Sapphire Radeon RX 7700 XT

Vorgestern ging pünktlich zum Marktstart der beiden Karten auch unser Test einiger Modelle der Radeon RX 7800 XT und Radeon RX 7700 XT online.

Just last week, we've posted nine reviews of AMD's new Radeon RX 7700 XT/7800 XT lineup. Today we have our tenth review, the Sapphire Radeon RX 7700 XT Pure. While the RX 7700 XT Pulse is designed to be a "good enough" card that targets the AMD $450 MSRP, the Pure is a little bit more premium, with a white color theme, factory overclock, triple fan cooler and red illumination. Under the hood, both cards are based on the same Navi 32 graphics processor, which, just like Navi 31 uses the chiplet design approach that made Ryzen processors so successful. Instead of a single large monolithic die, the processor is made up from several smaller pieces, which are easier to build, with a much lower defect rate. The chiplet strategy on Navi 32 is identical to Navi 31. A central GCD die, which contains all the shaders engines, is surrounded by several MCD dies, which provide the memory interface and L3 cache. On the RX 7800 XT there's four MCDs, to build a 256-bit memory interface, whereas RX 7700 XT uses only three MCDs, resulting in a 192-bit interface. The fourth die is not "missing," but AMD has placed a non-functional dummy die here instead, to provide structural stability.

It’s interesting just how much a few changes can make a big difference when it comes to how different the Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse and the Sapphire RX 7700 XT PURE. They have nearly the same shroud and backplate design, even the line drawings are the same. But with the RX 7700 XT PURE being bright white and all of those accents changing from red to grey I like the RX 7700 XT PURE’s styling a lot more than the Pulse. It is also exciting to see Sapphire finally fully embracing the white PC build, a lot of the “white edition” models from other companies are limited runs and ask for a premium, I’m not expecting that to be the case with the RX 7700 XT PURE. The only downside aesthetically for me was the red up on top of the card as well as the lighting being red. White or RGB would better fit the white card, but the way the lighting lights up and in some areas glows through the white card looks great. Having lighting that covered the entire top would look better, however, not just a hotspot in the middle. The RX 7700 XT PURE didn’t have as large of an overclock as we saw with the XFX QICK 7700 XT Black but with its mid-range overclock it held its own in our testing, coming out on top compared to the other RX 7700XTs more than it should. That means of course that the RX 7700 XT PURE outperformed the 4060 Ti 8GB in nearly every test by a big margin and even outperformed cards like the RTX 3070 Ti as well. This translates to great 1440p performance and at least some capabilities at 4K. What impressed me more than anything was how well the RX 7700 XT PURE performed in our cooling tests, its mid-range overclock combined with a capable cooler had it running cooler than almost any other card tested. Its noise results were great as well, especially in our under-load test that replicates what you can expect in heavy game use. Like with the other 7700 XT the RX 7700 XT PURE did struggle in our Blender benchmarks and still has room to improve when it comes to ray tracing performance compared with Nvidia. The RX 7700 XT PURE uses standard PCIe power connections, so you can avoid having to use an adapter or having to upgrade your power supply which can save some money if you already have a PSU. For pricing, Sapphire has the RX 7700 XT PURE priced at $469. The base MSRP of the RX 7700 XT is $449 and the premium for an overclocked card with a larger cooler isn’t too bad at just $20. The big problem however is just how close the RX 7700 XT and the RX 7800 XT are pricing-wise with the 7800 XT’s base MSRP at $499. This makes it hard to justify the 7700 XT and even harder as the prices get closer to the 7800 XT MSRP. Hopefully, this will be adjusted in the future, especially with the RX 7700 XT PURE because it is an amazing card. The RX 7700 XT PURE is the sweet spot 7700 XT with the looks, cooling and noise performance, and is overclocked.

With any new model of GPU, there’s always the unexpected as even us as reviewers don’t know what to expect until we’ve tested it and yes while the likes of AMD will show you their own tests, they can generally be taken with a pinch of salt and should be ignored….to a degree. Luckily as we’ve seen from our main RX 7700 XT content, the GPU is good and offers a strong proposition at a good price though, even if the 7800 XT is the one we’d choose and the same can be said about new models from AIB partners which is what the Pure card from Sapphire is. A new untried, untested model. Again though, coming into it not having any idea on what to expect, and being shown some very respectable figures in terms of cooling performance, fan speed and board power, while also looking absolutely amazing. Now I’ll be honest, I’ve been a long-term fan of Sapphire going all the way back to the start of the 2000’s and looking back now, the designs were, shall we say…interesting. They’ve released some great products over the years, and also some not-so-favourable ones too, but the Pure is definitely up there with the best of them and is a bold move that I really think will pay off for them. There aren’t too many brands who make white graphics cards and when they do, they typically go full white with a white cooler, backplate and PCB but Sapphire hasn’t done that. While they’ve gone for two out of the three, they left the PCB black, and I’m not even mad because you can’t see it anyway because the cooler and backplate are that big, and encompass the whole card so you don’t end up seeing the PCB and by keeping it black, it helps to keep costs down and I’m all for that. I honestly can’t wait to see more models sporting the Pure cooler to see how it can potentially handle something a bit beefier like the 7900 XTX GPU, with my only real gripe being to do with that red piece of plastic and red LED, but luckily, the LED can be turned off.

It's been quite a long road for both NVIDIA and their GeForce RTX 5xxx series and AMD and their Radeon RX 9xxx series but we're finally days away before the first reviews make it online (if all goes well, from what I hear some issues have risen so it could be a bumpy launch for the latter) and so what better way to prepare for that than to test not one but two of the latest AMD cards launched by Sapphire? Well as the review title states today with me, I have both the Nitro+ AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT and the Pure AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT models by Sapphire which I've been testing for almost 2 full months now.

Nachdem die dritte RDNA-Generation durch die Radeon RX 7900 Boliden bereits Ende 2022 ihren Anfang nahm, wurde im Mai dieses Jahr mit der Radeon RX 7600 das nächste Modell der Serie vorgestellt. Weitere vier Monate später, im September 2023, legte AMD wiederum nach und präsentierte die Radeon RX 7800 XT mit 16 GB sowie die Radeon RX 7700 XT mit 12 GB. Preislich liegen die beiden jüngsten Sprösslinge der Familie bei 549 bzw. 489 Euro und sind für WQHD-Gaming konzipiert. Die Radeon RX 7700 XT muss sich fortan mit der GeForce RTX 4060 Ti mit 16 GB von Nvidia messen. Die RTX 4070 ist preislich und auch leistungsmäßig in einer anderen Region zuhause. Für einen ausführlichen Praxistest haben wir uns zwei Custom-Design Modelle von Sapphire ins Testlab geholt. Dabei handelt es sich um die günstigere PULSE RX 7700 XT sowie die extravagante PURE RX 7700 XT, die in einem komplett weißen Design, RGB-Beleuchtung und Overclocking ab Werk geliefert wird. Preislich liegen diese Exemplare bei ca. 460 Euro sowie ca. 480 Euro. Beide Testprobanden mussten sich selbstverständlich dem Vergleich mit den GeForce-Konkurrenten von Nvidia stellen.

RTX 4060 Ti Schreck! Die AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT tritt in die Fußstapfen der AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, welche in der Vergangenheit mit einem guten Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis punkten konnte. Wir haben uns die AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT in Form der Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT genauer in diversen Tests und Benchmarks analysiert und klären, ob sie ein würdiger Nachfolger der Radeon RX 6700 XT ist.

Our look at the Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse is both a look at AMDs new 7700 XT GPU and at Sapphire card design as well. For the 7700 XT AMD has opted to not do a reference design so budget-focused cards like the RX 7700 XT Pulse are as close as you are going to get. They don’t have the all-metal fan shroud but Sapphire’s design is a great example of everything you need and nothing else. The Pulse card design isn’t bad looking and other than a few small accents printed on the shroud you aren’t getting a crazy over top design or any lighting at all. Not having lighting is going to be a big plus for some people and a downside for others. The overall card size isn’t as compact as some of the reference designs, but once you figure in your power connections on top the RX 7700 XT Pulse should fit in any of the same situations. It also uses standard PCIe power connections which means you won’t need to upgrade to a newer ATX 3.0 power supply if you already have one and can avoid the 12VHPWR adapters as well. For performance, the RX 7700 XT Pulse isn’t sitting at the top of AMDs 1440p product stack but it does have solid 1440p performance. If anything at 1440p, unless you are trying to game at 240hz you won’t see much of a sacrifice compared to the 7800 XT, you lose 4K performance more than anything between the two cards. The RX 7700 XT Pulse leaves the RTX 4060 Ti in the dust for performance and even outperforms the RTX 3070 Ti as well as AMDs 6750 XT. It does have the same Blender performance issues that all of the AMD cards have. Its ray tracing performance is still behind where Nvidia is right now but AMD has made improvements there so the gap is smaller. Sapphire’s card design was quiet at 100% fan speed but when I got into the noise tests when under a normal load it was louder than I expected it to me, after seeing its cooling performance the fan profile could be tweaked slightly to even this out. As for pricing, Sapphire has the RX 7700 XT Pulse priced at $449 which is right with AMDs RX 7700 XT MSRP, and the Pulse is the perfect card for an MSRP card with its stock clock speeds and only what you need design. But how does AMDs MSRP compare with the competition? Well if we are looking at just current generation cards from AMD and Nvidia the RX 7700 XT Pulse sitting at $449 the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB can be found at $399 and Nvidia has lowered the 16GB card down to $449. We don’t have a 16GB card to compare with but the RX 7700 XT Pulse as a whole was well ahead of the 4060 Ti. Nvidia’s last gen cards like the RTX 3070 and RTX 3070 Ti get a little closer in performance but the RX 7700 XT Pulse was still ahead and while you can find a 3070 Ti at the same $449 price point they don’t completely line up. The RX 7700 XT Pulse gets the strongest competition from AMDs own cards with the 6800 XT that can be found for $499 and the 7800 XT as well at that same price. The pricing between the 7700 XT and the 7800 XT being so tight makes things tough as well once you start looking at any overclocked cards. They didn’t leave much room for a more premium 7700 XT to fit in at all. The 7700 XT Pulse also comes with a copy of Starfield Premium Edition as well which at a $99 value helps a lot if you were already considering getting the game.

AMD isn't producing a reference design card for the Radeon RX 7700 XT, so they sent us the Sapphire Pulse instead. Pulse is Sapphire's at-MSRP graphics card design, which still gives you a decent cooler paired with excellent fan settings. A factory overclock is not available, but the other RX 7700 XT cards from ASUS and XFX didn't achieve any meaningful performance gains either with their factory overclock.

Both the Radeon RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT graphics cards are recent introductions specifically for my favourite monitor resolution,the WQHD monitor range. Both cards feature a notable shader count and VRAM buffers when evaluating their specifications. They are strategically positioned between the GeForce 4060 Ti and RTX 4070, aiming to blend performance and cost-effectiveness. While I do like the 7800 XT a notch better, the 7700 XT surely is no slough. I do feel this card should be priced at $349-389.The RX 7700 XT series does not present groundbreaking technological advancements but brings incremental improvements in raw performance. What I am saying, here is AMD is still a step behind in Raytracing performance and efficient adaptive supersampling techniques with the help of an AI assist. However, most people still do not care about the latter one and as such crave faster shader performance. And here these graphics cards deliver. Notable features include AV1 compatibility, incorporation of the rDNA3 architecture, and updated monitor connectors, all of which enhance the overall user experience but really might not be compelling enough to switch away from NVIDIA. In terms of performance, the RX 7700 XT closely mirrors its 6800 predecessors within this competitive market segment. Alternatives might offer distinct benefits, so potential buyers should assess their options carefully. The RX 7700 XT model comes with 12GB of graphics memory on a more restricted 192-bit memory interface, potentially making it an appealing choice for those emphasizing performance relative to cost. On the other hand, the 7800 XT 16GB 256-bit provides a slightly higher performance level but demands more financial and energy budget and your money, passing 500 Euros.