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

Game benchmarks: Control, Cyberpunk 2077, F1 22, Forza Horizon 5.

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on Feb. 26, 2024

The proliferation of ray tracing in both RT and upscaling tests on the prior pages effectively leaves AMD for dust - but now it's time to move onto rasterisation, where we expect Team Red to deliver far more impressive results, making the case for its latest RDNA 3 cards as raster value champions.

Owing to the way users may be jumping around our benchmarking pages, you may be missing out on an explainer of how our benchmarking system presents. Our 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.

Control

With rasterisation performance now taking point, we should expect to see AMD deliver a far more convincing argument. This is where the Radeon products typically excel and where we should fully expect to see RX 7900 GRE deliver a one-two punch of more performance for less money.

So it is with Remedy's Control, where the RX 7900 GRE outscores the 4070 Super by around eleven percent at a discounted price, beating the price-equivalent 4070 by 30 percent at the same sticker price. Great stuff for the GRE, though again, it's a bit frustrating to see that the cheaper 7800 XT is now offering less value.

Control, High, 4x MSAA

Cyberpunk 2077

It's almost a shame to play Cyberpunk without upscaling and ray tracing at this class of hardware given how transformative these technologies can be - especially with frame generation and path tracing on RTX 40-series hardware - but it does at least level the playing field for AMD, with the 7900 GRE leagues ahead: 27 percent faster than the 4070 Super and upwards of 40 percent to better than the vanilla 4070. Wow.

The only complaint any one could possibly raise is how these lofty differentials also seem to apply to performance vs the 7800 XT at our chosen 1440p focus. The GRE is 20 points to the better, yet costs only ten percent more.

Cyberpunk 2077, Ultra, TAA

Forza Horizon 5

We return to Forza Horizon 5 in perhaps its most natural configuration: RT disabled with native rendering for the best mixture of fine detail, performance and that signature 4x MSAA. For this one I'm looking at 4K resolution to remove CPU bottlenecks and it's an AMD win again, with a ten point lead over the 4070 Super rising to a more impressive 17 points over the price-equivalent vanilla 4070.

At least this time, the RX 7800 XT is delivering performance more in line with its price point. The GRE is, of course, faster with an eleven percentage point lead - but it's ten percent more expensive. This is a more equitable balance of price vs performance for the cheaper Radeon card.

Forza Horizon 5, Extreme, 4x MSAA

F1 22

F1 22 is a legitimate esports title often played on high refresh rate displays, so even with averages in the hundreds of frames per second, having a powerful enough graphics card can be impactful. The good news is that all of our major contenders can effectively power a 4K 144Hz screen, but AMD beats Nvidia as 7900 GRE beats 4070 Super by around five percent.

Even at 4K, there is the sense that the Core i9 13900K may still be playing a part in limiting performance, as the differentials across the tested AMD products are far lower than pretty much every other game we tested.