Radeon RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) graphics cards were introduced back in July last year and were primarily aimed at the Chinese market. However, after the recent release of upgraded SUPER-modifications of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4xxx line of graphics cards, AMD has decided to radically expand the geographic availability of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB by adjusting its recommended price.
As a reminder, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE uses the top-of-the-line NAVI 31 GPU in a modification with 80 clusters, which include 5120 computing units in total. In this configuration, 320 texture modules, 160 rasterizers, and 80 RT cores are active. In addition, the GPU uses 64 MB of L3 (Infinity Cache). The video card has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with an effective 18,000 MHz, while the 256-bit bus allows for a bandwidth of 576 GB/s. The declared TBP of the video card is 260 watts.
At the time of the announcement, the developers priced the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16GB at $649. Those wishing to purchase this model could do so outside of China. In Ukraine, the line was offered in very limited quantities with a retail price tag of ~$750. It could hardly be called attractive, especially with the advent of the Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB with a recommended price of $499.
Obviously, with the emergence of powerful competitors, the time has come for a large-scale “reboot” of Radeon RX 7900 GRE. Therefore, AMD officially reduces its price tag to $549, engages more partners to produce adapters, and will limit the geography of supply of the old-new model.
The capabilities of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB are already quite well known, but on the eve of the model’s relaunch, it will not be superfluous to remind you of the card’s potential, as well as compare the performance with that of new NVIDIA models. To do this, we will use the test results of our colleagues from TechPowerUp, who have already managed to review the updated versions of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB.
According to the results of the performance assessment, the confrontation between the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB and GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB, which now have the same recommended price tag ($549), is quite fundamental. Previously, AMD in its presentation materials claimed a 14% advantage over its direct opponent in 1440p mode. Independent practical tests generally confirm this assessment. The Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB is indeed ~15% ahead of the RTX 4070 12 GB, with the average difference even increasing to ~20% in 4K mode. At the same time, the GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB has a 10% advantage when ray tracing is activated.
In addition to the direct confrontation between graphics cards of the same price, it is also interesting to compare the performance of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE with that of the updated GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12 GB, which has a price tag of $599. In this “version”, the average performance of both models is very similar. Traditionally, in some projects, the AMD solution has an advantage, while in others, the NVIDIA adapter has higher performance.
In ray tracing mode, the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12GB offers almost a quarter more fps. The only exception is Alan Wake 2 in 4K mode, where RT mode with maximum quality annihilates graphics cards with less than 16 GB of memory.
The data also allows us to compare the performance of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16GB and Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB. Here, the ratio of strengths coincides with the difference in the price of the cards. The junior model, which has a recommended price of $499, is ~10% less powerful than the RX 7900 GRE in all graphics modes. Accordingly, the price/performance ratio of these models is almost identical.
As for the comparison with the Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB, the GRE is already 13-19% inferior to the older model. That is, in the overall lineup, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB occupies a niche between the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT.
The actual power consumption of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB is close to the declared one. During a gaming load, the Sapphire video card consumed about 265 watts. This is a good figure, especially when compared to the 260 watts for the Radeon RX 7800 XT. But NVIDIA graphics cards are significantly more economical. The equally priced GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB consumes about 200 watts, and the similarly performing GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12 GB consumes 220 watts.
In general, the emergence of a wide range of Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB will not be superfluous. Despite the fact that the video card has no fundamental advantages over the Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB, the ability to get a corresponding performance boost for a moderate extra charge is a good option when choosing the best video card for 1440p gaming. In addition, judging by the reviews of new models, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB is quite overclockable, allowing you to get +10% fps over the base values.
Official sales of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16GB will begin on February 27. The list of partners that have already announced their variants includes ASRock, ASUS, Sapphire, GIGABYTE, PowerColor, and XFX. A version from Acer is also expected. More video cards with 16 GB of memory, good and different.
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