The Radeon RX 7900 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XTX: everything you need to know
The Radeon RX 7900 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XTX, the red team’s first graphics cards built on the RDNA 3 architecture, are AMD’s response to Nvidia’s RTX 40 series. When they go on sale on December 13th, these two high-end GPUs will cost $899 and $999, respectively. However, you’ll notice that these prices are far less expensive than the £1269/$1199 RTX 4080 and the £1679/$1599 RTX 4090.
Furthermore, they differ fundamentally from the existing Radeon RX 6000 cards in a way that, to be honest, is pretty unexpected to see from AMD GPUs. The GPU is divided up into multiple pieces in RDNA 3’s chiplet design, which was influenced by the Ryzen CPU, and the new media engine was developed with both future 4K gaming monitors and present PCs in mind.
Although AMD also revealed assistance in FSR 3, it is yet unknown (reliably) how these two cards will perform in games. In what appears to be a direct competition to Nvidia DLSS 3 and its AI frame generation technology, this new iteration of the FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaler will likely add its own “Fluid Motion Frames” in addition to easing the burden on rendering frames.
Let’s take a moment to consider all that has just been revealed on the Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX specifications and availability.
Prices for AMD’s Radeon RX 7000 series
AMD stated that the flagship RX 7900 XTX would launch with an MSRP of $999, while the RX 7900 XT is set at $899. UK prices are still to be determined. Due to board partners’ upgrades like factory overclocks or improved cooling, expect more expensive versions of both.
Given that Nvidia also unveiled their newest GPU generation with luxurious 4K engines, the fact that these are the only two certified RX 7000 graphics cards may disappoint those who were looking for more inexpensive, 1080p/1440p-focused graphics cards. However, the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX are also hundreds of dollars less expensive than their new-generation GeForce competitors, as well as more expensive older cards like the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti. Their worth will depend on how well they compare, but it’s at least reassuring that AMD’s top tier won’t set you back more than $40,000.
Release date for the AMD Radeon RX 7000 series
There will be no phased launches for the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX; they will both go on sale on December 13, 2022. However, it may be important to remember that FSR 3 won’t be accessible until early 2023. Contrast that with DLSS 3, which was ready to use when the RTX 4090 was released back in October, albeit with only a few games supported.
There is currently no information available regarding any upcoming mid-range or low-end RX 7000 graphics cards, but because the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX are only coming out with a few weeks remaining in the year, don’t anticipate any additional RDNA 3 family members until 2023.
Specs for the AMD Radeon RX 7000 series
Have a table if you’re only interested in the essential specifications. As you can see, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX has a hundred dollars more to spend on slightly better clock speeds and a few more compute units than the RX 7900 XT, which both have an abundance of VRAM (core clusters). I see that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX has a power rating that is substantially lower than the 450W RTX 4090.
Under the hood, there are many other things happening. Significant changes have been made to the way AMD builds its GPUs with RDNA 3, and consequently with the RX 7000 series. The GPU is typically monolithic, or made up of simply one large chip. Instead, RDNA 3 adopts a chiplet design, drawing a cue from AMD’s own Ryzen AND Epyc processors. The GPU is split up into a single 5nm graphics compute die (GCD) and six 6nm memory cache dies (MCDs). While the GCD, which has specialized hardware for ray tracing acceleration and AI capabilities, is where much of the graphics magic happens, it appears that the combined MCDs may give 2.7x the peak memory bandwidth of RDNA 2.
In order to ensure that the various components can communicate with one another quickly enough, AMD had to develop an extremely fast 5.3TB/s connection because chiplet architectures aren’t necessarily superior to monolithic GPUs. However, there are benefits as well. In particular, it enables the GPUs to utilize 5nm technology that is more efficient, but just where it matters most, while the MCDs utilize a less expensive manufacturing method with higher yields. Theoretically, this should result in next-generation performance while also lowering costs, with savings being passed on to the customer. Hopefully.
The new GCD also aims to catch up to Nvidia in terms of ray tracing performance, with AMD stating that it will have “1.5 times more rays in flight” and will have improved RDNA 3’s handling of newly created rays.
We’ll have to wait for other benchmarks other than AMD’s own to see how these modifications affect performance. Although a more significant comparison would undoubtedly be against the RTX 4090, the company claims that the RX 7900 XTX is between 1.5 and 1.7 times quicker than the RX 6950 XT in games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and ray-traced Metro Exodus. At the very least, the RTX 4080.
Speaking of, anyone purchasing an RX 7000 series card won’t need to worry about a power adapter of the RTX 40 series variety because they will accept the standard 8-pin power connections from your PSU as is. Perhaps a comfort given how frequently RTX 4090 adapters have been melting lately.
Features of the AMD Radeon RX 7000 series
As the first graphics cards to support DisplayPort 2.1, the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX will be able to fully support game monitors that are currently mostly hypothetical, such as 4K/480Hz and 8K/165Hz.
Other GPUs, like the RTX 4090 and 4080, use the DisplayPort 1.4 and 1.4a standards, which are still capable of supporting up to 144Hz at 4K. Additionally, the earliest 2.1 input monitors will not even be ready until 2023. However, 2.1 will be the preferable connector from a futureproofing perspective if you are a display junkie and have aspirations of playing on, say, some sort of fast 5K ultrawide, or running multiple 4K screens simultaneously.
In terms of AV1 encoding capabilities, the RX 7000 is on par with the RTX 40 series. This isn’t a function specifically for gaming, but it can be handy for streaming or recording game footage for later editing. AV1 is far better than other common encoders in striking a balance between excellent quality and minimal data usage.
A new DLSS 3 competitor is AMD FSR 3.
AMD also hinted at their future FSR 3 upscaler during the unveiling of the Radeon RX 7900 XT/RX 7900 XTX. Since it sounds like it’s aiming for the same types of enormous FPS gains as DLSS 3 – and not just from the core temporal upscaling – it’s terrible that it won’t be ready in time for the new cards’ release day.
Additionally, FSR 3 will use “Fluid Motion Frames technology” to increase FPS up to twice as much as FSR 2 did (previously known as FSR 2.0). Fluid Motion Frames aren’t really explained by AMD, but I’m guessing they’re interpolated frames that are placed between traditionally produced frames to improve overall smoothness. The GPU creates them using visual data from prior frames. In other words, DLSS 3 performs essentially the same thing with less AI in terms of its AI-generated frames. The next natural step would be to create whole new frames as FSR 2.0 already incorporates information from earlier frames to enhance the quality of its upscaling.
It’s interesting to note that AMD never stated that FSR 3 would require RDNA 3 hardware; hence, like earlier versions, it may become compatible with older cards in addition to Radeon models, as well as Nvidia and Intel graphics cards. Again, I’m just thinking, but that might be a big issue for improving performance on old PCs. If only in the games—and those haven’t even been announced yet—that themselves add support for FSR 3 on their end.
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