Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC Review

I have covered a number of Radeon GPUs here over the past year or so that offer great value for money when it comes to gaming. However, one card that has always somehow dodged me was the high-end AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. This is one of AMD’s high-end GPUs. It isn’t as powerful as the RTX 4090 but it doesn’t want to be. Instead, this card falls just below the RTX 4090 but at the same time, is cheaper and smaller too.

Watch the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC review

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the most powerful consumer GPU you can get from AMD but how relevant is this GPU in 2024? Gigabyte sent over the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC model to test out and after spending a few days with it, I actually think this GPU is pretty neat. It is for those who don’t want to spend money on an RTX 4080 SUPER or RTX 4090 and who are worried about space in their PC. Considering this card launched back in 2022, it has aged quite well. But I am going to put it to the test.

Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC Specs and Design

On paper, the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC comes with quite an impressive spec list. It includes 24GB of GDDR6 384-bit RAM, a 2525Mhz Boost Clock and a 2330MHz Game Clock. These are slightly overclocked compared to the 2500MHz Boost Clock and 2300MHz Game Clock on the reference card.

It packs 6144 Stream Processors and a 20Gbps memory clock. It also comes with all the bells and whistles you would expect from a modern AMD card including RNDA 3 which includes enhancements for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution. Not to forget AMD Infinity Cache.

The design of the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC follows the usual ethos of the brand. It is black with a dark grey cooling plate. It is a hefty GPU that measures 331mm in length, 128mm in width and is 50mm thick. You’ll need a motherboard mount or some sort of support bracket for this card too given how large it is.

Gigabyte recommends having an 850W power supply for this GPU. As a result, it uses 2 x 8-pin PCI-E connectors. It also comes with 2 x HDMI 2.1 ports and 2 x DisplayPort 2.1 ports.

If you have owned a Gigabyte Gaming OC card in the past, the design here is familiar. There are three 100mm fans across the top that make up the WindForce Cooling System. The middle one spins in the opposite direction to the side two which helps push heat away from the vapor chamber and out the back screen cooling cutout.

I have always spoken highly about Gigabyte’s cooling system and this one is no different. My only gripe here is that the fans don’t include RGB. Given this is such a high-end and expensive card, you would think Gigabyte would include RGB fans. Sadly, the only RGB you’ll find here is on the Gigabyte logo. Of course, you can customize this using the Gigabyte Control Centre app. The card also comes with a BIOS OC and Silent switch for those wondering.

Setting up the card is fairly simple. I already have the Gigabyte motherboard mount installed on my PC but if you don’t it is easy to install by removing two motherboard screws and replacing them with taller ones included in the GPU box. These are attached to a metal arm which acts as the support bracket for the card. You’ll then install the mount onto the card and screw the mount onto the motherboard arm. Connect the cables and you’re good to go.

Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC Performance

Given the sheer performance of this card, I was quite excited to benchmark some games. I ran benchmarks across a number of titles including the latest 3DMark Steel Nomad test. All these tests were done with the card on BIOS OC without any adjustments to the clocks through the Gigabyte Control Centre.

The tests show that this is definitely a 4K GPU with some incredible performance. The card does struggle slightly when it comes to raytracing if you’re comparing the scores to the nearest RTX card but it still pushes through most games without a hiccup.

We then, of course, have FSR which further improves performance. The nice thing about this card is because it is so powerful, you often don’t even need to enable FSR or switch to a higher FSR mode across games. That way, you don’t lose any quality due to upscaling.

Sure, you’re going to be stuck at 50-60FPS across the most graphically intense games but a maxed-out visual experience without any upscaling noise might be worth it.

The Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC is a power-hungry card. It maxes out at over 370W during benchmarks which makes sense given its 850W PSU requirement.

During this test, the card also reached a max temperature of 61C and the fan noise was definitely present. The card is notably louder than my RTX 4080 SUPER. The Gigabyte Windforce Cooling System is still impressive on this card but the fans do make a noise. So much noise that I often had to turn my TV volume up to counter the noise. It sounds like a small plane flying around and when fans ramp up, they sound intimidating.

Overall, the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC is an excellent card. Given its age, the card makes for great value in 2024 because you might be able to pick it up slightly cheaper. Compared to its closest competition, the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 SUPER, this card still delivers the best value across the three.

It does come with a few downsides, however. First off, the power consumption is quite high. It also struggles a bit with raytracing. But even the word “struggling” here means slightly less performance. It won’t break the visual experience at all. You can also choose to turn down raytracing in some cases to improve the performance.

I don’t know what is next for AMD in 2024 and beyond but at the moment, the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC is a great future-proof unit that will last you a good few years. It stands as a peak for AMD thanks to its sheer performance that will keep you gaming more and fiddling with settings to improve performance less.

You can pick up the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC on Wootware here.