Power and Temperature
Power
To test the power and temperature we perform a manual run-through in Cyberpunk 2077 at “Ultra” settings for real-world in-game data. We use GPU-Z sensor data to record the results. We report on the HWInfo64 sensor data for “Board Power” and “GPU Chip Power” when available for our Wattage data. For temperature data, we report the GPU (Edge Temp of the GPU) as well as the Hot Spot (Junction Temperature) when available for our temperature data. . As has been discussed in Overclocking, HWINFO 64 was also used for data collection. The power and temperature data were very close in comparison, so HWInfo64 was utilized in this section.
The XFX Speedster MERC 319 Radeon RX 7800 XT BLACK Edition uses about 275W total board power by default. This is higher than the made-by-AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT which reached 254W total board power in our testing of that reference card. The increased factory overclock and power capability have increased the board power of the video card, and we can see that play out here. It uses about 8% more power than the reference made-by-AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, but as we saw in performance it does show a performance improvement.
When we overclocked the XFX Speedster MERC 319 Radeon RX 7800 XT BLACK Edition power rose by 7%, however, we did not see the same performance increase. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition is much more efficient, using a lot less power. This data shows that XFX is already pushing the GPU as far as it can, and maxing out its potential as it is. Though power can be increased slightly more, it doesn’t actually get you a noticeable benefit in performance.
Temperature
The XFX Speedster MERC 319 Radeon RX 7800 XT BLACK Edition has a default Hot Spot temp of just 66c, and a GPU temp of 47c with default fan speeds. This is pretty incredible when compared to the made-by-AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT video card. Our MBA Radeon RX 7800 XT reached a high 94c Hot Spot temperature and 73c GPU temperature.
Therefore the XFX Speedster MERC 319 Radeon RX 7800 XT BLACK Edition greatly improves upon the reference video card in temperatures, in a big way. The XFX Speedster MERC 319 Radeon RX 7800 XT BLACK Edition is chonky, as we stated, but it is well worth it to keep this GPU very cool. It’s a big improvement over the reference video card. The temperatures are even cooler than the GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition.