Conclusion
In today’s review, we overclocked the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, the GPU right under the Radeon RX 7900 XTX in AMD’s new Radeon RX 7900 series GPU lineup. With the new RDNA 3 architecture, AMD designed a chiplet design, with a big ole GCD and MCDs surrounding it. We fully reviewed the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and showed performance in 4K, with Ray Tracing, and FSR. In addition, we looked specifically at AMD Smart Access Memory performance, which brings some decent uplifts to Radeon RX 7900 XT performance. As a gamer, you should turn this ON. The Radeon RX 7900 XT retails for $899, and today’s review focused on overclocking the reference made by AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT video card. We threw 4K at it, 1440p at it, Ray Tracing at it, and FSR at it.
Performance
Starting with Call of Duty Modern Warfare, at 4K we got a performance increase of 7% by overclocking the Radeon RX 7900 XT. In 1440p we got a 6% performance increase overclocking the Radeon RX 7900 XT. In F1 2022 at 4K overclocking the Radeon RX 7900 XT improved performance by 4%. At 1440p we got a 6% increase. With Ray Tracing at 4K there was a 5% increase and at 1440p a 6% increase.
In Dying Light 2 at 4K overclocking the Radeon RX 7900 XT improved performance by 9%, which was pretty decent for 4K performance. With Ray Tracing though, the uplift was pretty big, 19%, but due to the low performance wasn’t worth it in the end, FSR2 was required to have a playable experience. At 1440p there was a 16% increase in performance, which is pretty big, and with Ray Tracing we got a healthy 21% improvement. This actually brought performance up to 60FPS at 1440p with Ray Tracing, so it was worth it.
Far Cry 6 at 4K improved by 6% with the overclocked Radeon RX 7900 XT. With Ray Tracing at 4K performance improved by 7% with the overclock. At 1440p though, it was just a 3% uplift, the lower resolution was more CPU bound in this game. With Ray Tracing there was only 2% gain. In Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K we experienced a 5% uplift via overclocking the Radeon RX 7900 XT. This brought performance up to 60FPS at 4K. With Ray Tracing the uplift was 6%, but still unplayable, even with FSR. At 1440p the increase was 6% with overclocking. With Ray Tracing at 1440p the increase was 6% with overclocking, but it still wasn’t playable without FSR.
In Watch Dogs Legion at 4K, the performance uplift via overclocking was 6% and the game was playable. With Ray Tracing at 4K, there was a 9% uplift, but the game was unplayable still even with it. At 1440p the uplift was just 4%, but that was larger with Ray Tracing. With Ray Tracing at 1440p, the uplift was 6% and the game was playable. In Metro Exodus Enhanced at 4K, the performance increase was 7% overclocking the Radeon RX 7900 XT, but the game was unplayable still. In Metro Exodus Enhanced at 1440p, the performance uplift via overclocking was 6% and the game was playable near 70FPS.
Overclocking Commentary
Overclocking the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT made by AMD video card was very similar to using AMD Radeon Software overclocking the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. In fact, if you read the Overclocking Commentary section on our Radeon RX 7900 XTX Overclocking Review that will exactly mirror our experiences with the Radeon RX 7900 XT. The summary is, the shader and front-end clock domains overclock together as you raise the Max Frequency slider in the software. You don’t have to worry about either one, only maximizing the maximum boost will raise both together. In order though to see what the actual clock speed is you need to monitor both, and report both numbers because both are important and different from each other.
It is the front-end clock that will be the one that can approach the 3GHz mark, but the shader clock will not. The shader clock will be typically so far in the 2700s at maximum in our experience. The Radeon RX 7900 XT seems to end up overclocking just slightly better than the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. That is, we got slightly higher front end and shader clock speed overclocks versus the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. That said, they are still fairly close in the headroom, relatively speaking. It appears, like the 7900 XT that we are power limited in how much we can overclock. The memory could be increased more, up to 22GHz at least, but it reduces the front end and shader clocks so much it isn’t worth it to lose that clock speed.
The statement about power efficiency we made with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is also true here. We are getting less than a 10% performance advantage with this overclock, but a 15% power increase. Therefore we are having to put out more power than the performance increase we are getting. Therefore, it isn’t that efficient in that regard. Though, unlike the Radeon RX 7900 XT, the Hot Spot temperature wasn’t too bad on the Radeon RX 7900 XT when overclocked.
Final Points
In our overclocking testing today, the Radeon RX 7900 XT offers a 10%, or less uplift in performance when overclocked. The performance uplift will vary based on the game, the average uplift in this review was around 6%. However, there were some outliers that were higher in percentage uplifts, especially in Dying Light 2 where we saw some impressive uplifts. The uplifts allowed us to play at 60FPS in situations we could not.
However, it wasn’t the case in all games, and generally speaking, it was less than 10%. At this performance increase, it was enough to compete better with the GeForce RTX 4080. In some games, it was faster in raster performance, and in others, it was equal or under, but not too far. However in Ray Tracing, even overclocked, it was no competition, the GeForce RTX 4080 is better. We also found FSR to help performance on the Radeon RX 7900 XT, making situations that were unplayable, playable. This was especially true in games at 1440p with Ray Tracing. Similar to the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, we found overclocking gave a larger boost in performance when FSR was being used.
Overclocking does improve the experience with the Radeon RX 7900 XT, but arguably this should have been the default performance out-of-the-box with the Radeon RX 7900 XT. We do think there is headroom to be had via overclocking, and we look forward to add-in-board custom video cards, perhaps with customized power delivery, and higher power targets, which should allow that headroom to be exploited increasing performance above 10% uplift, which would be worth it for the Radeon RX 7900 XT to be competitive.