Sapphire Radeon RX 7800 XT

Averaged over the 25 games in our test suite, at 1440p resolution, the RX 7800 XT is able to beat NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (by a small margin), and on top of that the RX 7800 XT is $100 cheaper at the same time. AMD's new card is also able to beat GeForce RTX 3080, one of the most popular cards in the green team's previous generation. The gen-over-gen performance gain compared to RX 6800 XT is pretty slim though with just 3%. If you're still on the older RX 5700 XT, AMD's flagship from a few years ago, the RX 7800 XT offers double the performance, pretty impressive. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is over 25% slower than the RX 7800 XT. With these performance numbers, the RX 7800 XT is a great card for 1440p gaming, it will easily reach over 60 FPS with maximized settings in all but the most demanding games. If you're willing to dial down details or use an upscaling technology, then 4K with decent framerates is a possibility, too.

The RX 6800, a card we know a lot of people have brought despite it being a generation older, currently retails around the £550 mark depending upon vendor, which makes the RX 7800 XT with its £479.99 price point a total bargain. As you could see from our results the RX 7800 XT often bests the RX 6800 XT, and is usually better than the other key player in this segment of the market, the £600 Nvidia RTX 4070. Straight away that makes this an easy sell.

With our testing out of the way and having taken a closer look at the card design and checking out what both the new 7700 XT and 7800 XT are all about spec-wise we can finally step back and get a bigger picture on everything. For the Radeon RX 7800 XT reference card design, like with the reference 7900 XT and XTX as well as the 7600 I love the blacked-out design and the styling that AMD went with. While it isn’t a huge heatsink attached to a PCB like a lot of high-end partner cards offer. The design is a lot more premium with its all-metal shroud and backplate and a design that doesn’t feel tossed together. Sticking to a standard PCI height and not being a 3+ slot wide card (it is a 2.5 slot design) the card will fit in almost anything. Fitment doesn’t seem like something you should have to worry about, but unless you are running a huge case it is a concern with most card designs these days. The Radeon RX 7800 XT also utilizes standard PCIe power connections which means you don’t have to run an adapter or worry about upgrading your power supply. Given how much a build can cost these days, finding ways to save is always nice. For performance, before I get into how it compares to other cards. AMD is promoting the Radeon RX 7800 XT to be a high-end 1440p option and in our testing, it handled 1440p without any issues with most situations being capable of frame rates that will work well with high refresh rate monitors. Given that the 1440p 240Hz is the sweet spot in my eyes, that is great to hear. Even if you decide to go up to 4K later the Radeon RX 7800 XT can handle that as well but high refresh rates are going to be very dependent on the game. The 7800 XT did struggle in our Blender testing, it wouldn’t be on my list if that is also important to you. As far as ray tracing and AI-based tech AMD is improving especially now with FSP 3, but Nvidia does still stand out there in those situations. Now all of that is great in a vacuum but we do have to look at the competition as well but I will get into pricing further down. The Radeon RX 7800 XT as a whole outperformed Nvidia’s RTX 4070 coming in 9 FPS higher at 1440p when our test results were averaged and that is impressive. Of course, the wet blanket on it all comes from AMD themselves with last generations 6800 XT. I didn’t have a reference 6800 XT for direct comparisons but our overclocked 6800 XT was FPS faster at 1440p than the 7800 XT. Most of that is likely the overclock. But even with matching performance, it isn’t the best optics for the next generation x800 XT to not be a step up. I mention optics because it is a little more complicated. AMD has the 7800 XT positioned as a replacement for the RX 6800, not the 6800 XT. Like Nvidia, it seems they are readjusting their card positioning. But I really wish we would see a complete reset in naming when doing it (maybe something like the 11X00 Series) to avoid any confusion. When I got into noise and power testing, while the Radeon RX 7800 XT performed well as a whole it did struggle in the under load noise testing. The fan profile is extremely aggressive which hurt its performance there. The 7800 XT did improve on efficiency a lot compared to the 6800 XT, but the RTX 4070 still kicked its butt there. GPU hotspot temps were also higher than I would like in both the 100% fan speed test and stock fan profile testing.

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. The tested 7800 XT I do seem to like a notch better overall, and it's just $50 more, so that would be an easy choice for me. The extra VRAM, wider memory bus and 13%-14% extra performance make the choice a no-brainer. That said, the 7800 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 definitely 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 7800 XT closely mirrors its 6900 XT predecessor which is just $50 more expensive within this competitive market segment. Alternatives might offer distinct benefits, so potential buyers should assess their options carefully.

Auf den zurückliegenden Seiten des Artikels haben wir die Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 7800 XT ausgiebig geprüft, so dass wir nun zu einem abschließenden Fazit des Tests kommen können. Wer vorab noch ein paar zusammenfassende Worte zur RDNA 3-Architektur und den Radeon RX 7900 Modellen lesen möchte, dem sei unser früherer Testbericht empfohlen. Lange genug mussten Kunden darauf warten, bis AMD die Lücke zwischen 7900er und 7600er Radeon schließen konnte. Mit der Radeon RX 7800 XT auf Basis der Navi 32-GPU schickt man nun einen Gegenspieler für die GeForce RTX 4070 von Nvidia ins Rennen. Wie die Benchmarks auf den zurückliegenden Seiten zeigen, dominiert die GeForce speziell bei Raytracing, was allgemein zu den Stärken der RTX-Modelle gehört. Bei Rasterizer-Messungen kann sich die Radeon durchsetzen und profitiert bei UHD vom zusätzlichen VRAM (16 GB vs. 12 GB), was unterm Strich ein paar Prozent Leistungsvorsprung bedeuten. Bei WQHD und Full-HD rücken die Kontrahenten eng zusammen und wir beobachten ein Kopf-an-Kopf-Rennen. In Sachen Energieeffizienz kann wiederum die GeForce RTX 4070 die Oberhand behalten.

Schon AMDs Referenzdesign (MBA) der Radeon RX 7800 XT wusste zu überzeugen, doch die Custom-Designs Asus TUF Gaming OC, PowerColor Hellhound, Sapphire Nitro+ und Merc 319 kühlen noch einmal besser und bleiben trotzdem leiser. Welches Modell im Vergleich die beste Vorstellung abliefert, klärt der Test.

The NITRO+ Radeon RX 7800 XT by SAPPHIRE had large shoes to fill and well, it mostly does. In most of my tests it offers almost double the performance of the Radeon RX 7600 and in a few it even comes close to the stock Radeon RX 7900 XT model. Yes, it may not offer the same power consumption/performance ratio as the RX 7900 XT (or the RX 7900 XTX for that matter) but it’s clearly more efficient compared to its smaller RX 7600 brother. Ray tracing performance is actually very good too, not quite as good as NVIDIA cards (to be expected) but clearly improves with every new driver. Thanks to the NITRO+ cooler the card also does very well in terms of temperatures and noise levels (do keep in mind that the max numbers were the ones recorded during my tests and not the maximum possible – during the fan test noise levels were much higher) so for the like 100th time Kudos to SAPPHIRE for making one of the best coolers around. Still not all was perfect and so for all of you who might have noticed there were no raytracing results with Chernobylite and the reason is quite simple, the game just wouldn't allow me to use it in my tests (it just said unavailable setting). Yes, i didn't encounter this issue with the Radeon RX 7900 XT, Radeon RX 7900 XTX or the Radeon RX 7600 while i was testing them so this is probably something related with the current drivers (which means either the team behind Chernobylite or AMD will fix this).

If you came here from our review of the AMD card then you'll know how impressed we are with the newest addition to the Radeon range. Whilst the RX 7900 XTX is still their mack-daddy, the RX 7800 XT is designed squarely at the 1080P, 1440 crowd. Whilst the market might scream about the importance of 4K gaming, the numbers from Steam and sheer monitor sales figures show that most people don't have the display to game at 4K and the expense necessary to really make the most of it is way outside the remit of a card sitting at this price point. We would always rather have all the bells and whistles at 1440 than cut down the settings to make 4K workable.

The Sapphire RX 7800 XT Nitro+ is the company's flagship card for this release. It comes with all the bells and whistles like adjustable RGB lighting, dual BIOS, a powerful triple-slot, triple-fan cooling solution and a large factory overclock. Compared to AMD reference speeds, the Nitro+ ticks at a gaming clock frequency of 2254 MHz, which is a 6% increase over the 2124 MHz baseline value set by AMD. Averaged over the 25 games in our test suite, at 1440p resolution, this leads to a 4% performance improvement over the AMD reference card—not much, but that's how factory overclocks work these days. Actually, all RX 7800 XT custom designs tested today reach virtually the same performance levels, which can be a good thing, because it really doesn't matter which one you pick, at least when it comes to gaming performance.

Now I’ll be honest, when we do these launches and look at multiple AIB models of the same GPU, it’s a bit of a spirit breaker. It leaves us with nothing to really talk about in terms of the GPU because they all perform within a margin of error 2% or so of each other so it does make for a boring conclusion, though with cards like the Nitro+, we can focus on what Sapphire have done, and without repeating myself from when I’ve looked at other Nitro+ cards in the past, they really have knocked it out of the park again. The card is gorgeous and would look great inside any system, especially if you can get it mounted vertically to show off that clean front shroud and that all-important RGB, and while I get that it’s not for everyone, that’s the beauty of it. You can change it to adapt to you and your preference, whether that be changing it to a solid colour or a different pattern, or simply turning it off completely. I mentioned before that if Apple were to make a GPU, I think this would be it, or an NVIDIA FE card, but with me focussing on AMD today, I’ll stick with that. It’s a big card, don’t get me wrong but that also adds something to the elemental feel of the build quality. If something is big and feels heavy, it’s generally because of the material used and that’s exactly what this feels like. A solidly built product from the ground up and from a brand you know you can trust. That’s why whenever you think of an AMD GPU, you instantly think of Sapphire. They simply are the go-to brand for AMD graphics cards. So what about the cooling performance? I’m a little torn, but don’t worry, it’s all good. Sapphire have done an amazing job to keep the 7800 XT’s core under control, and if anything they’ve done too good of a job, as the fans may as well have not even powered up. The card was kept cool and quiet, but if you’ve checked out our other 7800 XT content, then you’ll know that they weren’t the coolest, being beaten by XFX, albeit, not by much, though the XFX card came in, still quiet, but noisier and faster in terms of fan speed than the Sapphire, and I want to say that I think there may be a compromise where Sapphire could adjust the fan curve slightly, and possibly be the coolest, while still being the quietest, and I’ve told our Sapphire contact exactly that, so we’ll see what the future holds if they take my line of thinking and adapt it into upcoming new products.

Upon examination of the NITRO+, its build quality and specifications are evident. The NITRO+ features an elevated power budget and clock speed, positioning it with a faster performance compared to its contemporaries. Regarding the RX 7800 XT, benchmarking indicates an average performance advantage of 3% for the NITRO+. 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. The tested 7800 XT I do seem to like a notch better overall, and it's just $50 more, so that would be an easy choice for men. The extra VRAM, wider memory bus and 13%-14% extra performance pretty much make the choice a no-brainer. The 7800 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 definitely 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 7800 XT closely mirrors its 6800XT/6900 XT predecessors within this competitive market segment. Alternatives might offer distinct benefits, so potential buyers should assess their options carefully.