AMD bolsters its RX 7000 series with upper midrange RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT

Nearly a year after the launch of the RX 7000 series, AMD is finally plugging the massive gap between the RX 7600 and the flagship 7900 XT with the brand-new RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT. These two GPUs will go head-to-head with the RTX 4060 Ti and 4070 respectively, and will finally replace the older RX 6000 series in this price and performance segment. Although AMD is undeniably late to the party, at least it has something to show for it.

The RX 7000 series is finally a product line for everyone

While the 7700 XT and 7800 XT use the same chiplet design seen in the 7900 XT and the 7900 XTX, AMD has swapped out the Navi 31 graphics die for a smaller one, codenamed Navi 32, which has 60 CUs instead of 96. Additionally, AMD is using less memory cache dies (or MCDs) for these more midrange GPUs: four on the 7800 XT and three on the 7700 XT, compared to the six on the 7900 XTX and the five on the 7900 XT. The 7800 XT and 7700 XT come out September 6.

The 7800 XT and 7700 XT go a long way in covering the performance gap between the 7600 and the 7900 XT, which has left the RX 7000 series unviable for lots of gamers. You might think there wouldn’t be that much of a difference between the 7700 XT and 7800 XT given the 7800 XT only has 4 additional CUs, but AMD claims the 7800 XT will be about 20% faster, probably because it also has much more memory bandwidth and Infinity Cache. That also means the 7800 XT is much more efficient if the rated TDPs are to be believed.

Compared to the competition, the AMD is pitting the RX 7800 XT against the RTX 4070 and the 7700 XT against the 4060 Ti. On average in non-ray tracing benchmarks, AMD claims the 7800 XT is 11% faster than the 4070, while the 7700 XT is 18% faster than the 4060 Ti. With ray tracing tests included, that lead drops to 4% for the 7800 XT and 12% for the 7700 XT, though those results are still very respectable considering both cards have more memory than their rivals (except for the 4060 Ti 16GB, that is).

Of course, all of this performance doesn’t matter if the price is wrong for these cards, but thankfully AMD has priced these cards very competitively at $500 for the 7800 XT and $450 for the 7700 XT, against the 4070 at $600 and the 4060 Ti 8GB at $400. Even if these cards aren’t quite as fast as AMD claims, the 7800 XT would still enjoy a $100 discount against the 4070, while the 7700 XT would slot in nicely between the 4060 Ti 8GB and 16GB.

FSR 3 and HYPR-RX are also making their debut very soon

We’ve been waiting all of 2023 for FSR 3, AMD’s answer to DLSS 3, and it’s just about ready to debut. AMD didn’t specify exactly when FSR 3 would be coming, but AMD has announced a dozen titles that will get FSR 3, some of which are already out such as Forspoken and Cyberpunk 2077, and some that are upcoming like Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (formerly known as Yakuza 8). FSR 3 will work on AMD, Nvidia, and Intel GPUs, and will also be available with any game that supports HYPR-RX, which AMD says is basically any DX11 or DX12 game.

Additionally, HYPR-RX is finally coming out after AMD promised it would come out in the first half of the year. HYPR-RX combines Radeon Boost, Radeon Anti-Lag+, and Radeon Super Resolution in one setting that can enable all three simultaneously to improve performance and latency, which currently isn’t possible on AMD’s latest drivers. HYPR-RX will launch in a future driver update soon, and in Q1 of next year AMD GPU users will be able to enable FSR 3 in any game that also supports HYPR-RX.