AMD Radeon 7700XT and 7800XT review: 1440p gaming on a new architecture

Note: This article was first published on 6th September 2023.

1440p gaming without breaking the bank

AMD finally has a challenger to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and 4070. The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT are its latest mid-range entrants, based on its new RDNA3 architecture. Starting at US$449 and US$499 respectively, they will go head to head with the aforementioned NVIDIA cards, squarely targeting gamers who want to play at 1440p.

In response, NVIDIA has already dropped the price of its GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB down to just US$450, which makes the competition in this space a lot stiffer and more interesting.

Both cards are based on the same Navi 32 GPU core, which is a trimmed-down version of the Navi 31 found in the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT.

The Radeon RX 7700 XT has 10% fewer compute units than the Radeon RX 7800 XT, in addition to 25% less VRAM and a narrower 192-bit memory bus. This translates to the Radeon RX 7800 XT having 44% more memory bandwidth, even though it is just US$50 more expensive.

The two new cards fill in the yawning gap between the entry-level Radeon RX 7600 and the US$899 Radeon RX 7900 XT, which uses a full-fat Navi 31 GPU.

AMD is claiming better performance than the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and 4070 in head-to-head comparisons, something you'll see is borne out in our testing, at least until ray racing is turned on.

Compared to its predecessors, the US$470 Radeon RX 6700 XT and US$649 RX 6800 XT, the new cards are also slightly cheaper. AMD is packing even more value into its mid-range, which is good news for the masses who have been holding out for more affordable RDNA 3 offerings from Team Red.

While you may be able to get a 6000-series card for cheaper from retailers, you won't get RDNA 3 goodies, such as AV1 encoding and decoding, DisplayPort 2.1, and better AI processing. That said, those features aren't quite the game-changer yet, which means that the 6000-series models remain very competitive alternatives. 

There is no reference model for the Radeon RX 7700 XT, and we'll be comparing the Sapphire version to AMD's reference Radeon RX 7800 XT.

Test setup

Here are the specifications of our test rig:

• Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12900K CPU
• ROG Maximus Z690 Hero
• Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD
• Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit
• ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ 4K Gaming Monitor

We'll be comparing the Radeon RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT against the cards that sit above and below them in the product stack, and three competing NVIDIA cards:

• AMD Radeon RX 7600
• AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

The following synthetic benchmarks and games were run, with the games chosen from a wide range of genres to give a better indication of performance across different segments:

• 3DMark
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Total War: Three Kingdoms (Battle)
• Metro: Exodus
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Horizon Zero Dawn

3DMark

3DMark is a synthetic benchmark that tests graphics and computational performance at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K. A series of two graphics test, one physics test, and then a combined test stresses your hardware in turn to assess its performance.

In the 1440p Fire Strike Extreme test, the Radeon RX 7800 XT was nearly 20% faster than the RX 7700 XT, even though it was just 10% more expensive. The Radeon RX 7800 XT also beat the NVIDIA GeForce 4070 by 15%, while the Radeon RX 7700 XT edged ahead of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti by a good 24%.

Across the board, the new AMD cards acquit themselves quite well when going up against their NVIDIA rivals, and that's something you'll see in real-world benchmarks as well.

1080p Benchmarks (Max Settings)

Both the Radeon RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT have no problems with games at 1080p, even at maximum settings.

In Total War: Three Kingdoms, the RX 7800 XT was roughly 21% quicker than its sibling, while being 10% quicker than the RTX 4070.

1440p Benchmarks (Max Settings)

1440p resolutions are what the 7700 XT and 7800 XT were really designed for. Both cards managed over a respectable 120 FPS in three out of the four titles tested, except for Total War: Three Kingdoms.

In Total War, the 7800 XT continued to have a sizeable advantage over the 7700 XT, coming in at 22% faster. The 7800 XT also beat the RTX 4070 by nearly 10%, a decent lead considering the US$100 price difference between the two.

4K Benchmarks (Max Settings)

The 7700 XT and 7800 XT start to struggle at 4K, a resolution they were never designed to handle. Their differences with the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and 4070 cards also start to even out, even though Team Red still had a sliver of an advantage in most cases.

Ray Tracing Benchmarks (4K, Max Settings)

Ray tracing is where NVIDIA has more of an advantage. The GeForce RTX 4070 beat the RX 7800 XT by 11% its most significant lead so far. The differences were a bit murkier between the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and the 7700 XT, but the former claimed a 15% advantage in Guardians of the Galaxy. 

Temperature and power

Unsurprisingly, the RX 7800 XT runs a good deal hotter than the RX 7700 XT. The Sapphire card also had a slightly beefier heatsink and bigger fans, which likely added to the temperature margins as well. 

Conclusion

The Radeon RX 7700 XT isn't a bad card at all, but the RX 7800 XT is the better buy by far. It is only US$50 more expensive, and yet is quicker than the RX 7700 XT by around 20% on average. It also beats the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 in most head-to-head scenarios, while still being cheaper. NVIDIA has an edge in ray tracing and perks like DLSS, but AMD offers more performance and better value for the average gamer.

For gamers looking to play at 1440p, AMD has created two fairly compelling options that will put pressure on NVIDIA. The green camp has already slashed prices on the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, and it's possible the RTX 4070 may soon follow suit.

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