AMD announces RDNA 3 GPUs: all the details on the RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT

AMD has finally lifted the veil on the Navi 31 generation GPUs based on RDNA 3 architecture, the new ones RX 7900 XTX And RX 7900 XT, opening the dance with regard to its latest generation high-end proposals. AMD therefore launches the gauntlet to Nvidia, fresh from the presentation of the RTX 40 series GPUs, even if the announcements of the last few hours seem to be in direct competition only with the RTX 4080, while the ultra premium segment covered by RTX 4090 – which we tested in our tests – still seems to be a long way off.

But stop the chatter and let’s find out what they bring to the market the first RDNA 3-based GPUssince the innovations under the hood – both in terms of power and architecture – are so many and promise to give way to a very special generation.

So let’s start from the RDNA 3 architecture, the heart not only of the new RX 7900 XTX and XT, but also of all the next GPUs of the Sunnyvale house. The most important news concernsthe arrival of architecturechipleteven in the world of graphics cards, thus going to inherit the new way of making and integrating the chips that we have already seen on Ryzen CPUs.

The use of the chiplet model allows the manufacturer to divide a single chip into its various components and interconnect them through a super high speed bus, able to guarantee the total absence of bottlenecks. In the case of RDNA 3 it is a bus from ben 5.3 TB / si.e. double the connectionUltraFusionthat we find inside the Apple M1 Ultra SoC, which allows the two chips to communicate at 2.5 TB / s.

The advantage of this approach lies in the fact that each component can be made with the best production process available for that category, so we find the use of 5 nm for the graphics chipwhile AMD has chosen to rely on a more mature solution with regards to the memory chips, made at 6 nm. According to what has been declared, this new way of making the GPU will also bring further advantages in terms of performance that can be exploited in the future with the update of the drivers, but immediately you will be able to access top-level performance.

And precisely with regard to performance, RDNA 3 seems to maintain expectations even with respect to the rumors of the past few months, given that the architecture allows to reach up to 61 TFLOPS of poweragainst the 23 maximum of RDNA 2. As usual, it should be emphasized that it is very difficult to compare between themTFLOPS of different architecturesso we’re not talking about an actual 3x peak performance, but the leap is noteworthy nonetheless.

To reach these levels of power, AMD intervened in every single aspect of the architecture, starting fromSecond generation Infinity Cache which brings with it a 2.7x improvement in bandwidth. We also find the same 2.7x in terms of performance in the AI ​​field, while we get to well + 50% improvement in ray tracing performance.

All in a GPU that can contain up to 58 billion transistors e up to 24 GB of GDDR6 video memory. AMD explicitly has chose not to adopt the GDDR6X as the focus of the new architecture is to maximize performance per watt, therefore the higher consumption of the GDDR6X would have had a negative impact, without bringing enormous advantages. This translates into the presence of two traditional 8-pin connectors and in a maximum draw of 350 W for the flagship GPU of the 7000 series.

Regarding the performance per watt, the new RDNA 3 architecture allows an increase of 53% compared to the RDNA 2 generation, with frequencies that now reach 2.3 GHz for shaders. Finally, the 7000 series GPUs are equipped with a connector DisplayPort 2.1able to offer a bandwidth up to 53 GB / s which allows to manage screens in 4K up to 480 Hzin 8K up to 165 Hz and with color profile a 12 bit.

Power in the gaming field is not the only aspect on which the new architecture focuses, since RDNA 3 also brings with it news related to content creation, especially during streaming. Then comes the new RDNA 3 Media Engine for the Simultaneous encoding and decoding of AV1 format (there is talk of an approximately 7x increase in transcoding performance in 8K FFmpeg) and the new AMD SmartAccess Videoa system that allows you to improve transcoding performance in 4K multi stream, thanks to the possibility of divide the workload between Ryzen CPUs and Radeon 7000 series GPUs.

These are the general characteristics of the new architecture, but now let’s see in detail how AMD’s proposal is articulated.

The top of the range of the 7000 series is the RX 7900 XTX, a card that inherits the shape, factor and dimensions of the 6950 XT, but which offers a much more efficient and powerful package. Being the top solution, we are talking about a GPU with 58 billion transistors, with 96 CU at 2.3 GHz, 24 GB of GDDR6 memorymemory interface a 384 bits and up to 61 TFLOPS.

The power supply is entrusted to the aforementioned two 8-pin connectors and the card measures 287 mm, or about 2.5 slots. The TDP of 350 watts and overall the GPU offers up to 1.7 times the performance of the RX 6950 XT in 4K, as demonstrated by the graphics shared by AMD.

Moving on to the stark numbers, the Sunnyvale company cited the results in1440pon some of the most famous e-sports titles, such asValorant, Overwatch 2 and Apex Legendson which the new GPU achieves respectively833, 600 and 300 fpsIf you choose to switch to the4Kon the other hand, the same titles arrive respectively at704, 355 and 295 fps; the results are very close to those in 1440p as in that scenario the maximum value allowed by each single game was reached. Obviously all without bothering FSR.

Moving instead to heavier titles, the RX 7900 XTX takes home275 fps on Hitman 3, 306 fps on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 And 353 fps in F1 22all played in 4K with active FSR. If you enter the territory of8K – always thanks to FSR – Modern Warfare 2 hits 190 fps, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla hits 96 fps, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves hits 73 fps and Death Stranding Director’s Cut hits 148 fps.

Finally we find clear improvements also in terms of performance in 4K at 60 fps with active ray tracing, where the RX 7900 XTX brings with it a major leap in performance over the RX 6950 XT. Cyberpunk 2077 goes from 42 to 62 fps, Dying Light 2 from 39 to 72 fps and Hitman 3 from 57 to 89 fps, results that could increase further with the optimization of the drivers coming in the coming months.

The new top-of-the-range GPU flanked by a slightly less powerful variant, which keeps all the main features of the XTX version unchanged, but with some slight differences. The RX 7900 XT, in fact, presents 84 CU at 2 GHz, 20 GB of GDDR6 memory by bus a 320 bits and a TDP of 300 W.

We therefore expect slightly lower performance which could be decisive only in the 8K area, while in 4K and 1440p there should not be such differences as to establish a clear gap between the two GPUs.

We conclude by mentioning the other news coming over the next few months that AMD presented during the event. Among these we find the long-awaited FSR 3.0now almost ready and whose release planned for 2023. The Sunnyvale house promises great improvements for this technology, which has the ambitious goal of double the number of frames per second that can be achieved with the 2.0 implementation thanks to the use of technologyfluid motion frameswhich should be very close to what we saw with DLSS 3. At the moment it is not clear whether AMD will benefit from the improved performance in the AI ​​field of the RDNA 3 architecture or if it will continue to propose a technique compatible with each GPU, as for the current version.

Also in 2023 it will also come AMD HYPR-RXa new automatic system optimization system, able to set the best values ​​to reduce latency and maximize frame rate, all with just one click. For now, there are no more precise details on this new suite, so we will have to wait for it to be presented.

RDNA 3 GPUs are preparing to land on the market by the end of the year, more precisely starting from 13 December 2022. At the moment there are no details regarding the actual availability in Italy, but AMD has confirmed that the maximum price will be positioned below $ 1,000. More specifically, let’s talk about $ 999 for the RX 7900 XTXwhile going down to $ 899 for the RX 7900 XT.

These are slightly lower prices than the launch ones of the last generation, given that the RX 6950 XT was presented at 1099 dollars, while the 6900 XT at 999, but obviously we are talking about the reference models that will be accompanied by the custom variants of the individual manufacturers.