AMD RX 7700 XT Review ft. Sapphire Pulse

1. Introduction2. Meet the Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy5. 3DMark DirectX Raytracing6. Assassin's Creed Valhalla7. Cyberpunk 20778. Forza Horizon 59. God of War10. Horizon Zero Dawn11. The Last of Us Part 112. A Plague Tale: Requiem13. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart14. Red Dead Redemption 215. Resident Evil 416. Returnal17. Total War: Warhammer III18. Performance Summary (12-Game Average)19. Cost Per Frame Analysis20. Bonus Benchmark: Starfield21. Ray Tracing: Control22. Ray Tracing: Cyberpunk 207723. Ray Tracing: Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive24. Ray Tracing: F1 2325. Ray Tracing: Hitman 326. Ray Tracing: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart27. Ray Tracing: Returnal28. Ray Tracing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider29. Ray Tracing Performance Summary30. Clock Speed31. GPU Temperatures32. Acoustics33. Power Draw: 1080p34. Power Draw: 1440p35. Power Draw: 2160p (4K)36. Performance per Watt: 1080p37. Performance per Watt: 1440p38. Performance per Watt: 2160p (4K)39. Total System Power Draw40. Closing Thoughts41. View All Pages

Less than two weeks on from their announcement at Gamescom 2023, today marks the release of AMD's new mid-range GPUs, the RX 7700 XT and the RX 7800 XT. This review will focus on the former card, though we do have a separate analysis of the RX 7800 XT if you want to read that. Utilising a cut-down implementation of AMD's Navi 32 chiplet-based silicon, the RX 7700 XT lands at £429.99, with AMD positioning it head-to-head against the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Today we find out which of these mid-range GPUs will come out on top…

Unlike the RX 7800 XT, which isn't necessarily a direct successor to the RX 6800 XT, AMD's new RX 7700 XT is a clear continuation from the RX 6700 XT. Both launched at around the same price, with the RX 7700 XT just £10 more expensive in terms of MSRP, while they both slot neatly into the mid-tier of AMD's existing offerings.

Despite the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB initially launching at £479, cards are already available at just £430, making this a straight shoot-out between the two GPUs. We test twelve games, plus another eight with ray tracing enabled, while also focusing on power draw and efficiency in today's review.

If you want to read this review as a single page, click HERE.

	RX 7900 XT	RX 7800 XT	RX 7700 XT	RX 6800 XT	RX 6800	RX 6700 XT
Architecture	RDNA 3	RDNA 3	RDNA 3	RDNA 2	RDNA 2	RDNA 2
Manufacturing Process	5nm GCD + 6nm MCD	5nm GCD + 6nm MCD	5nm GCD + 6nm MCD	7nm	7nm	7nm
Transistor Count	57.7 billion	28.1 billion	28.1 billion	26.8 billion	26.8 billion	17.2 billion
Die Size	300 mm² GCD 220 mm² MCD	200 mm² GCD 150 mm² MCD	200 mm² GCD 150 mm² MCD	519 mm²	519 mm²	336 mm²
Compute Units	84	60	54	72	60	40
Ray Accelerators	84	60	54	72	60	40
Stream Processors	5376	3840	3456	4608	3840	2560
Game GPU Clock	Up to 2000 MHz	2124 MHz	2171 MHz	Up to 2015MHz	Up to 1815MHz	Up to 2424MHz
Boost GPU Clock	Up to 2400 MHz	Up to 2430 MHz	Up to 2544 MHz	Up to 2250MHz	Up to 2105MHz	Up to 2581MHz
ROPs	192	96	96	128	96	64
AMD Infinity Cache	80MB	64MB	48MB	128MB	128MB	96MB
Memory	20GB GDDR6 20Gbps	16GB GDDR6 19.5 Gbps	12GB GDDR6 18Gbps	16GB GDDR6 16Gbps	16GB GDDR6 16Gbps	12GB GDDR6 16Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	800 GB/s	624 GB/s	432 GB/s	512 GB/s	512 GB/s	384 GB/s
Memory Interface	320-bit	256-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit
Board Power	315W	263W	245W	300W	250W	230W

First, let's take a quick look at the specs. Unlike the most recent RDNA 3 GPU – the RX 7600 – AMD has made a return to its chiplet-based design for the RX 7700 XT, as we initially saw last year with the RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT. This time around, the 7700 XT offers a 200mm² Graphics Compute Die (GCD) using TSMC's 5nm process, flanked by four 150 mm² Memory Compute Dies (MCDs) built on TSMC's 6nm node. One of those MCDs is disabled however, as the 7700 XT is not a full implementation of Navi 32.

Internally though, the compute makeup hasn't been radically changed. The cut-down Navi 32 silicon deployed here packs in 54 Compute Units, each of which houses 64 Stream Processors, for a total of 3456 shaders. There's also 54 Ray Accelerators – one per CU – and 96 ROPs.

As for clock speed, this remains high with the RX 7700 XT, with AMD touting a boost of up to 2544MHz, though a slightly lower game clock of 2171MHz.

Meanwhile, the memory configuration is almost identical to the previous generation RX 6700 XT. We still find 12GB GDDR6 operating over a 192-bit interface, but this time the memory clocks in at 18Gbps, up from 16Gbps. This gives a memory bandwidth of 432 GB/s, though AMD claims an ‘effective' bandwidth of 1995.3 GB/s due to the 64MB of 2nd Gen Infinity cache.

Power draw for the RX 7700 XT is rated at 245W Total Board Power (TBP), though AMD pointed out to us that this is an ‘up to' figure. We are using our well-established GPU power testing methodology in this review, so read on for our most detailed power and efficiency testing yet.

Become a Patron!