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AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Review

It’s always exciting when a new flagship graphic card is released. It’s like a peek into the future of what gaming will be for the next couple of years. As I was invited a couple of months ago to the launch of the latest GPUs of AMD in Las Vegas, I was so hyped to try them out for myself. It’s very different to see and try them in a controlled space versus having one in your hand to do whatever you want with. Luckily, AMD sent out their latest and greatest, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX to me early to try out.

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

First, let’s talk about the latest GPU series of AMD. Both the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the Radeon 7900 XT are built with the new AMD RDNA 3 architecture chiplet technology. Both cards are built as 4K cards which also can go beyond, up to 8K. The goal for the series according to AMD was to build the ultimate graphic cards for under USD 1,000, which in this day and age, is expensive but not the most expensive graphic card you can buy.

AMD’s expertise in chiplet technology allowed them to achieve new levels of performance with RDNA 3, featuring more compute units, new accelerators and 2nd generation ray tracing accelerators for increased performance and image quality. The 2nd generation AMD Infinity Cache technology is connected through an ultra-fast chiplet interconnect that delivers up to 5.3TB/s of bandwidth. With the new AMD RX 7900 series, users can reach higher refresh rates than ever before. With DisplayPort 2.1, users can go up to 900Hz in 1440p, 480Hz in 4K, and 165Hz in 8K. Lastly, they have achieved all this graphical power but also being very power efficient. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX only has a recommended PSU of 800W while the 7900 XT only requires 750W.

With all that aside though, let’s talk about the flagship GPU we tested, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. Did it do well in our tests? Let’s find out.

Design

Unboxing the Radeon RX 7900 XTX was an awesome but very basic experience. You flip open the box and the GPU rises or lifts up at you in all its glory. It’s very basic because it doesn’t come with anything else, though this isn’t anything new.

The reference GPU design that we got for the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX looks pretty awesome at first glance. It’s got this very solid, brute force, and muscular design that I personally like. It feels like a solid piece of equipment that’s super tough and means business. The top of the card features a whole piece of metal that angles to the edges forming a spaceship-like design.

The front part that faces you features a sleek grill design with 3 red accent lines to tell you that this is from team red. It features an 8-pin power connector which you don’t need special cables for and a simple light strip at the bottom. It’s a very subtle but honestly, powerful looking design that I really dig.

At the bottom you get a triple fan setup with just a Radeon logo on the upper lip. Again, very simple but tasteful in my opinion.

At the back you get 2 Display Port 2.1 ports, a USB-C port w/ DP 2.1 connectivity and a single HDMI 2.1 port.

The best part about the design of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is that it can fit most computer cases that are available in the market. Which, from what I’ve gathered from AMD, is a goal they set out to achieve as they wanted customers to just buy one and install it into their computers easily, without needing to upgrade anything else.

Performance

Let’s get straight to the point, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is built for 4K high refresh rate gaming, and I’m happy to say that it easily passes the test. To give you perspective about how I tested the GPU, I used a computer powered by AMD’s latest Ryzen 7 7700x CPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and a 42-inch LG C2 4K 120Hz OLED TV.

Next, I’m not an FPS snob wherein I need all my games to be above a certain threshold or to reach my monitor’s native 120Hz refresh rate. If it’s a single player title, I can live as long as it hits above 60fps all the time and for faster, more competitive titles, that’s when I expect to have higher fps. All games tested at max graphics and at 4k. WIthout further ado, here we go.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 118fps
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla 96fps
Red Dead Redemption 2 88fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 132fps
Cyberpunk 2077 (RT Off) 66fps
Far Cry 694fps
God of War 103fps

As you can see, the AMD RX 7900 XTX really is a high performance, 4K, high fps GPU. And if the FPS that you are getting with the GPU at 4K isn’t enough (really?) then you can just lower some settings or even use AMD’s FSR 2.0 in games that allow it to gain even more FPS. Also, with me using an AMD CPU and GPU, I gained extra performance as well using AMD’s Smart SAM technology that gives users extra performance.

From my experience with the games, Cyberpunk 2077 really was the one game that the GPU had a hard time running at over 60FPS. With the help of FSR though at quality preset, I managed to reach the threshold of over 60FPS with single player titles. Playing competitively in Warzone 2, I never had a problem with the RX 7900 XTX, I’m sure titles that are easier to run will get over 200FPS with this GPU.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX also didn’t disappoint, which wasn’t surprising at all.

3DMark Time Spy25,138
3DMark Port Royal13,895
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra17,685
Unigine Heaven 4K2073

Gaming and synthetic performance wise, the RX 7900 XTX, individually, is a beast. There’s no way around it, it’s one of the best graphic cards, if not the best value graphic card if you’re looking at the top-tier ones in the market. It undercuts the competition in price by around 25% and you get performance better or at par with the competition.

Temperatures and Power Consumption

As for power consumption, in our testing we averaged around 360-380W consumed in different games and benchmarks that we tested. Which is not great but not poor as well, mostly around the same as all the cards in its price point. This made me kind of disappointed as I expected it to be a bit more power efficient. RDNA 3 clearly isn’t as power efficient as I thought it would be.

Temperatures of the GPU were a bit high for my liking, testing this GPU in a room that’s around 28-30 degrees celsius. In gaming, I averaged at around 76 degrees all the way up to 84c in some use cases. On idle, it settled at around 46c.

Conclusion

The AMD Radeon 7900 XTX is a great GPU if you’re looking to game at high refresh rates at 4K resolution. There’s a lot that we learned with this GPU, heading into it, all the hype made us believe that it was going to be a game changer in the high end GPU space. In some cases, yes, it is. It undercuts the price of the competition by a lot, and can give you performance at par with it. It’s not the RTX 4090 killer that a lot were expecting but that seems like such an optimistic point of view, especially for a card that costs a few tens of thousands less.

 

For what it is though, it is a generational leap over its predecessor the 6950 XT, around 30-35% more powerful in this case, and not a great deal slower than the competition from team green. Regardless of the competition, the AMD Radeon 7900 XTX is a great option for players looking to play games with the best possible quality. It allows people with lower budgets to be able to afford a high-end gaming GPU.

In my opinion, AMD has done its goal of offering a GPU that offers awesome performance at a much more reachable price point. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is priced at PHP 71,000 and its brother, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is priced at PHP 64,000.

 

 

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