Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT review: AMD's 'reasonable' stab at 4K gaming

While I was eager to see how these new GPUs stacked up against NVIDIA, I had to go through multiple rounds of driver and motherboard BIOS updates on my Ryzen 9 7900X before both cards were released. stable enough to actually be used. This is something I encounter occasionally when testing high-end hardware (NVIDIA cards also needed a BIOS update), but there were still issues with AMD cards even after that. Infinite Halo, for example, refused to initiate matches with either map. Sometimes my PC would shut down completely during testing Cyberpunk 2077which required me to unplug my desktop and reset my BIOS before Windows restarted.

I have been using AMD and NVIDIA video cards for several months on this PC, equipped with a premium Corsair 1000W power supply, without any stability problems. So it was a surprise to see just how much havoc these GPUs could wreak. I haven’t seen any other reviewers complaining of similar issues, so I’ll share my experience with early drivers. AMD just released a new driver This fixes a problem with high power consumption when encoding video, so I hope the company tries to fix the bugs I see as well.

None	3DMark TimeSpy Extreme	Port Royal (ray tracing)	cyberpunk	Blender
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX	12,969	14696/68 fps	4K FSR RT: 57 fps	2,899
AMD Radeon RX 7900XT	11,688	13 247/61 fps	4K FSRT RT: 50 fps	3,516
NVIDIA RTX 4080	12,879	17780/82 fps	4K DLSS RT: 74 fps	9,310
NVIDIA RTX 4090	16,464	25405/117.62 fps	4K DLSS RT: 135 fps	12,335
AMD Radeon RX 6800XT	7,713	9 104/42.15 fps	N / A	N / A

When the cards ran smoothly, they proved to be quite competitive with the RTX 4080. The 7900 XTX was on par with the 4080 on 3DMark’s TimeSpy Extreme benchmark and Geekbench 5’s Compute test. scored 1,000 points lower on TimeSpy Extreme, which is 3,000 points higher than last year’s RTX 3080 Ti, but it was beaten by this NVIDIA card when it comes to Geekbench. Hitman 3 also ran blazingly fast on both cards at 4K, hitting 165fps and 180fps when I switched to FSR upscaling. Just like NVIDIA cards, there’s no reason to run a game in 4K without the help of advanced upscaling technology.

The performance gap between AMD and NVIDIA became apparent once I started getting into ray tracing. The 7900 XTX and XT scored well below the RTX 4080 in the 3DMark Port Royal benchmark (at least they managed to beat the 3080 Ti). I also only saw around 57fps in Cyberpunk 2077 on the Radeon 7900 XTX while gaming in 4K with full ray tracing and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution technology. Without FSR, that frame rate dropped to an unplayable 25 fps. The slower 7900 XT only managed to hit 50 fps at 4K with FSR and ray tracing enabled.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Basically if you’re itching to get a video card that hits well above 60fps in 4K with ray tracing, you’ll have to look elsewhere. But if you can live with 1440p, you’ll find more to like: The 7900 XTX hit 130 fps in cyberpunk with ray tracing, FSR and graphics settings maxed out, while the 7900 XT hit 114 fps. That’s almost enough to max out a 120Hz gaming monitor! Personally, I always find 4K gaming to be overrated – 1440p still looks great, and you may never notice the benefits of pushing more pixels. But I admit that I was spoiled by NVIDIA’s DLSS3 upscaling technology, which allowed me to reach 74fps in cyberpunk while playing in 4K with ray tracing. It’s as close to gaming heaven as I’ve ever been.

But there’s one thing you’ll find with these AMD GPUs that you won’t find with NVIDIA: reasonable street prices. Even after they launch, you can still snag the 7900XT and XTX near retail. Many RTX 4080 models, meanwhile, are approaching $1,500 at online retailers (assuming you can find them in stock at all). Spending close to $1,000 on a video card is still hard to stomach, but at least it makes more sense than going all the way to $1,500.

The Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT are a solid step up for AMD, especially when it comes to 4K gaming. But hopefully the company can get its drivers in order and maybe improve ray tracing performance in the process. Most gamers are better off waiting for next-gen mid-range cards from AMD and NVIDIA, which are expected to launch soon. But if you’re an avowed AMD fan, you finally have the high-end upgrade you’ve been waiting for.

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