Following revitalized competition from main competitors NVIDIA, who have unleashed a trio of overpriced graphics cards that offer marginally greater value than previous, AMD have begun to counter by dropping the prices of the 7900 XT and now seemingly drip-feeding the OEM / China exclusive 7900 GRE into the DIY market.
We’ve already discussed the announcement of the RTX 4000 SUPER series by NVIDIA, ushering in three more powerful models for effectively the same price tag as the models that they are replacing, excluding the RTX 4080 Super which is barely a fraction faster but will have its price dropped to a hilarious $1000 USD.
The largest improvements comes in the form of the RTX 4070 SUPER which retains the quote-on-quote “modest” price point of $600 USD, while it may undoubtedly be faster than the $500 Radeon RX 7800 XT, it does so while retaining the retarded price point and a woeful 12GB frame buffer, while the standard RTX 4070 has had its price dropped by $50 as a means of upselling you towards its SUPER variant while preserving NVIDIA’s hefty profit margin.
NVIDIA’s entire focus with the RTX 4000 SUPER series is their “high-end” offerings, with the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER being most appealing, however leaked 3DMark performance suggests that its 10% increase in CUDA core count and 16GB of VRAM is being somewhat hindered by a cucked L2 cache, it’s highly likely that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER will not be sharing the same 64 MB L2 cache pool as the RTX 4080.
To counteract the announcements, AMD have decided to wage war against the RTX 4070 Ti Super instead by discounting the price of their RX 7900 XT which can currently be found on Newegg for $710, which isn’t just a $90 savings versus the NVIDIA competitor but it also performs substantially faster than the standard RTX 4070 Ti while giving you an additional 4GB of VRAM to leverage at higher resolutions.
Regardless, the Radeon RX 7800 XT continues to excel in being the best “affordable” GPU across this entire woeful generation, convincingly manhandling the standard RTX 4070 which has now been dropped to $550, however AMD has no actual competitor for NVIDIA’s RTX 4070 Ti which is now being replaced.
Or rather they do, except for the matter being that the RX 7900 GRE is mainly exclusive to the Chinese market and select OEM system builders across central Europe. The 7900 GRE is equipped with the Navi 31 XL GPU featuring a Navi 32-sized package but boasts a higher core count versus the RX 7800 XT.
Sporting 5120 Stream Processors and a 16GB GDDR6 memory setup across a 256-bit bus, this card, at least on paper would certainly plug the performance gap left by AMD given how the RX 7800 XT only features 3840 Stream Processors.
However, real-world performance tests reveal that the RX 7900 GRE doesn’t experience as large a performance boost as it aught to be, mainly due to a constrained power limit of 260W, which is even lower than the RX 7800 XT’s 263W. Again, this is a product mainly for OEM systems with stark requirements for efficiency due to outlandish cost-cutting with other components for profit.
However the 7900 GRE is available for purchase at select European DIY retail outlets such as Mindfactory, CoolMod and PSK Mega Store and now it can be purchased for a reduced price.
In Italy, the XFX reference design of the RX 7900 GRE is presently listed at €542 ($591 USD) indicating a €60 reduction from its price two months ago.
This represents the lowest observed price for the Radeon RX 7900 GRE in Europe. Concurrently, German and Spanish retailers have adjusted their prices to €580 ($632 USD), apparently aligning with the new MSRP for the model.
AMD has not officially unveiled the RX 7900 GRE as a DIY design, yet the card is evidently being distributed to retailers throughout Europe. It’s noteworthy that these cards are not currently available in other regions outside of China and Europe, I for one hope that this situation changes in the near future.
AMD has no alternative to the outgoing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti from a raw performance perspective, the $710 Radeon RX 7900 XT should provide superior performance or match that of the soon to be introduced $800 RTX 4070 Ti SUPER.
While AMD has no need to drop prices for products lower down the performance totem pole given how the $500 Radeon RX 7800 XT is a much more convincing and compelling product versus the now $550 GeForce RTX 4070, AMD has no general alternative to the RTX 4070 SUPER besides introducing the 7900 GRE to DIY retailers worldwide.
If sold at around the $549-599 price range in the American markets, the 7900 GRE would ultimately provide consumers with a superior product versus the RTX 4070 SUPER for effectively the same price point, with greater VRAM capacity for increased longevity to boot.
For the time being, selective European consumers can now purchase a superior product in the form of the RX 7900 GRE for upwards of €80 Euro less than the RTX 4070 SUPER.
