Conclusion
In today’s review, we took a look at the new ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition 16GB GDDR6 video card. The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition is ASUS’s Radeon RX 7800 XT entry, with a robust TUF build with exceptional cooling and durability. This enthusiast-focused 1440p video card has a factory overclock, and probably the best cooling we’ve seen so far on a Radeon RX 7800 XT.
The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition has a factory overclock of up to 2520MHz Boost Clock and 2213MHz Game Clock, as well as a software OC mode for a one-button stop for an instant overclock, though you can certainly manually overclock it via ASUS GPU Tweak III. In addition, ASUS also has an all-white version of this video card, which is uniquely appealing. The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition has an ASUS estore pricing of $529.99, but check out our pricing widget for the latest pricing online.
Performance
To put the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition to the test we focused on the 1440p gameplay experience with and without Ray Tracing and Upscaling. In Returnal the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition performed at the top of its game offering a playable experience at 109 FPS. It was 18% faster than the GeForce RTX 4070 FE. In Forspoken the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition was again at the top at 94 FPS and 8% faster than the GeForce RTX 4070. In The Callisto Protocol, the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition offered a playable gameplay experience at 92.4 FPS and matched performance with the GeForce RTX 4070.
In Call of Duty Modern Warfare II, the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition smashed the GeForce RTX 4070 at 29% faster and offered 139 FPS gameplay. In Chernobylite Enhanced Edition the GeForce RTX 4070 got a slight edge on the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition by 11%, however, the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition was definitely still playable at 119.3 FPS with smooth gameplay. In Dying Light 2 the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition was playable at 128.2 FPS and was 8% faster than the GeForce RTX 4070. In Cyberpunk 2077 the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition was playable at 99.2 FPS and was 19% faster than the GeForce RTX 4070.
The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition held up very well with Ray Tracing enabled at 1440p as well. It was actually on par with the GeForce RTX 4070 performance in Returnal and Forspoken, they were merely within 3% of each other, so practically the same. Both video cards provided playable performance in both games with Ray Tracing, and adding upscaling only made it better. We also saw that in The Callisto Protocol the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition was 3% faster than the GeForce RTX 4070 with Ray Tracing.
Chernobylite Enhanced Edition showed the advantages of Global Illumination Ray Tracing on the GeForce RTX 4070, with a 30% advantage over the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition. However, once we enabled FSR upscaling on the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition the video car was actually playable in the 60 FPS range. The same is also true for Dying Light 2, where the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition was playable once we enabled FSR upscaling in the 70 FPS range. Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 was slow on all cards, and it definitely took upscaling to make it sort of enjoyable with Ray Tracing.
Power and Temp Summary
The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition is a factory overclocked video card, and thus it does pull more power at default compared to the made-by-AMD reference video card. Consider how much faster it is running on GPU clock speed. It does pull about 8% more power than the made-by-AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT but also performs that much better since it runs at a very high GPU boost clock out-of-the-box as it is, nearly maxing out the GPU’s potential from the get-go.
When we overclock the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition power increases a lot, but we don’t see as big of a performance increase. We also did not get a huge performance increase. This is because the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition is already running at nearly its maximum potential from ASUS. ASUS has given the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition a factory overclock that pushes it well over the reference spec, and it is already running at its maximum performance.
This is good news for gamers, as it means that you are getting a video card that performs as well as it can, with no performance left on the table. You are getting everything out of the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition as is, without having to do any tweaking at all. That said, if you do want a little boost, there is the GPU Tweak III one-button OC Mode overclock you can enable for a small safe overclock.
In terms of temperatures, the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition is the coolest running Radeon RX 7800 XT we have tested. It has an incredibly low GPU package temperature, and Hot Spot temperature. It improves big time over the made-by-AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT in temps and noise levels. What’s more, you do not have to raise the fan speed when overclocking, it’s built so well that it can handle it with no problem and still stay quiet even when overclocked.
Final Points
The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition is exactly what ASUS claims, it’s optimized for lower temps and durability. The TUF brand is standing true today, the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition had incredibly good GPU temps and maintained that while overclocking. This keeps the overall noise level to a minimum. The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition runs quiet, and fast. ASUS has given it a hefty factory overclock, maximizing the GPU’s performance potential, but does so in a cool and quiet format. We can truly see the TUF DNA in this video card.
In our performance testing, we found that in native rendering the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition beats the GeForce RTX 4070 FE flat out in performance. When using upscaling, FSR can help improve the gameplay experience, but even without FSR at 1440p the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition offered a playable gameplay experience in every game with great performance. When Ray Tracing is used, it’s more of a mixed back, it is very game-dependent, but the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition can offer a playable experience in many games with Ray Tracing. When the going gets tuff, turning on FSR upscaling can make a game go from not playable, to playable with Ray Tracing.
The ASUS estore pricing for the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition is at a premium at $529.99, compared to the made-by-AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT at $499. However, we feel that this price difference is warranted for the near-maximum GPU performance potential you are getting out of the box with the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition, plus the incredible cooling and noise levels. In addition, it is still a better price than the GeForce RTX 4070, even with recent price discounts. The ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition is still the cheaper, and faster, video card, and thus a better value.
If you are in the market for a new video card, give our pricing widget a whirl below for the latest pricing online, and check out the ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7800 XT OC Edition for your next gaming video card.
Discussion (7 replies)
Join Discussion →I get comparing to it's closest competitor. But I feel like I must be remembering reviews with rose colored glasses. Didn't reviews compare new cards to one step up and one step down as well to see how they fit in the stack and if they were worth while?
I mean if you're constantly reading/watching reviews and ingesting data I suppose having just an review against the other teams price parity (or closest) makes sense. But as a consumer I would love to see if the 78000 XT card stacks well against another brands work with an same model, a 7900xt, and a 7600xt, as well as a 4080, and 4070ti/non ti.
Nice review, Brent.
Man I just about had my mind set on a 4070... this is $30 cheaper (than the $550 4070 Gigabyte I was looking at) and seems to be better in most cases. HMMMMMM.
You can look at what we've already reviewed and get a good idea of just that. We have already reviewed the XFX, Sapphire Nitro and reference AMD 7800XT cards. Thats real apples to apples. If you throw in a lesser or higher tier card, then you really don't get fair comparisons. What we try to do is show what is out there in the same price bracket or aimed at the same or similar gaming experience. TBH, right now the prices are all over the place, so that can be hard to do. That said, these reviews have always been pretty much about comparing cards that are closest in price and performance. We do throw in prior generation cards when a new gen is released. Also you have to consider the time it takes to run the data, graph it all out, compile the stats and then publish it. It takes about 4 or 5 days to knock out a polished review using an overclocked card, the out of box card and then the comparison card. If we did any more this stuff would be ancient history by the time you read it.
So why not include those in the chart? Or are we dealing with a like for like hardware issue between reviews. Since recreating the data doesn't make sense. Oh.. I get it with how intrisic driver versions are to performance improvements that wouldn't make sense.
Either you bench everything with an older driver, or you bench everything again with a newer one - and if you're doing it correctly and not over-automating reviews such that you miss things like artifacting and such, or using built-in benchmarks that do not represent gameplay (and perhaps favor one vendor over another, and that is different than gameplay) so that you wind up with results that are correct. At a minimum, really.
Benchmarking well is really a throughput problem that isn't easy to solve, unfortunately.
That has alot to do with it. Everything is tested on that day, using the latest most up to date everything.
Game updates can also make a difference - some games like Cyberpunk on GOG are easy enough to time machine into a specific version, but the more connected ones can force upgrade you.
There's a lot of variables to control for that we have a stack of internal documentation on to get things set up the same way every time. When looking at a single card, it's focused on 1-2 comparison options at that point in time. For a GPU level review, you'll see we run a much larger comparison dataset (usually limited by time before launch and who has what to ship to whom).