PowerColor RX 7900 XTX Hellhound Spectral White Review

1. Introduction2. PowerColor RX 7900 XTX Hellhound Spectral White3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Time Spy Extreme5. Game Benchmarks6. Clock Speed7. GPU Temperatures8. Acoustics9. Noise-Normalised Temperatures10. Power Draw11. Overclocking12. Closing Thoughts13. View All Pages

It's been a while since I last reviewed a PowerColor graphics card but I am impressed with what they have achieved with the Hellhound Spectral White 7900 XTX. Clearly a large amount of its appeal comes down to the all-white aesthetic, which alone is guaranteed to get it some attention.

PowerColor hasn't neglected the cooler though, as the heatsink and triple-fan setup is more than adequate for dealing with the 370W load. Noise-normalised thermals are also miles better than what AMD's reference card can achieve, while out-of-the-box noise levels are very easy on the ears with the Silent BIOS running the fans at just 1000rpm.

We do have a few minor quibbles with the Spectral White, primarily the amount of coil whine which was noticeable while gaming. It's important to remember that this can vary from card to card, and it is also affected by the PSU. My only other minor gripe is that I would have preferred to see proper RGB lighting instead of just a white and blue LED toggle, but maybe that's just me.

Ultimately, it all comes down to pricing, with the Spectral White listed for £1049.99 on Ebuyer at the time of writing. RTX 4080 is the obvious competition here, and with those GPUs now on sale for £1130, or even less, it's a close fought battle. RX 7900 XTX is typically equal to or slightly faster in rasterised titles, but RTX 4080 has the upper hand when it comes to ray tracing, while also offering support for DLSS 2 and DLSS 3 technologies.

With that in mind, PowerColor could stand to benefit by reducing the price of the card to, say, £999, which would be very competitive. Even as things stand though, the Hellhound Spectral White 7900 XTX is a solid option and it will certainly appeal to anyone looking to build an all-white gaming PC this year.

You can pick one up for £1049.99 from Ebuyer HERE.

Pros

• Lovely design.
• Noised-normalised thermal performance is miles better than AMD's reference design.
• Very low noise levels.
• Overclocked and undervolted well.
• Dual-BIOS.

Cons

• No RGB – just a choice of white or blue LEDs.
• Coil whine was audible while gaming.
• RTX 4080 provides stiff competition.

KitGuru says: The card itself is a solid piece of work, but clearly the Hellhound Spectral White is all about the appearance.

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