Conclusion
The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT is SAPPHIRE’s offering of the Radeon RX 7600 XT, in its PULSE lineup. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT is available online right now at $339.99 and offers a factory-overclocked 7600 XT with a custom build. In our testing today, we put it through its paces at 1080p, 1080p with Ray Tracing, 1440p, and FSR Upscaling performance. We ran it through the course in many games, comparing it to a factory-overclocked GeForce RTX 4060 video card. Our main goal was to see the kind of gameplay experience you can get out of the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT at 1080p and 1440p.
When it came to the 1080p gameplay experience, the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT performed extremely well. It provided a playable gameplay experience in every game we threw at it at maximum game settings to boot. In games where it was on the border for framerates, FSR upscaling allowed it to provide that top-notch experience.
One area where the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT shined in was some newer games, like Horizon Forbidden West. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT had a noticeable improvement in the smoothness of that game, versus the comparison video card, mainly due to VRAM differences. This was also experienced at 1440p to a greater degree, where we really felt the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT running smoother, with no hitching using FSR Upscaling. Whereas, when enabling upscaling on the competition video card it continued to hitch or have slowdowns due to increased VRAM usage.
Another game that showed the VRAM advantage was Forspoken. This game has notoriously been VRAM sensitive, and the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT proved to be much faster in that game at 1080p and 1440p, and even with Ray Tracing. If games from here on forward continue down this path such as Horizon Forbidden West and Forspoken, then the advantages of great VRAM even at 1080p are apparent. But overall, there are games that 1440p is playable on the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT, especially with FSR Upscaling and FSR 3 Frame Generation support, as shown.
The only area the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT did not have an advantage in was Ray Tracing performance. If you want to use Ray Tracing in games (and there are games where you certainly can even on video cards in this price range) then the competition does offer better Ray Tracing performance. However, there are some games where they are still rather close, if a game uses lighter Ray Tracing, performance may be similar between them. It all boils down to the game itself, the level and intensity, and what is being Ray Traced.
Final Points
Overall the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT 16GB video card is a solid graphics card. At the available current price online at $339 it offers factory-overclocked performance and custom video card cooling in a slim compact package for just a $10 premium over the reference suggested pricing of the 7600 XT. It is possible pricing will fall over time, as MSRP is $329. We found that the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT’s factory overclock works as advertised, and it boosts beyond its factory game clock while gaming. It also has about 7% overclocking headroom which gave us about 7% more performance in games.
One thing you can say about the Radeon RX 7600 XT, AMD did indeed tweak this GPU to run a higher clock speed compared to the 7600. The SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT ran cool enough on GPU temperatures, if a bit warmer than expected for the hot spot temperatures. Otherwise, the power consumption is not a shocker, the competition does have better efficiency in that department. If your primary goal is power efficiency, then you probably aren’t looking at a 7600 XT to begin with.
If you want a great 1080p gameplay experience and want to max out your graphics settings at this resolution then the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT with 16GB of VRAM is going to be a great option. It will even allow you to experiment with 1440p gameplay, maybe with a little FSR Upscaling thrown in. The 16GB frame buffer will ensure newer games, like Horizon Forbidden West run as smoothly as possible. If you are in the market for 7600 XT, take a look at the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 7600 XT 16GB. Check our pricing widget below for the latest online pricing.
