PowerColor RX 7900 GRE Hellhound Review

1. Introduction2. Meet the PowerColor RX 7900 GRE Hellhound3. Testing Methodology4. Game Benchmarks5. Clock Speed6. GPU Temperatures7. Acoustics8. Noise-Normalised Temperatures9. Power Draw and Efficiency10. Overclocking11. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

Today we have turned out attention back to the AMD RX 7900 GRE with a review of the PowerColor Hellhound model – something we actually had quite a few requests for in our last 7900 GRE 4-way roundup.

As it turns out, the Hellhound is fitted with the best aftermarket cooler that we have seen from any 7900 GRE card, including the Sapphire Nitro+. Not only is it incredibly quiet out of the box, but it runs the coolest of any card we have tested so far. Its noise-normalised thermals also position it as the most efficient cooler design we have seen.

While gaming performance is very similar to the other models tested, it has been interesting to revisit overclocking today, given AMD unlocked the memory sliders since the GRE's initial launch. The gains versus other overclocked AIB models are only small, but the Hellhound was coming in anywhere from 8-15% faster than a stock-clocked reference 7900 GRE, so there is clearly a lot of scope to push this silicon with higher clock speed and power limits.

Currently priced at £549 here in the UK, of all the 7900 GRE cards I have looked at so far, I'd say the Hellhound would be my number one pick. As I discussed in my launch day review however, I am not convinced that the 7900 GRE should be your choice over the RTX 4070 Super. Yes, it does have an extra 4GB of VRAM, but the Nvidia GPU is significantly faster for ray tracing, offers DLSS support and is also a good chunk more efficient.

It's also now equivalently priced, with models now on sale in the UK for £540. For me, the 7900 GRE does need to be another £50 cheaper to have a fighting chance against the Nvidia GPU. As good as this PowerColor Hellhound model is, unless you really need that extra video memory, my recommendation would be for a 4070 Super instead – but let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

You can pickup the Hellhound 7900 GRE for £549 HERE.

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Pros

• Slightly faster than the reference card.
• Best cooler of any 7900 GRE we have tested.
• Incredibly quiet out of the box.
• Relatively compact despite being a triple-fan cooler.
• Dual-BIOS.
• LED switch to easily control lighting.
• Overclocking the memory is no longer artificially limited.

Cons

• Some may wish it had RGB lighting.
• Significantly slower than the 4070 Super for ray tracing.
• RDNA 3 is less efficient than Ada Lovelace.
• RTX 4070 Super is now available for the same price.

KitGuru says: It's a cracking partner card, but as we've said all along, AMD needs to lower pricing to make the 7900 GRE more competitive with the RTX 4070 Super.

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