AMD has itself a able adversary on its easily with the Radeon RX 7800 XT. In actuality at its accepted abject amount of $499 / £480 / AU$879, it makes the RTX 4070 attending appealing pricey. For analysis I accept the Sapphire Nitro Radeon RX 7800 XT. I can cautiously say it's faster, cooler, and quieter than the advertence model, but it's additionally added expensive. Is the amount of a top-tier RX 7800 XT like the Nitro account its $70 premium?
I've continued been a fan of Sapphire's Nitro cards. A while aback I advised the Nitro RX 7900 XTX which appearance a agnate cooler, admitting after the breath chamber. Accepting said that, the 7900 XTX Nitro is a 420W card, admitting the 7800 XT Nitro is rated for 288W. Cooling will never be a botheration for the RX 7800 XT Nitro .
At $559 / £539 / AU$969 the Nitro is amid the best big-ticket RX 7800 XT cards, alike added than the Asus RX 7800 XT TUF Gaming OC. At that affectionate of amount it's adamantine to alarm it a mid ambit card, and it erodes all of the amount advantage the abject archetypal RX 7800 XT has over the RTX 4070.
Premium cards carry, umm, a exceptional price, but if you don't apperception advantageous a bit extra, you'll be adored with a big, adventurous and admirable architecture that will attending appropriate at home in a chic RGB build.
The Nitro appearance a actual chunky, but admirable attractive amateur aperture cooler. The close is a matte blah blush that's absolutely minimalist. It comes with committed VRM cooling, a animate PCB frame, a abounding awning backplate and a feature ablaze bar forth the ancillary of the agenda that all absolutely add a exceptional touch. All-embracing it looks and feels like an alluringly engineered card.
The video outputs abide of bifold DP 2.1 and bifold HDMI 2.1 ports. You get bifold BIOS, with a third position for a user authentic setting, which is controlled via Sapphire's Trixx software. Additionally, the agenda includes an ARGB achievement for synchronizing the card's lighting with the blow of the system. There's a 4-pin fan attack too which can be acclimated to run an adjoining fan according to GPU temperatures.
The Azure RX 7800 XT Nitro is congenital about the absolutely enabled Navi 32 chiplet GPU. It comes with a distinct 5nm Cartoon Compute Die (GCD) and four surrounding 6nm Anamnesis Accumulation Dies (MCDs). It comes with 16GB of 19.5 Gbps GDDR6 anamnesis and a 256-bit bus. This is the affectionate of agreement I apprehend from mid-high-end GPU in 2023. It's bigger to accept anamnesis that's overspec than underspec. Who knows how abundant VRAM a bold like Admirable Annexation Auto 6 will use back it launches…
The RX 7800 XT Nitro additionally packs in 60 Compute Units, 60 Ray Accelerators, and 96 ROPs. This is all identical to the advertence RX 780 XT, but area the Azure Nitro differs is its alarm speeds. The abject RX 7800 XT appearance a bold alarm of 2,124MHz and a addition alarm of 2,430MHz. The Nitro bumps these up to 2,254MHz and 2,565MHz respectively.
The absolute lath ability of the agenda is a almost frugal 288W. That's 25W college again the advertence card, which isn't too bad, but its still far aloft the 200W of the RTX 4070, which additionally includes agog GDDR6X memory. Nvidia absolutely wins calmly back it comes to ability efficiency.
| Header Corpuscle - Cavalcade 0 | Sapphire RX 7800 XT Nitro | AMD RX 6800 XT |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | RDNA 3 | RDNA 2 |
| Manufacturing process | 5nm GCD 6nm MCD | 7nm |
| Transistors | 28.1 billion | 26.8 billion |
| Compute units | 60 | 72 |
| Shaders | 3840 | 4608 |
| ROPs | 96 | 126 |
| Infinity cache | 64MB | 128MB |
| Memory | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory speed | 19.5 Gbps | 16 Gbps |
| Memory bus | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| TBP | 288W | 300W |
| Launch price | $559 | $649 |
It's bigger to accept anamnesis that's overspec than underspec. Who knows how abundant VRAM a bold like Admirable Annexation Auto 6 will use back it launches…
So while the Azure Nitro RX 7800 XT is above to the advertence card, that amount is a concern. Admitting it's boilerplate abreast the amount of the RX 7900 XT, it does accompany the RTX 4070 appropriate into contention. Either is a acceptable option. It'll appear bottomward to you, your wallet, and the amateur you comedy and whether you amount DLSS and ray archetype performance.
Before I get to the achievement of the card, a few words on the cooler. It's one of the quietest cards I've anytime appear across. The babble of my AIO acknowledgment pump was calmly louder than the Nitro's amateur fan solution.
It didn't appear with any alarm acceleration compromises either, with an boilerplate of over 200MHz college than a abject RX 7800 XT. The ability burning altitude additionally came in at a admirable 275W, which is beneath the 288W the Nitro is clearly rated at.
Synthetic and arrangement performance
1080p gaming performance
1440p gaming performance
4K gaming performance
CPU: Intel Amount i9 12900K
Motherboard: Asus ROG Z690 Maximus Hero
Cooler: Bandit H100i RGB
RAM: 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-5600
Storage: 1TB WD Atramentous SN850, 4TB Sabrent Rocket 4Q
PSU: Seasonic Prime TX 1600W
OS: Windows 11 22H2
Chassis: DimasTech Mini V2
Monitor: Dough Spectrum ES07D03
Honestly I accepted the Azure RX 7800 XT Nitro to accretion a bit added of a achievement advantage over the advertence RX 7800 XT, but the end aftereffect was alone a few frames actuality and there.
I admiration if there is article aural the architectonics that holds the RX 7800 XT aback a little. The chipset vs caked architecture could be a contributor, but again if you attending at some of the specs of the RX 7800 XT and analyze them to the RX 6800 XT, the RX 6800 XT has added ROPs, a college shader count, and added Beyond Cache.
Anyway, coulda, shoulda, woulda. The Azure is faster than the abject card, it's additionally advanced of the RTX 4070 in raster operations, but aback you add ray archetype to the mix, the RTX 4070 comes roaring aback and pulls advanced in the added ambitious scenarios.
The RX 7800 XT is a solid adversary from AMD. It competes able-bodied with the RTX 4070, admitting AMD absolutely needs to get FSR 3 out of the aboideau to adverse the advantage (and narrative) offered by DLSS. Its ray archetype is a bearing behind, but it's a lot bigger than it was with the RX 6000-series.
For a bound time, AMD is bundling Starfield with RX 7800 XT cards. There's maybe a able acumen appropriate there to accept an RX 7800 XT over the RTX 4070. That goes alike added so appropriate now with the bigger able acquaintance of arena Starfield on AMD GPUs.
Getting aback to the Azure Nitro , at $569 it's $70 added big-ticket than the basal RX 7800 XTs. $70 gets you a bigger card, but $70 is not absolutely chump change. Azure and added exceptional bank lath makers accept the affluence of a ample aperture in GPU prices, with the RX 7900 XT and RTX 4070 Ti costing a lot more. But that does advance it appropriate into RTX 4070 territory.
If you do appetite to jump into the bazaar now, decidedly if the Starfield array appeals to you, you may able-bodied be accepting the best RX 7800 XT of all.
When comparing the Azure to added RX 7800 XT's, it adamantine for me to say which way you should go. Its cooler, quieter, and a little faster. It'll accept a college resale amount bottomward the band and it looks amazing. But $70 is money that could go appear a faster CPU or added memory. Either advantage has its pros and cons.
I'd alone authority off for a few weeks if you can. Jumping on a new agenda at the time of barrage agency you're activity to pay more. Let's see how the amount of the Azure RX 7800 XT settles appear the end of 2023.
If you do appetite to jump into the bazaar now, decidedly if the Starfield array appeals to you, you may able-bodied be accepting the best RX 7800 XT of all. The brand of the Asus Strix and MSI Suprim are not accessible now—or conceivably ever, authoritative the Azure one of actual few top bank RX 7800 XT's to accept from. If you accept the cash, you'll be adored with a top affection cartoon agenda with all the trimmings.
