In a fairly beautiful transfer, TechPowerUp has managed to overclock an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX to such a degree the place it will probably match the Nvidia RTX 4090 within the demanding Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark.

Now, let’s not get carried away: on paper, a $999 GPU going toe to toe with a $1,599 card in gaming efficiency is, on paper, an enormous loss for Nvidia. However this is only one check; TechPowerUp additionally discovered that their overclocked RX 7900 XTX wasn’t capable of attain the identical efficiency because the RTX 4090 in different benchmarks, though efficiency was dramatically improved.

Nonetheless, it’s extremely spectacular – and never totally surprising. There have reportedly been clock velocity points with the Navi 31 die that powers the RX 7900 XTX, which allegedly limits its efficiency considerably – one thing AMD may deal with with future driver updates. It is nonetheless not going to really eclipse the 4090 (which will probably be getting new drivers of its personal), however it’s value making an allowance for that AMD’s flagship GPU is not utilizing 100% of its obtainable energy at current. TechPowerUp’s mighty 3.2GHz overclock coaxes much more graphical grunt out of the cardboard.

Evaluation: Much more hassle for Nvidia

Nvidia has been plagued with issues surrounding the launch of its next-gen Lovelace graphics playing cards – from melting 4090 energy adaptors to the hasty ‘unlaunching’ of the RTX 4080 12GB – and this seems like yet one more situation for Workforce Inexperienced.

TechPowerUp used a factory-overclocked Asus TUF card for his or her testing, which was already barely quicker than the unique AMD RX 7900 XTX we examined in our assessment. Factoring within the handbook overclock (which concerned a fancy undervolting course of to squeeze as a lot energy from the GPU as potential), it was 23.1% quicker than the competing RTX 4080 16GB.

Certain, that is evaluating an overclocked card to a card operating at reference clocks, however it’s nonetheless troubling information for Nvidia. The RTX 4080 16GB has been decried by many for being underpowered for its hefty $1,199 value level, and this lends additional credence to that argument: AMD’s new prime GPU is $200 cheaper and comfortably outperforms it in most areas.

Notice that we stated ‘most’ – the Nvidia card notably nonetheless wins out in Blender and different software program that favors CUDA cores for efficiency. If you happen to’re in search of a GPU for skilled artistic work, Nvidia continues to be the way in which to go. Nonetheless, these figures corroborate AMD’s repeated claims that Radeon is the only option for avid gamers.

This is not more likely to change till Nvidia supplies extra inexpensive playing cards, be that new RTX 4070 and 4060 fashions or through a value minimize to the prevailing RTX 4080 16GB. Even then, Workforce Inexperienced is more likely to be on the again foot: AMD’s pricing curve offers it the benefit right here, so we will anticipate Workforce Purple’s midrange and finances RX 7000 GPUs to be very competitively priced. In brief: Nvidia has an uphill battle forward of it. A variety of goodwill amongst avid gamers has been squandered as a result of mess surrounding the brand new Lovelace playing cards, and AMD has been fast to capitalize on the state of affairs.