In July 2023, AMD launched a brand new GPU referred to as the “Radeon RX 7900 GRE” in China. GRE stands for “Golden Rabbit Version,” a reference to the Chinese language zodiac, and whereas the cardboard was obtainable exterior of China in a handful of pre-built OEM methods, AMD did not make it extensively obtainable at retail.
That modifications at present—AMD is launching the RX 7900 GRE at US retail for a urged beginning worth of $549. This throws it proper into the center of the busy upper-mid-range graphics card market, the place it should compete with Nvidia’s $549 RTX 4070 and the $599 RTX 4070 Tremendous, in addition to AMD’s personal $500 Radeon RX 7800 XT.
We have run our typical set of GPU checks on the 7900 GRE to see the way it stacks as much as the playing cards AMD and Nvidia are already providing. Is it value shopping for a brand new card comparatively late on this GPU era, when rumors level to new next-gen GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel earlier than the top of the 12 months? Can the “Golden Rabbit Version” nonetheless supply worth, although it is at the moment the 12 months of the dragon?
Meet the 7900 GRE
RX 7900 XT | RX 7900 GRE | RX 7800 XT | RX 6800 XT | RX 6800 | RX 7700 XT | RX 6700 XT | RX 6750 XT | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Compute items (Stream processors) | 84 (5,376) | 80 (5,120) | 60 (3,840) | 72 (4,608) | 60 (3,840) | 54 (3,456) | 40 (2,560) | 40 (2,560) |
Enhance Clock | 2,400 MHz | 2,245 MHz | 2,430 MHz | 2,250 MHz | 2,105 MHz | 2,544 MHz | 2,581 MHz | 2,600 MHz |
Reminiscence Bus Width | 320-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit |
Reminiscence Clock | 2,500 MHz | 2,250 MHz | 2,438 MHz | 2,000 MHz | 2,000 MHz | 2,250 MHz | 2,000 MHz | 2,250 MHz |
Reminiscence measurement | 20GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6 |
Whole board energy (TBP) | 315 W | 260 W | 263 W | 300 W | 250 W | 245 W | 230 W | 250 W |
The 7900 GRE slots into AMD’s present lineup above the RX 7800 XT (at the moment $500-ish) and under the RX 7900 (round $750). Technologically, we’re trying on the identical Navi 31 GPU silicon because the 7900 XT and XTX, however with simply 80 of the compute items enabled, down from 84 and 96, respectively. The traditional advantages of the RDNA3 graphics structure apply, together with hardware-accelerated AV1 video encoding and DisplayPort 2.1 help.
The 7900 GRE additionally consists of 4 lively reminiscence controller die (MCD) chiplets, giving it a narrower 256-bit reminiscence bus and 16GB of reminiscence as a substitute of 20GB—nonetheless a lot for contemporary video games, although probably not fairly as future-proof because the 7900 XT. The cardboard makes use of considerably much less energy than the 7900 XT and about the identical quantity because the 7800 XT. That feels a bit bizarre, intuitively, since slower playing cards virtually at all times eat much less energy than sooner ones. But it surely does make some sense; pushing the 7800 XT’s smaller Navi 32 GPU to get increased clock speeds out of it’s most likely making it run a bit much less effectively than a bigger Navi 31 GPU die that is not being pushed as laborious.
After we reviewed the 7800 XT final 12 months, we famous that its {hardware} configuration and efficiency made it appear extra like a successor to the (non-XT) Radeon RX 6800, whereas it simply barely managed to match or beat the 6800 XT in our checks. Identical cope with the 7900 GRE, which is a extra logical successor to the 6800 XT. Bear that in thoughts when doing generation-over-generation comparisons.