In its latest data dump on its powerful new Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards, AMD further strengthens its comparison to Nvidia's second-tier GPU, the RTX 4080. design, more reliable, less expensive, with more graphics memory, and more powerful anyway. [However, at the time AMD released the data, the NDA regarding the RTX 4080 was still in effect, so AMD decided not to release direct performance comparison data between the RX 7900 XTX and Nvidia's RTX 4080. [AMD showed off the 7900 XT and XTX board designs, emphasizing that even the XTX is shorter at 287mm and slimmer at 2.5 slots than the RTX 4080, which is 304mm and takes up three full slots like the RTX 4090 card. AMD's board also has a comparable more power phases than the RTX 4080 card, completely avoiding the 16-pin power connector that was so problematic for Nvidia.

AMD, as expected, used this opportunity to remind the world and PC gaming dogs alike that it is the only company that can supply graphics cards with both DisplayPort 2.1 and USB Type-C for maximum refresh rates and resolutions. [The 7900 XT has 20GB and the 7900 XTX has 24GB; the RTX 4080 16GB has 16GB. [Of course, there is pricing behind the above, with the XT at $899, the XTX at $999, and the RTX 4080 16GB at $1,199. Of course, all of these numbers are suggested retail prices, not necessarily what you would pay in the real world. But whatever you end up paying, you can be sure that the AMD board will be cheaper.

If all of this makes for a great story for AMD, there are definitely a couple of snags. First, even if AMD's prices are cheaper than Nvidia's, the RX 7900 series is still a lot of money. It is especially disappointing that the XT is $100 cheaper than the XTX.

Another issue is performance. As we noted, AMD has yet to provide direct comparison data between the RX 7900 series and Nvidia's RTX 40 series boards. However, the latest slide deck does provide data comparing the RX 7900 XT and XTX to AMD's own Radeon RX 6950 XT (open in new tab) boards, noting that AMD would have carefully chosen the numbers to put the new GPUs in the best possible light. Keep in mind, the performance gains are not necessarily glorious.

AMD has made a big claim that the old Raster performance has been improved by "up to" 67%. These figures, of course, apply to the highest spec RX 7900 XTX. But a closer look reveals that the RX 7900 XT is on average about 25 percent faster than the older RX 6950 in the four games AMD cites for normal raster performance: "Resident Evil Village," "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Watch Dogs: Legion.

The RX 7900 XT may not be a top-class GPU, but it still has an MSRP of $899 and is likely to sell beyond that number, at least in the short term. So in exchange for a relatively puny performance boost, it could be more expensive than the RX 6950 XT in the real world.

The ray tracing performance numbers are better, and AMD claims up to 82 performance gains over the RX 6950 XT. But again, in the case of the RX 7900 XT, not the XTX, AMD's own figures show a 64% improvement in ray tracing performance, up from just 17% in the 6950.

Needless to say, all of this only confirms that the more powerful XTX is clearly the better value option when considering the RX 7900 XT versus the RX 7900 XTX (open in new tab). But the problem remains that any 4-digit $ or £ GPU is hardly a true value proposition. With any luck, we will see the prices of these new GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia come down. But at current prices, these new GPUs, as good as they are, are not as exciting as they should have been at more accessible price points.