A decent GPU for gamers – but a missed opportunity overall Updated: Sep 16, 2024 5:21 pm WePC is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more Table of Contents Table of Contents AMD’s RX 7800 XT is one the newest mid-tier graphics cards to hit the brand’s 7000 series lineup, equipped with the latest RDNA 3.0 architecture and vowing to become one of market’s leading $500 cards. According to AMD, the RX 7800 XT is “the ultimate 1440p upgrade”, putting it slap bang into one of the most competitive markets the GPU sector has to offer. It’ll be going toe-to-toe with not only the RTX 4070 and 4070 Super, but its own RX 7700 XT – which more than excelled in our gaming benchmarks. In our review, we test the RX 7800 XT in a plethora of different scenarios to see how it competes against the market’s current crop of 1440p options, testing it in numerous games and synthetic benchmarks – concluding with our thoughts on design, value for money, and whether its worth the upgrade. A side step for 1440p performance Specifications Core clock speed: 2,430MHz boost, 2,124MHz game Stream processors: 3,840 Memory: 16GB GDDR6 Dimensions: 267 x 111 x 50mm PSU required: 600W TBP: 263W Launch price: $499 Availability: September 6th, 2023 GPU Name: NAVI 32 Architecture : RDNA 3 Process size: 5 nm Die size: 346mm L3 Cache: 64 MB Bandwidth: 624.1 GB/s Memory Bus: 256 bit Compute units: 60 RT Cores: 60 Show more What We Think The RX 7800 XT is a fine graphics card that, on paper, ticks all the right boxes when comparing it against the market’s current crop of 1440p options. While it isn’t the best option in the 1440p space, it does hold its own against other market leaders – offering up excellent value for money when compared to other sub $500 graphics cards. Sadly, it doesn’t quite hit the spot when it comes to generational uplift over the RX 6800 XT – despite being far better value and more power efficient. Overall, a good GPU but one that, ultimately, will only have a small target audience. Reasons to Buy Excellent value for money Solid 1440p gaming performance Handles many games in 4K Far less power hungry than its predecessor Reasons to Avoid Lacks a true performance uplift over RX 6800 XT Lacks Ray Tracing performance How we tested the AMD RADEON RX 7800 XT We tested the RX 7800 XT extensively over a number of games and synthetic benchmarks. We spent several weeks using the card in a variety of scenarios, but spent the majority of our time focused on gaming. We continued to use WePC standard testing methodology to ensure GPU-on-GPU comparisons were accurate and relevant. Testing and benchmarking the hardware we receive at WePC is at the heart of everything we do. For the RX 7800 XT, we spent around a week testing it in a number of different games (over a number of resolutions) and pushing it to its limits in synthetic benchmarks – such as 3DMark and Cinebench. We used the same tried and tested benchmarking rig that we’ve used for some time now, equipped with AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X and ASUS’s X670E HERO motherboard. For each game, the GPU gets tested over 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions – with each test resolution being subject to three unique runs for consistency. See our indepth testing methods here. Test bench specs CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Motherboard: ASUS ROG X670E HERO RAM: Corsair Dominator Titanium 64GB 6600MHz DDR5 Cooler: ROG Ryujin II 360 AIO CPU cooler PSU: Phanteks 1000W Pricing and availability The RX 7800 XT was launched as a mid-tier card back in September, 2023, with an MSRP of $499 – putting it around $100 cheaper than the NVIDIA RTX 4070 (which has since been superseded by the Super variant) and roughly $150 cheaper than last-gen’s AMD RX 6800 XT on its launch. That, on paper, makes the RX 7800 XT an incredibly attractive prospect, especially when you factor in the new architecture it uses – alongside the newly implement AI cores and Ray-tracing performance (which we’ll touch upon in more detail later). Of course, since its arrival back in 2023, GPU prices have continued to fluctuate quite dramatically, with the RX 7800 XT currently floating $480 mark – with deals seeing pricing fall to around $450. The RX 7800 XT is readily available at all major hardware retailers at present. Specifications & gallery 2,430MHz boost, 2,124MHz game Previous Next Design The RX 7800 XT is a medium sized, dual-fan card, that offers a fairly subtle design characterized by a near all-black color theme. It features a simple dual-fan cooling solution with very little ‘gamey’ accents – totally void of RGB lighting or other loud design aspects. In fact, the design is so subtle, the RX 7800 XT reference card we tested would fit into almost any PC build – whether you’re a hardcore gamer looking for a simpler aesthetic or an everyday user looking for additional graphics performance. RX 7800 XT. Face on. Source: WEPC The card measures in at 267mm x 111mm x 50mm, making it versatile enough to fit into most smaller form factor PC builds (excluding some mini ITX builds). It requires 2 x 8-pin power connectors and features 3 x DisplayPorts alongside a solitary HDMI 2.1 port – meaning it’ll be a great fit for anyone looking to power faster refresh rate monitors at higher resolutions. The RX 7800 XT reference will only take up two slots, however, some AIB variants may differ – especially models equipped with larger triple-fan configurations. Sadly, the RX 7800 XT does not feature an USB-C output, meaning it won’t be ideal for individuals looking to create a workstation based around a USB Type-C monitor. Overall, the RX 7800 XT is a quiet, subtle, featureless card (from a design standpoint) that doesn’t need shiny lights and loud accents to look good. If you’re looking for a card that offers a little more bling, there are plenty of AIBs that will do just that. Features, chipset & architecture AMD’s RX 7800 XT runs on the brand’s RDNA 3.0 architecture, utilizing the same NAVI 32 GPU found in the RX 7700 XT – albeit slightly tuned-up for additional performance. The RX 7800 XT offers up 60 Compute Units, 3,840 Shading Units, and 60 RT cores – a slight improvement over the RX 7700 XT. In terms of clock speeds, again, the RX 7800 XT and 7700 XT are fairly close, with the 7800 XT actually slower across the board. In fact, the RX 7800 XT offers a fairly low base clock of 1,295 MHz, whereas the 7700 XT boasts a much higher 1,700 MHz, respectively. Boosted clock speeds are comparatively closer when comparing the two cards, with the 7800 XT boosting as high as 2,430 MHz. RX 7800 XT being installed. Source: WEPC Overall, the RX 7800 XT is slower across the board – however, as it features more of everything, it does perform to a slightly higher level. Additionally, users, in theory, should be able to increase the performance threshold with some relatively straightforward GPU overclocking. When it comes to VRAM, the RX 7800 XT does show a clear improvement over the 7700 XT, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and a 192 bit memory bus. The card also offers a 624.1 GB/s bandwidth, which is around 50% up on the 7700 XT (432.0 GB/s) and 20% up on the RTX 4070 (504.2 GB/s). The RX 7800 XT’s 256 bit memory bus is also a stark improvement over both aforementioned cards, highlighting a potentially missed opportunity for NVIDIA. As far as efficiency is concerned, NVIDIA showcases far better overall TGP than the RX 7800 XT – which runs a relatively high 263W. Despite that being around 30% higher than that of the RTX 4070, it does show a decent improvement over its predecessor (RX 6800 XT 300W). the RX 7800 XT looks and feels like a decent generational uplift over its predecessor, the RX 6800 XT. Not only does it come equipped with AMD’s brand new RDNA 3 architecture, but it also offers far better value for money and efficiency too. Charlie Noon: WEPC RX 7800 XT performance & benchmarks Jumping into the gaming performance & benchmarks portion of the RX 7800 XT review, it’s safe to say we were excited to see what this thing could bring to the table. Remember, when looking through the results we ran, AMD specifically said they were targeting the 1440p sector, meaning we should see good performance results in that particular space. Overall, the RX 7800 XT performed to a pretty high standard when gaming, with most games hitting well over 100 FPS in both 1080p and 1440p resolutions. Some more demanding titles in 4K resolution struggled to breach 50 frames per second on average, which was no surprise when you compare the results against the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Super. In fact, on average, the RX 7800 XT was only only around 8-15% behind that of the RTX 4070 Super – which is a decent result when price is factored into the equation. Gaming benchmarks As for testing, we put the RX 7800 XT through 10 popular gaming titles and a number of synthetic benchmarks to see how it performed across the board. We’ll start with the gaming results then move onto the synthetics. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: CS2 We kickstarted our benchmarking with everyone’s favourite FPS shooter, Counter-Strike – a low-level demanding game that runs well on pretty much any system made within the last 10 years. Jokes aside, the RX 7800 XT performed to a pretty decent standard, topping out at 120 FPS in 4K – if that’s your thing. It fell to 72 FPS in the 99th percentile, offering up a pretty stable experience during 4K gameplay. Of course, being a competitive shooter, we quickly chopped the resolution down to 1080p, with FPS spiking to around 321 on average. Again, 99th percentile results showed 185 FPS, respectively, with the RX 7800 XT producing a very fluid experience when it mattered most. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: F1 23 Next up was F1 23, a more demanding game that benefits from high FPS to increase the visual smoothness of the gameplay. As you can see, the RX 7800 XT did start to struggle when we cranked up the resolution to 4K settings – with 38 FPS being our average (dropping to 28 frames in the 99th percentile). Both 1440p and 1080p were far more forgiving resolution, with 1440p averaging around 73 frames per second during a full session. In 1080p, things looked slightly better, with gameplay resulting in 109 FPS, respectively. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: SOTTR Next up, we played the aging title Shadow Of The Tomb Raider – the first game we could test Ray Tracing. As you can see from the results above, running the game in 1080p – whether we had RT enabled or not – resulted in well over 100 FPS. With graphics settings at their highest and RT on, the game ran at a smooth 122 FPS on average – dropping to 88 frames in the 99th percentile. In 4K, the RX 7800 XT did struggle to maintain 60 FPS on average, dropping to 58 when RT was enabled. Overall, the gaming experience was pretty smooth, even in the more demanding parts of the game. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: Rainbow 6 Siege Next up was Rainbow 6 Siege, another classic FPS shooter than runs on pretty much anything these days. As you can imagine, the RX 7800 XT provided ample framerates when in ultra settings over numerous resolutions. Even at 4K, the 7800 XT managed to churn out well over 100 frames per second on average, with 99th percentile drops still around 110 frames. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: Avatar Frontiers of Pandora Avatar Frontiers of Pandora was up next, the action shooter based on the popular film franchise. With plenty going on here, we saw a decent dip in performance when compared to the other less-demanding titles like CS2 and Rainbow 6 Siege. In fact, 1080p performance saw performance dip to under 100 frames per second which, despite not sounding too exciting, did still provide a smooth experience during extended gaming sessions. There wasn’t a huge difference between 1080p and 4K in this game, with 4K performance netting around 50 frames per second on average. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: AC Mirage Assassin’s Creed was up next, and as you can see, the RX 7800 XT was able to push 130 frames on average at 1080p – with 99th percentile drops to around 95. Even at 4K, we experienced decent performance of around 70 FPS on average, offering up a smooth gaming experience. The 99th percentile drops in 4K weren’t too damaging to the game’s feel, with 55 FPS drops being the worst of it. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: Doom Eternal One of the least demanding game in our testing roster was up next, Doom Eternal – and as you can imagine, the RX 7800 XT performed to a very high level. It produces well over 200 frames per second in all resolutions, with 4K and RT enabled even seeing a 100 FPS average. Not super surprising as the game could run on pretty much anything – but still good to see. RX 7800 XT benchmarks: Doom Eternal Lastly, we have one of the most demanding games on the market, Cyberpunk 2077. While 1080p RT OFF saw good stable performance of over 100 FPS, the same can not be said for more demanding resolutions with Ray Tracing enabled. In fact, even at 1080p, RT was such a draw on the GPU, we saw FPS fall to an average of 45. For players wanting to enjoy 4K gaming on Cyberpunk 2077, we did manage to hit an average of 40 when playing with RT off – which is not bad if you’re playing on a larger screen where you can lock the FPS to 30. Synthetic benchmarks Previous Next We finished the benchmarking section of the review by running the RX 7800 XT through a few basic synthetic benchmarks, including Cinebench R24, HandBrake, Blender 4, and 3DMark. In 3D Mark, the RX 7800 XT scored 12,331 in Fire Strike Ultra, 9,080 in Time Spy Extreme, and 10,318 in Port Royal – around 20% up on the results were saw when testing the RX 7700 XT. We used HandBrake to encode Tears of Steel (4K) and results saw the tool take 1 minute 13 seconds to complete – with an average FPS of 247 during the process. Afterwards, I ran the GPU through Blender 4, with results in Monster hitting 1130, Junkshop 586, and Classroom 561 samples per minute. We concluded this section by running the card through Cinebench R24 and scored 10,785 respectively. Is the RX 7800 XT worth it?
