Now that’s extra prefer it. The Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT graphics playing cards don’t simply fill out a 1440p-shaped gap in AMD’s present lineup – they each, the latter particularly, make the sort of spirited try to rise up in Nvidia’s face that earlier crimson crew GPUs merely didn’t.
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Whereas the RX 7900 XT siblings served an costly area of interest and the RX 7600 simply didn’t appear to care, the RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT discover a much more palatable steadiness between worth and velocity. With an emphasis on velocity, judging by my check topics, the XFX Speedster QICK 319 Radeon RX 7700 XT Black Version and the XFX Speedster QICK 319 Radeon RX 7800 XT Core Version. You understand graphics playing cards are critical about efficiency after they every have two synonyms for “quick” of their names.
As for worth, XFX’s RX 7700 XT (forgive the abbreviation however everyone knows it’s mandatory) is available in at £429 / $460. That’s increased than the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti, however on par with the identical GPU’s 16GB model. In the meantime, the RX 7800 XT outright undercuts its GeForce rival, the RTX 4070. Though this has loved a shock drop a minimal of £530 / $550, the XFX RX 7800 XT launches at £510 / $540, and AMD will sweeten the cope with a free copy of Starfield.
In fact, this isn’t a brand new tactic: Radeons have lengthy set decrease outlays to pull your eyes away from Nvidia’s DLSS and ray tracing benefits. For the primary time this era, although, it’s being backed up with successful efficiency in non-ray-traced video games, forming a worth proposition that lastly supplies a decent different to the RTX 40 collection’ extra superior tech.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT evaluation: 1440p benchmarks
Each of those GPUs are greater than viable 1440p contenders. Not less than by the requirements of 2023 pricing, the RX 7700 XT is the true mid-ranger, whereas the RX 7800 XTX is extra of a whack-everything-on-maximum semi-luxury for punters with excessive refresh charge gaming displays.
The truth is, you’d be doing each these playing cards a disservice by sticking to 60Hz. With the only exception of the RTX 4070 edging forward in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the RX 7800 XT is kind of comfortably the brand new quickest graphics card in its weight class, with its frames-per-second leads hitting double figures in half of our 1440p benchmarks.
The RX 7700 XT constantly outpaces the RTX 4060 Ti as properly – the latter was examined with an 8GB mannequin, as I’ve by no means been capable of get my arms on a 16GB model, although I perceive they carry out near-identically in all however a tiny few video games. Granted, that’s probably extra of a purpose to not purchase the 16GB RTX 4060 Ti than it’s to purchase the RX 7700 XT, because the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti’s efficiency deficit is no less than counterbalanced by it having that cheaper price. The RX 7800 XT, although? That’s straight-up extra frames for much less money, and so far as rasterised, native-resolution efficiency goes, the RTX 4070 can’t convincingly reply again.
Thoughts you, loads of video games do allow you to swap rasterised lighting for premium ray-traced results, and extra nonetheless allow you to have interaction DLSS upscaling for a velocity increase. In these, the RTX 40 collection stays king, with each the RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT as soon as once more exhibiting that AMD’s RDNA 3 structure nonetheless has a option to go together with extra fashionable visible options.
In Cyberpunk 2077, a recreation that loves gorging itself on cutting-edge graphics gubbins, the RX 7800 XT averaged 96fps on Extremely high quality and 44fps with each Psycho ray tracing and FSR 2.1 upscaling on High quality mode. Not a nasty clutch of outcomes, however then the RTX 4070’s preliminary 90fps solely fell to 62fps with Psycho RT and High quality DLSS. Likewise, the RX 7700 XT began at 80fps earlier than dropping to 38fps, whereas the RTX 4060 Ti began at 63fps and fell to 46fps.
Primarily, RDNA 3 graphics playing cards can outplay their RTX equivalents with out ray tracing (and by fairly a staggering diploma, within the RX 7700 XT’s case). However, as quickly as these fancy settings present up, the framerate hit is a lot tougher on Radeon GPUs that Nvidia’s can take the lead. DLSS sometimes isn’t that significantly better at reclaiming misplaced frames than FSR, however its upscaling does look sharper and cleaner, too.
There’s additionally the difficulty of DLSS 3 and its body era, which till just lately has been a type of instant-win button for the RTX 40 collection: its means to create AI-generated frames at no further rendering value, exterior of a splash of enter lag, can take the RTX 4070’s 62fps end in Cyberpunk 2077 as much as 107fps on the flick of a change. It’s a problem that’s been muddied, nevertheless, by each the upcoming launch of the same, Radeon-compatible FSR 3 and Nvidia’s personal side-upgrade for ray tracing in DLSS 3.5.
I’ll need to check these earlier than blasting out opinions on the worth they add. FSR 3 might theoretically shut a honking nice characteristic hole between the Radeon and GeForce sides, however is at present solely confirmed for a paltry dozen video games. DLSS 3.5 shall be supported by even fewer, no less than at launch, however then might add one other worthwhile instrument to the RTX 40 collection’ already well-stocked package.
We’ll see, on these. It’s already fairly apparent that for bog-standard upscaling and ray tracing, Nvidia’s newest RTX playing cards are nonetheless those to go for, however does that disqualify how the RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT are typically quicker with out them? If you happen to play quite a lot of video games that don’t assist these options, then no, it doesn’t.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT evaluation: 1080p benchmarks
1080p is a little bit of an odd rez for these playing cards, not least as a result of you may get competent GPUs for this stage (just like the Intel Arc A750) at lower than half the value. It’s additionally the place you’re most certainly to see CPU bottlenecking put the squeeze on extra highly effective graphics {hardware}, as appears to be the case with Last Fantasy XV and particularly Watch Canines Legion.
Even in much less restained video games, right here we will see the RTX 4070 put up extra of a defence in opposition to the RX 7800 XT. It’s the RX 7000 siblings that final win out, although, with the RX 7800 XT topping the charts most of the time and the RX 7700 XT narrowly besting the RTX 4060 Ti. In Murderer’s Creed Valhalla and Forza Horizon 5, it even manages to beat the RTX 4070 as properly.
There’s nonetheless a stark distinction in ray tracing functionality: for all its heroics, the RX 7700 XT nonetheless slumped from 121fps to 34fps In Cyberpunk 2077 as soon as Psycho ray tracing got here into play. High quality FSR 2.1, which helped that as much as 57fps, did little to masks how the cheaper RTX 4060 Ti solely dropped from 100fps to 41fps. High quality DLSS let the Nvidia GPU choose 69fps, reversing its fortunes within the graphed benchmarks above.
Once more, then, the strengths of the Radeon RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT come all the way down to how properly they run older or much less RT-focused video games. Which must be revered, particularly after they’re beating their fiercest opponents by 20fps or extra.
These XFX fashions, particularly, even have their charms. Whereas their colossal triple-fan coolers aren’t for the faint of coronary heart or in need of case, they’re fantastically quiet, whereas operating colder than I’ve seen most RTX 40 collection accomplice variants. I discovered the RX 7800 XT barely cooler, averaging 59°c whereas operating video games and peaking at 61°c. The RX 7700 XT was only a tad hotter, however nonetheless commendable, averaging 61°c and peaking at 63°c.
Principally, in the event you’ve ever learn an RPS graphics card evaluation and wished I’d cease citing DLSS a lot, one in every of these GPUs could be for you. What they lack in assist for the graphical bells and whistles of present-day PC gaming, they make up for in easy, easy, FPS-pumping energy. However then, which one precisely?
Of the 2, the RX 7700 XT is the tougher promote. The 8GB RTX 4060 Ti could also be slower on common, however it’s additionally cheaper – and sure, it does have the added flexibility of DLSS 3. Those that need to preserve properly beneath £500 actually must think about whether or not they’d moderately favour rasterised or ray-traced efficiency; provided that it’s the previous will the RX 7700 XT be the higher choice.
The RX 7800 XT, then again, can declare a extra persuasive victory over the RTX 4070. Ray tracing drawback or no, it’s nonetheless going to be quicker (and possibly cooler) in most video games, whereas saving you a number of cash to place in direction of CPU or SSD upgrades sooner or later. Apart from, relying on how FSR 3 assist picks up velocity, the dearth of DLSS 3 won’t even sting that a lot. Perhaps.
