AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT vs AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a high end desktop graphics card based on the RDNA 3 architecture. It uses the Navi 31 Chip with consists out of a Graphics Compute Die (GCD) manufactured in 5nm and five (out of six) Memory Cache Dies (MCD chiplets) in 6nm. The 7900 XT offers 5.376 cores clocked at up to 2.4 GHz (max, 2 GHz game average), 80 MB Infinity Cache (L3 cache) and 20 GB GDDR6 graphics memory with a 320 Bit memory bus and 20 Gbps effective speed.

The average gaming performance is slightly below the GeForce RTX 4080 in games (without raytracing). Therefore, the RX 7900 XT is best suited for QHD (for higher frame rates) up to 4K resolution and maximum detail settings of 2022 games. Raytracing performance is still a bit lower than with Nvidia cards, but a big step up from the previous generation.

The integrated video en- and decoders support AV1, H.264, and HEVC videos wit up to 8K resolution. The display ports are a big advantage of the new chip supporting DisplayPort 2.1 with UHBR13.5 for up to 54 Gbps bandwidth (up to 8K 165 Hz with DSC possible).

The power consumption is rated 315 Watt and in our tests similar to the RTX 4080.

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is a mid-range desktop GPU and is primarily designed for gaming in 1440p. This makes the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT the fourth-fastest model of the current Radeon generation and places it directly behind the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE. The graphics chip is manufactured using the 5 nm process at TSMC. The chiplet design is also used in the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, although there are only four MCDs here. Nevertheless, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT has 16 GB of VRAM, beating the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 in terms of technical data.

Features

RDNA 3 continues to serve as the basis for the Navi 32 graphics chip. The already established features such as SAM (Smart Access Memory) and the Infinity Cache are also available in the new mid-range model aka Radeon RX 7800 XT. Compared to the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT the ray tracing part has been revised and AI support has been implemented on the hardware side. The media engine has been updated and videos can be decoded/encoded with a resolution of up to 8K. The modern DisplayPort connection is also available on the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, as version 2.1 is currently only available from AMD. AMD's answer to DLSS is FSR 2.0 and offers a significant increase in performance in games with the upscaling option. With FSR 3, there will be another feature in the near future which, like DLSS 3.0, promises even better frame rates thanks to frame generation.

Performance

The performance of the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT in games without ray tracing is well ahead of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is out of reach for the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT. In the in-house duel, the performance of the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT can be compared with an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT can be compared.

Power consumption

The power consumption of the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is estimated by the manufacturer at 263 watts (TBP) and is therefore significantly more efficient than an AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (300 watts). Compared to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT requires 63 watts more. Also an AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE is also more economical at 260 watts.