AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT vs AMD Radeon HD 7970

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is a desktop graphics card that launched in Q3 2023 with a MSRP of $499. It is built on the RDNA 3.0 GPU microarchitecture (codename Navi 32) and is manufactured on a 5 nm process.

Memory

The RX 7800 XT has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, with a 2,438 MHz memory clock and a 256 bit interface. This gives it a memory bandwidth of 624.1 Gb/s, which affects how fast it can transfer data to and from memory. GPU memory stores temporary data that helps the GPU with complex math and graphics operations. More memory is generally better, as not having enough can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cores and Clock Speeds

The RX 7800 XT includes 3,840 stream processors (SPs), the processing units for handling parallel computing tasks. The GPU operates at a core clock speed of 1,295 MHz and can dynamically boost its clock speed up to 2,430 MHz. It usually operates at 2,124 MHz during typical gaming workloads. Complementing the processing units are 240 texture mapping units (TMUs) for efficient texture filtering and 96 render output units (ROPs) for pixel processing. Additionally, the GPU features 120 AI accelerators optimized for AI workloads and 60 ray accelerators dedicated to real-time ray tracing calculations.

Compatibility & Power Consumption

The RX 7800 XT occupies 2 PCIe expansion slots. It supports HDMI 2.1a, DisplayPort 2.1 display connections. AMD recommends a power supply of at least 600 W to handle the GPU's thermal design power (TDP) of 263 W.

Benchmark Performance & Value

The RX 7800 XT has the 13th best 3DMark 11 Performance GPU score among the 543 benchmarked GPUs in our database. It achieves 62.73% of the performance of the best benchmarked GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. Its 65,610.5 score and $499 launch price (MSRP) gives it a performance per dollar of 131.48. This is the 2nd best in value for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.