AMD’s GPU lineup started off with the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX models on the high end and later they filled in things with the RX 7800 XT and cards below that. But the gap between the RX 7900 XT and RX 7800 XT is a large one, especially with Nvidia having competition there with cards like the RTX 4070 Ti and the recently introduced RTX 4070 SUPER. Funny enough AMD has had a card between the RX 7800 XT and the RX 7900 XT, they just didn’t have it in most markets but that is changing. Today they are introducing the RX 7900 GRE which is a slightly cut down version of the RX 7900 XT and XTX helping to bridge that gap. This is only available in aftermarket cards so to check it out AMD sent over a PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 GRE so we could put the new GPU to the test. So let’s dive in.
Product Name: PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 GRE
Review Sample Provided by: AMD and PowerColor
Written by: Wes Compton
Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE
What is the RX 7900 GRE
Most of you will have heard of the RX 7900 but before getting into what sets the RX 7900 GRE apart, you might be curious what it stands for. Well the GRE started with the RX 6750 GRE which was named that because it was the Golden Rabbit Edition. A Chinese-specific model named GRE because 2023 was the year of the Rabbit. We are in 2024, the year of the Dragon, but the GRE naming has stuck and honestly, it's not as bad/confusing as XTX is when there is an XT model as well but personally I think that just going with RX 7900 would have been simpler and fit with the rest of AMDs naming across the product stack.
All of that said, the RX 7900 GRE shares a LOT with the two other RX 7900 models. Really it is just a step down or cut down of the same Navi 31 GPU. That means it is still an RDNA 3 architecture GPU and made on the same process. The transistor count however does drop down from 57.7 billion to 53.9 billion but the die size is still listed as the same. Where the XT and XTX have 192 ROPs the RX 7900 GRE has 160 and with that, it has 80 compute units and 80 ray accelerators, and 160 AI accelerators. It is 4.7% lower in stream processors compared to the 7900 XT with 5120 in total. For comparison though the 7800 XT sitting below the RX 7900 GRE has just 3840. In addition to the lower processer count AMD has the RX 7900 GRE clocked a little lower as well with the stock game GPU clock speed at 1880 MHz to the 2000 MHz of the 7900 XT and the boost clock is up to 2245 MHz to 2400 MHz on the 7900 XT. That lower clock speed helps put the RX 7900 GRE at 11% lower in simple precision performance. The RX 7900 GRE still has GDDR6 but they have dropped it down to 16GB from 20 GB matching the memory of the RX 7800 XT. It has a 256-bit memory bus as well just like the 7800 XT. Its lower clock speeds help with its power consumption with it sitting at 3 watts lower than the RX 7800 XT at 260 watts total board power. All of that said, with there not being a reference card a lot of the aftermarket cards including the one I will check out today are all overclocked.
|
Specifications |
RX 7800 XT |
RX 7900 GRE |
RX 7900 XT |
RX 7900 XTX |
|
Architecture |
RDNA 3 |
RDNA 3 |
RDNA 3 |
RDNA 3 |
|
Manufacturing Process |
5nm GCD + 6nm MCD |
5nm GCD + 6nm MCD |
5nm GCD + 6 nm MCD
|
5nm GCD + 6 nm MCD
|
|
Transistor Count |
28.1 Billion |
53.9 billion |
57.7 billion |
57.7 billion |
|
Die Size |
200mm² GCD 150mm² MCD |
300 mm2 GCD 220 mm2 MCD |
300 mm² GCD 220mm² MCD |
300 mm² GCD 220mm² MCD |
|
Compute Units |
60 |
80 |
84 |
96 |
|
Ray Accelerators |
60 |
80 |
84 |
96 |
|
AI Accelerators |
120 |
160 |
168 |
192 |
|
Stream Processors |
3840 |
5120 |
5376 |
6144 |
|
Game GPU Clock |
2124 MHz |
1880 MHz |
2000 MHz |
2300 MHz |
|
Boost GPU Clock |
Up to 2430 MHz |
Up to 2245 MHz |
Up to 2400 MHz |
Up to 2500 MHz |
|
Peak Single Precision Perf. |
Up to 37 TFLOPS |
Up to 45.98 TFLOPS |
Up to 52 TFLOPS |
Up to 61 TFLOPS |
|
Peak Half Precision Perf. |
Up to 74 TFLOPS |
Up to 91.96 TFLOPS |
Up to 103 TFLOPS |
Up to 123 TFLOPS |
|
Peak Texture Fill-Rate |
Up to 583 GT/s |
Up to 339.8 GT/s |
Up to 810 GT/s |
Up to 960 GT/s |
|
ROPs |
96 |
160 |
192 |
192 |
|
Peak Pixel Fill-Rate |
Up to 233 GP/s |
Up to 359.2 GP/s |
Up to 460 GP/s |
Up to 480 GP/s |
|
AMD Infinity Cache™ |
64 MB (2nd Gen) |
64 MB (2nd. Gen.) |
80 MB (2nd. Gen.) |
96 MB (2nd. Gen.) |
|
Memory |
16GB GDDR6 |
16GB GDDR6 |
20GB GDDR6 |
24GB GDDR6 |
|
Memory Speed |
19.5 Gbps |
18 Gbps |
20 Gbps |
20 Gbps |
|
Effective Memory Bandwidth w/ AMD Infinity Cache™
|
Up to 2708.4 GB/s |
Up to 2265.6 GB/s |
Up to 2900 GB/s |
Up to 3500 GB/s |
|
Memory Bus Interface |
256-bit |
256 -bit |
320-bit |
384-bit |
|
PCIe® Interface |
PCIe 4.0 x16 |
PCIe 4.0 x16
|
PCIe 4.0 x16 |
PCIe 4.0 x16 |
|
Total Board Power |
263W |
260 W |
315W |
355W |
|
Launch MSRP |
$499 |
$549 |
$899 |
$999 |
Before getting into testing I did also run GPUz to double-check that our clock speeds matched up with the specifications. The PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 GRE is an overclocked card and it has a boost clock of 2366, up from the 2245 MHz of AMD’s specifications, and the game clock speed is also overclocked with it at 2013 Mhz up from the 1880 MHz stock clock speed. I tested with the 31.0.24019 driver and GPUz also notes the BIOS version just in case we need that in the future as well.
