Sapphire PURE Radeon RX 7900 GRE Review – Enter the Golden Rabbit
The 7000 Series RX 6950 XT Alternative
It’s here: the Golden Rabbit Edition. No longer a China exclusive, the GRE is now available worldwide, and it helps to fill in the upper midrange product offering in the Radeon 7000 Series lineup. This Radeon RX 7900 GRE (launched back in July, 2023) occupies the space between the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT, and it seems to be a pretty good value, too.
At a starting price of $549 USD, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE offers (among other things) 80 Compute Units and 16GB of 256-bit GDDR6. That’s 20 more CUs than the RX 7800 XT for just $50 above that card’s launch price. In an odd coincidence, the RX 7900 GRE has nearly identical specs to the venerable RX 6950 XT (give or take) – so it will be interesting to see how those two cards compare in the benchmark results.
| RX 7900 XTX | RX 7900 XT | RX 7900 GRE | RX 6950 XT | RX 7800 XT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Navi 31 | Navi 31 | Navi 31 | Navi 21 | Navi 21 |
| Architecture | RDNA 3 | RDNA 3 | RDNA 3 | RDNA 2 | RDNA 3 |
| CUs | 96 | 84 | 80 | 80 | 60 |
| Stream Processors | 6144 | 5376 | 5120 | 5120 | 3840 |
| Game Clock | 2269 MHz | 2025 MHz | 1880 MHz | 2100 MHz | 2124 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 2499 MHz | 2394 MHz | 2245 MHz | 2310 MHz | 2430 MHz |
| TMUs | 384 | 336 | 320 | 320 | 240 |
| ROPs | 192 | 192 | 160 | 128 | 96 |
| Memory | 24GB GDDR6 | 20GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Data Rate | 20 Gbps | 20 Gbps | 18 Gbps | 18 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps |
| Memory Interface | 384-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 960 GB/s | 800 GB/s | 576 GB/s | 576 GB/s | 624 GB/s |
| Infinity Cache (L3) | 96 MB | 80 MB | 64 MB | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Transistor Count | 58 B | 58 B | 58 B | 26.8 B | 28.1 B |
| Process Tech | TSMC 5nm/6nm | TSMC 5nm/6nm | TSMC 5nm/6nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 5nm/6nm |
| TBP | 355 W | 315 W | 260 W | 335 W | 263 W |
| Launch Price | $999 | $899 | $549 | $1099 | $499 |
Considering that both the RX 7900 GRE and previous-gen RX 6950 XT have a 80 CUs (5120 shaders) and the same 576 GB/s of memory bandwidth from identical 16GB GDDR6 configurations, performance deltas between the two may be slight. On the other hand, the RX 6950 XT has double the Infinity Cache (128MB vs. the 7900 GRE’s 64MB), though it is previous-gen. Another difference is that the RX 7900 GRE has an edge in ROP count – 160 vs. 128 with the RX 6950 XT.
This is a partner-only launch (no reference cards), so expect cards from the usual suspects – including Sapphire, naturally. And speaking of Sapphire…
The SAPPHIRE PURE Card
Behold – the first Sapphire card we’ve looked at in some time that doesn’t have an understated black color scheme:
Sapphire is lending us their “PURE” model for this review, which, at a list price of $569 USD, sits $20 above the base $549 price (their PULSE pricing mirror’s AMD’s list price as usual). This particular card is white, as you can plainly see, with a sizable triple-fan cooler. There is also a red LED accent for the logo on the side of the card (and an LED switch to disable this).
Performance
| PC Perspective GPU Test Platform | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (Stock) | |||||||
| Motherboard | MSI MEG X670E ACE Resizable BAR Enabled |
|||||||
| Memory | 32GB (16GBx2) G.Skill Trident Z5 @ DDR5-6000 CL30 | |||||||
| Storage | SK Hynix Platinum P41 2TB NVMe SSD | |||||||
| Power Supply | be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1500W | |||||||
| Operating System | Windows 11 Pro, 22H2 | |||||||
| Drivers | Adrenalin 22.40.00.57 – 23.40.19.01 GeForce Game Ready Driver 526.72 – 551.15 |
|||||||
We begin with a couple of 3DMark results:
This may end up being a less exciting launch that one might hope for, if gains over the Radeon RX 6950 XT remain small.
On to some Ultrawide results:
Well, we didn’t test enough games (or settings) to make this a comprehensive review, but I think these findings at least strongly suggest that the Radeon RX 7900 GRE is going to be a little faster than the RX 6950 XT in most instances.
It’s hard to get excited about drop-in replacements for previous-gen GPUs that offer very small performance gains, but at least this one is going to sell in the $549 – $599 range that the Radeon RX 6950 XT had occupied for so many recent months.
As to power consumption, this managed to remain close to its rated 260W, on average:
Load power averaged approximately 266 watts during this Speed Way test run, though peaks were up to 340 watts.
Final Thoughts
So that’s it, a quick review of a product that was actually launched over six months ago in China, and now serves to improve AMD’s global Radeon product offering in this RDNA 3 generation. It has a lot to offer for the very modest $50 increase over the Radeon RX 7800 XT (list price), but isn’t covering any new ground – particularly for Radeon RX 6950 XT owners.
This Radeon RX 7900 GRE launch is more about availability and pricing than anything else, and it makes sense to bring over the Golden Rabbit Edition now that it appears that the RX 6950 XT is finally fading away. Indeed, the 6950 XT had been available until very recently at the same $549 USD price point as this 7900 GRE, but a look at Newegg as I write this shows those cards as “out of stock” now.
On the pricing front, the Sapphire lineup looks like this at launch:
- PULSE RX 7900 GRE: $549
- PURE RX 7900 GRE: $569 (as reviewed)
- NITRO+ RX 7900 GRE: $599
The Sapphire PURE card we tested looks nice, runs very quietly, and keeps the GPU very cool (in our brief testing we saw nothing higher under load than 61 C). As you may have noticed, this PURE model from Sapphire features an all-white design, from shroud and fans to metal backplate. For some, that aspect of the design alone will be well worth the modest $20 premium over the RX 7900 GRE base price.
