AMD has unveiled the Radeon RX 7800 XT and 7700 XT graphics cards, with prices beginning at $449.

 

Is AMD starting to pose a competitive challenge to Nvidia?

I just wish there was an option within the $300 to $400 range that provided sufficient performance to firmly enter the realm of 1440p gaming. This was the conclusion my colleague Tom Warren reached when reviewing the $399 Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti and the $269 AMD Radeon RX 7600.

On September 6th, AMD might come close to fulfilling that wish — that's when they'll begin shipping the all-new $449 RX 7700 XT and $499 7800 XT, even throwing in a complimentary copy of Starfield to make the deal sweeter.

According to the company's claims, both cards can maintain an average of over 60fps in the latest games at 1440p, even with maximum settings and no intricate upscaling techniques. This performance includes demanding PC titles such as The Last of Us Part I and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. AMD also asserts that both GPUs achieve an average of over 100fps in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.

The real intrigue arises when making comparisons with Nvidia. The $450 7700 XT could potentially outperform the $400 GeForce 4060 Ti, and the $500 7800 XT might surpass the $600 RTX 4070 in traditional games (and even a few ray-traced titles), all while leaving you with an extra hundred dollars in your wallet.

Keep in mind, we weren't particularly impressed by the incremental upgrades Nvidia's cards offered from one generation to the next. It's still uncertain whether AMD's improvements are compelling enough to entice gamers to switch from the previous generation cards. However, as of yesterday, the previous-gen 6800 XT cards were still retailing for over $530. Are graphics cards moving in the right direction once again?

These new GPUs are still a bit on the larger side; even AMD's reference design for the Radeon RX 7800 XT occupies 2.5 slots in a desktop computer, in contrast to Nvidia's two-slot design for the RTX 4070 Founders Edition and lower. They also demand more power, reaching up to 265W compared to Nvidia's 200W GeForce. Some users might appreciate that AMD is sticking with a pair of eight-pin PCI-E power connectors, though.

However, AMD might gain an advantage in the memory aspect, an area where Nvidia's lower-tier GPUs have faced unnecessary limitations. The RX 7700 XT boasts 12GB of GDDR6 memory with a 192-bit interface, delivering a total bandwidth of 432GB per second. On the other hand, the RX 7800 XT offers 16GB of memory with a 256-bit interface, providing a total bandwidth of 624GB per second.

Should AMD's performance and pricing remain consistent, these cards could certainly lure gamers, including myself, away from Nvidia. Yet, it's worth considering that GPU pricing tends to adjust based on buyers' willingness to pay, and Nvidia might adjust prices to maintain its market share. Nvidia recently achieved a staggering $6 billion in pure profit from its AI chips and remains connected to its origins.

Alongside the graphics cards, AMD is set to release FSR 3 on September 6th. This upgraded iteration of their upscaling technology introduces frame generation, which employs machine learning to generate new frames between existing ones – akin to a refined version of motion smoothing seen on televisions. (Nvidia introduced a similar feature in DLSS 3.0, which AMD refers to as "Fluid Motion Frames.")

FSR 3 also incorporates a feature known as "Native Anti-Aliasing," an optional mode that utilizes FSR techniques to both anti-alias and enhance game graphics directly, instead of scaling them up from a lower resolution.

AMD has announced that FSR 3 will soon be integrated into titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Forspoken, Immortals of Aveum, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Frostpunk 2, Squad, Starship Troopers: Extermination, Black Myth: Wukong, Crimson Desert, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

However, Starfield will be launching with FSR 2 instead of FSR 3. Interestingly, AMD has mentioned that Bethesda has the option to incorporate Nvidia's DLSS into the game as well.

Although FSR remains functional on competitor's graphics cards through game developers' integration, AMD will eventually include frame generation directly within their driver, without specifying a date. This would enable the addition of extra frames to any DX10 or DX11 game using an AMD graphics card, without requiring support from the game developers.

Starting September 6th, the driver will introduce Hypr-RX, a single toggle that can automatically activate FSR (or the more limited RSR when FSR isn't supported), along with features like Radeon Anti-Lag, Radeon Boost, and other performance-enhancing features that might compromise image quality. AMD gaming chief Frank Azor notes, "Our research indicates that 70 percent of customers are willing to trade off some image quality" (I certainly know people in that 70 percent). Initially, fifteen games will be validated for use with Hypr-RX.