XFX Radeon RX 7900 XT

Once again, AMD has gambled with a new approach, stepping outside of the box, and that appears to have paid off for them. Applying a chiplet design to a GPU raised its own issues, such as data transfer and memory bandwidth. Using multiple MCDs solved the bandwidth issue, but data transfer between dies required something completely new, and AMD came through again with their Infinity Fanout links. Overall, their design has paid off. They wanted a high-performance graphics card for under a thousand dollars, and that’s precisely what they have.

Generally speaking, the XFX MERC 310 Radeon RX 7900 XT offers more performance than AMD’s own Radeon RX 7900 XT and its runs cooler too, thanks in no small part to the card’s massive heatsink assembly. That additional performance, however, comes at the cost of slightly higher power and a form factor that won’t fit in every PC case. At 13.5” long, 5” high and 2.7 slots wide, the XFX MERC 310 Radeon RX 7900 XT is one heck of a beefy graphics card. Make sure you’ve got the clearance to install one of these bad boys before taking the plunge.

Overall XFX is offering some value with its improved cooling, clean styling, and overclocked performance but keep an eye out for an XTX as well when you are shopping as you might end up with a cheap upgrade.

Aside from the acoustic level of this graphics card, XFX did things correctly with the MERC. The result is a professional-looking, high-performance product. I seem to like the XTX model a lot more than the XT. The XTX variant, on the other hand, has significantly more power and appeal with that max power BIOS and a far more extensive factory tweak. At best, the MERC XT will be 2%~3% faster than the reference. It runs excellently chilled and cool, but it isn't quiet. The RX 7900 XT is also a bit difficult to position as it has a few weaknesses. When looking at raw shader performance, it's plenty fast ... closing in at the more expensive GeForce RTX 4080. However, the Achilles heel for the Radeon RX 7900 XT is twofold.