Is the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Worth It?

The release of the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT has been highly anticipated for over a year, and it comes at a time when the graphics card market is as competitive as ever. Because the PC gaming community needed an alternative to Nvidia’s premium-priced cards. So now that it’s here, is the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT worth it?

Priced at $499.99, it aims to offer gamers an appealing alternative to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, which comes in at a higher price point of $599.99. Let us help you in deciding whether is the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT worth it or not.

Performance and Specifications

At first glance, the Radeon RX 7800 XT seems like a formidable contender. It boasts 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM and a wide 256-bit memory bus, making it a strong choice for gamers looking to tackle both 1440p and even 4K gaming with ease. Here are its specs:

• Compute Units: 60
• Memory Size: 16 GB GDDR6
• Memory Speed: Up to 19.5 Gbps
• Memory Interface: 256-bit
• Boost Frequency: Up to 2430 MHz
• Game Frequency: 2124 MHz
• Ray Accelerators: 60
• AI Accelerators: 120
• Peak Pixel Fill-Rate: Up to 233 GP/s
• Peak Texture Fill-Rate: Up to 583 GT/s
• Peak Half Precision Compute Performance: 74 TFLOPs
• Peak Single Precision Compute Performance: 37 TFLOPs
• ROPs: 96
• Stream Processors: 3840
• Texture Units: 240
• Transistor Count: 28.1 B
• Minimum PSU Recommendation: 700 W

With advancements in ray tracing performance and an array of anti-latency and upscaling features, it stands as one of the best options for 1440p gaming.

However, the disappointment comes when comparing it to its predecessor, the RX 6800 XT, in terms of rasterization performance. While it offers around 12 percent and five percent better gaming performance at 1080p and 1440p, respectively, there’s hardly any difference at 4K according to most tests. This lack of substantial generational improvement can leave enthusiasts yearning for more.

That also makes the card not ideal as an upgrade from the previous generation if you already have a high-end GPU.

The chip itself, Navi 32, is a full version compared to the RX 7700 XT, with additional compute units, ray accelerators, and AI accelerators. However, the base clock is lower at 1,295 MHz, while the boost clock reaches up to 2,430 MHz. While these specifications are solid, they don’t necessarily translate to groundbreaking performance gains.

Performance-wise, the RX 7800 XT fares well in synthetic tests and gameplay, competing favorably with the RTX 4070. It excels in rasterization workloads, but Nvidia maintains its lead in ray tracing capabilities, as expected. The RX 7800 XT manages to outperform the RTX 4070 in 3DMark Firestrike Ultra by an average of 25 percent, showcasing its 4K gaming prowess.

When it comes to ray tracing, Nvidia’s RTX cards still have the upper hand, but the RX 7800 XT narrows the gap significantly. If you prioritize ray tracing, the RTX 4070 might be the better choice, but for those focused on raw gaming performance without ray tracing, the RX 7800 XT emerges as a strong contender.

Pricing and Value – Better than the RTX 4070 (with conditions)

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT enters the market at $499.99, approximately 17 percent cheaper than the Nvidia RTX 4070. As for performance, the RX 7800 XT comes out at around 7-8 percent faster than the RTX 4070 for 1440p, excluding ray tracing performance.

This price point makes it an attractive option for gamers looking to upgrade to a current-gen high-midrange card without breaking the bank. Moreover, it’s $200 cheaper than its predecessor, the RX 6800 XT, which is a significant price drop considering the enhancements in RDNA 3 architecture, faster VRAM, and improved power efficiency.

The card’s design, featuring a dual-fan cooling solution, is compact and should fit comfortably in most mid-tower cases. It offers three DisplayPort 2.1 outputs and an HDMI 2.1 port, making it suitable for powering high-resolution monitors.

Compromises – Ray Tracing

We did mention that while the RX 7800 XT is a strong contender and something that can give the RTX 4070 a run for its money, it has a glaring compromise in today’s current gaming scene. The RX 7800 XT’s ray tracing performance is still not as good as an RTX card so you’re better off ignoring the setting.

Still, it’s also important to note that there are only a handful of video games that fully utilize ray tracing and even fewer still that actually justify the performance drop. Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus come to mind, so if you care about seeing those games at their prettiest (with ray tracing), then you might want to reconsider going for the RX 7800 XT.

Still, without ray tracing, the RX 7800 offers a solid performance lead over more expensive the RTX 4070 and that’s usually enough of a tradeoff for the weaker ray tracing capability.

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is a compelling option for gamers seeking a high-midrange graphics card. The RX 7800 XT is worth it. However, the disappointment lies in the lack of significant improvement over its predecessor, which usually won’t matter if you’re building a PC from scratch.

Ultimately, the RX 7800 XT positions itself as a formidable choice, particularly when compared to the RTX 4070. It offers excellent value for gamers who prioritize gaming performance over ray tracing capabilities. While it may not reach the heights of a true generational leap, it certainly earns its place as one of the best midrange graphics cards on the market.

More importantly, it’s a great reason to pick AMD over Nvidia for this generation.