Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 GRE Pulse

[Mysteoa]

[..] FSR works well and is supported in many games, which makes the technology easy to use. AMD has recently released FSR 3 Frame Generation, which is only available in a few titles so far, but the list will definitely grow in 2024. While AMD's FSR is hardware-agnostic—it works on all GPUs from all vendors—NVIDIA's DLSS requires certain hardware units, which is a strong selling point for NVIDIA. While an NVIDIA card will give you the ability to run all currently available upscalers; DLSS, FSR and XeSS, owning a Radeon card means you won't be able to use upscaling in games that support NVIDIA DLSS exclusively. NVIDIA DLSS 3 is the best frame generation technology available today, is usable combined with native rendering or DLAA (upscaling not required), and is only supported on NVIDIA GeForce 40 series cards. AMD thus developed AFMF, which is a driver-level frame-generation solution that works in nearly all games, but at lower quality, because it doesn't have knowledge of static objects like the HUD and text overlays, to exclude those from frame generation.


Agree 100%

Then it would be only fair to include other technologies NVIDIA has that AMD can't run, like Reflex.

 

[sLowEnd]

I wonder what's causing the high media playback power consumption for these 7900 GRE cards?

 

[Jism]

WTF is that video playback power consumption? How could AMD mess that up on a card that is not even a new gen? 3x more than the direct competitors?

Frankly that's the downside of using a chiplet based approach. Some things have to be turned on all the time. Just like Threadripper's idle power consumption being through the roof.

 

[sLowEnd]

Frankly that's the downside of using a chiplet based approach. Some things have to be turned on all the time. Just like Threadripper's idle power consumption being through the roof.

It's consuming 50% more power than AMD's other RDNA3 chiplet based cards like the 7800XT and 7900XT during media playback for some reason.

The single monitor idle power isn't actually all that bad at 10W. (About the same as the 4070 & 4070S)

 

[JAB Creations]

Negatives:
"No support for DLSS"

...seriously?

 

[Pumper]

I wonder what's causing the high media playback power consumption for these 7900 GRE cards?

It's the same power draw that was present in 7900XT and 7900XTX on day 1 drivers. I bet AMD just did not apply that fix to GRE for whatever reason.

 

[Icon Charlie]

WTF is that video playback power consumption? How could AMD mess that up on a card that is not even a new gen? 3x more than the direct competitors?

Yea Very hard pass for me on this and again IMHO this is just a speed bump in price segmentation to keep the 7900XT and 7900XTX for as long as possible.

Also I'm hedging my bets as also do not expect anything really new for the rest of the year in regards of brand new video cards. The reason is the data I collect to stay ahead of economic turmoil's that continues from 2023. 2024 is turning out to be another 2023 in layoffs and in inflation.

Your normal average everyday people do not have money to spend on this and you only have enough nutcases to go around that are doom spending their lives away.

Yea I'm going to instead buy a tablet and work on my illustrative content that was created with one of my providers in Eastern Europe.

Crazy old man with a digital crayon go Wheeee!!!

 

[theouto]

The support for DLSS I would put in the same boat as CUDA, seeing as it is vendor locked. It would make more sense to put it as a positive when it has it, rather than a negative when it doesn't, it's not like say, mesh shaders, which is a hardware agnostic feature that you would probably want your gpu to support.
But that's also just my way of thinking, I am one of the few that doesn't see DLSS as the be all end all.

 

[3valatzy]

WTF is that video playback power consumption? How could AMD mess that up on a card that is not even a new gen? 3x more than the direct competitors?

I wonder what's causing the high media playback power consumption for these 7900 GRE cards?

The wrong clock state.
AMD tends to offload the GPU load during idle to the CPU, while during media playback the VRAM stays at crazy 100% clocks.

Meanwhile, look at how it is properly set by Nvidia's RTX 4080:

 

[W1zzard]

Then it would be only fair to include other technologies NVIDIA has that AMD can't run, like Reflex.

imo DLSS is important enough to be mentioned as a con when not available. Unlike AV1 encode, which is too niche. In NV reviews I do mention "No DisplayPort 2.0", even though that's quite niche, too

Good point about Reflex. Is it more important for you personally? Any thoughts on whether Radeon Anti-Lag and Anti-Lag+ are a decent alternative? If not then Reflex should be mentioned, too, because from what I hear it definitely helps competitive gamers? No a pro gamer myself

If my review caused you to think about those two technologies and you come to the conclusion "not relevant for me", then this is a huge success for both of us, no?

 

[Chomiq]

[..] FSR works well and is supported in many games, which makes the technology easy to use. AMD has recently released FSR 3 Frame Generation, which is only available in a few titles so far, but the list will definitely grow in 2024. While AMD's FSR is hardware-agnostic—it works on all GPUs from all vendors—NVIDIA's DLSS requires certain hardware units, which is a strong selling point for NVIDIA. While an NVIDIA card will give you the ability to run all currently available upscalers; DLSS, FSR and XeSS, owning a Radeon card means you won't be able to use upscaling in games that support NVIDIA DLSS exclusively. NVIDIA DLSS 3 is the best frame generation technology available today, is usable combined with native rendering or DLAA (upscaling not required), and is only supported on NVIDIA GeForce 40 series cards. AMD thus developed AFMF, which is a driver-level frame-generation solution that works in nearly all games, but at lower quality, because it doesn't have knowledge of static objects like the HUD and text overlays, to exclude those from frame generation.


Agree 100%

Sorry but this doesn't make any sense.

DLSS isn't supported by AMD card or Intel card because Nvidia made it exclusive for their cards. AMD or Intel can't do anything about it and are offering their own alternatives that can run on ANY modern card.

If you're listing lack of DLSS support as con for non Nvidia card then why DLSS not being vendor agnostic isn't listed under cons for Nvidia cards?

A valid con for AMD offering would be:
"FSR still lacks in IQ/performance compared to Nvidia and their DLSS tech (which is vendor exclusive)"

 

[W1zzard]

Sorry but this doesn't make any sense.

DLSS isn't supported by AMD card or Intel card because Nvidia made it exclusive for their cards. AMD or Intel can't do anything about it and are offering their own alternatives that can run on ANY modern card.

If you're listing lack of DLSS support as con for non Nvidia card then why DLSS not being vendor agnostic isn't listed under cons for Nvidia cards?

You are absolutely right that they can't do anything about it, which is exactly why NVIDIA made it that way, and people are buying NV cards because they want this specific feature. Just like people are buying AMD cards because they want the Radeon Settings UI

 

[sKam]

"No support for DLSS"

wait what ? srsly ? wtf ? i don't understand, of course it's AMD...

 

[3valatzy]

I will modify the verdict as follows:

Advantages:
AV1 hardware encode and decode
DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1
16 GB VRAM
0 RPM fan during idle
Quiet
Cheeaper than Nvidia's RTX 4070 S
Supports AMD FSR

Disadvantages:
Extremely high media playback power consumption
High power consumption
FSR support needs improvements
Extremely low RT performance
Erratic fan speed behavior
Overclocking artificially limited by AMD

 

[W1zzard]

I will modify the verdict as follows:

Advantages:
AV1 hardware encode and decode
DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1
16 GB VRAM
0 RPM fan during idle
Quiet
Cheeaper than Nvidia's RTX 4070 S
Supports AMD FSR

Disadvantages:
Extremely high media playback power consumption
High power consumption
FSR support needs improvements
Extremely low RT performance
Erratic fan speed behavior
Overclocking artificially limited by AMD

I try to sort them in order of importance, is that your order, too?

 

[3valatzy]

I try to sort them in order of importance, is that your order, too?

Yes, but the order can be random. It is all subjective for the different types of users.

 

[W1zzard]

Yes, but the order can be random. It is all subjective for the different types of users.

Absolutely ... what I was wondering is why is AV1 encode so important to you? How do you use it?

 

[3valatzy]

Absolutely ... what I was wondering is why is AV1 encode so important to you? How do you use it?

For now I don't because of lack of hardware that supports it. But I wish and plan to use it in the future.
I think AV1 is the future and it will be important as time goes by.

 

[ADB1979]

• Erratic fan speed behavior

OMg, amd, get your shit together.

This is down to the BIOS that Sapphire released the cards with, for example, below is the link to the review of the Asrock 7900 GRE card that does NOT have this erratic fan behaviour.

ASRock Radeon RX 7900 GRE Steel Legend Review

The ASRock Radeon RX 7900 GRE Steel Legend showcases a white color scheme, accompanied by a modest factory overclock and a low-noise cooler. It presents a solid option for gamers and enthusiasts seeking a blend of performance and stylish design.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[SIGSEGV]

Negatives:
"No support for DLSS"

...seriously?

Yes, you always have to turn it on to win the games, or you will lose badly on every game that only supports DLSS.
DLSS is a recipe to win in every competitive games.
Oh I forgot, AMD don't have support for DLSS

 

[ADB1979]

Sorry but this doesn't make any sense.

DLSS isn't supported by AMD card or Intel card because Nvidia made it exclusive for their cards. AMD or Intel can't do anything about it and are offering their own alternatives that can run on ANY modern card.

If you're listing lack of DLSS support as con for non Nvidia card then why DLSS not being vendor agnostic isn't listed under cons for Nvidia cards?

A valid con for AMD offering would be:
"FSR still lacks in IQ/performance compared to Nvidia and their DLSS tech (which is vendor exclusive)"

IMHO, simply noting that "XXX Radeon card does not support DLSS because it is nVidia exclusive" for those who are unaware, PC gaming nerds already know this, but I am sure that many people will not know this.

For me personally, I think that one of the great software options that AMD has that nVidia does not have is "Radeon Chill" as that is very good/useful at cutting power draw and fan noise to the discretion of the end user and works brilliantly for older titles and titles that do not need high FPS, I would personally like to see that added as a "pro" for AMD graphics cards, not my website so not my call, just a suggestion.

 

[Chomiq]

If we're being picky then we should also add:
"DisplayPort 2.1 support still limited to UHBR13.5"
or
"UHBR20 DisplayPort 2.1 is only supported by Pro level cards"

To the list of cons.

 

[Kipicog]

Would be better to write that FSR is inferior to DLSS/DLAA under cons. Because it is. Even XeSS beats FSR in most games.

 

[cfenton]

It would work if 4070 was 16GB and 7900Gre was 20GB, I would say who needs extra 4GB, when 16GB is more than Fine. But sadly 4070 has only 12GB of vram.

Why does that matter? 12GB is enough even in those edge cases where 8GB isn't.

 

[Kipicog]

Why does that matter? 12GB is enough even in those edge cases where 8GB isn't.

Having DLSS support will matter more for longevity than VRAM anyway.