Review Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pure Review: Pretty but Expensive

[Admin]

The Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pure looks great and performs as well as other cards with the same GPU, and it does so while being whisper quiet. AMD's too-high MSRP remains a drawback, but this particular model does carve out a niche for itself.

Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pure Review: Pretty but Expensive : Read more

 

[hotaru.hino]

I don't know about you, but the majority of thinking people don't buy a car based on its color!!

I would argue a lot of people, if they have the means to buy almost any car they want, will choose one car over another based on its color. Or even ask the dealer for a specific color if it's available.

About half the reason why I jumped on the motorcycle I bought a while ago was because being a Kawasaki, it didn't come in that obnoxious Kawasaki green (the other half was I was ready to move on from my first bike which it was replacing.) And I would say a non-trivial reason why I chose the car that I did was because I wanted to have matching colors with my bike.

Is it important in the grand scheme of things? No. But I had the choice. And if people didn't really care about color, why do you think that option exists? May as well go the Ford way and paint all cars black; it'll save them a lot in manufacturing.

 

[Deleted member 2958512]

Good looks aside, i fear its pathetic 12GB VRAM renders it completely useless for modern gaming.

 

[punkncat]

Wow, future locked thread.

For my own part, these cards are a bit of fresh air in the current market. It still stands that the MSRP on this, the 7800, and it's 6xxx forefathers is a bit confusing from a customer standpoint. For my own part, I love to see and often pick graphics cards as well as other components based solely on them NOT having unicorn puke spewing out of them.

 

[Geef]

Quick piece of unrelated info: I bought a ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB

It is a very quiet card. Even while playing Starfield for several hours at a time. Lots of time tests.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Wow, future locked thread.

For my own part, these cards are a bit of fresh air in the current market. It still stands that the MSRP on this, the 7800, and it's 6xxx forefathers is a bit confusing from a customer standpoint. For my own part, I love to see and often pick graphics cards as well as other components based solely on them NOT having unicorn puke spewing out of them.

It's why the ability to change your RGB lighting options exists. Default might be rainbow on most cards/mobos, but it's simple enough (usually) to set it to pure red, green, blue, or some other color. That's the crux of the issue. Adding lighting, but limiting it to a single color that can't be changed, is going half-way on a feature.

 

[punkncat]

It's why the ability to change your RGB lighting options exists. Default might be rainbow on most cards/mobos, but it's simple enough (usually) to set it to pure red, green, blue, or some other color. That's the crux of the issue. Adding lighting, but limiting it to a single color that can't be changed, is going half-way on a feature.

I don't disagree, per se, but also that this is a design decision based on what the manufacturer wanted to put forth in regard to their vision of the look they were going for. I feel that it is nice to have choices on this and that manufacturers are giving them, even when spartan.

edit- I would also add that in order to control RBG often involves downloading a companion app that may or may not play right with other lighting apps and so on. Without doubt, open and eating resources albeit a small amount, but have a couple of those running for this and that part to light the way you want adds up.

 

[AgentBirdnest]

I would have thought they'd give it blue lighting... cuz, ya know... sapphires. : P

I really love those fan blades. Cool angular shapes. Too bad I'd never ever see it when the computer is on, though. : P

I love silence... I'd pay an extra $30, even $50, for a card that has quieter cooling. But between a $480 7700XT with excellent cooling, and a $500 7800XT with adequate cooling... I'd pick the latter. AMD prices the 7700XT so weirdly...

Quick piece of unrelated info: I bought a ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB

It is a very quiet card. Even while playing Starfield for several hours at a time. Lots of time tests.

That's awesome! Congrats! : )
I feel like ASRock has really stepped up their game over the last couple of years, and makes some of the most compelling components now.

 

[nitrium]

It's also about twice as fast as the RTX 2060 (and costs $100 more than the 2060's launch price), and twice as fast as GTX 1080.

I see neither of those cards in your charts. I know that the RTX 4060Ti is not (quite) twice as fast as an RTX 2060 in many (most?) games. The RTX 4070 is the first 4000 series card that gets there.

 

[wingfinger]

I don't care for lighting effects myself.

What I don't like is that marketing and management probably think that they are providing an exciting and desirable product because of the lighting effects, instead of providing a reliable, great performance for the price product.

On a similar note, do people still buy graphics cars be because they are overclocked? I would buy an overlocked card, only because I don't want the lowest bin GPU possible. But, I would be looking for a mild overclock, never a high overclock.

 

[Albert.Thomas]

The cooler on the 7800XT Pure is the same, right? If so, I might pick it up.

 

[Amdlova]

The rx 7700xt is a shame. With rgb or not...

 

[hotaru.hino]

On a similar note, do people still buy graphics cars be because they are overclocked? I would buy an overlocked card, only because I don't want the lowest bin GPU possible. But, I would be looking for a mild overclock, never a high overclock.

I'm sure people are attracted by the higher figures advertised on the box on some models, but the thing is, video cards overclock themselves near their limit anyway. The figure on the box is likely just there for legal reasons. My card on default settings climbs 200MHz above what its listed boost clock speed is. I can add another 100MHz through tweaking.

So there's very little point in buying a video card with a higher listed boost clock. In fact, you could argue it's a waste of money if it costs more than basically the same card with lower clock speeds.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

It's also about twice as fast as the RTX 2060 (and costs $100 more than the 2060's launch price), and twice as fast as GTX 1080.

I see neither of those cards in your charts. I know that the RTX 4060Ti is not (quite) twice as fast as an RTX 2060 in many (most?) games. The RTX 4070 is the first 4000 series card that gets there.

Check the GPU benchmarks hierarchy. I thought that would have been clear. We didn't put a bunch of GPUs into the charts, because that quickly makes for a big mess. If you want the full Monty, we have that:

GPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2023: Graphics Cards Ranked

We've run hundreds of GPU benchmarks on Nvidia, AMD, and Intel graphics cards and ranked them in our comprehensive hierarchy.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Colif]

RGB adds absolutely NOTHING to the functionality / performance of said GPU

no way, every one knows red cars go faster. Its the same principle
also the rgb stripe on my card makes it look thinner than it really is...

I did avoid one model Powercolor GPU simply as it only allows 3 choices with rgb: purple, blue or none
And I didn't like any of the choices.

RGB is easy, if you don't like it... turn it off. The 2070 Super I had before this card only had a colored strip on side, I couldn't change its color at all and only option I had was unplug it on the card. So I am glad I can choose what color I use now.

OC cards at least might have been cooling... the AMD Reference cards have left a lot to be desired. EIther run too hot or too loud.

 

[ocer9999]

Quick piece of unrelated info: I bought a ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB

It is a very quiet card. Even while playing Starfield for several hours at a time. Lots of time tests.

Same here, but the Steel Legend to go with my all white build. Great card, runs cool and quiet.