AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE review: the most compelling RDNA 3 graphics card yet

RT benchmarks: Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, F1 22, Marvel's Spider-Man; Miles Morales.

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on Feb. 26, 2024

A trio of excellent ray tracing titles are put through their paces in this second battery of RT testing. Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition remains the first - and only - triple-A gaming experience to be released requiring a GPU capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while F1 22 is an interesting example of a fully-featured RT game that perhaps doesn't benefit from all of those effects, especially when it's so brutally fast from a rasterisation perspective. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales? It's Nixxes, let's do it!

To reiterate if you're jumping straight to this page without looking at prior results, our benchmarking system offers a number of ways to get to the data you want, the presentation varying according to the device you're using. You'll get a basic overview of our findings on mobile, with metadata from the video capture of each GPU being translated into simple bar charts with average frame-rate and lowest one per cent measurements for easy comparisons.

On a desktop-class browser, you'll get the full-fat DF experience with embedded YouTube videos of each test scene and live performance metrics. Play the video, and you'll see exactly how each card handled the scene as it progresses. Below the real-time metrics is an interactive bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between actual frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an accurate replay of real performance.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

4A Games' revised version of its excellent action adventure shooter remains the only triple-A title that demands the use of a graphics card that supports hardware RT - though of course, the non-enhanced edition is there if you need it. The RTX 4070 is essentially on par with the RX 7900 GRE here at 1440p resolution, though again, there is no FSR 2 support.

In terms of under-cutting the 4070 Super, the new Nvidia offering does offer relatively more performance for its price-point - nine percent more money gets almost 20 percent more performance. Again, the performance advantage over the 7800 XT does make AMD's prior value champ look a little over-priced.

Metro Exodus Enhanced, Extreme, Ultra RT, No Nvidia Features

F1 22

Yes, we'll inevitably move onto a newer iteration of the Codemasters racer at some point but for now, we're sticking with the tried and tested rendition of the game. It's a good showing for AMD here at 1440p, as the RX 7900 GRE is faster than the RTX 4070 (and indeed the 3080).

What's interesting here is that there are certain games where AMD ray tracing over-performs compared to the norm - and F1 22 is one such title. The RTX 4070 Super clearly has more performant RT, yet here it can only muster a meagre four point lead.

F1 22, Ultra High, Ultra RT, TAA

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

It's a warm welcome back to Miles Morales, rejoining our benchmark suite with both RT reflections and RT shadows maxed for your enjoyment. And maybe because the game was originally designed for the RT capabilities of the AMD hardware within the PlayStation 5, Radeon parts perform very well indeed.

Here, at 1440p resolution, our results indicate that the RX 7900 GRE beats the old RTX 3080, but the similarly-priced 4070 has a ten point lead, which rises to 20 percent with the 4070 Super.