similar to how Nvidia has been doing their Founders Edition cards only AMD has stuck with the traditional design whereas Nvidia has taken things in a different direction altogether. The 7900 XT is completely blacked out except for the PCI bracket on the end and a few small accents and I love the look, in the past, they would only have special editions for this blacked-out look, but now I almost want to see a full white out a special edition.
As far as dimensions go the Radeon RX 7900 XT is slightly shorter than its bigger XTX brother with its total length being 276 mm vs the XTX at 287. It is still a two-and-a-half slot design coming in just under 50 mm in thickness whereas the XTX was a solid 50 mm. But they also cut down the height and this was the most notable difference for me, the XTX was a little over the standard PCI height at 18mm over the top of the PCI bracket but the XT has a standard height and sits at 7mm over top of the bracket.
The size difference between the cards didn’t change the fan layout though or most of the design of the cooler. The 7900 XT has the same triple fan layout with axial fans and all three fans spinning in the same direction. The fans are blacked out still and have that unique triangle shape on the center caps. The fans are different though, on the XT the blade width is 79mm whereas on the XTX they were 84mm and the opening width is 84 whereas on the XTX it was 87mm. Without measuring they look the same. The stickers in the center are slightly more glossy on the XT as well. Behind the fans, we can see the heatsink layout is orientated vertically to push the air up and down along the cooler and even behind the fans, the sheet metal heatsink is blacked out completely. The XT doesn’t have the gloss black accents above and below the center fan and because of the shorter design, the Radeon branding at the top of the fan isn’t visible when looking at the side as well. Along with that, the XT doesn’t have the backlit accents, in their place they have printed grey accents which is a bummer, I did really like the simple but stylish lighting, especially on the blacked-out design.
Looking around at the edges of the 7900 XT it has the same blacked-out heatsinks exposed at the top and bottom of the card for the full length of the card. This is where all of the air from the fan will be directing the airflow which does also mean that some warm air is going to go to the motherboard and if you have an M.2 slot under your GPU it could warm your SSD up somewhat. The bottom of the card has a small sticker with the model and serial numbers on it. Then the end of the card has the same shape as the XTX which angles in to make the end slightly pointy. The end of the card wraps the metal shroud all the way around to the backplate to complete everything and AMD has also put four mounting screw holes here for a support bracket or server installation.
Also on the top edge of the RX 7900 XT, it does have its power connections down at the end of the card, not in the middle like Nvidia has done. AMD has also skipped out on the 12VHPWR connection which has caused Nvidia issues and they still have the traditional PCIe power plugs which are larger. The 7900 XT uses two just like the XTX and this view also shows how AMD has the shroud design running up and around the plugs which gives a little heat insulation between the heatsink and the plugs as well. While it isn’t as visible as on the 7900 XTX, the 7900 XT does still have the three red heatsink fins as well and the Radeon branding is cast in the shroud and painted grey as well only there isn’t any lighting around it and because this card is shorter it is aimed up with a slight lip so you can't see it when facing the fan side of the card.
The backplate on the Radeon RX 7900 XT continues the all-metal design with a stamped sheet metal backplate. The design has a lot of shapes stamped into it which gives it more strength and also adds more styling, especially with the back of the card often being more visible than the front. They have the Radeon logo printed on the back as well as a small hot surface logo. Then the red accent finds its way here again in the small arrows.
The PCI bracket for the 7900 XT has the same setup as the 7900 XTX reference card but I have to reiterate that this is a unique setup. AMD hasn’t put any ventilation holes in the bracket at all and even cards that aren’t designed to blow anything out that direction still often have holes just in case for extra airflow. AMD used that space to print in bright white the details of the card including the required certification logos. It also has the model and serial numbers which you should be able to see when the card is installed. Then below all of that for display connections you have one HDMI 2.1 plug on the top, two DisplayPort 2.1 plugs, and then in between those a Type-C connection which can also pass a DisplayPort connection or USB data. This is similar to the short-lived VirtualLink plug and I do wonder if maybe this plug can function the same way to give a single plug for VR users.
While the 7900 XT does look like the 7900 XTX when you get them next to each other the size difference is more noticeable. So below is a picture of the two cards together and you can see the Radeon on the XTX showing even with it sitting behind the XT here. It isn’t as pronounced as a reference card to an aftermarket card or the Nvidia 3080 to the 3090, but there is a difference.
Test Rig and Procedures
Test System
CPU: Intel Core-i9 12900K – Live Pricing
Motherboard: MSI MEG Z690I UNIFY Gaming Motherboard – Live Pricing
Cooling: Corsair H100i Elite LCD Display - Live Pricing
Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste - Live Pricing
Memory: Crucial 32GB Kit (2 x 16GB) DDR5-4800 UDIMM– Live Pricing
Storage: Sabrent Rocket Q4 2TB – Live Pricing
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200 - Live Pricing
Case: Primochill Wetbench - Live Pricing
OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Live Pricing
Our Testing Procedures |
|
3DMark |
All 3DMark-based tests are done using the most recent version. We test using all three versions of Fire Strike and both Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme. Tests to look at ray tracing performance are done with Port Royal when supported and for Nvidia cards that support DLSS, the DLSS subtest is also done at 1440p with the performance setting and DLSS 2.0. |
Unigine Superposition |
1080p Extreme and 4k Optimized benchmarks along with the VR Future test are done. The VR test is done at the Oculus resolution |
VRMark |
Only the Blue room test is run |
CS:GO |
This test is done using the workshop map called CS:GO Benchmark. You can find more information at this link. https://www.gamingpcbuilder.com/how-to-install-csgo-fps-benchmark-map/ I test at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions. All auto settings are turned off and detail is set to their highest settings. shadow quality high, model texture detail high, shader detail very high, AA set to 16x, uber shaders enabled |
Mafia 2 Definitive Edition |
This uses the built-in benchmark to test High and Medium detail presets at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions |
Watch Dogs: Legion |
Built-in benchmark testing at ultra and high details. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. I also do RTX and DLSS testing on Nvidia cards at 4K using the Ultra detail settings as a base as well. |
Borderlands 3 |
Built-in benchmark testing with the ultra detail setting and medium detail setting, done at full screen with default settings at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k on DX11 |
Metro Exodus |
Using built-in benchmark, testing at ultra and normal details at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. I also do RTX and DLSS testing at 4K with the ultra-detail base settings for Nvidia cards as well. |
World War Z Aftermath |
The built-in benchmark in DX11 testing both the Ultra detail and Medium detail levels at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions |
The Division 2 |
Built-in benchmark at Ultra detail with V-Sync turned off at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolutions. |
Total War: Three Kingdoms |
Built-in benchmark using the Battle Benchmark setting. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k at both high and ultra detail settings |
Far Cry 6 |
Built-in benchmark tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings |
Ghost Recon Breakpoint |
Built-in benchmark tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings |
Boundary Benchmark |
Testing different DLSS detail levels on cards that support it. All testing is done at 4k with RTX on |
Bright Memory Infinite RTX Benchmark |
Benchmark all of the different RTX detail levels. Resolution at 4k and DLSS on balanced for each test |
Passmark Performance Test 10.2 |
Test using the GPU Compute Score inside of Passmark’s Performance Test 10.2 |
Blender |
Using the new Blender Benchmark with the Quick Benchmark setting set to use the GPU, not the CPU. Nvidia cards are tested twice, once with CUDA and the other with Optix, and AMD cards are run on OpenGL. The result is in total seconds the test took, lower is better. The 2.93.1 build is used and I run all six tests, BMW27, Koro, Classroom, Pavillon, Fishy cat (my favorite), and Victor |
OctaneBench 2020.1 |
OctaneBench is designed to test rendering in OctaneRender. RTX and non-RTX are both run. This is a CUDA-only test so only Nvidia cards are tested |
Power Testing |
I run three power tests. Two I use a Kill-A-Watt hooked up in line with the power cord for the test rig. Two tests are done, one using the AIDA64 Stress Test and the second using the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark on the second test. I also use GPUz to document the GPU only reading off the card itself for wattage when doing the Time Spy test. The Time Spy test uses only the second test here because the 3rd test is the combined test that loads the CPU as well. |
Noise Testing |
Our Noise testing is done using a decibel meter 18 inches away from the video card on the bottom/fan side of the card. We test at 50% and 100% fan speeds as well as a third test while under load using AIDA64's stress test. This is done using a Protmex PT02 Sound Meter that is rated IEC651 type 2 and ANSI S1.4 type 2. Tests are done set weighted to A and set to a slow response using the max function and tested a second time with C weighting as well. The ambient noise level in the testing area is 33.3 decibels using A weight and 50.0 using C weight. |
Temperature Testing |
Using AIDA64, the GPU stress test is run for 30 minutes or until the result has leveled off. The test is run twice, once with the stock fan profile and a second time with 100% fan speed. During this, I also document the 100% fan speed RPM and document the delta between the fan profile and 100% fan speed as well. |
Synthetic Benchmarks
As always I like to start my testing with a few synthetic benchmarks. 3DMark especially is one of my favorites because it is very optimized in both Nvidia and AMD drivers. It's nice to not have to worry about it being favored too much either way and the repeatability of the results makes it a nice chance to compare from card to card, especially when comparing with the same GPU. This time around I want to see how the Radeon RX 7900 XT compares with the 7900 XTX that we just covered as well as see where it lands compared to the RTX 4080 as well.
The first round of tests were done in the older Fire Strike benchmark which is a DX11 test. There are three detail levels, performance, extreme, and ultra. The 7900 XT does drop down in performance compared to its bigger brother the 7900 XTX but even with that drop here in Fire Strike, it holds its own running past the overclocked RTX 4080 in all three detail settings. In the Extreme and Ultra detail settings, it is just a few points ahead of the overclocked RTX 4080.
The next two were both based on the Time Spy benchmark. One is the standard test and then there is the extreme detail level. For Time Spy the Nvidia card's performance improved compared to Fire Strike which was enough for the RTX 4080 to pass the 7900 XT at both detail settings. There is a noticeable gap between them as well but as of right now Nvidia doesn’t have anything sitting in the gap between the 3090 Ti and the 4080 where the 7900 XT is sitting.
For ray tracing performance, I ran both the 3DMark Port Royal test which is ray tracing focused as well as the new 3DMark Speed Way test which tests all future-looking features including ray tracing. In Speed Way, the 7900 XT comes in between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti. In Port Royal, it did a little better sitting above the 3080 Ti but it's clear that while the ray tracing performance has improved, Nvidia still has the advantage here.
The last test was using the Unigine-based Superposition benchmark and I tested at 1080p with the extreme detail setting as well as the 4K optimized setting. In the extreme detail setting the 7900 XT outperforms the 3090 Ti but has a gap between it and the RTX 4080. In the 4K test the result was similar but the 7900 XT is sitting closer to the 4080.
VR Benchmarks
As for Virtual Reality, I love it but it is more demanding than traditional gaming. This is partially because of the resolutions needed to render for two eyes and because they render more than what is immediately visible. But also because of post effects to get the proper “fisheye” effect for it to look proper in your eyes with the HMD. You also have to have much higher expectations for frame rates in VR, skipping frames or lower FPS can cause motion sickness in VR. Because of that, I ran a few tests.
My first test was again in Superposition. This time I tested the VR Future test using the Oculus resolution. Here the 7900 XT nearly beats the RTX 4080 sitting just 38 points behind.
My second round of VR testing was in VRMark which has three tests that are similar to the VR tests in Superposition. I only focused on just the most demanding test called Blue Room which is looking more at future VR performance. The 7900 XT is running just ahead of the RTX 3090 Ti for this test with the 4080 and the 7900 XTX out in their own category.
In-Game Benchmarks
Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 10 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of if turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. In total, each video card is tested 54 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier-to-read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, and then over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors.
Like with the RTX 4080, RTX 4090, and the 7900 XTX the Radeon RX 7900 XT blasted through all of the tests at 1080p and 1440p with all of those results coming in at 120 FPS or significantly higher so it's only the 4K performance that we are focusing on today. That’s because 4K is the only results where some were below 120 FPS, even still only half were below it and those were all still above 60 FPS. This matches the RTX 4080’s results and is one less than the 7900 XTX.
Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below. The Radeon RX 7900 XT has a little more variation on where it is in the graphs than the 7900 XTX. In some tests like Borderlands, the 7900 XT came in below the 3090 Ti but then in others like Far Cry and Ghost Recon the 7900 XT outperformed the RTX 4080. On average though it came in behind the RTX 4080 but ahead of last year's flagship the RTX 3090 Ti. The 4K ghost recon result also shows up just how close it came to matching the 7900 XTX in the graphs above with that result being just 1 FPS short. 1080p and 1440p are both showing signs of being limited by the CPU. Overall the 7900 XT is going to give you no issues with anything at 1080p or 1440p with ultra-high refresh rates and even at 4K everything is going to be smooth and some are high refresh rate capable as well.
Compute Benchmarks
Now some people don’t need a video card for gaming, they need the processing power for rendering or 2D/3D production, or in some cases people who game also do work on the side. So it is also important to check out the compute performance on all of the video cards that come in. That includes doing a few different tests. My first test was a simple GPU Compute benchmark using Passmark’s Performance Test 10 and the Radeon RX 7900 XT edged out the RTX 3090 Ti here and isn’t far behind the 7900 XTX.
Blender is always my favorite compute benchmark because the open-source 3D rendering software is very popular and it isn’t a synthetic benchmark. With the latest version of Blender, they redid the benchmark so we now have a new test that runs three different renderings and gives each a score. I have all three stacked together so we can see the overall performance. The 7900 XT isn’t far behind the XTX here, but both struggled to compete with the Nvidia OptiX performance in Blender which put even the 3070 ahead of both cards.
Cooling Noise and Power
For my last few tests, rather than focusing on in game performance, I like to check out other aspects of video card performance. These are also the most important ways to differentiate the performance between cards that have the same GPU. To start things off I took a look at power usage. For this, I use our Kill-A-Watt hooked up to the test bench to record the total wattage of the system. I ran two tests with the first using 3DMark Time Spy to put the system under a load similar to normal in game performance. Here our test system with the 7900 XT pulled 534 watts total which put the 7900 XT just behind last generation's 6800 XT and above the 4080 FE. I also ran AIDA64’s stress test on the video card to load up only the GPU and using the Kill-A-Watt the test bench with the 7900 pulled 434 which was just behind the 7900 XTX and 36 watts more than the overclocked RTX 4080 and 54 watts over the 4080 FE.
While the overall system numbers are nice, with the addition of a PCat into our testing hardware I have finally been able to look at the total power draw of just the GPU by monitoring the power over the PCIe slot and the power cables. For this test I have also expanded the number of tests I run by testing power usage in two games (Fay Cry 6 and Watch Dog Legion both at 4k and ultra detail) testing with Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme, AIDA64’s GPU workload, and Blender 3.4. I take those numbers and average them out for our average number and also look at the max wattage which is with just one exception always the Time Spy Extreme result. This gives us a much better look at the power usage across multiple situations and also the max power draw. The 7900 XT averaged 349 watts and its peak wattage was 370 watts. The average was just slightly above what the RTX 3080 did and the peak was closer to the peak from the RTX 4080. The 4080 was 42 watts lower on average though.
My next round of tests were looking at noise levels. These are especially important to me because I can’t stand to listen to my PC whirling. Especially when I’m not in game and other applications are using the GPU. For my testing, though I first tested with the fan cranked up to 100% to get an idea of how loud it can get, then again at 50% to get an idea of its range. I test using both A and C weighting, A is the standard way and C has a little more of the low end to check for low-level hums. The 7900 XT did well in the 50% with 39.1 decibels putting in right with the 7900 XT and 100% was similar at 57.8. Louder than the XTX but still in the bottom 1/3 of the chart which matches up with the fan speeds. I also take a look at noise performance while under load. For that when running AIDA64’s stress test I wait until the temperature of the card has leveled off and then measure how loud things are when the card is at its worst-case scenario with the stock fan profile. Here I was surprised that the 7900 XT was louder than the 7900 XT and putting it near the top of our chart.
To finish up my testing I of course had to check out the cooling performance. To do this I ran two different tests. I used AIDA64’s Stress Test run for a half-hour each to warm things up. Then I documented what temperature the GPU leveled out at with the stock fan profile and then again with the fans cranked up to 100%. With the stock profile, the 7900 XT ran cool at 61c which tells us when combined with how noisy it was under load that the fan profile was aggressive. Then with the fans cranked up, the 7900 XT came in at 48c which is good as well. The delta between the two results was 13 degrees and much better than the headroom on the 7900 XTX even with that card having a slightly larger cooler. The GPU hotspot results were a lot better on the 7900 XT than the 7900 XTX with it being 89c with the stock fan profile and 87c at 100% fan speed.
While running the stock fan profile testing I also took the time to get a few thermal images so we could see what is going on. The fan side view shows us that the Radeon 7900 XT is hottest up on the top edge of the card where it is venting air and you can see the heat down on the bottom as well. Behind the fans are all running much cooler than that. The top-down view has the hotspot on the PCB edge where it isn’t able to dissipate as much heat. The heatsink is 10+ degrees cooler even in this area but what impressed me the most was the power connection area being noticeably cooler with that being sectioned off away from the heatsink. Then on the back, the metal backplate is dissipating the heat but is running cooler than the heatsink with more heat showing down below at the motherboard with the air blowing down that direction.
Overall and Final Verdict
The Radeon RX 7900 XTX launch is an exciting one, not just because of the pricing that AMD announced the card with. But also because with the new RDNA 3 architecture we see big improvements in ray tracing performance, the inclusion of AI processing cores, two AV1 encoders, and DisplayPort 2.1 support. The Radeon RX 7900 XT performed similarly to its bigger brother the RX 7900 XTX but with a few fewer processing cores and lower clock speeds, it was the difference between running ahead of the RTX 4080 and sitting solidly being the RTX 4080 in a category that Nvidia hasn’t filled yet (4080 12GB anyone). The 7900 XT’s performance was impressive across the board in anything requiring raster performance. In other words in anything that doesn’t have ray tracing even the 7900 XT is pushing Nvidia hard but Nvidia is going to have an advantage when it comes to Ray Tracing and DLSS 3, not that FidelityFX Super Resolution isn’t also great, but until it gets frame generation AMD will be a step behind. Blender performance was lacking once again compared to what Nvidia has going with OptiX.
Like with the 7900 XTX I was extremely impressed with the blacked-out styling that AMD went with on their reference design. I’ve been a big fan of what Nvidia has been doing with their Founders Edition designs because they feel a step ahead in quality and the styling isn’t over the top and focused on that standard “gamer” look. AMD has taken notice and has done the same thing here. With this design being more compact and a standard size unlike what Nvidia has done this generation, I would say they are doing better than Nvidia in that department. With that and not having to worry about the 12VHPWR issues, AMD has done a great job of listening and sidestepping all of those issues.
The cooler did well in our standard 50% and 100% fan speed tests but the fan profile was a lot more aggressive than I expected and it was loud for our under load test which is the only noise test that is truly important. Cooling performance was great even with this being a slightly smaller card design than the 7900 XTX. The only disappointing part was seeing the small lighting accents from the XTX being replaced with screen-printed grey accents, I would have liked to see that lighting be on both cards. Power usage wasn’t off the charts, but the 4080 did show itself to be surprisingly efficient even compared to the 7900 XT. Once Nvidia releases a competing card to the 7900 XT I imagine the power gap is going to be even more noticeable.
As always it always comes down to pricing and the Radeon RX 7900 XT is priced starting at $899, $100 less than the RX 7900 XTX. There is a lot of performance to be gained by stepping up to the 7900 XTX but the real question is how much of that performance is needed. Unless you are running a high refresh rate 4K display you aren’t going to experience much of a difference which makes the 7900 XT the better buy for most. It remains to be seen where this stacks up compared to what Nvidia will bring out. But as of right now the 7900 XT is the cheapest option on the market from both AMD and Nvidia from the newest generation of cards. That alone makes it a good buy.
Live Pricing: HERE