expiredCrazyHorse posted Jun 08, 2024 09:47 PM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expiredCrazyHorse posted Jun 08, 2024 09:47 PM
PowerColor Fighter AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16GB GDDR6 Graphics Card
+ Free Shipping$500
$560
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The 7900 gre is a current gen amd rdna3 gpu using a cut down navi 31 die. Compared to the 7900xt it actually has a remarkably close number of cores enabled, but it has a cut down memory bus (256 bit width), 4 fewer gigabytes of slower 18gbps vram (16gb instead of 20gb), less L3 cache, and moderately lower clocks. The slower memory means it actually has worse memory bandwidth than the 7800xt.
The stock 7900 gre is slightly faster than the ~$570 (on sale) stock rtx 4070 super in pure rasterization performance. However, raytracing performance is substantially worse, averaging close to 15% slower. Here's a thourough review comparing the 7900 gre with the 4070 super: https://www.techspot.co
That being said, one of the primary advantages of the 7900 gre is it's immense overclocking potential, if you get lucky. The primary bottleneck for the 7900 gre is it's lower memory bandwidth, in large part due to it's slower 18gbps memory. Therefore, if you can overclock the memory to any meaningful degree, performance drastically improves. The memory chips in the 7900 gre are lower tier bins, but many of them are still capable of being overclocked to 19.5gbps+, which brings the 7900gre much closer in performance to the 7900xt as opposed to the 7800xt. This isn't guaranteed though, it's unfortunately possible to get unlucky and have very limited overclocking potential. Still, on average, the 7900 gre has far greater overclocking potential compared to any other current gen gpus from amd or nvidia.
As an amd card there are certain downsides compared to purchasing a current gen nvidia card, namely: worse raytracing performance in the same price tier, worse power efficiency, slightly worse (though still perfectly serviceable) drivers, a meaningfully lower quality and less common upscaling technology (fsr vs dlss), worse ai/machine learning performance, no cuda, a more limited non-gaming featureset (no rtx video, rtx hdr, etc.), worse performance in certain productivity applications, and a worse video encoder. It should be noted that the 7900 gre, like the 7900xt and 7900xtx, has official rocm+pytorch support.
Ultimately, the only downsides most gamers will notice in daily use is the worse power efficiency and lack of dlss, the raytracing advantage of the more similarly priced 4070 non-super is actually quite minimal when compared to the 7900 gre. Those with mixed use cases beyond gaming would likely be better served paying the (large) premium for a nvidia gpu. But, for someone who primarily uses their gpu for gaming, at $500 the 7900gre is an excellent value since it offers substantially better gaming performance and 4gb extra vram compared to competing nvidia options in the same price tier. The ~$520 (on sale) rtx 4070 gets absolutely destroyed by the 7900 gre in terms of pure raster performance, and can't even eke out a strong lead in raytracing. The 4070 super has similar raster and substantially better raytracing performance than the stock 7900 gre, but costs $70 more on a good sale. Additionally, the 7900gre will on average benefit from a far greater performance uplift from overclocking compared to the 4070 super overclocked to a similar degree. The additional 4gb of vram (16gb vs 12gb) also means the 7900gre is better suited for higher resolutions, and will likely age better. While 12gb of vram is acceptable for 1440p currently, it can already be somewhat limiting at 4k, and will only become more and more limiting even at lower resolutions as time goes on.
If you're looking to purchase a new gpu primarily for 1440p+ gaming within the next few months, this is a good deal. This is especially true if you're willing to overclock your gpu's memory, since so long as you don't get unlucky the 7900gre exhibits a disproportionately high uplift in performance from a memory overclock. If you can afford to wait, rdna4 should be releasing by the end of this year, and should offer a decent improvement in terms of price to performance. If you're willing to purchase a last gen amd gpu, the rdna2 rx 6800 goes on sale for ~$340-$350. While the rx 6800 is substantially slower, has worse power efficiency, lacks ai accelerators, and is all around lower end, at $350 it beats out the 7900 gre in terms of raw frames per dollar.
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The 7900 gre is a current gen amd rdna3 gpu using a cut down navi 31 die. Compared to the 7900xt it actually has a remarkably close number of cores enabled, but it has a cut down memory bus (256 bit width), 4 fewer gigabytes of slower 18gbps vram (16gb instead of 20gb), less L3 cache, and moderately lower clocks. The slower memory means it actually has worse memory bandwidth than the 7800xt.
The stock 7900 gre is slightly faster than the ~$570 (on sale) stock rtx 4070 super in pure rasterization performance. However, raytracing performance is substantially worse, averaging close to 15% slower. Here's a thourough review comparing the 7900 gre with the 4070 super: https://www.techspot.co
That being said, one of the primary advantages of the 7900 gre is it's immense overclocking potential, if you get lucky. The primary bottleneck for the 7900 gre is it's lower memory bandwidth, in large part due to it's slower 18gbps memory. Therefore, if you can overclock the memory to any meaningful degree, performance drastically improves. The memory chips in the 7900 gre are lower tier bins, but many of them are still capable of being overclocked to 19.5gbps+, which brings the 7900gre much closer in performance to the 7900xt as opposed to the 7800xt. This isn't guaranteed though, it's unfortunately possible to get unlucky and have very limited overclocking potential. Still, on average, the 7900 gre has far greater overclocking potential compared to any other current gen gpus from amd or nvidia.
As an amd card there are certain downsides compared to purchasing a current gen nvidia card, namely: worse raytracing performance in the same price tier, worse power efficiency, slightly worse (though still perfectly serviceable) drivers, a meaningfully lower quality and less common upscaling technology (fsr vs dlss), worse ai/machine learning performance, no cuda, a more limited non-gaming featureset (no rtx video, rtx hdr, etc.), worse performance in certain productivity applications, and a worse video encoder. It should be noted that the 7900 gre, like the 7900xt and 7900xtx, has official rocm+pytorch support.
Ultimately, the only downsides most gamers will notice in daily use is the worse power efficiency and lack of dlss, the raytracing advantage of the more similarly priced 4070 non-super is actually quite minimal when compared to the 7900 gre. Those with mixed use cases beyond gaming would likely be better served paying the (large) premium for a nvidia gpu. But, for someone who primarily uses their gpu for gaming, at $500 the 7900gre is an excellent value since it offers substantially better gaming performance and 4gb extra vram compared to competing nvidia options in the same price tier. The ~$520 (on sale) rtx 4070 gets absolutely destroyed by the 7900 gre in terms of pure raster performance, and can't even eke out a strong lead in raytracing. The 4070 super has similar raster and substantially better raytracing performance than the stock 7900 gre, but costs $70 more on a good sale. Additionally, the 7900gre will on average benefit from a far greater performance uplift from overclocking compared to the 4070 super overclocked to a similar degree. The additional 4gb of vram (16gb vs 12gb) also means the 7900gre is better suited for higher resolutions, and will likely age better. While 12gb of vram is acceptable for 1440p currently, it can already be somewhat limiting at 4k, and will only become more and more limiting even at lower resolutions as time goes on.
If you're looking to purchase a new gpu primarily for 1440p+ gaming within the next few months, this is a good deal. This is especially true if you're willing to overclock your gpu's memory, since so long as you don't get unlucky the 7900gre exhibits a disproportionately high uplift in performance from a memory overclock. If you can afford to wait, rdna4 should be releasing by the end of this year, and should offer a decent improvement in terms of price to performance. If you're willing to purchase a last gen amd gpu, the rdna2 rx 6800 goes on sale for ~$340-$350. While the rx 6800 is substantially slower, has worse power efficiency, lacks ai accelerators, and is all around lower end, at $350 it beats out the 7900 gre in terms of raw frames per dollar.
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