The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is a pretty good GPU, at least relative to its GeForce competitor, but whether or not it's worth $1,000 will depend on how much stock you place in ray tracing performance.
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Review: RDNA 3 Flagship is Fast
- Thread starter Steve
- Start date
Hardware specs for all the cards in the testing:
Well that's disappointing (from a performance perspective).
It will be interesting to see if they sell out immediately upon launch (like the RX6800XT) or whether they hang around on shelves (like the RTX 4080).
I think I'll stick with my 3070 for now, as none of these options is tempting given their respective price points.
It will be interesting to see if they sell out immediately upon launch (like the RX6800XT) or whether they hang around on shelves (like the RTX 4080).
I think I'll stick with my 3070 for now, as none of these options is tempting given their respective price points.
Wow, I think a lot of people are going to be surprised and disappointed by these results. I was expecting at least 20% better raster performance. What we have here is a great GPU, but I can't really say that the price is that great considering that the 4080 IMHO is $300-400 overpriced. That would make this card at least $300 overpriced too. On par with the 4080 in raster was not my expectation.
R00sT3R
Posts: 805 +2,478
I'm not looking for a new GPU but if I were, I just couldn't get past AMD's utterly lousy Ray tracing performance and the $200 price differential to the 4080 isn't big enough to convince me otherwise.
Of course, If all you care about is raster performance then you may as well take the $200 saving and spend it elsewhere.
Of course, If all you care about is raster performance then you may as well take the $200 saving and spend it elsewhere.
Pretty much what I was expecting. A bit faster than the 4080 for a discounted price. It's clear that ray tracing is still in NVidia's favor.
Slight performance edge over the 4080 at a superior price point? Sounds good to me.
Possible small typo: In Far Cry 6 you state "Far Cry 6 is largely GPU bound at 1440p". I think it should say CPU bound.
Pastuch
Posts: 155 +169
Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 are the worst optimized games for Nvidia hardware there is. I'm honestly shocked. The 7900xtx is going to sell like crazy to the 25 million people playing Warzone 2 right now.
A prime example where a performance / wat chart would show how much better this card is.
As to the random perf gaps it feels like driver issues that should be improved in the coming months.
As to the random perf gaps it feels like driver issues that should be improved in the coming months.
Yeah, I think it's clear that neither AMD or Nvidia are really bringing the value here. I have a 3080 that I purchased at MSRP two years ago. The 4090 is about 2X as powerful, but is more than 2X the price. The 4080 is about 50% more powerful at 70% higher cost. Now, you have the 7900 XTX which is also about 50-55% more powerful in raster, but only maybe 25% faster or so in RT and it is >40% more costs. Considering that the most I could ebay my 3080 for is $600 - 10% selling fee $540... There is just no upgrade here worth the additional costs. In some ways I'm disappointed because I have a 4K 144hz monitor and it would be nice to take better advantage of that, but in other ways I feel really good about my $700.00 spent on a 3080 as 2 years later, though it was much more than I would have liked to spend at the time. Given DLSS & RT though, if I had to choose between the 7900 XTX or 4080 I would spend the additional $200 for the DLSS and superior RT. I can't believe I'm saying that, but the 4080 as poorly priced as it is, is still superior to the 7900 XTX overall. I'm not buying either of these cards at MSRP though, maybe by this time next year there will be some price cuts.
takaozo
Posts: 945 +1,481
Thank for the review, it was a fun read. Now when do the x600 series come next year?
What's up with all the negativity in the review? Almost reads as an editorial for Nvidia. Faster than 4080 for for $200 less than the 4080.
Seems AMD needs to be 30% faster than Nvidia while costing 50% less for some reviewers to think it's worth it, I'm exaggerating for effect here but the mentality holds.
Seems AMD needs to be 30% faster than Nvidia while costing 50% less for some reviewers to think it's worth it, I'm exaggerating for effect here but the mentality holds.
Despite whether or not the review opinions are skewed to Nvidia, the 7900 XTX showing here was disappointing. It is a better value if you only care about raster performance and nothing else then you can look at it as saving $200 compared to the 4080 which is basically on par with raster.
However, more and more games support RT and DLSS/FSR, while FSR is pretty good, DLSS is still superior and the 4080 has superior RT and its superior in non-gaming tasks. The bottom line here is that despite AMD's claims, the 7900 XTX did not quite live up to the hype, it is not a product that is on par for less, it's an inferior (comparatively not an insult) product with a price tag that doesn't quite make up for the difference IMHO.
In many ways, AMD just did more to justify the 4080's price tag than to embarrass Nvidia with a cheaper/competitive product. I for one can say I'm very disappointed. It's good to have choices and for those that don't want RT or don't care about upscaling, the 7900 XTX will be a great card for 4K high frame gaming for years to come, grab it if that's you. But, if you want access to run more RT games, the 4080 is a better choice and of course the 4090 is even better yet. Not that I can currently afford any of these.
However, more and more games support RT and DLSS/FSR, while FSR is pretty good, DLSS is still superior and the 4080 has superior RT and its superior in non-gaming tasks. The bottom line here is that despite AMD's claims, the 7900 XTX did not quite live up to the hype, it is not a product that is on par for less, it's an inferior (comparatively not an insult) product with a price tag that doesn't quite make up for the difference IMHO.
In many ways, AMD just did more to justify the 4080's price tag than to embarrass Nvidia with a cheaper/competitive product. I for one can say I'm very disappointed. It's good to have choices and for those that don't want RT or don't care about upscaling, the 7900 XTX will be a great card for 4K high frame gaming for years to come, grab it if that's you. But, if you want access to run more RT games, the 4080 is a better choice and of course the 4090 is even better yet. Not that I can currently afford any of these.
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Do you even read the review, it's NOT faster, in fact it's slower in many games even in raster, and only pull ahead mostly due to some grossly OUTLIER titles like Modern Warfare 2 where Nvidia is horribly unoptimized.
It's on par with 4080 in raster, WAY slower in RT, no DLSS, worse efficiency, terrible driver and media engine, just a way inferior product. The $200 less doesn't make that big of a difference since it's 1000 vs 1200, or 17% less money, an inferior product that 17% cheaper than an overpriced product deserve all the negativity it gets.
P
punctualturn
Funny that something so insignificant (numbers wise) is so important for Steve.
Insignificant because like it or not, there ARE several factors that are always conveniently ignored by reviewers:
1- The amount of games that support RT are simply minuscule compared to the immense library of games (that many of us haven't played yet) that don't have it, neither need it.
2- Talking about the ones that have it, very, very few of the games that have RT, gives you the visual reward that is supposed to have, but at an insane performance hit.
3- None of these GPUs, except that obscenely priced 4090 (but that is surprisingly never an issue for that GPU) are future proof if we only look at the RT gimmick, so again, RT is insignificant.
4- That second quote "DLSS superior" its really disappointing, considering that even Tim (who is very pro Nvidia) showed us on the previous video, that in reality, both DLSS and FSR very close and worse, both techs are inferior than the games built in TAA.
Personally, I have said this before, I will not buy nvidia simply because everything they do is anti-consumer, against open standards and everything they push is to keep you locked into their hardware. And how little they think of us the consumers when they are on top or you forgot how much they charged for the 3090Ti?
And again, those point are never mentioned by reviewers either..
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FPS-per-watt graphs aren't especially useful, because there's a much larger relative variation in fps figures than those seen in the system power draws, but here's one anyway:
This is fps data for Dying Light 2 and Hitman 3 against the respective system power used. It's worth noting that the standard deviations in the fps for the two games were 28% and 33%, respectively, of the mean fps across all cards, compared to 18% for the system power draws in both games. Thus when calculating fps-per-watt the figures tend to group around each other.
takaozo
Posts: 945 +1,481
What the heck is going on with dual monitor setup, Youtubers and many others sites report issues with some single/multi display power draw in idle state.
Steve uses geometric mean and not arithmetic mean to moderate outliers. But yes that's exactly what how averages work; faster here, slower there, but on the whole faster.
All games uses rasterization. A few game uses RT in addition to rasterization. Now how important is rasterization performance compared to RT? Very important.
Tim just did a DLSS 2.4 vs FSR 2.1 comparison and the results were... about the same. I don't care for RT or lowering my resolution and upconverting it and I assume most people feel the same way. DLSS benefits slower cards the most, just think about that statement.
WhiteLeaff
Posts: 479 +880
That's the most nonsensical conclusion I've ever seen, putting RT aside (which is a joke in my humble but honest opinion), the 4080 is an inferior product in almost every possible metric, not to mention the infamous connector.
CapNemo72
Posts: 34 +64
Let's tell the things as they are:
ALL new graphic cards are OVERPRICED. Heavily.
It is the result of coin mining mania, inflation and companies seeing that people are still buying GPUs at 2000USD to PLAY games. They understood that there is a LOT of people ready to pay very high price.
So they adjusted their prices accordingly.
Now, back to today's new arrival.
In raster, it beats flat out RTX 4080 on price/performance basis.
When we include ray tracing, it loses to the same 4080 heavily. BUT, it does brings almost double performance compared to last AMD flagship 6950XT.
Do not forget, that drivers are not optimized for this gpu, and but are for all others.
If past is anything, you will see improvements on all positions, and it will get closer to 4080 in RT and to 4090 in raster.
For the price, if you do not need IMMEDIATE rt performance, it is better buy than 4080. Especially if we take into account street price rather than MSRPs.
That been said, I am disappointed that I would need to pay double to get double performance. That is not called advancement in technology.
Should we all ignore all of these new cards and push manufacturers to lower their prices?
While I would love to see this and I am willing to wait, the reality is, they will be sold out and nothing will happened.
So stop whining about prices, we brought that upon our-self's by not being able to control that "buy" button on our screens.
ALL new graphic cards are OVERPRICED. Heavily.
It is the result of coin mining mania, inflation and companies seeing that people are still buying GPUs at 2000USD to PLAY games. They understood that there is a LOT of people ready to pay very high price.
So they adjusted their prices accordingly.
Now, back to today's new arrival.
In raster, it beats flat out RTX 4080 on price/performance basis.
When we include ray tracing, it loses to the same 4080 heavily. BUT, it does brings almost double performance compared to last AMD flagship 6950XT.
Do not forget, that drivers are not optimized for this gpu, and but are for all others.
If past is anything, you will see improvements on all positions, and it will get closer to 4080 in RT and to 4090 in raster.
For the price, if you do not need IMMEDIATE rt performance, it is better buy than 4080. Especially if we take into account street price rather than MSRPs.
That been said, I am disappointed that I would need to pay double to get double performance. That is not called advancement in technology.
Should we all ignore all of these new cards and push manufacturers to lower their prices?
While I would love to see this and I am willing to wait, the reality is, they will be sold out and nothing will happened.
So stop whining about prices, we brought that upon our-self's by not being able to control that "buy" button on our screens.
BrwPCnrd87
Posts: 37 +47
I am happy to see more competition, but the reality is I refuse to pay that much for a graphics card. It was painful for me to pay $430 for my 5700 XT back in 2019. I am upgrading in January, and it will probably be a 6000 series card or maybe a 30 series. Idk.
dangh
Posts: 1,251 +2,033
This is a very good product for the price. It was known it will be in 4080 range and it is. For a new architecture it is significant achievement. Sure, we need still some time, but amd is closing the gap. I usually upgrade every second Gen but this is tempting.
