RIP RTX 4070. You will not be missed.
AMD have finally flushed out its RDNA 3 (RX 7000) series family with the introduction of the RX 7800 XT, tackling the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 and the RX 7700 XT to combat the RTX 4060 Ti.
Both of these graphics cards utilize the mid-range Navi 32 core, containing a maximum of 60 compute units with a 256-bit memory interface and up to 64MB of “Infinity Cache”.
These new graphics cards will be filling an alleged void in the market for sub $500 1440p monsters in the middle of AMD’s product stack, despite the fact that you can readily purchase previous generation RX 6000 series products for around the same price bracket.
Firstly, the Radeon RX 7800 XT which doesn’t deserve to be designated an “800 XT” class product especially considering the mid-spec Navi 32 core at its disposal, as someone who owns the alleged “predecessor” to this GPU, the RX 6800 XT, I continue to be disappointed by AMD continuing to arbitrarily push its products up the pegging order by creating entirely new SKU tags, such as the 7900 “XTX”.
Because of course, what should truly be considered a “7800 XT” would in fact be the 7900 GRE which is exclusive to prebuilt PCs and the Chinese market, what a shame.
With just 60 Compute Units resulting in 3840 stream processors, the 7800 XT is a far cry from its supposed predecessor which contained 72 CUs (4608 stream processors). Despite that the RDNA 3 based incantation comes with am equal amount of VRAM at 16GB of 19.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory, across a 256-bit interface. With a TBP of 263W RDNA 3 continues to disappoint with its power efficiency, and yet its frequencies are rather low at just 2124MHz base and 2430MHz boost.
Never the less the performance of the RX 7800 XT at least when compared against the likes of the current generation GeForce RTX 4070 from NVIDIA which has an MSRP of $600, the RX 7800 XT is the better performer at least in regards to actual games barring a few instances of games such as Dying Light 2, DOOM Eternal and F1 2023 with Ray Tracing enabled.
AMD proclaims that the RX 7800 XT overall is 3.5% faster at 1440p than the RTX 4070, with most titles shown above ranging from a 5% improvement for the Radeon to as much as 23% faster in both Cyberpunk 2077 and COD MW2.
Not only that but the RTX 4070 is only equipped with 12GB of VRAM as well, meaning that the Radeon RX 7800 XT is not only faster but it’s certain to maintain greater longevity thanks to having 16GB of VRAM and DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity.
The real kicker though? The RX 7800 XT will be launching on September 6th for $499.
Now then, the ugly duckling, the RX 7700 XT isn’t stripped down in terms of actual cores with 54 Compute Units available (3456 stream processors), but rather this particular card is bandwidth starved and poorly priced.
For $449, or rather a $50 saving you get 90% of the core count, but you get only 12GB of VRAM, of which is far slower at 18 Gbps and if that wasn’t bad enough the card is only packing a 192-bit memory bus, tack on just 48 MB of Infinity Cache into the mix and you’ve got yourself a severely gimped product priced poorly, this particular card is supposed to tackle the RTX 4060 Ti and it does so with minimal effort.
In actual fact it’s a blow out, the RX 7700 XT simply bends over the 4060 Ti and goes to town, dare I say it would be considered a humiliation with the Radeon being over 12% faster on average with most instances being as high as 20-31% faster. But then again, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti retails for $399 whereas the RX 7700 XT is priced higher at $449.
Oh yeah, and the RTX 4060 Ti comes packing 16GB of VRAM as opposed to AMD’s 7700 XT which has only 12GB.
What’s the fucking point of this product? Spend $50 more than the NVIDIA and get far greater performance, but then again if you spend another fifty bucks from the 7700 XT you get arguably a far better card that matches and or beats the 4070 for $100 less. There is no sense or reasoning behind pricing the 7700 XT as high as it should be, not unless it came equipped with the faster 19.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips.
Maybe if prices started at $379 I’d change my tone but until that specific day never comes AMD can shove this one up their ass.
AMD’s marketing team also continues to embarrass themselves, with a pitiful example of them comparing both the 7700 XT and 7800 XT, not against the previous generation RX 6800 XT and 6700 XT but rather the first incantation of the RDNA architecture, the RX 5700 XT and its competitor, the GeForce RTX 2070 Super.
Dubbed the upgrade that we’ve waited for showcases the unnecessary performance uplift from a four year upgrade cycle with a mid-range graphics card, which now includes the 800 XT SKU. Needless to say that the 7700 XT and 7800 XT absolutely dominate the performance charts for slightly more money than relative products were four years ago.
But I am also quite disappointed how AMD didn’t take the opportunity to do what NVIDIA loves to do when they announce a new product by showcasing the infinite percentage performance increase with these brand new RX 7000 series GPUs with ray tracing versus the 5700 XT.
Overall I don’t particularly have issues with the RX 7800 XT apart from its fake naming, it will provide parity or superior performance than the RTX 4070 while offering more VRAM for $100 less. It’s a solid product, the same cannot be said about the 7700 XT which would have been a far better product if it had the same 19.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory as the 7800 XT and probably trimmed another $70 off its price tag to actually create a divide between it and its Navi 32 stablemate.
For $449 it may outright rape NVIDIA’s 4060 Ti, but it does so with less VRAM and for $50 more, both of these GPUs basically cost the same as what a brand new 6800 and 6800 XT costs, actual game performance would vary wildly but it would be hard to differ between them, the only upshot to buying the RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT is if you value the superior Xilinx media encoder, the AI performance uplift and vastly superior ray tracing performance otherwise they’re both worthless.
