AMD is going up against Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 4080 with two high-end graphics cards: the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the Radeon RX 7900 XT. Which model and architecture comes out on top: AMD’s RDNA 3 or NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace GPU? Let’s check it out!
Both GPUs use AMD’s latest technologies and the RDNA 3 architecture. They’re basically the same GPU with a few tweaks to justify a new variant and a $100 price difference.
Let’s start by comparing the Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX’s performance parameters to those of other (ex) high-end graphics cards:
Specifications
| RX 7900 XTX | RX 7900 XT | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | CHECK PRICE | CHECK PRICE |
| Released | 13.12.2022 | 13.12.2022 |
| Architecture | RNA 3 | RNA 3 |
| Codename | Navi 31 XTX | Navi 31 XT |
| Chip Size (Die/GCD) | 300mm² | 300mm² |
| Memory Cache Dies | 6× ~37 = 220mm² | 6× ~37 = 220mm² |
| Transistors graphics chip | 57.7 (including MCDs) | 57.7 (including MCDs) |
| Manufacturing process | N5 (GCD) + N6 (MCD) | N5 (GCD) + N6 (MCD) |
| Shader Clusters (CUs/SMs) | 96 | 84 |
| FP32 ALUs/TMUs/ROPs | 6,144*/384/192 | 5,376*/336/192 |
| Ray Tracing Units | 96 (2nd gen.) | 84 (2nd gen.) |
| Matrix Units | 192 (1st Gen.) | 168 (1st Gen.) |
| Level 2 cache (MiB) | 6 | 6 |
| Level 3 cache (MiB) | 96 | 80 |
| GPU Boost Clock in Games (MHz) | 2,300** | 2,000** |
| FP16 Performance ALUs (TFLOPS) | 113 | 86 |
| FP32 Performance ALUs (TFLOPS) | 56.5 | 43 |
| Fill rate (Mtex/Mpix per sec) | 883.2/294.4 | 672.0/256.0 |
| Optical Frame Accelerator (TOPS) | – | – |
| Memory Binding (Bit) | 384 | 320 |
| L3 cache speed (MHz) | 2,300 | 2,300 (probably) |
| Speed ​​RAM (GTs/MHz) | 20.0/10,000 | 20.0/10,000 |
| Storage type | GDDR6 | GDDR6 |
| Transfer rate memory (GB/s) | 960 | 800 |
| L3 cache transfer rate (TB/s) | 5.3 | 5.3 (presumably) |
| Storage capacity (MiB) | 24,576 | 20,480 |
| PCI Express standard | 4.0×16 | 4.0×16 |
| PCI Express power connectors | 2× 8 pin | 2× 8 pin |
| Power consumption | 355 watts | 315 watts |
| (Display) connectivity | DP 2.1, HDMI 2.1a, USB-C | DP 2.1, HDMI 2.1a, USB-C |
| $ | 999 USD | 899 USD |
Architecture
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT are powered by RDNA 3, AMD’s new generation of GPU architecture. The RDNA 3 microarchitecture is the technological successor to the RDNA 2 microarchitecture, which was released on 2020. This RDNA milestone, also known as Navi (1x), which replaced the long-used “Graphics Core Next” architecture (GCN) in mid-2019. The Compute Unit (CU) at AMD, a tidy shader core, enabled Navi in the form of the Radeon RX 5700 (XT) to achieve the power of Nvidia’s Turing chips per clock.Â
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AMD has significantly increased the IPC rate of the Compute Units (CU) with RDNA, resulting in more net remaining from the gross. The most important point is dedicated to the so-called Waves or Warps. A wave, from the perspective of a graphics chip, is a collection of arithmetic tasks with 32 or 64 elements. These tasks arrive at the graphics chip via an API, such as DirectX or Vulkan, and are forwarded to a group of arithmetic units by a foreman – the scheduler. These mostly arithmetic-logical units, or ALUs, of the GPU handle shader calculations like multiply and add (multiplication and addition; MADD for short), mostly in the floating-point format FP32 (floating point with 32-bit precision).
Since RDNA, each compute unit has two corresponding blocks and has thus been referred to as a dual compute unit” or “work group processor” (WGP). The most important new feature of Navi goes one step further and is turned on by default: the shader compiler can send data in Wave32 format, and Navi returns one result per bar.
RX 7900 XTX Vs RX 7900 XT: Gaming Benchmarks
How do AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX fare in traditional games and the latest ray-traced hits? To answer this question, we put the next-gen graphics cards through numerous benchmarks.Â
| Processor | Intel Core i9-12900K (8 P-Cores + SMT, no E-Cores) |
|---|---|
| Processor settings | OC @ 5.2 GHz via multiplier, Uncore/Cache @ 4.9 GHz |
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Apex (PCI Express 5.0 capable, rBAR/SAM on) |
| RAM | 32 GiB G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB (2× 16 GiB) |
| RAM clock & timings | DDR5-6400 (32-37-36-88, 2T command rate) |
| Disk (Primary) | Gigabyte Aorus NVME ×4 Gen4 SSD 2TB |
| Power adapter | Corsair RM850i 850W |
| Cooling system | Alphacool Eisblock + Nexxos ST30 + Eisstation |
The Radeon RX 7900 XTX leads in four games in Full HD. where the Radeon RX 7900 XTX leads the field: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in Full HD to Ultrawide-QHD resolutions and Grid Legends in Full HD.Â
In case you stumbled across the results in Forza Horizon 5: We checked the relatively weak performance of the RX 7900 cards several times.
RX 7900 XTX Vs RX 7900 XT: GPU Overall Resolutions
GPU Benchmarks 2023: Overall, Full HD, WQHD, UWQHD, and Ultra HD
If you’ve studied the numbers and read the text, the result won’t surprise you. AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the second-fastest GPU. The hardware-slimmed Radeon RX 7900 XT calculates around 13% slower than its big sister and is almost 10% slower than the Geforce RTX 4080. RTX 3090 Ti and RX 6950 XT are outperformed by even the “small” RX 7900 XT. Clicking together in the benchmark above shows how separating the four resolutions affects ratios.
RX 7900 XTX Vs RX 7900 XT: Power Consumption
Since 2018, Nvidia graphics cards have always used axial fans for cooling. Since the 2020 Radeon RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT, and the May 2022 Radeon RX 6950 XT, this has taken up more than two slots. The Radeon RX 7900 XT (X) was adopted with significant design changes. The GPU and GDDR6 memory chip vapor chambers and fans have been expanded. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX has the most changes because its cooler is widened from 10 to 11 centimeters to better manage 355 watts of waste heat. The XTX has three 85-millimeter axial fans, while the XT has three 80-millimeter fans. Tools provide only a PWM signal for synchronized control. Despite the changes, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is still compact for a high-end graphics card at 29 centimeters long and 1.8 kilograms. This should please cramped-housing owners.
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Neither the Radeon RX 7900 XT nor the XTX need new power cables from the PSU (or adapter). AMD promotes this because Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090’s new ATX 3.0 connector, 12VHPWR, has teething issues that need to be fixed. If their nominal power is sufficient, proven power supplies should work fine with the new models (and may have already powered an RX 6800 XT or 69×0 XT). The Radeon RX 7900 XT has a TBP of 355 watts, while the XT has 315 watts.
| AMD Radeon | GPU power | Board power |
|---|---|---|
| RX 7900 XTX | 291 watts | 355 watts |
| RX 7900 XT | 257 watts | 315 watts |
Which is Better!
Do you want the best graphics card for Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0? You have a maximum budget of $900 and want the best gaming performance possible. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the ideal graphics card, so your search is over. While AMD wins in these scenarios, the big picture cannot be summarized in a few words.
The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is a powerful graphics card for demanding gamers, but it lacks the consistent high-class performance of a Geforce RTX 4080 or RTX 4090. After a week of getting to know each other very well, this is probably the best way to sum up what we’ve learned. The world’s first chiplet graphics cards are technically exciting, but they are not without flaws.
The Radeon RX 7900 XT has all the features of its big sister but is smaller. In rasterizing (85 percent in Ultra HD) and ray tracing (89 percent), it matches the XTX. The Radeon RX 7900 XT is about 10% behind the Geforce RTX 4080.
The Radeon RX 7900 XT is the quietest graphics card. The RX 7900 XT is again cost less than its big sister.
