The AMD Radeon
RX 7900 GRE was originally launched in China back in July 2023, and from what
everyone was told, that card was going to be exclusive to that region.
Well,
following the launch of the RTX Super
series of GPUs last month, AMD's decided to surprise everyone and
launch the RX 7900 GRE globally, starting this week, and it looks primed to
upend the midrange GPU market in a pretty huge way.
That's
because the RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) is going on sale starting at
$549, which puts it directly in competition with the Nvidia RTX
4070 on price, and undercuts the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super by offering competitive
performance for just over 90% of the cost.
To
be clear, the card that is being released globally is the same card that has
already been available for Chinese consumers, and so it has been extensively
benchmarked for months, with much of that data freely available online for everyone
to see.
This
has no doubt driven much of the global interest in the RX 7900 GRE since it
originally launched back in July, and I fully expect this card to fly off the
shelves since it is without question one of the best graphics cards for
the midrange you're going to find.
In
terms of raw synthetic performance, the RX 7900 GRE follows the familiar
AMD-Nvidia pattern where the Radeon card is better at pure rasterization while
the GeForce card is the better ray-tracer, but the difference between the RX
7900 GRE and the RTX 4070 Super in ray-tracing performance isn't as wide as it
might have been last generation.
What's
more, when it comes to gaming, Nvidia's advantage in native ray tracing is
overcome by the RX 7900 GRE as soon as you bring upscaling into the mix, which
you invariably have to do whenever ray tracing above 1080p is involved.
The
RX 7900 GRE is even a much more capable creative card than I was expecting, so
long as you're not working with CUDA, but for graphic designers, photographers,
and video editors, this is a surprisingly powerful GPU for a lot less money
than it's rivals.
Overall,
the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE isn't so powerful that it completely knocks out
Nvidia's RTX 4070 Super, but it's hitting Nvidia's newest GPU a lot harder than
I think Nvidia was expecting so soon after launch. Unfortunately, this does put
the only-slightly-cheaper-but-not-as-good AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT in a bit of an
awkward position, but for gamers looking to get the best performance for their
money, more options are better in this case.
The
AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE is available starting February 27, 2024, with a US MSRP
of $549 (about £440/AU$770). This is the same price as the Nvidia RTX 4070, $50
less than the RTX 4070 Super, and $50 more than the RX 7800 XT.
This
launch doesn't include an AMD reference card, so you will need to buy the RX
7900 GRE from third-party partners like ASRock, Gigabyte, Sapphire, and others.
The sample I was sent for review is the PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 GRE, a
model line that typically sells for AMD's MSRP or below (when on sale).
The
AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE is a modified Navi 31 GPU with four fewer compute units
than the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, as well as slower clock speeds. It's power
requirements are also officially lower at a starting TGP of 260W, but this will
vary by which card you go for.
The
Radeon RX 7900 GRE also has 16GB GDDR6 VRAM to the RX 7900 XT's 20GB, and while
the RX 7900 XT has a 320-bit memory bus, the RX 7900 GRE has a slimmer — but
still sizeable — 256-bit bus. With a memory clock of 2,250 MHz (compared to the
RX 7900 XT's 2,500 MHz), the RX 7900 GRE comes in with an effective memory
speed of 18 Gbps and a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s, which is a notable decline
from the RX 7900 XT's 800 Gbps and 800 GB/s, respectively.
Also
notable are the two 8-pin power connectors, which won't require you to fuss
around with a 16-pin connector like Nvidia's latest graphics cards require you
to do, whether that's through an adapter or an ATX 3.0 power supply.
While
there is an AMD reference card for the RX 7900 GRE, AMD has said that global
availability will only come through AIB partners, so the design you get with
your card will vary by manufacturer.
The
card I tested, the PowerColor Hellhound RX 7900 GRE, sports a triple-fan cooler
with RGB lighting in the fan. It's a long card to be sure, and even though it's
technically a dual-slot card, the shroud makes for a tight fit.
The
backplate of the Hellhound RX 7900 GRE has some notable features, like the
Hellhound logo, the exposed GPU bracket, and a hole in the backplate opposite
the third fan to leave an open path for air to pass over the GPU cooler's
heatsink fins to improve cooling efficiency.
Overall, then, there's just no getting around the
fact that the RX 7900 GRE effectively outperforms any other card in the
midrange. And despite the RX 7900 GRE falling well short of the RTX 4070-series
GPUs overall, it's worth keeping in mind that with Photoshop and
similar rasterization-dependent programs, the RX 7900 GRE performs the best,
and it doesn't fall too far behind the RTX cards when it comes to video
editing.
The
weakness of the RX 7900 GRE is that most, if not all, 3D modeling software
relies so heavily on Nvidia's CUDA that it heavily skews the creative
performance averages, that it can be somewhat deceptive—unless you NEED this
graphics card for 3D modeling. If that's the case, nothing else matters, and
you need to go with an RTX 4070-class graphics card despite the RX 7900 GRE's
superior performance everywhere else.
How
many people will that stipulation apply to ultimately? Not enough to hold the
RX 7900 GRE from claiming the crown as the best graphics card in the midrange,
and since its final value score is just shy of the RX 7800 XT's, there really
isn't any reason to opt for any other card right now. The RX 7900 GRE is
honestly just that good.
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