- Soon Kai Hong
AMD Goes 8K With RDNA 3 Powered Radeon RX 7900 XTX At Just US$999
We've all been waiting but AMD is finally here with their latest in line Radeon graphics with RDNA 3 and wow, are we so looking forward towards the future! The all new Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT tackles 8K gaming thanks to the inclusion of DisplayPort 2.1, improved ray-tracing performance, has AV1 encode and decode and aims for just a starting price of US$899.
So let's just get right into the heart of things and go through every aspect and feature that AMD is bringing to the competition and ultimately perhaps give a little insight as to whether Team Red might just be the one to go for for this generation.
Radeon RX 7900 XTX
RDNA has come a long way and it's now in its third iteration, aptly named RDNA 3 and AMD had some really ambitious goals to achieve. To be the leader in performance-per-watt, to raise the bar for high resolution, high framerate gaming and to usher in the next-gen gaming experience. Well did they hit all three targets? After what we've just seen, we really do think so.
Now first up, let's talk about the two cards that are being introduced. We have the Radeon RX 7900 XTX as well as the Radeon RX 7900 XT. For those of you who've been following the graphics industry for a long time, you might find the XTX nomenclature familiar from the ATI days. Well AMD is bringing that back and as it should be, it belongs to the flagship product with good reason.
The 7900 XTX is the world's first chiplet gaming cpu which pairs a 5nm Graphics Compute Die (GCD) at 300mm2 as well as a 6nm Memory Cache Die (MCD) with 6 of those at 37mm2. This allows it to achieve 61 TFLOPS and a whopping 58B transistors. We aren't going to delve to much into the details because there is quite a lot but just know that by going with this design is what allowed AMD to achieve both their performance and power targets.
With the 7900 XTX, we're looking at 96 CUs, a 2.3GHz Game Clock, 24GB of GDDR6 memory running at 384-bit, support for DisplayPort 2.1, AV1 encode and decode and perhaps the best part of all, a total board power of just 355W. In fact if most AIBs are going to follow in the footsteps of what AMD has done with their reference design for the card itself, we're looking at a really reasonable 2.5 slots thickness alongside the standard two 8-pin power connectors. Now whether or not this new card design is going to do well thermally, that remains to be seen. But as of right now and just based off what we managed to get our hands on briefly, it's looking pretty promising.
Talking about performance itself, AMD hasn't really shared much specific numbers except for a few select scenarios but let's take a look at a couple.
With the 7900 XTX and gaming at 1440p, you'll be able to max out Apex Legends and actually hit the frame rate cap of 300 frames per second. Same thing for Overwatch 2, you'll be able to hit the max frame rate cap of 600 frames per second and for Valorant, an easy 833 frames per second. On the other end of the spectrum, you'll be able to expect nearly 100 frames per second on Assassin's Creed Valhalla at 8K resolution with FSR.
Those are pretty insane numbers but what makes it more amazing is the fact that in due time, you will actually get to physically experience those high frames or 8K gaming thanks to DisplayPort 2.1. For those of you who aren't up to speed, DisplayPort 2.1 supports 1440P up to 900Hz, 4K up to 480Hz, and 8K up to 165Hz. In general, AMD is touting up to 1.7x native 4K gaming performance and up to 1.5x native 4K gaming with ray-tracing against the previous RX 6950 XT. Insane numbers. But it's real and it's coming.
Radeon RX 7900 XT
With regards to the 7900 XT, AMD hasn't actually shown any clear performance metrics as most of it were focused on the flagship 7900 XTX but they did at least share the specifications.
We're looking at 84 CUs, a 2GHz Game Clock, 20GB of GDDR6 memory running at 320-bit, the same support for DisplayPort 2.1 and AV1 encode and decode. All of that with a slightly lower total board power of 300W. Similarly, a standard 2.5 slots size as well as the standard two 8-pin power connectors.
We can't really say much for now but just looking at the specs alone, we don't expect performance to be that far off from the 7900 XTX. But of course, this is what everyone probably wants hear and if you've already watched the livestream, you would already know.
Both the RX 7900 XTX as well as the RX 7900 XT will be available for purchase come 13th December. The 7900 XTX will have a MSRP of US$999 while the 7900 XT will have a MSRP of US$899. Needless to say, this is just amazing especially against the competition. AMD did specifically state that they wanted to target the magical thousand dollar mark and thus some distinct decisions were made, such as going with GDDR6 instead of 6X, PCIe 4.0 instead of PCIe 5.0 and much more. Will those decision bite them back in the long run? Honestly, probably not.
We would rather take AV1 encode and decode as well as DisplayPort 2.1 anytime of the day as compared to getting GDDR6X. We strongly feel that AMD has made the right decision here. But nevertheless, the prices are as such and just based on pricing alone, it's a W for AMD for sure.
Some New Features
Now there are also many other things that AMD announced and showed briefly.
Things such as AMD HYPR-RX which is a one-click solution via software to enable faster frame rates and lower latency in games, as well as AMD Advantage for desktops, where AMD will work closely with OEMs and SIs to really make full use of their new products by pairing the Ryzen 7000 series and Radeon RX 7000 series alongside all the other components for a cohesive experience much like their laptop offerings. But we won't dive too deep for now.
Thoughts
At the moment, all you really need to know is that the 7900 XTX and 7900 XT are looking really promising in terms of performance, they bring new technologies such as DisplayPort 2.1 as well as AV1 encode and decode and at a price point that though still expensive, is much more reasonable against the competition.
We do still have to wait till we can get our hands on the graphics cards themselves to really see how they stack up against each other and the competition but right now, we can say that we're just glad that AMD is pushing the limits and more competition is always welcome. And on a personal note, it's a pretty cool looking card.
The Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT are the first chiplet GPUs in the world that includes supports for both DisplayPort 2.1 and AV1 encode & decode for unmatched gaming performance at any resolution up to 8K.
The cards feature an all new cooler design with the 3 axial fans while maintaining a reasonable thickness of just 2.5 slots while also being less than 300mm long for best compatibility. AMD also retains the 2x 8-pin power connectors on the card for ease of upgrade.
Both the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT will be retail for US$999 and US$899 respectively and will be available for purchase on 13th December 2022.