The RX 7900 GRE as of 20/03/2024 - Not such a flawed product?

[g67575]

This GPU is apparently getting a wider retail release later this year:

AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE shows up in UK on DIY market, reportedly coming to the U.S. as well - VideoCardz.com

AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE coming to more countries The company might have understood the potential of their high-end SKU. AMD and its partners are expanding the availability of the RX 7900 GRE, also known as the Golden Rabbit Edition. Initially designed as an exclusive GPU for the Chinese market...

videocardz.com

AMD seems to want to sell these for £600+ in the UK, which is a shame for anyone hoping to get a cheaper RX 7900 XT...

On paper at least, I think the GRE could be a good product, but really only if it had the same GPU and memory clocks as the RX 7800 XT, to make sure it will always beat it in performance...

It has the same compute unit count as the RX 6900 XT /RX 6950 XT as well (80), 20 more than the RX 7800 XT.

 

[g67575]

Pointless card.

It's an odd graphics card, the GPU clocks can be about as high as the RX 7800 XT, but the memory clocks (and resulting memory bandwidth) are a bit lower:

PowerColor Red Devil RX 7900 GRE Specs

AMD Navi 31, 2391 MHz, 5120 Cores, 320 TMUs, 160 ROPs, 16384 MB GDDR6, 2250 MHz, 256 bit

www.techpowerup.com

I wonder why AMD decided against combining these cards with the higher speed GDDR6?

It looks like they wanted to ensure a performance gap between this and the RX 7900 XT.

 

[g67575]

according to tech power up it’s 14% faster than the 7800xt. I suspect they are using up dies that they cannot use for the 7900xt

They should do a proper rerelease, combine it with the full speed GDDR6 VRAM, and clock it at ~2400 Mhz.

Just simply call it the 'RX 7900'.

 

[g67575]

But the golden rabbit edition makes me laugh.

How about, 'Gone (w)Rong Edition'

 

[g67575]

AMD doesn't have a card to compete with the RTX 4070 Super.

The RX 7800 XT doesn't fit the bill, and the RX 7900 XT costs £700 at present...

The 'RX 7900' (non XT) could have been the card to do that.

 

[g67575]

It's rare to see a genuinely flawed product, the issue as almost always, is price.

As it is, the RX 7800 XT can sometimes compete or even beat the RX 7900 GRE, because of the lower memory and GPU clocks.

With overclocking, it might be possible to at least match the stock clocks of the RX 7800 XT and see a noticeable difference in performance.

 

[g67575]

It looks like they are selling these cards for ~580 euros /£500 in Spain, which seems like a reasonable price.

 

[g67575]

General Relativity Edition. It warps the perceptions of the Chinese market

I found a review that looks at overclocking the card, here:

Test • AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE : que vaut-elle face à la RX 7800 XT ?

Test de la Radeon 7900 GRE au travers de 21 jeux (en rastérisation et Ray Tracing), 3 logiciels créatifs, ainsi que des mesures environnementales.

hardwareand-co.translate.goog

Minimum clocks are around 2000Mhz. With overclocking + unlocked power limit, an extra 200-300 Mhz seems to be achievable. Overclocking the memory seems to be artificially limited.

The GPU voltage seems to hit around 0.83v when overclocked, which doesn't seem that good. Temps can reach 88 Celsius also .

Lower quality GPU dies, maybe?

 

[g67575]

If they rebranded GRE to RX 7900 or RX 7900 LE with SKU's between £580 to £620 would work. Still to much money but so is the whole GPU market.

I think the issue is that the spec isn't quite good enough, with some parts actually worse than the RX 7800 XT.

It has the same CU count as the top cards from the last generation, e.g. RX 6900 XT, but the performance can sometimes be worse.

So, unfortunately it's not worth much more than the RX 7800 XT - it looks like AMD was just making use of the weaker GPU dies that didn't make the grade for RX 7900 XTs.

Most would be better off with an RTX 4070 Super (priced at ~£540 currently) if spending over £500, which would be consistently ahead of GPUs like the RX 7800 XT.

You might still get a RX 7900 GRE if you need the extra 4GB of VRAM...

There's a clear gap in the market at ~£600, but no card that fits the bill.

 

[g67575]

Meh. People get to caught up too much on naming schemes /branding.

The RX 7800 XT is essentially a successor to the RX 6800 because both have 60 Compute units.

The RX 7900 GRE is sort of a successor to the RX 6900 XT (both 80 CUs), but a flawed one unfortunately. The spec needs beefing up, but I imagine AMD is worried about it performing too much like the RX 7900 XT if it had the same GPU and memory clocks.

It looks like boost clocks of 2400 MHz should be possible (with higher memory clock speeds as well), which makes me wonder why an upgraded version hasn't been revealed yet, and priced at ~£600. Maybe AMD never produced enough Navi31 dies in general.

 

[g67575]

Clock it up a bit, give it a 280 watt board power and 19.5 Gb/s memory IC

Edit: and call it the RX 7900

This

 

[g67575]

The RX 7900 GRE is getting a global release on 27th Feb 2024:

Link:
https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-rx-7900-gre-to-launch-globally-on-february-27th-at-549

It's targeted at the RTX 4070, at the same price, and is unsurprisingly faster in just about every game, according to AMD.

Still, it seems like a missed opportunity, there's basically nothing competing with the RTX 4070 Super, which was previously priced at £540 (but is costs a bit more currently for the cheapest Zotac model).

Presumably, the specs are set in stone now, as they have been listed here since the initial limited launch in July 2023:
https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-7900-gre

So, that limits it to:

• 'Up to 2245 MHz' for the GPU Boost clock speed
• 'Up to 18 Gbps' for the memory speed

 

[g67575]

Maybe it will sell better in the US market?

Stick a chonky cooler on these, and maybe they will overclock a bit further?

 

[g67575]

I guess they might still do a proper 'RX 7900' release, but it would be weird to have both in the lineup.

 

[g67575]

A new replacement card should have more CUs not the same, the same for CUDA cores, if a new tier of gpu only has the same then it’s essentially a downgraded tier like the 4070 for example which is clearly a 4060 type card.

It depends on the architecture entirely, and how much of an improvement there is.

With RDNA3, the number of CUs only increased by 16, from the RX 6900 XT to the RX 7900 XTX. So, that limits what can be offered, and how GPUs are segmented into a range of products.

The performance improvements from RDNA3 are only partly from an increased compute unit count, they are from a number of things, like doubled FP32 processing power, higher memory speed, memory bus spec, somewhat higher clock speeds and increased L0, L1 and L2 cache amounts.

With the RX 7900 XTX, I think they were already hitting the limits of how high they could scale the core config / CU count, without requiring a chonky power supply (750w is recommended for the RX 7900 XTX), and significantly improved cooling.

You also need a case with pretty good airflow, if you don't want to run into GPU hotspot issues with the Navi31 GPUs...

AMD is more geared towards what the 'common man' can afford IMO (part of this calculation includes other system components).

TL;DR

The offering across a graphics card series you get is generally defined by the highest end card in a new series (and what is technologically possible at the time).

 

[g67575]

The RX 7700 XT really needs about a £100 price cut, it has never compared that well to the RX 6700 XT in terms of value.

 

[g67575]

DF seems to like the RX7900GRE:

AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE Review: The Most Exciting RDNA 3 Card Yet

What if AMD delivered a graphics card that delivered broadly equivalent RT performance to the Nvidia product at the same price - and comprehensively beat it ...

www.youtube.com

It's very interesting to see cards like the GRE and 4070 Super directly compared to the PS5.

I'm not really seeing a solid reason for people not to buy the 4070 S rather than the RX 7900 GRE (unless you want the extra VRAM).

 

[g67575]

Sad to see AMD locking down overclocking with artificial limits.

Maybe they want to sell a GRE version with an unlocked BIOS? With better cooling?

Basically though, they want ensure the RX 7900 XT retains it's value for a while longer.

 

[g67575]

Couldn't AMD in theory allow the memory to be overclocked further? so it can match the 7800 XT's memory speed of 19.5 Gbps?

It sounds like the clockspeed limits aren't really the issue with the card, except on models with poor cooling.

This GPU could probably consistently beat the RTX 4070 Super, it just needs some tuning /refinement.

I've heard some reviewers say that the GRE is a competitive product, maybe so on price, but I think the Super cards like the RTX 4070 S can sometimes beat it on performance.

The nice thing about the GRE, is that at least you are getting the top die (Navi31), even if it is the most cut down version.

The reference model is kind of trash and should be avoided in my opinion, the hotspot temp is 88 Celsius.

Maybe it's better for most people to wait for a price drop on the RX 7900 XT, or try to get a 2nd hand one with a warranty for a good price.

 

[g67575]

It's not a bad price.

But I think I'd rather get a B grade RX 7900 XT or RTX 4070 TI if I was buying now, they're both priced at £600.