Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse

[csendesmark]

7900X with a 7900XT
Nice

 

[Mahboi]

Ended up buying it.
It dropped a tiny smidge under 1000€ (998 lol) and that was enough to have my brain click somewhere. There really is a psychological effect from seeing that 4th number.

For compare, the 4080 was 1369€, Sapphire Pulse XTX was 1269€ and the 4090 would've demanded another PSU while my current one is only a year old, and together that would have driven it above 2000€.

 

[kapone32]

Ended up buying it.
It dropped a tiny smidge under 1000€ (998 lol) and that was enough to have my brain click somewhere. There really is a psychological effect from seeing that 4th number.

For compare, the 4080 was 1369€, Sapphire Pulse XTX was 1269€ and the 4090 would've demanded another PSU while my current one is only a year old, and together that would have driven it above 2000€.

Exactly. I originally had a 7900XTX and had to return it. When I saw the 7900XT Pulse for $400 less than the XTX it was a instant buy. As it is a pulse card you should see a nice OC if you are into that.

 

[Mahboi]

Exactly. I originally had a 7900XTX and had to return it. When I saw the 7900XT Pulse for $400 less than the XTX it was a instant buy. As it is a pulse card you should see a nice OC if you are into that.

Not really into it and also my 650W PSU may take exception to any OC.

I'm just hoping the card ends up mostly satisfactory. Cyberpunk with RT seems unplayable at 4K even with FSR 3 when it's out, so it'll be with no RT anyway. Apart from that, it seems mostly solid. I also really am pleased with the Pulse as a model (twas the only one that would fit in my Meshify C Mini), since it's a card that's actually designed for silence and all-around efficiency rather than boost.
It's also going to be good to move on from having a card that forces me to play at 1080p while having only 4K monitors. No more windows jumping around when I'm starting a game.

 

[Kovoet]

There prices are dropping now

 

[Mahboi]

There prices are dropping now

Yeah, I wonder why. As soon as I woke up today, my bought card got lowered by 30€, and the XTX did too.

I canceled the order(only to buy at the new lower price), let's see if Amazon will process the cancellation.

 

[Mahboi]

They did process the cancellation and I re-bought immediately for 30€ less.

One thing that I feel like saying now that I just got the card (will install on the weekend), it's that this thing has a seriously disappointing box.

The MBAs had this epic box that opened like a treasure chest, with a small lever system to raise the card out as you opened the box, and giant "WELCOME TO THE RED TEAM" letters.
The Sapphire Pulse 7900 XTX has red across the box, which isn't amazing but at least says clearly "you're buying AMD's full Red power".
The XT? It's a freaking blue and white box with some red for the AMD logo bit. It looks, and feels, like a freaking 5€ ice cream cone box. If I judged off the box in an electronics shop without knowing any better, I'd look at this and go "20GB, that's good right...?" then immediately skip to one that looked less basic in design.

Another more positive note is that I think the pictures don't do it justice. It feels sleek and nicely metallic in hand, like a true piece of good hardware should. And the fans look nicer than the pictures show.

 

[Mahboi]

So as a "customer review" bit of extra to the article:

• The card is EXTREMELY silent
• Mine has the added bonus of having almost no junction temp extra (less than 10°C even at full load, it's amazing)
• Temps at full loads (after several hours) are 85°C/95°C junction with an undervolt to 1050mV
• Fan curve looks like this:
  
• Despite being stuck into a tiny case (see pictures) the card still basically makes no sound
  
  
  
• (I do get a noise from the fan that's right next to it cause the airflow is kind of blocked tho lol)
• Installation was mostly easy, bracket being kind of a novelty for me
• I get 150W usage in OW2 Ultra (zero noise)
• I get the full 315W used in Deep Rock Galactic (card's making noise then but it's a realllly small amount considering it's a 300W+ card)
• I do use Radeon Chill (seamless transition from idle to moving) and I get 220W min in DRG
• The card generally eats all my 4K needs just fine and I game at everything in 4K (which BTW is far from revolutionary for a lot of 3D games, only the UI gets massively upgraded, text is more crisp and precise, everything feels better, Factorio is surprisingly better looking, but in 3D FPS you'll be far too busy shooting things to appreciate the details)
• Overall, I'm very happy with this card, BUT

The negatives:

• I got the multi monitor 85W idle curse
• Fixed it by fiddling around with my monitors' frequencies
• Now my LG Ultragear (4K, 144Hz, 160Hz with overclocking that I don't use) is at 144Hz
• And my Gigabyte M32U (4K, 144Hz) is stuck at 60 Hz
• This is an acceptable trade for me since I only game on my LG monitor and couldn't care less about my other mono running at 144Hz (I literally can't even see the difference in browsing/video playback)
• Despite the power draw being taken down to 35-45W on idle, it jitters/jumps far too easily IMO
• Any going up and down a webpage is an instant 50W, or writing on Discord
• If Discord shows the "x is writing...", it somehow goes to 60W
• Video playback is 70 freaking watts at any resolution
• Besides power draw, I am still waiting for AMD to better/fix their VR support, as are many people
• And ROCm support is STILL not available in full for the cards nearly 6 months after they came out, which is making CUDA/Nvidia look like the only real provider while AMD is just faking it at this point

I got no particular opinion on the whole performance thing, I didn't play anything using Raytracing yet and overall, I just wanted a good card that could play at 4K and give me some chops and lots of VRAM for AI/productivity stuff. I do feel like one interesting point is the VRAM usage though. I used an 8Go card before (rx 6600) and am certain that the card either unloaded or mitigated loads around 4.5Go. Now, with my browser on and a solid 30 tabs (same as before), the card loads easily up to 7Go. I suspect that the 20Go VRAM buffer will be more used than I thought pretty soon.

Although the drivers/software support feel extremely untidy/insufficient, I am quite happy with the purchase. Card's great and unless I suddenly have extreme gaming or CUDA needs, I intend to keep it easily through RDNA 4/Blackwell. Adrenalin is still a joy and makes me wanna never buy Nvidia again.

As long as the power draw steadily goes down in the next months and that ROCm support finally comes + Windows ROCm, I'm happy.

 

[Space Lynx]

So as a "customer review" bit of extra to the article:

• The card is EXTREMELY silent
• Mine has the added bonus of having almost no junction temp extra (less than 10°C even at full load, it's amazing)
• Temps at full loads (after several hours) are 85°C/95°C junction with an undervolt to 1050mV
• Fan curve looks like this: View attachment 293839
• Despite being stuck into a tiny case (see pictures) the card still basically makes no sound
  View attachment 293837View attachment 293838
• (I do get a noise from the fan that's right next to it cause the airflow is kind of blocked tho lol)
• Installation was mostly easy, bracket being kind of a novelty for me
• I get 150W usage in OW2 Ultra (zero noise)
• I get the full 315W used in Deep Rock Galactic (card's making noise then but it's a realllly small amount considering it's a 300W+ card)
• I do use Radeon Chill (seamless transition from idle to moving) and I get 220W min in DRG
• The card generally eats all my 4K needs just fine and I game at everything in 4K (which BTW is far from revolutionary for a lot of 3D games, only the UI gets massively upgraded, text is more crisp and precise, everything feels better, Factorio is surprisingly better looking, but in 3D FPS you'll be far too busy shooting things to appreciate the details)
• Overall, I'm very happy with this card, BUT

The negatives:

• I got the multi monitor 85W idle curse
• Fixed it by fiddling around with my monitors' frequencies
• Now my LG Ultragear (4K, 144Hz, 160Hz with overclocking that I don't use) is at 144Hz
• And my Gigabyte M32U (4K, 144Hz) is stuck at 60 Hz
• This is an acceptable trade for me since I only game on my LG monitor and couldn't care less about my other mono running at 144Hz (I literally can't even see the difference in browsing/video playback)
• Despite the power draw being taken down to 35-45W on idle, it jitters/jumps far too easily IMO
• Any going up and down a webpage is an instant 50W, or writing on Discord
• If Discord shows the "x is writing...", it somehow goes to 60W
• Video playback is 70 freaking watts at any resolution
• Besides power draw, I am still waiting for AMD to better/fix their VR support, as are many people
• And ROCm support is STILL not available in full for the cards nearly 6 months after they came out, which is making CUDA/Nvidia look like the only real provider while AMD is just faking it at this point

I got no particular opinion on the whole performance thing, I didn't play anything using Raytracing yet and overall, I just wanted a good card that could play at 4K and give me some chops and lots of VRAM for AI/productivity stuff. I do feel like one interesting point is the VRAM usage though. I used an 8Go card before (rx 6600) and am certain that the card either unloaded or mitigated loads around 4.5Go. Now, with my browser on and a solid 30 tabs (same as before), the card loads easily up to 7Go. I suspect that the 20Go VRAM buffer will be more used than I thought pretty soon.

Although the drivers/software support feel extremely untidy/insufficient, I am quite happy with the purchase. Card's great and unless I suddenly have extreme gaming or CUDA needs, I intend to keep it easily through RDNA 4/Blackwell. Adrenalin is still a joy and makes me wanna never buy Nvidia again.

As long as the power draw steadily goes down in the next months and that ROCm support finally comes + Windows ROCm, I'm happy.

you are hitting 95 celsius junction temp even with a strong fan curve turned on? in gaming or stress tests? my guess is because your tower doesn't have much air flow?

I ask because I am considering buying this card this week. I have a big tower H710, with lots of air flow, so I expect better temps than this if I get it. Also, what is ROCm?

@W1zzard your testing is all done at stock fan settings I assume, so do you think with a slightly aggressive fan curve (I don't care about noise) you could knock 10 celsius or so off your results? (just guestimating)

 

[W1zzard]

your testing is all done at stock fan settings I assume, so do you think with a slightly aggressive fan curve (I don't care about noise) you could knock 10 celsius or so off your results? (just guestimating)

Not sure about "10", but yes, you can trade heat for noise and the other way round. It just makes little sense, there's no difference between 95°C and 85°C, other than the number being different

 

[Mahboi]

you are hitting 95 celsius junction temp even with a strong fan curve turned on? in gaming or stress tests? my guess is because your tower doesn't have much air flow?

Curve isn't very strong but yes, my tower is a small (tiny, the card is cramped) micro ATX tower with just one intake and one extraction.

I ask because I am considering buying this card this week. I have a big tower H710, with lots of air flow, so I expect better temps than this if I get it. Also, what is ROCm?

AMD's CUDA. It's live now. Doesn't officially support windows yet but people are finding ways: https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm/issues/1880

@W1zzard your testing is all done at stock fan settings I assume, so do you think with a slightly aggressive fan curve (I don't care about noise) you could knock 10 celsius or so off your results? (just guestimating)

 

[kapone32]

Curve isn't very strong but yes, my tower is a small (tiny, the card is cramped) micro ATX tower with just one intake and one extraction.

AMD's CUDA. It's live now. Doesn't officially support windows yet but people are finding ways: https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm/issues/1880

I can see from ytour settings that you have Zero fan enabled. You could adjust it manually and you should see a reduction in overall temps. If the card has a lower starting temp when you load it up, it can have a larger temp envelope and not be super loud if you max the fans at 80-85%.

 

[R33mba]

I also bought ut,but it makes too much heat and noise for my taste. my only other option is to go with 4070ti.. but will it run cooler and more silent?

 

[JohH]

If I'm reading this chart correctly after about 225W the much smaller reference AMD cooler from the 7900 XTX is more capable?
Since there is no review of the Pulse 7900 XTX model I'm trying to estimate its noise level.

 

[W1zzard]

the much smaller reference AMD cooler from the 7900 XTX is more capable?

Correct. I would say "slightly more capable"

I'm trying to estimate its noise level.

This chart specifically excludes the vendor's fan settings (so that coolers can be compared directly).

Unfortunately, due to lack of a sample, my best suggestion is "hope for the best, based on the XT noise levels, and be ready to return if too loud"

 

[MDBumblebee]

Sapphire cards are being discounted $80-100 right now on AMZN. I picked up a Pulse for $720.