AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, 16GB GDDR6, HDMI, 3x DP

Als gutes Mittelklasse-Modell schickt AMD die Radeon RX 7800 XT ins Rennen, wenn Gaming in 1.440p auf der Wunschliste steht. Im Großen und Ganzen liefert die AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT genügend Leistung, um dem gerecht zu werden. Wäre da aber nicht die Konkurrenz. Sowohl Nvidia als auch AMD selbst haben in dieser Leistungsklasse momentan viele Grafikkarten im Portfolio. Selbst Grafikkarten der letzten Generation sind mögliche Konkurrenten.

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.