AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT review: worth the wait, but its price is iffy
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: One-minute review
The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is a very solid 1440p graphics card with a lot going for it, but its price isn't one of them, and that ultimately holds it back from scoring a major upset for Team Red.
That isn't to say that the RX 7700 XT isn't a card worth buying, but it is one that comes with a pretty big caveat, namely its bigger sibling, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT that launches alongside it on September 6, 2023. At $449.99 (about £350/AU$660), this puts it exactly $50 cheaper than the RX 7800 XT. Now, there are caveats around that as well, since the RX 7800 XT's performance is better, but not so much as to make it the best graphics card to buy between the two.
By offering better ray tracing performance, a significant performance gain over its predecessor, and doing so at a cheaper price point to boot makes the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT an easy card to recommend for anyone looking for the best 1440p graphics card without breaking the bank.
Given the end of the summer holiday (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least), I'm still in the process of wrapping up testing on the RX 7800 XT, but it looks to be about 10% to 15% faster than the RX 7700 XT, so the price isn't that far out of pocket on either card, but that does leave you with two cards occupying a very similar niche.
In terms of the RX 7700 XT, its ostensible competition is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and broadly speaking it wipes the floor with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB variant when you're not using ray tracing at 1440p and 1080p.
There are times when the RX 7700 XT even gives the Nvidia RTX 4070 some competition, even though that card is supposed to be squaring up against the RX 7800 XT, and it's against our current top pick for the best graphics card overall that really pushes the RX 7700 XT above all the caveats and make it a card worth buying.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Price & availability
How much does it cost? $449.99 (about £350/AU$660)
When is it available? Available September 6, 2023
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia
The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is available on September 6, 2023 starting at $449.99 (about £350/AU$660).
This puts the RX 7700 XT about $30 cheaper than the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT it replaces (which launched at $479.99), which is great, and it puts it dead center between the two RTX 4060 Ti variants in terms of price, so we'll go ahead and call it a wash on that front.
If there's an issue here really it's that the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is also just $50 more ($499.99, about £385/AU$725). As mentioned before, I'm still wrapping up our AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT review, but that card looks to give you about 10% to 15% better performance for an 11% premium, it might be the better value for those who want a midrange card with marginally better performance.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Specs
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Design
In terms of design, there's not much to say about the AMD RX 7700 XT other than to check with the third-party manufacturers of the card you want to buy, since there is no reference card for the RX 7700 XT.
One thing to note though is that no matter which card you go with, to my knowledge no AMD RX 7700 XT card will require a 12HPWR cable to power it, so two 8-pin cables should be all you need.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Chipset & features
The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, along with the RX 7800 XT, finally brings AMD's Navi 32 GPU to the desktop market after nearly a year of waiting, and overall I can say it's been worth the wait.
The RX 7700 XT features a slightly cut-down version of the GPU than the one used in the RX 7800 XT, so there's not too much difference between the two. The biggest though will be what's not on the GPU die itself, namely the amount of VRAM.
The RX 7700 XT features 12GB, which is the bare minimum for effective 1440p gameplay, and unlike the largely disappointing RTX 4060 Ti, AMD at least made sure to include enough VRAM to be effective and gave the card a wide enough memory bus to give it the texture bandwidth necessary to play at this level without needing to rely on the assistance of upscaling tech.
Speaking of upscaling tech, along with the announcement of the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT, AMD unveiled FSR 3 which should definitely help AMD level the playing field with Nvidia, but since that's a software-driven tool, rather than being tied to the driver and the RDNA 3 hardware itself, I'll save a deep dive into that for another time, but just know that you should be able to start leveraging that tech soon as well.
If there's a knock on the RX 7700 XT here, it's its power consumption. At 245W, its rated power draw is high for a 1440p card, especially when Nvidia is able to make do with 200W for the RTX 4070 and 160W for the RTX 4060 Ti.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Performance
In terms of performance, the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is pretty much what we want to see in the gen-on-gen performance increase of a midrange card.
Starting with synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7700 XT scored about 28% better in 1080p performance than the RX 6700 XT, about 35% better in 1440p performance, and about 29% better in terms of 4K performance, or about 30% better than the RX 6700 XT overall.
Against the Nvidia RTX 4070, meanwhile, the RX 7700 XT only scored about 7.25% lower overall in synthetic performance while costing about 25% less, making it a very compelling challenger to Nvidia's best midrange offering.
The same goes for gaming performance, which is really what everyone is interested in here. The story is much as you'd expect: AMD performs as well or better in rasterization performance while falling behind when it comes to ray tracing and upscaling performance against competing RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070 cards.
Most interesting perhaps is the RX 7700 XT's performance vis a vis the RTX 4070, where the RX 7700 XT averaged 103 fps at 1080p, 77 fps at 1440p, and 48 fps at 4K, compared to the RTX 4070's 117 fps, 88 fps, and 52 fps, respectively. These are very close, and for many gamers this will be a practical tie depending on their rigs, so if you're looking for the best cheap graphics card for 1440p and 4K gaming, the RX 7700 XT is definitely one to consider.
Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT?
Buy it if...
You want a great 1440p graphics card
The RX 7700 XT is a fantastic card for 1440p gaming, especially for the price.
You don't care about ray tracing
As with any AMD graphics card, if you don't really care about ray tracing, you can pretty much skip Nvidia's premium offerings.
Don't buy it if...
You have a bit more room in your budget
If you've got some extra money to spend, the RTX 4070 is still likely to be the best option for 1440p gaming.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Also consider
If my AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT review has you considering other options, here are two more graphics cards to consider.
How I tested the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT
I spent about a week with the RX 7700 XT
I focused mostly on gaming, since that is what AMD Radeon graphics cards are primarily used for
I used our standard battery of benchmark tests and personal gameplay experience
Test System Specs
These are the specs for the test system used for this review:
CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO Cooler
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790E Tomahawk Wifi
Memory: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6000
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro
PSU: Thermaltake PF3 1050W ATX 3.0
Case: Praxis Wetbench
I spent about a week with the AM Radeon RX 7700 XT running benchmark tests and playing Baldur's Gate 3 like everyone else is doing right now.
AMD Radeon cards are overwhelmingly used for gaming purposes, so I focused my efforts on determining how good of a gaming graphics card it is.
I've been a PC gamer my whole life and I've spent the past few years extensively benchmarking gaming hardware for a living, so I know how a graphics card at this level is supposed to perform given its price as well as the manufacturer's past product launches.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
First reviewed September 2023
