AMD's Radeon RX 7900-series Highlights

I’m seeing a couple 7900XT’s for $999 but zero 7900XTX’s available and I don’t even see an option on them for local pickup ?
They were in stock but sold out for most of them. Bb messed up on xfx reference cards. Looks like 899.99 for 7900xtx and 999.99 for 7900xt. I am wondering if they messed up the sku description or actual pricing. It might have been sku description but you are actually ordering correct card lmao. Wondering how they gonna correct it.

Merc might be back in stock again.
 
Cool, another piece of hardware you cant buy because of bots.

Computer gaming in 2022/23 is awesome! /s
It wasn’t bots man. Still in stock for some cards. Bunch of people bought it.
All cards were orders me easy with no queue instantly to cart.
 
Little bit of both. I'm going to use Steam's hardware Survey to prove my point.
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

What's the most dominant GPU's on it? Going down the list we can see the majority of GPU's are under $300. Even the RTX 2060 made it to the list, and that's now under $300. There are some exceptions like the 3070, 3080, and 3070 Ti but they're few. While the RX 6900 XT is a much better buy, you see it at the very bottom at 0.20%. The 3090 is at 0.53%. You also don't even see the 6950 XT or the 3090 Ti in there. These GPU's were released in March and May, so they've had time to sell and make it onto Steam.

The 4080 is just $300 more than the RX 7900 XTX and is generally faster too, even if it's slightly. It does also have to do with perceived quality of Nvidia vs AMD. AMD is intentionally increasing pricing because AMD has said they don't want to be the budget manufacturer, even though that's exactly how the world still sees them. If their 7900 XTX can't beat Nvidia then why even make a product for $1k? Mainstream aren't going to buy it because it's beyond their price range. People looking to buy the fastest won't buy it because it isn't the fastest. People who are on the fence to buying a RTX 4080 vs 7900 XTX will buy Nvidia because they perceive Nvidia as the quality GPU company as Nvidia's software and video encoding is superior to AMD.

The pro gamer move for AMD would be to price the 7900 XTX for $800 and the 7900 XT for $600, because AMD needs market share and that's how you get market share. AMD's been doing what they did with RNDA3 for as far back as the R9 290, as AMD always found a way to price themselves out of the mainstream but also not able to convince Nvidia fans to go AMD. The exception was the RX 480 which was a product that was cheap to buy and performs as fast or faster than their previous high end product. On Steam's hardware survey the RX 580 is their #1 product, which is just a slightly overclocked RX 480. Besides, Nvidia won't be selling much of their 4080's and 4090's at those prices. Even if Nvidia were to drop the prices to $800 and $1k, they still wouldn't increase sales by much. Why you think Nvidia priced them as high as they did? Why lower prices when it doesn't increase sales?

AMD didn't want to be the budget brand anymore because it gives a negative mindset for consumers. It's backwards as hell, but most people equate cost to quality. At least within certain levels. AMD at a few hundred dollars cheaper and performance that is on-par or a little under (when not including RT) makes them seem like a good value option. AMD at several hundred dollars less makes them look cheap, in a bad way. Another way to explain this would be: Give someone two glasses of water. Both glasses are identical, the water in them came from the exact same tap at the exact same time. Tell the person that the glass on the left is tap water and the one on the right is from a bottle that costs $10. Nearly 100% of the time people will swear that the one on the right tastes better. You can also do that without signifying which one they're supposed to believe is more expensive and only a small fraction of people will say they taste the same.

Even after they fixed most of their driver issues, AMD was still considered as the "cheap" and "bad" brand during the time they held on to their budget pricing structure. Conversely, Nvidia took the exact opposite approach. Even when they had shit cards they were always perceived as better because "higher cost=higher quality".

I certainly think there's room for AMD to adjust prices downward (especially if Nvidia responds by lowering prices) but they can't go too far without becoming "the low grade budget option" again.
 
who distributes and sells powercolor and sapphire cards other than newegg and amazon?
 
I hate to be considering this, but... I'm dithering between a 7900xtx or a 4080 today. Rational is I've made more than enough selling my two 3xxxs in August (when resale prices were still high-ish) to buy either one, and I'm now stuck with my backup 1070. It's also a matter of free time since I expect to actually have some down time from work i.e. time to game, over the holidays -- something that's few and far between for me.

It's really a toss up for me: marginally better rasterization on the 7900xtx (with chance of improvement), or better RT (which I appreciate moderately). Here in the UK, the cost difference is only £100 between the two cards since sellers are jacking up the 7900 price on launch and the 4080 has already dropped a bit over the past few days.

Decisions, decisions. ...?
 
People talking about max settings means with RT on, well then it shouldn’t include DLSS/FSR then. I can then guarantee that even the best card on the market can run every game at max settings.

To me, RT will remain a niche feature until we can run all of our games at 60+ FPS at the GPU’s advertised targeted resolution with it on without the need for an upscale of any kind. As it stands, for me, a 30%+ FPS hit isn’t worth it for what RT offers IMO.
 
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I hate to be considering this, but... I'm dithering between a 7900xtx or a 4080 today. Rational is I've made more than enough selling my two 3xxxs in August (when resale prices were still high-ish) to buy either one, and I'm now stuck with my backup 1070. It's also a matter of free time since I expect to actually have some down time from work i.e. time to game, over the holidays -- something that's few and far between for me.

It's really a toss up for me: marginally better rasterization on the 7900xtx (with chance of improvement), or better RT (which I appreciate moderately). Here in the UK, the cost difference is only £100 between the two cards since sellers are jacking up the 7900 price on launch and the 4080 has already dropped a bit over the past few days.

Decisions, decisions. ...?

Normally I'd say wait until after CES next month and see what happens with new announcements and prices, but if you want something right now that price difference makes it a hard call. I hate the idea of telling anyone to buy a 4080 with just how freaking bad the value on them is but that small of a price delta also makes it hard to recommend the XTX. In your situation I think I probably would lean towards the 4080, no matter how much I hate to say it.
 
Normally I'd say wait until after CES next month and see what happens with new announcements and prices, but if you want something right now that price difference makes it a hard call. I hate the idea of telling anyone to buy a 4080 with just how freaking bad the value on them is but that small of a price delta also makes it hard to recommend the XTX. In your situation I think I probably would lean towards the 4080, no matter how much I hate to say it.
Copy that. Even with having the "free" money lying around, I'm reticent. Four months ago when I sold my last 3090 in anticipation for Lovelace/RDNA 3 I never would have thought we'd be here on prices. It's a bummer situation all around: I don't have a (reasonable) solution, prices are odious.

I'm leaning towards 4080 now considering its advantage in RT and rasterization is somewhat a toss up. It does look like resellers are bring down prices bit by bit daily in the lead up to 7900 launch.
 
I'm seeing just as much justifying prices and blaming of NV for their four figure prices as always. AMD is never responsible for what they do to most of their very small minority of gaming GPU customers.

Ok, well, I’m sure the multibillion dollar corporations appreciate the white-knighting.
 
AMD didn't want to be the budget brand anymore because it gives a negative mindset for consumers. It's backwards as hell, but most people equate cost to quality. At least within certain levels. AMD at a few hundred dollars cheaper and performance that is on-par or a little under (when not including RT) makes them seem like a good value option. AMD at several hundred dollars less makes them look cheap, in a bad way. Another way to explain this would be: Give someone two glasses of water. Both glasses are identical, the water in them came from the exact same tap at the exact same time. Tell the person that the glass on the left is tap water and the one on the right is from a bottle that costs $10. Nearly 100% of the time people will swear that the one on the right tastes better. You can also do that without signifying which one they're supposed to believe is more expensive and only a small fraction of people will say they taste the same.
The reason AMD is the budget GPU manufacturer is mainly because AMD is behind Nvidia in nearly everything. Everyone still believes AMD has inferior drivers. Nvidia came out with Ray-Tracing and it took AMD RDNA2 to have their own inferior Ray-Tracing, and still is inferior on RDNA3. Nvidia came out with DLSS and now AMD has FSR, which is also inferior. AMD also has inferior video encoding image quality, so of course streamers will go Nvidia. AMD's been playing catch up for the past four generations. While AMD had some cool tech like HBM memory, it ultimately ends up being used by Nvidia and now we haven't seen a consumer product with HBM since Radeon VII.

AMD can increase prices all they want, but consumers see them as the cheaper brand because of all the reasons I had listed. While AMD is $600 cheaper than the 4090, they are also $200 cheaper than a 4080 while still being slower even though slightly.
Even after they fixed most of their driver issues, AMD was still considered as the "cheap" and "bad" brand during the time they held on to their budget pricing structure. Conversely, Nvidia took the exact opposite approach. Even when they had shit cards they were always perceived as better because "higher cost=higher quality".
When was the last time Nvidia made a shit card? I can think of the GTX 970 with the failed VRAM making it 3GB. The terrible naming of the GTX 1030's between the DDR3 and GDDR5. The GTX 1060 3GB vs 6GB. If Nvidia makes a bad product, it's intentional.
I certainly think there's room for AMD to adjust prices downward (especially if Nvidia responds by lowering prices) but they can't go too far without becoming "the low grade budget option" again.
Unless AMD starts releasing tech before Nvidia does, while offering a faster GPU, they'll continue to be the budget option. But at $900 and $1k, they are the stupid option. If you consider how poorly the 4080 and 4090 are selling then how is AMD's $1k GPU gonna fair?
 
Gibbo over at OCUK is hilariously warning people not to buy their AIB cards due to high price, stating they'll be at least £100 cheaper in the new year.
He needs to sell them 4080s on the shelf I guess lmao.
 
The reason AMD is the budget GPU manufacturer is mainly because AMD is behind Nvidia in nearly everything. Everyone still believes AMD has inferior drivers. Nvidia came out with Ray-Tracing and it took AMD RDNA2 to have their own inferior Ray-Tracing, and still is inferior on RDNA3. Nvidia came out with DLSS and now AMD has FSR, which is also inferior. AMD also has inferior video encoding image quality, so of course streamers will go Nvidia. AMD's been playing catch up for the past four generations. While AMD had some cool tech like HBM memory, it ultimately ends up being used by Nvidia and now we haven't seen a consumer product with HBM since Radeon VII.

AMD can increase prices all they want, but consumers see them as the cheaper brand because of all the reasons I had listed. While AMD is $600 cheaper than the 4090, they are also $200 cheaper than a 4080 while still being slower even though slightly.

When was the last time Nvidia made a shit card? I can think of the GTX 970 with the failed VRAM making it 3GB. The terrible naming of the GTX 1030's between the DDR3 and GDDR5. The GTX 1060 3GB vs 6GB. If Nvidia makes a bad product, it's intentional.

Unless AMD starts releasing tech before Nvidia does, while offering a faster GPU, they'll continue to be the budget option. But at $900 and $1k, they are the stupid option. If you consider how poorly the 4080 and 4090 are selling then how is AMD's $1k GPU gonna fair?
Going to agree with you here. Performance at the top end especially with rt is always behind. The drivers were a huge issue, I bought the rx 6800xt on release day and had lots of problems that ended up making me put it into my htpc and I have never gamed on it since. Haven't had too many issues on Nvidia last 7 years.

I was hoping after the rx 6000 series that amd would catch up with the 7000 series and they are still a good bit behind if you are playing at 4k and want to crank everything.
 
even the powercolor red devil for 1099. Looks like there are lot of margins on these cards and surprised to see the red devil only 100 above msrp same with merc. They are all trying to come below 4080. I still prefer the looks of Merc.

I am leaning towards this because I am tired of keeping my side panel open for any of the new nvidia cards. Who knew that would be deciding factor for me. Reason I sold my 4090 and reason even though I got a good deal on 4080 the PCB size is still an issue where I have to severely bend the connector to close case lmao.
 
It looks, on average, to be about the same as the 3090 from reviews I read, meaning you’re also saving about 200W of power under load IIRC. Smaller PSU, less electricity consumed, less heat, same performance.
Ray tracing on the 7900 XTX is on par with the 3090 Ti, not the 3090. Otherwise, you're correct.
 
Going to agree with you here. Performance at the top end especially with rt is always behind. The drivers were a huge issue, I bought the rx 6800xt on release day and had lots of problems that ended up making me put it into my htpc and I have never gamed on it since. Haven't had too many issues on Nvidia last 7 years.

I was hoping after the rx 6000 series that amd would catch up with the 7000 series and they are still a good bit behind if you are playing at 4k and want to crank everything.
I confess, ive had more driver issues with my powercolor 6900xt then any previous AMD card i can remember going back to the ATI 4850. With that said, since updating them, its been fine -- ive also had an issue with the fan profiles -- the card wants to run silent (0% fan) to 100C and seems to ignore the fan profiles i set -- so i manually set it for 30% which is quiet and keeps it under 60C.
 
So much for launch day stock.... I could have gotten a 7900 XT but the 7900 XTX was gone before I could even hit "add to cart". I was on at least 4 sites trying to get one.

As for Driver issues, I have had zero with the 6900XT. Never had a singe problem with it at all. MSI Gaming X. I am just using AMD's drivers

I was attempting to get a reference card because.... the damn thing will fit in my other cases after it's outlived it's use in my main rig. My MSI gaming X is so damn long I can't use it in any other Case in my house...
 
I confess, ive had more driver issues with my powercolor 6900xt then any previous AMD card i can remember going back to the ATI 4850. With that said, since updating them, its been fine -- ive also had an issue with the fan profiles -- the card wants to run silent (0% fan) to 100C and seems to ignore the fan profiles i set -- so i manually set it for 30% which is quiet and keeps it under 60C.
I had the r9 290x and a bunch of Radeon cards before I went nvidia during the gtx 1000 series and never had any issues with drivers. Came back to AMD after 5 years or so with the 6000 series and it was not a great experience for me. I heard AMD had improved drivers too. I dont have any issues with my 6800xt as in my HTPC though.
 
So much for launch day stock.... I could have gotten a 7900 XT but the 7900 XTX was gone before I could even hit "add to cart". I was on at least 4 sites trying to get one.

As for Driver issues, I have had zero with the 6900XT. Never had a singe problem with it at all. MSI Gaming X. I am just using AMD's drivers

I was attempting to get a reference card because.... the damn thing will fit in my other cases after it's outlived it's use in my main rig. My MSI gaming X is so damn long I can't use it in any other Case in my house...
Some of my issues might of been self inflicted -- i had undervolted / clocked for mining. I was getting a lot of crashing in apex, but after installing the latest driver that fixed the issue. The only games ive played on the 6900xt are apex and DCS, other then that was just using it as a space heater so my office wasnt freezing (Ethereum)
 
So much for launch day stock.... I could have gotten a 7900 XT but the 7900 XTX was gone before I could even hit "add to cart". I was on at least 4 sites trying to get one.

As for Driver issues, I have had zero with the 6900XT. Never had a singe problem with it at all. MSI Gaming X. I am just using AMD's drivers

I was attempting to get a reference card because.... the damn thing will fit in my other cases after it's outlived it's use in my main rig. My MSI gaming X is so damn long I can't use it in any other Case in my house...
New egg and Amazon are notorious for not doing shit about anything. B&H and bestbuy did last night. Best Buy had the xfx and gigabyte for a bit before running out. There was no queue but checking out was easy. B&H xfx merc was preorder but given how most AIBs launched on launch day I think that would have shipped quick.

Looked like amd had a large wait. 41 mins when I tried to get in to checkout.
 
New egg and Amazon are notorious for not doing shit about anything. B&H and bestbuy did last night. Best Buy had the xfx and gigabyte for a bit before running out. There was no queue but checking out was easy. B&H xfx merc was preorder but given how most AIBs launched on launch day I think that would have shipped quick.

Looked like amd had a large wait. 41 mins when I tried to get in to checkout.
That sucks, I looked last night and must have missed the order windows. Because everything was listed as sold out. And I was like "Bullshit, it's not on sale yet..." YeAy!

I was in the AMD line, I was about to order the 7900 XT only, the XTX was already sold out. Took me about 24 minutes to get in.
 
Looks like they tore through their 30K of day one stock in short order. Hope they have up to the predicted 200K I heard about from an article that mentioned Kyle from here.
 
That sucks, I looked last night and must have missed the order windows. Because everything was listed as sold out. And I was like "Bullshit, it's not on sale yet..." YeAy!

I was in the AMD line, I was about to order the 7900 XT only, the XTX was already sold out. Took me about 24 minutes to get in.
Yea I was actually in bed. Some stuff I follow on Twitter and discord started dropping Bb news. I was like wtf lmao.

They went from not even listing to straight drop. It was around 1am est if I remember correctly. Not sure if they broke amd launch time or amd was like whatever sell anytime when clock Dec 13th anywhere in the states Lmao. Because B&H started taking orders around that time too. They were little earlier by about 15 mins.

They even made a mistake now removed the listing to correct it I think. I am not sure if they are going to cancel orders. For reference xfx cards they flipped the price on 7900xtx vs 7900xt lmao. It was 899.99 for XTX and 999.99 for xt. Some people hopefully scored it for 899.99. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Bb cancels the orders due to this. They did remove the listing for both cards last I checked probably recognized the mistake.


Follow nerdspeak Twitter or discord. Also next gen tech. They notify instantly on drops and it becomes easy to buy on BB.
 
Yea I was actually in bed. Some stuff I follow on Twitter and discord started dropping Bb news. I was like wtf lmao.

They went from not even listing to straight drop. It was around 1am est if I remember correctly. Not sure if they broke amd launch time or amd was like whatever sell anytime when clock Dec 13th anywhere in the states Lmao. Because B&H started taking orders around that time too. They were little earlier by about 15 mins.

They even made a mistake now removed the listing to correct it I think. I am not sure if they are going to cancel orders. For reference xfx cards they flipped the price on 7900xtx vs 7900xt lmao. It was 899.99 for XTX and 999.99 for xt. Some people hopefully scored it for 899.99. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Bb cancels the orders due to this. They did remove the listing for both cards last I checked probably recognized the mistake.


Follow nerdspeak Twitter or discord. Also next gen tech. They notify instantly on drops and it becomes easy to buy on BB.
I was still up and looking at the BB, B&H and other listings and must have missed the sales window by minutes because I wasn't sitting in front of my PC. But they were all listed as "Sold Out"

Amazon had 17 XFX 7900 XTX cards on it this morning, and they sold out when I hit refresh. I had been trying to place them in my cart for 20 min. It kept adding zero items.

F'ing Scalpers were already on Ebay with the XFX card for 1800 bucks within minutes of the listings going up.
 
I wouldn't call these paper launches. Because there was stock... but these hardware launches are what I would call bullshit launches. Who the hell wants the available hardware a year after you were supposed to be able to obtain them? The new stuff is right around the corner at that point. Jesus... I just bought the 6900XT for a grand a couple months ago... But the 7900 will get me stable 70 FPS in Cyberpunk (finally, at max settings in 4K). That and MW5 will be much better. A grand is "reasonable".... unless these damn cards drop to 600 bucks in a couple months. But I doubt it.
 
I was still up and looking at the BB, B&H and other listings and must have missed the sales window by minutes because I wasn't sitting in front of my PC. But they were all listed as "Sold Out"

Amazon had 17 XFX 7900 XTX cards on it this morning, and they sold out when I hit refresh. I had been trying to place them in my cart for 20 min. It kept adding zero items.

F'ing Scalpers were already on Ebay with the XFX card for 1800 bucks within minutes of the listings going up.
scalpers already had returned 4080 cards to BB. They have had open boxes for some cards on sale already. Returned like new unsused in excellent condition. I think scalpers are desperate to move cards now and some might be trying their luck with this and they will be returned within 30 days I bet cuz they won't sell at that price. But I do know lot of people online got one from BB last night.
 
While AMD is $600 cheaper than the 4090, they are also $200 cheaper than a 4080 while still being slower even though slightly.
RT yes. Raster no.
1670954808214.png

When was the last time Nvidia made a shit card?

GeForce GTX 1630​

1670954902101.png

Unless AMD starts releasing tech before Nvidia does, while offering a faster GPU, they'll continue to be the budget option. But at $900 and $1k, they are the stupid option. If you consider how poorly the 4080 and 4090 are selling then how is AMD's $1k GPU gonna fair?
Because it performs better than the $1200 (really almost $1300) card easily. If it actually was slower than you suggest then yeah. That would make sense, but until a price drop 4080 comes through I don't see how that would be a hard decision.
 
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scalpers already had returned 4080 cards to BB. They have had open boxes for some cards on sale already. Returned like new unsused in excellent condition. I think scalpers are desperate to move cards now and some might be trying their luck with this and they will be returned within 30 days I bet cuz they won't sell at that price. But I do know lot of people online got one from BB last night.
I wasn't watching it that dedicated. I also hadn't done a shitload of research on availability times. Only did a quick google search on two occasions and nothing spoke to a midnight launch.

I'm kind of half in and half out on this card... So, contrary to my vehement stance on not upgrading this generation... I got bored and went to Microcenter and walked away with an AMD 7700X, Aorus X670 AX and 32 Gigs of DDR5-6000 CL 36 (Free with bundle)... Processor is fine, motherboard is shit and the RAM is probably fine. Mainboard will not even Q-Flash and is never stable enough to get the latest BIOS on it (theoretically it's supposed to flash the BIOS even without CPU or RAM and it chokes every time). This is the second time in 3-4 months that I picked up something at MicroCenter and it utterly failed in a build. I will have new RAM tonight DDR5-6000 CL30 and a new (not the same, hard getting similar parts on time these days)MB X670E on Wednesday to test and see what is what.

The MC trip is always a 3-4 hour round trip affair, so I want to get this early adopter bullshit out of the way asap. Maybe MC will have some cards in stock when I go to give them back their dead MB.... Nothing can ever be easy. Should have just sat on my 5900X and been happy. lol
 
Unless AMD starts releasing tech before Nvidia does, while offering a faster GPU, they'll continue to be the budget option. But at $900 and $1k, they are the stupid option. If you consider how poorly the 4080 and 4090 are selling then how is AMD's $1k GPU gonna fair?
Will sell out with line of people at the store and virtual line ? (like the $1600 4090 just did ?)
 
Ray tracing on the 7900 XTX is on par with the 3090 Ti, not the 3090. Otherwise, you're correct.
The performance variance is a lot more varied than your post implies, this thread from another forum was the reason for me ordering a 4090 today:
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...ance-comparisons-2021-2022.62346/post-2279344

The variance goes from equal performance to the 3090 Ti to the 3090 Ti being ~60% faster in raytracing.
The pattern is that the more raytracing effects/load the games has, the bigger the gap.
Looking forward, I doubt raytracing will be used less in games which affected my buying decision.
 
Ray tracing on the 7900 XTX is on par with the 3090 Ti, not the 3090. Otherwise, you're correct.
Seem to me to have around between a 3080 and 308012gb in raw RT tflops power.

It is so much faster in raster that it will make up for it in some title with some RT, but if it get really heavy the 3090 should get ahead.
 
Speaking of third-party reviews, Babel Tech Reviews is on the ball as usual, and it's not looking pretty for the RX 7900 XTX's VR performance.

https://babeltechreviews.com/hellhound-rx-7900-xtx-vs-rtx-4080-50-games-vr/

Alas, they don't re-test with later drivers, so we won't know if AMD will close the gap. Something's seriously weird about the fat frame time lines for AMD in the graph compared to NVIDIA's thin plots.
 
The performance variance is a lot more varied than your post implies, this thread from another forum was the reason for me ordering a 4090 today:
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...ance-comparisons-2021-2022.62346/post-2279344

The variance goes from equal performance to the 3090 Ti to the 3090 Ti being ~60% faster in raytracing.
The pattern is that the more raytracing effects/load the games has, the bigger the gap.
Looking forward, I doubt raytracing will be used less in games which affected my buying decision.

I think the more interesting thing with the numbers is that if we ignore the percentages the differences in most cases is a few FPS in either direction. I wish the article those results were sourced from showed the 1% and .1% lows though, it gives a more complete picture of performance, especially with RT.
 
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