AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Review: The 1440p GPU You Want
- The RX 7700 XT has more shaders than its predecessor, the RX 6700 XT, improving graphics rendering and gaming performance.
- The RX 7700 XT improves game visuals with genuine lighting and reflections.
- The RX 7700 XT speeds up data access, lowering load times and smoothing gameplay for a more immersive gaming experience.
- As a strong contender to the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, the RX 7700 XT balances performance and pricing at $449 / £430 / AU$769, making it appealing to gamers wanting high-quality visuals without breaking the bank.
AMD’s latest $450 mid-range GPU is the Radeon RX 7700 XT. The new card may have some drawbacks, even on paper. The title “7700 XT” is confusing because it may be slower than the 6700. It’s 10% cheaper at that price than the Radeon 7800 XT it launched with. This pricing may,need to be clarified given its specs. Radeon 7700 XT has 10% fewer cores and 25% less Infinity Cache than the faster 7800 XT, resulting in 26% less bandwidth. With a quarter less VRAM at 12GB, a 192-bit memory bus, and 18 Gbps memory, memory bandwidth is 31% lower at 432 GB/s. So, the Radeon 7700 XT may be more than 10% slower than the 7800 XT, making its $450 price tag challenging to justify. In addition, Nvidia has cut the 16GB RTX 4060 Ti to $450, so it will be fascinating to compare.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Specs
| GPU Architecture | Navi 32 |
| Manufacturer | AMD |
| Memory | High-speed GDDR6 |
| Shaders | Increased compared to RX 6700 XT |
| Ray Tracing | Improved performance for realistic lighting |
| Memory Speed | Faster for reduced load times |
| AI Accelerators | Included enhancing processing power |
| Pricing | $449 / £430 / AU$769 (approximate) |
| Reference Card | No AMD reference card; All are AIB cards |
We tested our Ryzen 7 7800X3D test system with 32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM and the latest display drivers. All data was confirmed and updated for this study. In total, we examined 16 games with and without ray tracing. We’ll always test some titles before analysing the average cost-per-frame performance.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Pricing
AMD’s $450 Radeon RX 7700 XT and $500 Radeon RX 7800 XT complete its next-gen graphics card portfolio ten months after the high-end Radeon RX 7900-series. They provide 1440p gaming alternatives worth buying for this generation for the first time. The Nvidia offers at this price range could be more attractive. Due to their ultra-nerfed memory configurations, the $400 8GB GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and $500 16GB GPU are better for 1080p gaming. Thus you must pay $600 for the RTX 4070 to attain Team Green’s 1440p performance, which is expensive for that resolution.
They are introducing Radeon RX 7700 and 7800 XT. AMD’s new graphics cards provide 1440p gameplay at a lower price than Nvidia’s, but they could be more energy-efficient and effective at ray tracing. If you can compromise on those points, AMD’s new graphics cards are worth a closer look, though 1440p gaming at this price is still steep.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Features and specs
Our Radeon RX 7800 XT and 7700 XT announcement coverage examined their important technological characteristics. AMD designed these graphics cards for 1440p gameplay, unlike Nvidia’s RTX 4060 Ti. Radeon RX 7800 XT has 16GB of fast GDDR6 memory and a wide 256-bit memory bus, whereas the smaller 7700 XT has 12GB and 192-bit. By comparison, the RTX 4060 Ti includes merely 8GB of RAM and a 128-bit bus – a combination better appropriate for 1080p gameplay. AMD’s latest graphics cards should also be compared to their predecessors. Radeon RX 6800 XT debuted in 2020 for $650 with 72 compute units. The $500 Radeon RX 7800 XT has 60 CUs, matching the 6800 non-XT’s compute unit count. The $450 Radeon RX 7700 XT has 54 add units, 14 more than its predecessor, the 6700 XT, and costs $30 less at launch.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Hardware
The new Radeon 7000 GPUs feature TSMC’s 5-nanometer manufacturing, a step up over Radeon 6000’s 7nm process. New this generation, the 7700 XT and 7800 XT divide memory controllers and the second-gen Infinity Cache into distinct “Memory Cache Dies” constructed in 6nm. All Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards support AV1 encoding and DisplayPort 2.1, a more sophisticated DP version than Nvidia GPUs.
Modern hardware is powered by software. Besides FSR, Radeon Super Resolution, and Smart Access Memory, AMD is launching two new software enhancements to support this launch. The AMD Adrenalin driver that supports Radeon RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT also includes Hypr-RX. This long-awaited toggle turns on numerous AMD capabilities simultaneously to increase gaming performance. RDNA 3 adds AV1 encoding and decoding, DisplayPort 2.1 (UHBR13.5) outputs, and better AI processing hardware. Those are nice, but most consumers won’t let them influence their purchase. Nvidia accomplishes AV1 encoding better on RTX 40-series parts; DP2.1 outputs require a non-existent DP2.1 monitor; alternatively, stick to 4K and 240 Hz or lower monitors, which work on all prior generation components.
Consider the wider environment. Nvidia has promoted ray tracing for five years, and certain games use the API well. With ray tracing, AI, deep learning, and DLSS, you get upscaling, frame creation, and soon ray reconstruction.
Radeon RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT performance?
Adam ran half of our games test suite at 1440p, AMD’s new Radeon GPU resolution. He ran each test thrice and averaged the game scores while recording maximum GPU temperature and power usage. As usual, each title employed the maximum graphics settings and removed vendor-specific software features like AMD’s FSR and Nvidia Reflex. Despite drawing in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the $500 Radeon RX 7800 XT beats the $600 GeForce RTX 4070 in every game. The lower-end Sapphire Pure Radeon RX 7700 XT regularly matches the 4070 and has excellent frame rates. For graphics cards, $100 to $150 is cheaper than the RTX 4070, so that’s a huge success. Sapphire’s unique designs operated inaudibly, too. AMD’s pair uses more power than Nvidia’s 1440p GPU. Given what we’ve seen with the rest of AMD and Nvidia’s lineups, these findings were expected, but the 7800 XT’s closeness to the GeForce card in ray-traced Cyberpunk is unexpected.
| PROS | CONS |
| A good 1440p | Poor power efficiency |
| 12GB VRAM, 192-bit bus | The better RX 7800 XT costs $50 extra. |
| Quiet Sapphire Pulse |
Should I purchase a Radeon RX 7700 or 7800 XT?
Yes, if you want a current 1440p graphics card around $500. Then these are your only alternatives. RTX 4070s start at $600, although Nvidia’s $400 8GB and $500 16GB RTX 4060 Ti are optimal for 1080p gaming due to their pipsqueak memory configuration. Our performance testing shows that the Radeon RX 7700 XT outperforms the 4070 in rasterisation for $150 less. Not tested on Adam’s system, but the 7700 XT would destroy the RTX 4060 Ti at 1440p.
We aren’t entirely enamored with the pricing AMD picked. The Radeon RX 7800 XT should be quicker than the $500-street RX 6800 XT. AMD touts Nvidia’s RTX 40-series, but the 7800 XT doesn’t give much of a price-to-performance edge. If it cost $400, the Radeon RX 7700 XT would be this generation’s finest value graphics card. At $50 cheaper than its bigger brother, the 7700 XT practically seems to exist to upsell consumers into the 7800 XT, especially as it has 4GB less VRAM and a narrower memory bus (despite still being fine for 1440p gaming).
