Upgrade from 6700XT. Considering 7800XT and 4070 Super. Opinions sought.

[Angilion]

Budget is whatever I think is worth the money, which in practice will probably top out at ~£600.

I got the 6700XT as a "tide me over" card because I didn't see anything better that I though was worth the money. It's OK at 1440, but I'm feeling an urge for better than OK and I'm sure requirements in games will only increase. Right now, I can conveniently sell the 6700XT for ~£200. It cost me £300 a few months ago, so not bad.

But I'm uncertain about what to replace it with. 4070 Super outperforms the 7800XT a bit in raster and a lot in raytracing, but 12GB and a narrow bus makes me think it might not have much in the way of longevity. 7800XT is cheaper and much better memory-wise, but a bit lower performance in raster and much lower in ray tracing. Which I might want at some point, maybe. Higher options don't seem to meet my "worth the money to me" test. I'm leaning towards a 7800XT, maybe the Sapphire Nitro+ as that runs cool and quiet and I think better cooling is worth more money. Or maybe the Sapphire Pulse because that's a fair bit cheaper.

Power shouldn't be a problem - I have a good quality 1KW PSU. Space shouldn't be a problem - I have a P600S case and that's pretty roomy.

Although at the rate I make decisions we'll probably have the 5000 series, the 8000 series and Battlemage out before I make a choice and then I'd have to make a new choice

 

[Tetras]

From a 6700 XT I'd get a 4070 Ti Super, especially since you're thinking of ray tracing. It is beyond your budget, but a solid step forward for 1440p and at least pushes you up two tiers of performance, whereas the 7800 XT is only one.

 

[Roughneck]

Try the Newest Adrenalin Drivers FMF option, its been a game changer for me

 

[sx_turbo]

I wouldn't get too hung up on ray tracing, when playing games I don't really notice it tbh (at least on the games I've played with it), the screens usually scrolling to fast to really take note of it,

 

[Jimbo]

7800XT Nitro + is a cracking card. I own one and a 4090 too, just saying.

 

[tommybhoy]

They're practically neck n neck@raster so you've got a choice of better RT'ing and upscaling Vs 16Gb with all the textures loading instantly=no waiting for missing textures to render.

4070/79XTX user here.

 

[RBImGuy]

Budget is whatever I think is worth the money, which in practice will probably top out at ~£600.

I got the 6700XT as a "tide me over" card because I didn't see anything better that I though was worth the money. It's OK at 1440, but I'm feeling an urge for better than OK and I'm sure requirements in games will only increase. Right now, I can conveniently sell the 6700XT for ~£200. It cost me £300 a few months ago, so not bad.

But I'm uncertain about what to replace it with. 4070 Super outperforms the 7800XT a bit in raster and a lot in raytracing, but 12GB and a narrow bus makes me think it might not have much in the way of longevity. 7800XT is cheaper and much better memory-wise, but a bit lower performance in raster and much lower in ray tracing. Which I might want at some point, maybe. Higher options don't seem to meet my "worth the money to me" test. I'm leaning towards a 7800XT, maybe the Sapphire Nitro+ as that runs cool and quiet and I think better cooling is worth more money. Or maybe the Sapphire Pulse because that's a fair bit cheaper.

Power shouldn't be a problem - I have a good quality 1KW PSU. Space shouldn't be a problem - I have a P600S case and that's pretty roomy.

Although at the rate I make decisions we'll probably have the 5000 series, the 8000 series and Battlemage out before I make a choice and then I'd have to make a new choice

May need a new mboard/cpu as the 6700xt at 1440p is a powerhouse.
I upgraded to 6950xt as I bought a 4k oled which was still good with the 6700xt.
You wont notice 20fps difference in games and seems you may need to check actual performance when playing.

 

[Angilion]

Well, I tried to buy a Powercolor 7800XT Hellhound due to the multiple reviews measuring the cooler as being even more efficient than the one on the Nitro+

Payment failed. No reason given. There's ~£6500 in that account at the moment. Irritating. Tried another browser, in case it was security settings in my normal browser blocking the usual PIN sentry 2FA on my card. Same result. More irritation.

Maybe I'll phone my bank tomorrow to try to get some information (I'm guessing it's a false positive from my bank's fraud prevention software), but that will probably result in a frustrating half an hour with a bot and no useful information anyway. Or maybe I just won't bother buying a new card.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

Well, I tried to buy a Powercolor 7800XT Hellhound due to the multiple reviews measuring the cooler as being even more efficient than the one on the Nitro+

Just an FYI that the hellhound is a good card, but has lower clocks & voltages and hence runs cooler than other variants. The Nitro runs at higher power and higher clocks, so you get extra perf at the cost of power.

The point: Do get too hung up on the hellhound

 

[Angilion]

Just an FYI that the hellhound is a good card, but has lower clocks & voltages and hence runs cooler than other variants. The Nitro runs at higher power and higher clocks, so you get extra perf at the cost of power.

The point: Do get too hung up on the hellhound

The payment issue turned out to be a false positive from my bank's fraud prevention software, as I expected, and if I place the order again it'll go through. But now you've changed the fragile balance of my choice

Do you have some data I can look at? The data I've found indicates that the difference is trivial but Hellhound comes out a bit better than Nitro+ than when there's a direct like for like comparison of coolers, e.g

Sapphire Radeon RX 7800 XT Nitro+ Review - Fantastic Overclocking

Sapphire's Radeon RX 7800 XT Nitro+ is the quietest RX 7800 XT reviewed today, it's virtually inaudible at full load thanks to its powerful cooler. The card is also the best overclocker, it gained a spectacular 15% in real-life performance, which makes it nearly as fast as RTX 4070 Ti.

www.techpowerup.com

PowerColor Radeon RX 7800 XT Hellhound Review - Amazing Noise Levels

PowerColor's Radeon RX 7800 XT Hellhound is an amazing custom-design for AMD's new release. It sells at the $500 baseline price, yet has the best cooler of all cards tested today, with whisper-quiet fan settings, dual BIOS and RGB illumination.

www.techpowerup.com

Those pages show clocks in gaming and voltages in gaming, for individual games and averages for a suite of 25 games that site uses for testing graphics cards. Other pages in the same reviews show other data, e.g. average FPS, cooler performance, etc.

Nitro+ averages 2540MHz and 0.978V, Hellhound averages 2504MHz and 0.981V.
Nitro+ averages 277W while gaming, Hellhound averages 273W while gaming.
Nitro+ averages 124.1FPS at 1440, Hellhound averages 123.5FPS at 1440.

Then there's cooler performance. On a like for like basis, with the power draw locked to 255W and the fan speed set to cause 35dBA:

Nitro+ 50.8C, Hellhound 46.9C

So it's not a matter of power or noise levels - both were the same.

The Nitro+ did overclock a bit more with manual overclocking, but that's quite variable between individual cards and I probably won't do manual overclocking anyway. Doesn't make much difference nowadays, since all the cards auto-overclock anyway. A handful of extra FPS at most.

Do you have any data for any significant difference between the cards? I'm not hung up on any of them. From my looking at detailed reviews, Hellhound seemed marginally better for my preferences, which have a bit more focus on low noise levels.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

The payment issue turned out to be a false positive from my bank's fraud prevention software, as I expected, and if I place the order again it'll go through. But now you've changed the fragile balance of my choice

Do you have some data I can look at? The data I've found indicates that the difference is trivial but Hellhound comes out a bit better than Nitro+ than when there's a direct like for like comparison of coolers, e.g

Sapphire Radeon RX 7800 XT Nitro+ Review - Fantastic Overclocking

Sapphire's Radeon RX 7800 XT Nitro+ is the quietest RX 7800 XT reviewed today, it's virtually inaudible at full load thanks to its powerful cooler. The card is also the best overclocker, it gained a spectacular 15% in real-life performance, which makes it nearly as fast as RTX 4070 Ti.

www.techpowerup.com

PowerColor Radeon RX 7800 XT Hellhound Review - Amazing Noise Levels

PowerColor's Radeon RX 7800 XT Hellhound is an amazing custom-design for AMD's new release. It sells at the $500 baseline price, yet has the best cooler of all cards tested today, with whisper-quiet fan settings, dual BIOS and RGB illumination.

www.techpowerup.com

Those pages show clocks in gaming and voltages in gaming, for individual games and averages for a suite of 25 games that site uses for testing graphics cards. Other pages in the same reviews show other data, e.g. average FPS, cooler performance, etc.

Nitro+ averages 2540MHz and 0.978V, Hellhound averages 2504MHz and 0.981V.
Nitro+ averages 277W while gaming, Hellhound averages 273W while gaming.
Nitro+ averages 124.1FPS at 1440, Hellhound averages 123.5FPS at 1440.

Then there's cooler performance. On a like for like basis, with the power draw locked to 255W and the fan speed set to cause 35dBA:

Nitro+ 50.8C, Hellhound 46.9C

So it's not a matter of power or noise levels - both were the same.

The Nitro+ did overclock a bit more with manual overclocking, but that's quite variable between individual cards and I probably won't do manual overclocking anyway. Doesn't make much difference nowadays, since all the cards auto-overclock anyway. A handful of extra FPS at most.

Do you have any data for any significant difference between the cards? I'm not hung up on any of them. From my looking at detailed reviews, Hellhound seemed marginally better for my preferences, which have a bit more focus on low noise levels.

Interesting. I dug through HWUB reviews, as well as bunch of others, when buying my 7800xt but didn't write any of it down - apologies. The hellhound is a great card, but I think the reddit effect of 1 review blew the cooling performance out of proportion. My 2p

 

[Angilion]

Interesting. I dug through HWUB reviews, as well as bunch of others, when buying my 7800xt but didn't write any of it down - apologies. The hellhound is a great card, but I think the reddit effect of 1 review blew the cooling performance out of proportion. My 2p

I didn't only look at 1 review, I didn't look at Reddit and I was unable to find a review of the Hellhound on HWUB. Also, I checked the claimed clock speeds from the manufacturers and they're both in line with the results from the reviews I saw.

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I'll stick with the results of the reviews I found. I could only find 4, but 4 is better than none. 0.5% difference in framerate. A 2C (4C hotspot) difference in temps (with both cards well under normal temps for a 7800XT). A 2dBA difference in noise (with both cards being very quiet). Marginal differences between two excellent cards.

 

[Angilion]

I bought one. Pretty quick for me. The last time I chose a new graphics card it took me about a year

When adjusted for inflation the £530 price of the 7800XT is almost the same value as the £420 I paid for a then recently released 1070Ti in 2017. Which isn't terrible.

I was going to buy a new SSD as well, but I missed the boat on that one. Lexar NM790 4TB. It was £205. Then it jumped up to £250 and I changed my mind about buying it. I should have bought it when I wanted to. Ah well, it's not like I actually needed it. Just a faster part for my favourite toy.