The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the graphics card to purchase at $499/£480, even making Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4070 look positively dear by comparability. However is it a GPU price shopping for while you slap on a chunky triple-fan cooler, a manufacturing facility overclock, and a premium price ticket? That is the large query to ask when contemplating this TUF Gaming RX 7800 XT OC Version. It is quicker than the reference AMD design, a lot cooler too, however it eats up a bit of the RX 7800 XT’s worth benefit over the RTX 4070.
The TUF Gaming OC Version is an absolute monster of a mid-range graphics card—when you can actually name it mid-range. As Dave mentions in his evaluation of the reference RX 7800 XT, “Although it’s basically now the center of the Radeon RDNA 3 line up, calling the RX 7800 XT mid-range would not sit nicely with me.” I completely agree, and that is much more true of this $520 TUF Gaming mannequin.
You do get a variety of graphics card in your cash. The Navi 32 GPU comes buried underneath a cooler design kind of plucked off a TUF Gaming RX 7900 XTX OC Version. For its great dimension—it is near-enough a triple-slot card—this cooler is kind of unbothered by the RX 7800 XT’s chiplet GPU even whereas it is operating full steam forward. It solely reached a peak temperature of 56°C throughout three runs of Metro Exodus: Enhanced Version at 4K throughout my testing, which makes it one of many cooler playing cards we have examined in recent times.
Due to this overprovisioning of the cooler, the TUF Gaming RX 7800 XT would not must run anyplace close to as loudly as slimmer playing cards. The three followers hold to a low ebb even throughout demanding benchmarking runs and lengthy gaming classes.
RX 7800 XT TUF Gaming specs
GPU: Navi 32
Stream processors: 3840
Clock speeds: OC Mode, as much as 2565 MHz (Enhance Clock), as much as 2254 MHz (Recreation Clock)
Reminiscence: 16GB GDDR6
Reminiscence pace: 256-bit
I/O: HDMI 2.1 x1, DisplayPort 2.1 x3
Energy connectors: 2x 8-pin
Dimension: 2.96 slot
Dimensions: 319.8 x 150.9 x 59.2 mm (12.6 x 5.94 x 2.33 inch)
Advisable PSU: 750W
Value: $520/£550
For the thermal or noise delicate gamer, I get the attraction. It is supremely quiet. When it comes to efficiency, this thermal headroom leaves room for pretty snug overclocking past the manufacturing facility overclock, too.
In testing, the TUF Gaming runs somewhat underneath 150MHz quicker than the reference mannequin, although that varies by sport and whether or not you’ve got set the cardboard to Efficiency or Quiet mode—switched by way of a bodily swap on the again of the cardboard. All my testing has been with Efficiency mode enabled, specifically for the very fact the cardboard is so quiet and funky the Quiet mode appears unnecessarily restrictive.
The TUF Gaming’s GPU clock bump solely improves body charges by a small margin in most video games—a few frames right here or there, usually.
1080p efficiency
Picture 1 of 8
1440p efficiency
Picture 1 of 10
4K efficiency
Picture 1 of 8
Thermal and energy efficiency
Picture 1 of 4
There’s positively room to push clocks additional your self. This card is geared toward those who would possibly to try this. Although, be warned, you’ll be able to push the cardboard too far and expertise diminishing returns for the elevated energy calls for—energy/efficiency will not be a linear curve. I attempted out a easy 2,799MHz GPU core overclock on the GPU, concurrently pushing the reminiscence as much as 20Gbps efficient, whereas pushing the ability restrict as much as 115%. Which may sound like a big step-up over the manufacturing facility OC, however it’s solely round 100MHz+ on common when really gaming.
Overclocking efficiency
Picture 1 of 7
For my handbook OC efforts, the cardboard does run a good bit faster at 1080p and 1440p. A few frames on prime of the manufacturing facility OC, and thus even additional forward of the reference RX 7800 XT. Although it gobbles up considerably extra energy for that bump in efficiency. It additionally runs a contact hotter, although in actuality this cooler is not too phased even by the elevated energy surging via the cardboard with the handbook OC enabled. You would completely tailor your overclock somewhat greater than I’ve right here, ideally bringing that energy restrict down so far as potential earlier than you run into instability.
This TUF Gaming continues to be nicely priced versus an RTX 4070. These playing cards carry out very equally, with the RX 7800 XT gaining an edge in some purely rasterised video games, although the RTX 4070 has the added benefit of ray tracing efficiency, better effectivity, and Nvidia’s DLSS and Body Gen options. AMD has its personal reply to the latter in FSR and Fluid Movement Frames, however usually Nvidia’s upscaling and body technology is seen as the popular choice by many, as evident by the latest rush to mod Starfield’s settings menu with DLSS.
A less expensive, reference-priced RTX 4070 will nonetheless require a sum additional cash than this fully-kitted out RX 7800 XT, however you may probably obtain a much less succesful cooler for siding with the inexperienced group. Given the additional effectivity of Ada GPUs, nevertheless, that might not be such a brutal commerce off as it would in any other case appear.
Nonetheless, the RX 7800 XT does seem to drag a lead over the RTX 4070, and that is much more true of this costlier mannequin. There’s one other profit to the RX 7800 XT, too: it comes with 16GB of reminiscence throughout a wider 256-bit bus to the RTX 4070’s 12GB and 128-bit bus. The impression of that reminiscence superiority is not as pronounced as, say, between this and the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti, however it’s a bonus that would come into play extra as these playing cards get a bit older and video games demand ever extra reminiscence.
Nonetheless, this is not an unique profit to the TUF Gaming mannequin. A reference priced RX 7800 XT will ship all that in a less expensive package deal, and grabbing a $500 RX 7800 XT at launch is the higher worth proposition frame-for-frame. There are additionally third-party cards with factory overclocks going for round that $499 MSRP, which is a rarity. So it’s important to weigh up what you are getting with this TUF Gaming beast.
Fortunately, Asus is not asking for an excessive amount of additional money for the TUF Gaming RX 7800 XT, a minimum of within the US. In case you’re struggling to discover a reference card at MSRP, the Asus makes for an impressively cooled stand-in at an additional $20–$30. My pure inclination is all the time somewhat on the fence about manufacturing facility overclocked playing cards that creep up in worth, typically rubbing shoulders with higher-end fashions, however a minimum of AMD’s fairly aggressive reference worth retains the TUF Gaming OC Version from irrelevancy.
Although it is notably a lot pricier within the UK at £550. That basically is an enormous premium to pay for this model, and I really feel it is much less well worth the cash for us Brits.
In case you completely require quiet or cool operation, and also you’re lifeless set on this AMD GPU powering your PC, the TUF Gaming OC Version is a really competent graphics card for what looks like a good worth for the chunky cooler lumped on it.
