AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX review: Top-notch performance for the masses?

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the current-gen flagship offering from Team Red. It competes directly against the likes of the Nvidia RTX 4090 and the RTX 4080, and ranks among the fastest video cards on the market. Gamers will have to pay a pretty penny for this GPU as it starts from $999, with high-end models going up to $1,200.

The company is targeting top-notch 4K gaming performance with its current-gen flagship. It is based on the Navi 31 GPU, which brings the best of the underlying architecture, RDNA 3, to the table. Do note that although gaming is at the forefront of what this card promises, it is mainly for professional use cases like video editing, 3D modeling, and others.

AMD was kind enough to send over the RX 7900 XTX to us for review. We ran it through its paces and will share our thoughts in this article.

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is high-end in every aspect

Pre-delivery

The RX 7900 XTX is the current-gen flagship (Image via AMD)

The RX 7900 XTX is a high-end card built for 4K gaming, as mentioned before. It is the best that AMD has to offer today. The GPU is offered both in a Reference Edition and by multiple AMD partners like Sapphire, PowerColor, ASUS, Gigabyte, and others.

The unit we are reviewing is the triple-fan AMD Reference Edition. The detailed specs of this graphics card are as follows:

	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
Graphics processors	Navi 31
Shading units	6144
Texture Mapping Units	384
Compute units	96
RT cores	96
Base clock	1855 MHz
Shader clock	2269 MHz
Boost clock	2499 MHz
VRAM	24 GB
Memory type	20 Gbps 384-bit GDDR6
TDP	355W
Suggested PSU	750W
Power connectors	2x 8-pin

The RX 7900 XTX focuses on efficiency instead of bumping every aspect to the absolute maximum, unlike the RTX 4090 we reviewed before. This makes it a rather interesting high-end GPU in the current market.

Unboxing experience

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX comes in a rather compact box. Inside, we get the video card and some paperwork, and that's it. I don't think this is the best GPU unboxing experience I have had so far as it is purely functional and in the spirit of getting things done.

Inside the box of the graphics card (Image via Sportskeeda)

While AMD doesn't get any brownie points for packaging a card better, it is expected their flagship top-of-the-line GPU would get a fancy treatment. This is in sharp contrast to what we saw with the Ryzen 9 7950X and the 7950X3D, which feature some fancy pants unboxing.

A closer look at the Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Design

The 7900 XTX is a triple-fan card (Image via Sportskeeda)

The RX 7900 XTX isn't a huge card. The Reference Edition model is based on a 2.5-slot design with three fans. AMD has opted for an old-school open-air design that will be okay for almost every modern PC build.

The red streak on the 7900 XTX video card (Image via Sportskeeda)

The card is based on an all-black design and the company hasn't focused on a color-neutral pattern. This is unlike the RTX 40 series GPUs, and it does add some character to the Radeon cards.

The stylish backplate of the 7900 XTX (Image via Sportskeeda)

The GPU features a rather stylish backplate with a strong focus on design, and I love how it looks. In many ways, it beats the Founder's Edition design from Nvidia with more focus on functionality.

Heatsink and fan placement

The 7900 XTX Reference Edition is an open-air design (Image via Sportskeeda)

The RX 7900 XTX features three heavy-duty fans. They are paired with a thermistor, which will help accurately measure the intake-air temperature. This will help those overclocking the GPU. The lower the intake temperature, the higher the thermal headroom for OC.

The 7900 XTX weighs over 1.8kg (Image via Sportskeeda)

The GPU is built like a brick. It is very heavy for its size, weighing in at 1.8kg. The heatsink is built completely out of aluminum and features a small red streak at the right end. However, the rear I/O is completely sealed off. Thus, the card won't be exhausting any hot air from the back.

Overall, the 7900 XTX packs a decent heatsink. We will test its capabilities later in this review.

Test bench

A glimpse at the system used to bench the 7900 XTX (Image via Sportskeeda)

The following system was used to test the 7900 XTX:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
Motherboard: ASRock X670E Taichi
RAM: Kingston Fury Beast RGB 2x 16 GB DDR5-6000
Cooler: DeepCool LT720 360mm high-performance liquid cooler
Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Reference Edition
SSD: Gigabyte Aorus NVMe 1 TB PCIe Gen 4
PSU: Corsair RM1000e 1000W fully modular
Case: Open-air test bench

Productivity performance

Let's start with some synthetic benchmarks to test where the RX 7900 XTX stands concerning other GPUs in the market. Do note that this is the first modern AMD Radeon GPU I am testing. Therefore, the comparison will mainly be against other Nvidia cards I have tested over the past couple of years.

The 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark is a test of DirectX 11 performance. It generally relies on rasterization performance. The 7900 XTX comes off as only slightly slower than the RTX 4090 in this benchmark, which ranks it as a strong GPU in gaming and 3D rendering workloads.

Fire Strike Extreme is a more demanding version of the benchmark we tested above. We recently added it to our test suite, hence the test sample is relatively small. The 7900 XTX outperforms all other GPUs I have previously tested and claims the top spot in the chart.

The 3DMark Time Spy benchmark is a test of DirectX 12 performance. In this test, the 7900 XTX continues the trend and comes off as slightly slower than the 4090, but faster than other GPUs I have tested in the past.

Like Fire Strike Extreme, the Time Spy Extreme test is a more demanding variant of Time Spy. The sample size is quite small in this test as well because it is a new addition. The 7900 XTX claimed the top spot in this benchmark as well.

Blender Monster, Junkshop, and Classroom is a productivity and feature-focused benchmark. It tests the graphics card's capabilities in 3D modeling workloads, specifically in Blender. The AMD flagship disappointed me in this benchmark as it came out to be slower than the RTX 4060 Ti, a $400 mid-range GPU from Team Green.

This further stresses the fact the AMD card is only good for gaming workloads. It isn't built for creators and artists.

A similar story continues in the 3DMark ray tracing feature test. As the name suggests, it tests a graphics card's ray-tracing capabilities. Since the last-gen RX 7000 series, AMD GPUs have faltered in ray tracing-heavy workloads. A similar story continues this generation as the 7900 XTX came off as only about as fast as the RTX 4070, a mid-range $600 GPU from Team Green.

Port Royal is a test of ray tracing in modern AAA gaming workloads. Scores improve in this test as the 7900 XTX beats other cheaper Nvidia GPUs and the last-gen RTX 3080 Ti to claim the #2 spot, only behind the RTX 4090. The difference between these two GPUs, however, is quite large.

3DMark Speed Way is a test of DirectX 12 Ultimate performance. This benchmark is a recent addition to the test suite as well. The RX 7900 XTX came off as the fastest in this test as well. However, the sample size is rather small and doesn't feature any proper competitor to the RX 7900 XTX.

Unigine Superposition is a test of DirectX 12 gaming performance, like Time Spy. It measures the relative performance at various resolutions. A similar trend continues in this benchmark like in the other 3DMark tests as the 7900 XTX pulled off scores slightly lower than the 4090.

The upscaling feature test is a mix of the DLSS and FSR feature tests. Do note that the RTX 20 and 30 series video cards support DLSS 2.0, the 40 series cards support DLSS 3.0, and the RX 7000 series supports FSR 2.1. In this test, we found that gains with FSR are nearly equivalent to that with DLSS 2.0. DLSS 3 leverages frame generation to gain those extra frames.

Gaming performance

I tested the RX 7900 XTX in a bunch of different video games. I didn't pitch the card against other competitors because of minor changes to the test bench. The RTX 4090 was tested with a 7950X and 32 GB of DDR5-5200 memory. Thus, a head-on comparison won't be fair, to say the least.

Let's begin with the RX 7900 XTX's capabilities at 1440p. Although the GPU is built for 4K, the numbers at a slightly lower resolution give us a clearer idea of what to expect from the GPU if gamers are willing to slightly sacrifice the resolution (or simply don't have the budget for 4K).

The 7900 XTX delivers massive framerates at QHD. The graphics card proves to be a wonderful solution for a high refresh rate 1440p gaming setup. Given 120+ Hz QHD monitors are going for pretty cheap these days, the GPU can be a solid recommendation for such high-end rigs.

AMD has nailed rasterization performance with the latest RX 7000 series lineup. This is evident from the fantastic performance we logged at 4K with this GPU. Most gamers ran at 60 FPS or more, with Fortnite being the only exception.

Ray tracing isn't AMD's stronghold. Thus, it is no surprise that the card faltered in video games with DXR turned on. All of the results in the chart above are at 4K with every setting cranked up to the absolute maximum. Every game, except The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, were playable. Thus, those with the GPU won't be disappointed.

Path tracing is the most demanding form of ray tracing. Until now, only one game supports the graphics feature, Cyberpunk 2077. Performance at 4K is completely unplayable, and even turning FSR on can't help the GPU. The RX 7900 XTX is only good for path tracing at 1080p.

Next, let's look at the gains with the temporal-upscaling feature of the card. The 7900 XTX supports FSR 2.1, which isn't the best solution in the market. Unlike DLSS 3, AMD's solution can't do frame generation. Hence, the gains are still within 20-30% at best, with a few games reporting up to 100% framerate jumps.

Do note that all of these results are with the highest settings applied at 4K, with FSR set to the Performance preset (which renders the game at 50% of the resolution, 1080p).

Power consumption and thermals

Ambient temperature for all thermal tests: 29ºC.

Now that performance marks are out of the park, let's have a quick look at the vitals of the GPU: power consumption and thermals. The 7900 XTX isn't as power-hungry as the RTX 4090; it is rated for 355W.

When I stressed the GPU with Furmark, it shot up to a maximum of 64°C (147°F). This is pretty impressive for a high-end card like the 7900 XTX. AMD has bundled a top-notch cooler with its flagship Reference Edition card.

The detailed temperature statistics are as follows:

In the stress test, the total board power draw hits a maximum of 347W, about 8W less than the advertised maximum. The total graphics card stays at ~290W, which is pretty impressive for the performance we logged on this GPU. The statistics are rather flat, which is quite interesting:

While gaming, the temperatures remain pretty much the same, with a maximum of 65°C. The detailed characteristic is as follows:

There were no fluctuations in the power draw either. While playing Fortnite at 4K with ray tracing effects turned on, the TBP hovered around 347W and the TGP sat somewhere around 290W.

Overall, the AMD RX 7900 XTX is one of the most thermally and power-efficient high-end GPUs in the market. However, power draw while gaming isn't the absolute best. Previously, we logged the RTX 4090 drawing less than 300W TBP while playing Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with the Ray Tracing Psycho preset applied.

Fans

The RX 7900 XTX Reference Edition features three fans that operate in unison to blow air into the card. It is based on an open-air design, as mentioned before. The fans don't ramp up significantly while stressed, and we only logged a maximum of about 1900 RPM under full load.

While gaming, the fans ramped up to more than 2000 RPM, which doesn't significantly harm the acoustic performance in any way.

Noise levels were pretty okay. I don't have a number to pen down under its name just yet because accurate acoustic measurements are pretty challenging.

Is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX worth buying?

The RX 7900 XTX is the best AMD has to offer today (Image via Sportskeeda)

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX sits at the top of the stack of modern video cards. It ranks among the fastest GPUs money can buy, and therefore, comes with a very hefty price tag.

However, it has some problems. As we found out, ray tracing and rendering performances aren't the best. In addition, many users have reported driver instability issues with AMD. Although I haven't faced those in my one month with this GPU, it can be a legitimate concern for some.

The backplate of the RX 7900 XTX (Image via Sportskeeda)

For the bottom line, I would like to mention the 7900 XTX does one thing great: play video games at 4K. Thus, if you are building a high-end rig and don't want to dump over $1,200 in video cards, this RDNA 3 flagship can be an option worth considering.