XFX Radeon RX 7900 XTX Merc 310 24GB Review (hands-on) – Thirsty and fast with 5 times X

1 - Unboxing und technische Daten 2 - Hands-On, die wichtigsten Werte und Fazit

The dual BIOS and everything a question of power

By default, the card comes to the customer a bit more sedate, though even at that it is more boisterous than the reference. Up to 392 watts are allowed here and they are easily consumed. If you leave BIOS 2 free, then it is already at least 10 watts more and thus also clearly over 400 watts. This is then not only in theory, but also in practice. The fans then turn a bit more aggressively and it becomes really audible in places. So somehow also loud.

Speaking of loud: The coil whine is always a thing and you can also hear the coils a bit in today’s tested card, especially when the fans are still in fan stop. Once they are running, however, this is very limited compared to the reference card, so we can give a certain all-clear. However, the first measurements already scratch the 40 dBA limit with the boosted card, and the normal BIOS is a bit over 2 dBA below that. But for final values I have to trouble the lab (and heat up before), that will come in the follow up

So that you do not have to die completely stupidly now, because the metrological year-end high water is already up to my nose here, I have included three comparison pictures from my interpreter of the low-level measurements. We see, in order, Horizon Zero Dawn in Ultra-HD once for the reference card, BIOS #1 and the more powerful BIOS #2. I picked out the game because the GeForce RTX 4080 FE and the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX perform equally fast here with around 117 FPS.

For comparison: the GeForce RTX 4080 FE only needs 276.4 watts for about 117 FPS, the RX 7900XTX reference already 351.6 watts. That’s a 75 watt difference. Let’s first look at the RX 7900XTX reference:

the XFX card is now about 3% faster than the reference and the GeForce RTX 4080 FE in the normal BIOS, but it needs about 10% more electrical energy, which amounts to 390.2 watts. This is already almost 114 watts more than the FE and we also see that the slow frames (P1 Low) are piling up because the variances are getting a bit worse.

With BIOS #2, I can now still release 403.5 watts, which also de facto corresponds to the stored power limit. But: I now get only a single FPS more, despite the 12 watts more at the power connector! It’s not worth it in any case. The drops have become a bit less and the map runs a bit smoother, but it’s still pure crowbar.

Summary and interim conclusion

XFX cannot be held responsible for the chip and possible driver problems. However, the idle power consumption is lower than in the reference, which makes me wonder a bit now. However, multi-monitor setups also go well over 80 watts in the peak here. This is an AMD problem, but it also affects this card. The look and feel, on the other hand, are without criticism, and the coil beeping is not as big an issue as with the reference card.

But the more than 400 watts cannot be cooled completely silently, and you always have to be aware of that. It is not a bad card, on the contrary. XFX made something really neat out of what you got. The rest is then virtually force majeure, for which the manufacturer can first of all do nothing. I would undervolt the card a bit and limit it to around 300 watts, because then you get a still really fast but significantly more frugal and quieter product with about 10% less performance.

This for those who flirt with such a card and do not have to squint at every euro. Unfortunately, the market prices were not fixed at the editorial deadline and XFX did not exactly tell me the RRP in Euros, only a “around 1299 Euros”. I’ll bear with you if I see plausible prices in any store after 3pm, but I lack a bit of faith.