Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE Gaming OC review: good features and an even better price – Chapter 23

In terms of performance, Gigabyte’s RX 7900 GRE Gaming OC is slightly better than Sapphire’s tested Nitro+ thanks to higher clocks. I emphasize slight, the difference is usually in the order of tenths of a frame per second, which has practically zero meaning. The more measurable difference is in consumption, despite the fact that the limits appear to be the same, the power consumption of the card from Gigabyte is still about 20 W higher than that of Sapphire. With the power consumption, we are already somewhere between RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080, which is not very good for a card that AMD presents as 260W.

A definite plus is the price – if we consider the lowest prices for which the given models can be purchased in proven stores, Gigabyte is the second cheapest after Pulse, and the difference in price is around two hundred. It means that in terms of price/performance ratio, the RX 7900 GRE is the best value model along with the Pulse. Nitro+ is a good eleven hundred more expensive, which is already quite noticeable in terms of the price/performance ratio.

On the other hand, with the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 7900 GRE, you mainly pay extra for a high-end cooler, which is two classes further in terms of noise than the base model from Gigabyte in silent mode. The surcharge of 1100 crowns compared to the basic models is more than adequate for where the Nitro+ cooler advances the card’s performance. In terms of noise, the Gaming OC is slightly better than average cards in Silent mode, but you can’t say that you wouldn’t know about it.

In OC mode, Gigabyte’s noise level is even worse than average cards due to the fact that the fans sometimes reach over 2000 rpm. And that’s a good enough reason to stick with quieter mode instead.

In terms of performance in pure rasterization, the overclocked RX 7900 GRE can be called an equal rival for the RTX 4070 Super. The average performance differs by one percent, the composition of the games rather than the raw performance of the chip will decide the specific winner of this duel. If, for some reason, you want graphics with an AMD chip as an alternative to the RTX 4070 Super and you are not dependent on silent cooling, but the price/performance ratio is the main thing for you and you decide on other features after that, Gigabyte is certainly an interesting choice.

The performance of the RTX 4070 Ti also does not lack much, and the ability to significantly increase the clock speed of the memory will probably help further increase in performance. If you are one of those who do not recognize technologies such as DLSS or FSR and basically play in native resolution with ray tracing turned off, the RX 7900 GRE may be a better choice for you than the RTX 4070 Super. The Radeon is also a bit better with memory capacity, but the fact that 12 GB in the RTX 4070 Super would hold you back because it does not have 16 GB, you will probably only encounter in 4K and very rarely – and there are already more powerful models for such gaming , which have this memory.

In games with more demanding effects using ray tracing, the Radeons are already slightly behind the GeForce RTX 4070 Super, and logically, you cannot use Nvidia’s proprietary technologies such as DLSS 2.x, image generation, reflex and others, to which AMD offers its alternatives, but they are supported in fewer games.

With the RX 7900 GRE, you still don’t save so much that you don’t have to hesitate to buy a cheaper RTX 4070 Super with a small extra charge. In terms of performance, even without ray tracing, Radeon has an average advantage of one percent, and in terms of price, it is cheaper by 100 crowns.

Radeons would certainly benefit from a greater price gap from GeForce and thus a better price/performance ratio. But that’s more a matter of AMD’s pricing policy. From what the RX 7900 GRE can do and from its current price, it seems that it is not on the market to threaten the RTX 4070 Super and break sales records, but rather to fill the gap between the RX 7800 XT and the RX 7900 XT and those interested in graphics with a price tag of around sixteen thousand had an alternative from AMD better than the RX 7800 XT.

As usual, it can be expected that depending on how much the Radeon RX 7900 GRE will go down or not, their price will go down and in terms of convenience they will be better off in the end, while we will probably see a few more significant discounts for GeForce weeks before the launch of the new generation, when warehouses will need to be emptied.

To sum it up somehow – the RX 7900 GRE in the Gaming OC version is not a card that would excite enthusiasts with its operational characteristics. Despite the fact that it is a model with an excellent price/performance ratio, which you can buy practically for the basic price, it offers (in silent mode) above-standard operating characteristics, and if you do not expect similar miracles from it as from the more expensive Nitro+, it will not disappoint with its characteristics – especially if you devote some time to fine-tune consumption regulation and memory overclocking. That’s why he will take the bronze from us. Just pay attention to the price differences across stores – every hundred extra makes a difference here, and buying it somewhere where it’s only a few hundred cheaper than Nitro+ doesn’t make much sense anymore.