AMD RX 7900 XT Overclocking Boosts Gaming Performance

The GPU market has become difficult for gamers looking for high-end performance without spending a large amount of money. With current NVIDIA graphics cards priced higher, older AMD GPUs are becoming relevant again. Radeon RX 7900 XT is one such option, delivering performance close to the RTX 4090 in several games while costing significantly less.

With overclocking, the performance gap shrinks even further, making it worth considering for gamers looking for a high-end graphics card. RX 7900 XT performs close to the RTX 4090, and I'm not even kidding. This is the only card that makes sense in a market that doesn't. Right now, for an equivalent NVIDIA price, you get an RTX 5070 or an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, which aren't even in the same performance tier.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Comes Close to RTX 4090 Performance

For testing, we're running an Intel Core i9-13900K paired with an ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard. For the RAM, we're using a G.Skill 2x24GB kit running at 8400MHz. Let's start with Call of Duty, where the RX 7900 XT performs well. During the beta, Hemu posted that the RX 7900 XT delivered more FPS than the RTX 5090. So, let's see how close the gap is now that the game is fully released.

At 1440p, the RTX 4090 and RX 7900 XT are extremely close in performance. Imagine the RTX 5080 is a bit slower than the RTX 4090. There's no reason to get another card if Call of Duty is your main game. The performance is impressive. The 1% lows are slightly lower on the AMD card because turning off Resizable BAR affects its 1% lows more than NVIDIA's. However, we can get even closer with overclocking, which we'll get into later.

For 4K testing, Cyberpunk 2077 is a good choice. First, let's look at ultra settings without ray tracing. Here, the RX 7900 XT is 18% slower than the RTX 4090, but the difference is only 16 fps. That's pretty good, in my opinion, for this type of card, especially when it probably costs half, if not a third, of the price.

With ray tracing enabled, the gap actually widens quite a bit. However, this is probably the worst-case scenario for the RX 7900 XT, since Cyberpunk 2077 favors NVIDIA GPUs. Now, let's take a look at Forza, which looks great. The performance is also good. We're running at native 4K with the Extreme preset, and we haven't overclocked the card yet.

How to Overclock the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT

Overclocking the RX 7900 XT is slightly different, but the process is simple. You can do everything through AMD Adrenalin software. First, set the preset to Custom. Under Fan Tuning, disable Zero RPM. Then, open Advanced Controls and set a fan curve if you want. GPU Tuning is a little different. Whether you set the frequency offset to something like +1,000 won't actually matter.

What matters here is the voltage offset. It works similarly to a Ryzen CPU, so we want to go as low as possible. However, not every setting will be stable. I'm actually stable at 80mV, and most of you will probably be fine around this setting. If you want to be safe, use 50mV. For VRAM Tuning, you can go up to around 2800-2900MHz if you're lucky. However, my sample was not very good, so I'm using 2650MHz.

The most important setting for this card is Power Tuning. It likes power, so let it use more power. That's pretty much it for the overclocking settings. We'll see how much additional performance this gives us. In Call of Duty, overclocking brings the RX 7900 XT closer to the RTX 4090. We're now about 2 fps away on average, which is a good result.

The card runs at around 50°C on the core and 70°C on the hotspot.

Power consumption is already at 317W, the stock power limit, but it can do better. Now, here's the card running a custom-flashed Taichi BIOS at 375W. We have essentially gone from an MSRP model to one with the power limit of a higher-end model. The temperature only increases by 4 °C on the core and around 10 °C on the hotspot.

Lastly, let's talk about the drivers, since this isn't a major concern. They are stable and don't have issues. I've experienced a driver timeout only once, and that was because I used an unstable overclock. They're good. As for NVIDIA, since the RTX 50 series launched, there have been several issues.

In conclusion, if you're looking for a high-end graphics card, especially in the current market, the RX 7900 XT is worth considering, particularly for gaming. To get even a little more performance from something like an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090, or to somehow find an RTX 4090, you have to pay more than double, if not more. That doesn't justify the additional cost.

FAQ

Q. Can the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT match the RTX 4090 in gaming?

A. Yes. The RX 7900 XT delivers performance close to the RTX 4090 in games like Call of Duty at 1440p. Overclocking further reduces the performance gap.

Q. How much performance does overclocking add to the RX 7900 XT?

A. Overclocking provides up to 6% additional performance in Cyberpunk 2077, 5% in Forza at native 4K, and 8% in Forza with ray tracing enabled.

Q. Does the RX 7900 XT support FSR 4?

A. Yes. The RX 7900 XT supports FSR 4, which helps close the image quality gap with Nvidia's DLSS technology in supported games.

Q. Is the ASUS Prime OC RX 7900 XT good for overclocking?

A. Yes. It has three PCIe power connectors, a PCB and VRAM layout shared with the ASUS TUF model, and factory-applied PTM, giving it overclocking headroom.