After talking about the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX in the Reference version just over a month ago, let’s close the NVIDIA parenthesis we had with the RTX 4070 Ti and go back to dealing with the new top of the AMD range thanks to this ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XTX, decidedly more cumbersome and “armored” than the reference card proposed by AMD. ASUS bundles a month’s subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud with the card and a handy accessory that acts as both a GPU holder and a screwdriver; but let’s find out all that the new ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XTX has to offer in our review.
Index
Technical features
As often happens with custom bikes, there are very few technical differences with the Reference model, except for aspects such as the maximum clock frequency and little else. On board the ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XTX we always find a Navi 31 GPU with 58 billion transistors, 96 compute units, 96 Ray Accelerator, 6144 Stream Processor, 6 Shader Engine e 96MB of Infinity Cache. THE 24GB of GDDR6 memory operates at 20Gb/s and offer a bandwidth of 960GB/s (the bus is 384 bit). The card offers two modes, Default and OC, which operate at 2395MHz (Game Clock) / 2565MHz (Boost Clock) and 2455MHz (Game Clock) / 2615MHz (Boost Clock) respectively, guaranteeing in both cases higher frequencies than AMD ones. Finally, the TGP is 355 watts, like the reference model.
The measurement card 352.9 x 158.2 x 72.6mm, really important dimensions that lead it to occupy 3.83 slots expansion ports, so make sure you have enough space in your case. This ASUS TUF is definitely bigger than just the Reference modelwhich we remember measure 287 x 123 mm for 2.5 slots, but also of the ASUS TUF RTX 4090which stops at 348.2 x 150 x 72.6 mm.
In terms of video outputs we find three DisplayPort 2.1 and one HDMI 2.1, with support for HDCP 2.3. The power supply, on the other hand, is guaranteed by three 8-pin connectors, one more than those present on the AMD card.
The design is no different than other next-generation TUF graphics cards. The cover and backplate are made of metal, elements that give a premium feeling and solidity to the product. In the upper part there is the classic insert with RGB LEDs, which can be customized via software.
The front cover houses the classic cooling system with three Axial-tech fans, which improve the airflow by 14% and with the central fan spinning in the opposite direction, so as to reduce turbulence and noise. The fans also stop below 55°C, to ensure silent use of the PC when all the available power is not used.
On the back of the card we find, in addition to the switch to switch from Performance Mode to Quiet Mode by changing BIOS, a large photo that makes part of the air moved by the outermost fan flow through the heatpipes and heatsink blades, improving cooling.
Performance
We measured the performance of the ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XTX with our classic test suite consisting of several modern titles. We performed the tests at 4K resolution, both in classic rasterization and with active ray tracing, comparing the new ASUS custom both with the AMD Reference variant and with the competing NVIDIA proposals. We carried out our tests on a platform equipped with an Intel Core i9-12900K processor, 32GB of DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM and a 360 mm liquid cooler, with Windows 11 updated to the latest version.
4K performance
In classic rasterization the Radeon RX 790 XTX is confirmed as an excellent GPU, faster than the RTX 4080. ASUS’ customization does slightly better than AMD’s Reference card, widening the gap with the RTX 4080 and reaching an average performance difference close to 10%.
4K performance with ray tracing
In ray tracing the scenario smiles back to NVIDIA, thanks to an ability to manage the more mature technology in the Team Green cards. While slightly improving the results of the Reference and scoring a +70% on the RX 6900 XT, the performance of the ASUS TUF does not go beyond that of an RTX 4070 Ti, lower-end, lower-priced card.
4K performance with ray tracing and FSR
We carried out some tests also enabling FidelityFX Super Resolution, the version of which changes depending on the game: on Far Cry 6 and F1 22, for example, version 1.0 is still implemented, while on Cyberpunk 2077 we find version 2.1.
Even with these graphics settings, the scenario is not very different from that seen in the review of the Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX: except for Far Cry 6, where the new Radeon takes the lead with 143.6 average FPS (compared to 133.6 of the RTX 4080), in the other titles the NVIDIA GPU always has the upper hand.
You consume
The triple 8-pin connector on board the ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XTX suggests a higher energy absorption than that of the Reference card: looking at the data, this is actually the case, with the customization of the Taiwanese company which in our game tests reaches 376 watts, 35 more than the AMD counterpart. As you can see from the graph, it is the most energy-intensive card among those tested, second only to the RTX 4090.
Temperatures
If on the one hand the card does not shine for consumption, on the other the cooling system manages to manage temperatures very well, also thanks to the really important dimensions: the ASUS TUF does not go above 61°C, about ten degrees less than the reference model. The RTX 4080 is slightly cooler, but only by a couple of degrees Celsius.
Conclusions
This ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XTX offers slightly better performances than those of the Reference model, confirming itself as a very valid video card for playing in rasterization; the RTX 4090 stays a long way off, but it also costs several hundred Euros more. Unfortunately however, in this customization one of the strengths of the AMD model is missing, namely the compactness: the ASUS custom is even bigger than the TUF Gaming version of the RTX 4090, it occupies almost 4 expansion slots and is not so simple to insert in a case, unlike the Reference card which, in fact, is only 2.5 slots thick and is 6.5cm shorter.
The larger size allowed at least to insert a respectable cooling system, which keeps the GPU cool in every situation, with temperatures much lower than those recorded on the Reference. From this point of view, the ASUS TUF is second only to the RTX 4080 Founders Edition, a sign that you can sleep peacefully even after hours and hours of play.
Taking a look at consumption, we see that the ASUS TUF goes beyond the declared TGP by about twenty watts and consumes more than its Reference counterpart, mainly due to the higher operating frequencies which, as often happens, exceed the declared values. instead talking about price, the card costs 1299€, a figure not so far from the €1169 price list that will certainly make potential buyers of this GPU happy.
Summing up, if you still play mainly in classic rasterization today, perhaps because your favorite games don’t support ray tracing, or simply because you don’t care, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is undoubtedly an interesting video card and this custom ASUS TUF it is certainly to be taken into consideration, also given the relatively low price. Make sure you have a roomy case to fit it in though, as it’s far from compact.
