This video will not age well... - AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series Review

AMD’s new RDNA3-based Radeon RX 7900 series GPUs are finally here to compete with Nvidia’s RTX 4080 and 4090! At a lower price point, can they live up to the hype?

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

FOLLOW US
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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:15 Specs and AMD's chiplet special sauce
2:58 4K Gaming Benchmarks
4:35 1440p Gaming Benchmarks
5:46 RT Gaming Benchmarks
7:26 Productivity Benchmarks
9:45 Resizable BAR / Smart Access Memory
10:20 AMD's new video encoder... We ran out of time to test it
10:41 Thermals & Core Clocks
12:10 Power Consumption & Performance per Watt
13:00 Idly uncovering some powerful bugs
14:57 Is the GPU market saved?
17:07 DisplayPort 2.1 but not UHBR20
18:01 We're enthusiastic! But it's not perfect yet
19:00 Conclusion - My next GPU

[olishant]

I would love to have Linus commit to doing another follow-up review of these cards in 6-12 months. Considering the bulk of what he talked about was framed with the potential of driver improvements improving actual results, I think it would be useful to see if this comes to fruition.

[BenyaminLorit]

Holy crap, I thought this video was approaching its end by past the 7-minute mark only to see it wasn't even half way. So much in-depth information in here. Thanks for the hard work, guys!

[anderson]

Would love to see a 3-month or 6-month follow-up to see if their drivers did in fact improve.

[_M.Silva_]

I miss the days of getting a top of the line GPU for $500

[yassineaqallal]

I don't know about others but I'd like to see some benchmarks of the RX 7000 series from now and re-test them 2 years later to check for performance difference

[milesbarrineau]

I made the switch to a 6900xt, three months back. I got it new for $600 (before tax) which for me is the most I have ever spent on a gpu, but not by a ton. I have been super happy with it. It's wasn't necessarily a plug and play experience for me switching from Nvidia but after a few days of learning the differences between team read and green and adjusting accordingly, I have been super happy.

[aaronroach]

I understand that you guys are under tight time constraints to get these reviews out quickly, so I'm glad to see this card. Something I'd like to see as a follow-up video once the mad rush is over with is benchmarks compared to previous-gen Nvidia cards like the 3080/3090 to let people who have been holding off know if it's worth upgrading.

[anmolagrawal]

12:44 This frame capping at a relevant frame rate is probably one of the best additions to this video.
This was NEEDED. Sure, its efficient at 200+ framerates but how much power it draws at a perceptibly high frame rate is what matters to the end user. Nice job with that one and kudos to the one who gave this idea!

[PixelShade]

As a 6600XT owner I can vouch for how well supported the cards have been and how much performance has improved over the year of owning it... Heck, even RT performance isn't as bad as initial reviews made them out to be, in many cases it is close to the 3060. meanwhile rasterized performance is far better. Then AMD dropped the bomb with OpenGL and DX11 performance improvements that increased performance seriously in slightly older games....

Sure, I had the "black screen of death" issue that made the rounds. For me, AMD's drivers wasn't the fault, it had to do with my ASRock motherboards overclocking tool, it had a unresolved conflict with Radeon Software's overclocking utility. Once the motherboard software was uninstalled and I only used Radeon Software + Ryzen Master the system hasn't skipped a beat. Crashes has been near to non-existent.

I am super happy switching from Nvidia to AMD.

[macseen]

Really hoping more people will give AMD a shot this go around. My 5600x + 6700XT has been the best rig I’ve ever built.

[LinusTechTips]

Small correction for the graph at 3:34 - the numbers for the 6900XT in this chart are incorrect because they're not for F1 but for a different racing game, Forza V. The correct numbers for the 6900XT in F1 22 at 4K are as follows:
Average: 145
5% low: 132
1% low: 127

Also, a note about the graph at 12:11. While our data is correct, the manner in which it is displayed is not. This graph should have been broken into two, with one showing Total Graphics Power and one showing Total Board Power (which you can access on our forum, linked below). Our video's power conclusions remain unchanged, but we wanted to be sure that you had all of the data for yourself.

[JMaximusIX]

Great video, one small critisism: it‘s really confusing how you switch the blue and yellow colors for the XT and XTX back and forth between the graphs, made me always have to double check which one‘s which.

[mobilechaosyt]

AMD has gotten better especially in the past when drivers were always an issue with no update in sight, the new AMD has a decent driver team that can optimize, but we do with those optimizations came at the beginning of the lifecycle instead of the end.

[theconfusedllama]

I wouldn't say I'm an Nvidia fanboy, just comfortable with sticking with one or the other. That being said, if the 50 or 60 series don't get cheaper then I'm most likely going AMD for the next upgrade

[pogolol]

Love how sustainability and power consumption is getting highlighted, even when Linus isn’t much affected of it, shows that Linus takes his role as reviewer seriously.

[mariokingplayer]

In case there was any doubts about the whole "dramatic improvement brought by driver optimizations" thing I'd like to point to the 6600(non xt) which I currently own and bought under the impression that it was a 1080p max settings graphics card. A card which was not marketed to support 4k and didn't. Before I updated my drivers I could maybe squeeze out 30-40 fps WITH SETTINGS AUTO OPTIMIZED FOR THE CARD at 4k resolution in doom 2016. I can now play it on ultra settings in 4k at 60fps with FSR off (maximum frame increase by about 5-10 with it on). Maybe not the best benchmarking game but the fact that a $200-$300 card marketed as an entry level 1080p graphics card can support 4k to any capacity should speak plenty to the significance of these optimizations.

[sageDieuvids]

I'd love to see a video outlining the GPU testing process, and explaining in more detail what each of the benchmarks is testing for. I especially find all the productivity and non-gaming benchmarks really interesting, like what's the difference between medical/life sciences, etc.

[BrodieFairhall]

I'm very interested to see the improvements in professional use scenarios as drivers and OpenCL improve.
I'm also very happy to see so many other metrics in this video outside of FPS!

On Linux, the lack of interest from NVIDIA in drivers already means that the 6900XT in my personal rig absolutely thrashes my NVIDIA cad workstation. I'd love to see some comparisons on Linux.

[starswater]

This feels like a much more rounded review that your usual reviews. Is this the lab coming into play? I'm really grateful for it either way, this is more like what I've wanted to see! It'll help me get a much better idea of what I'm looking at, and help me better judge what I should get based on my actual use case - which isn't just gaming, certainly not the most recent titles.

[rookless]

AMD always has my respect with their driver updates. My best value GPU the RX 580 got some significant performance improvements by the time I wanted to upgrade.