GeForce RTX 4070 Super vs. Radeon RX 7900 GRE, GeForce Premium Worth It?

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Update: I found a settings error in Helldivers 2, the results are incorrect, though the margins are much the same at 1440p and 4K between these two GPUs. The correct data can now be found in the TechSpot article here, apologies for the mistake: www.techspot.com/review/2826-geforce-rtx-4070-super-vs-radeon-7900-gre/

[@SaviorInTheSun]

2 GPU's over 58 games?!?!?! You're a madman, Steve, and I appreciate you and your teach so much!

[@johnmichaelcobangbang8425]

thank you. How is it now? im about to buy 1 too.

[@markolumovic2750]

Steve definition of vacation is weird to say the least.

[@AlexHusTech]

That's how you get to 1M subs, someone who loves his job/hobby, I need this level of dedication!

[@Pedone_Rosso]

To be fair, he didn't say how much chocolate was consumed during benchmarking... (LOL!)

[@darcrequiem]

No weirder than his definition of a shed 😄 The man built a house single-handedly and shrugs like it was no big deal. Steve is just built differently than the rest of us.

[@BrandensOutdoorChannel]

Holiday*

[@Lodinn]

Is it so uncommon though?.. Most people I know work through their vacations/holidays, maybe at like half capacity but still

[@mc_sim]

Got GRE few days ago. Pretty happy about it. +50% gain to my 3060ti.

[@PlainsSights]

Ordered it yesterday, also to replace my 3060 TI, that 50% sounds reassurering

[@walter1824]

​@@Scott99259 is DLSS really 50% boost tho?

[@mc_sim]

@@Scott99259 i am not a marketing victim and i don't need fake performance with dlss or fsr or any other 'frame generation'. i want pure rasterization power and true native resolution quality. and don't tell me that dlss looks the same or doesn't have lag. that's physically impossible.

[@Hito343]

Got GRE too, Hellhound amazing card probably the quietest while running cool card I've ever had so far. I don't use any upscalers they do look like shit, acceptable at 1440p tho.

[@Scott99259]

@@walter1824 check dlss vs native comparision of hardware unboxed.

[@siddhantkamble9502]

That was a lot of testing. Thank you for your work Steve.

[@oktusprime3637]

It's important to remember that the 7900 GRE's memory is kind of underclocked out of the box. You can gain massive performance improvements with a memory OC, over 10% in a lot of cases.

[@ChrispyNut]

Indeed, I'm not sure that was as fully available during testing, was it? 🤔

[@NeverSettleForMediocrity]

you are delusional gains are minimal which doesn't change anything about this comparison

[@keerthan7558]

10% isn't massive lol

[@markgutierez9922]

​@@NeverSettleForMediocrity Nvidia Shill detected.

[@Axisoflords]

​​@@NeverSettleForMediocrityGiven the difference between the two averaged at just 1% - getting 5-10% free performance actually does change things ever so slightly. And it's still the cheaper product.

[@aeropb]

This seemed like a lot of work. Thanks for all you do.

[@hassosigbjoernson5738]

Nah ... you cannot talk of work when the GPU's do all of it by themselves! =) [Kappa] Sure he had plenty of time searching for easter eggs ...

[@steviebhoy25]

As a 3070 owner who fell for the raytracing waffle , I've enabled it in 3 games and then turned it off, raytracing seems to be for the spectator as I've never really noticed it while playing, what I did notice was the massive hit to fps and that's why it features stay off in my case. Also 8Gb VRAM is not enough now , the same way 12Gb won't be enough in 2-3 years

[@dantae666]

Exactly im on a 2070 and can see it. im going xtx for the vram amount

[@Flowave-cc5ul]

Bro, same I have 3070 I just played guardians of the galaxy @ 4K ultra plus DLSS quality getting 75-89 fps And graphic are incredible ! Very tiny game drops doesn’t hurt my 8Vram or my enjoyment of the game highly recommended by the way

[@lawyerlawyer1215]

You guys have gpus that can’t handle RT properly so you make massive performance sacrifices to get it and of course don’t see the win. Try games with good RT implications with a 4090 and then com e back tot ell em it’s not a night and day difference

[@han1508]

RT not being as big as it is today is not the graphics card’s fault. Blame the developers who would rather spend resources and time in optimizing monetization and marketing.

[@bal7ha2ar]

​@@lawyerlawyer1215 so i should buy a 4090 to see that the raytracing quality in most games is just as shit as with my old card but now with double the fps? uh no thanks ill just leave rt off and be happy

[@raute2687]

these deep dives are always super interesting to watch. Good job and thank you!

[@raifuzkan3971]

So you recommend a 7900 GRE over a RX 570? :) ... I need to change my GPU

[@user-nn9gr8bw4n]

Power Consumption begins at 25:50

[@SapuanKedelai]

Thanks

[@Anukinihun]

7900GRE in my opinion is the best high end midrange card this generation. Get last Gen Top end performance at just $550 with alot of overclocking potential and 16GB of VRAM

[@zzavatski]

Too many fell for Super branding. Regular 4070 also has 12GB and is less overpriced.

[@hansolo631]

I have a 4080 and despite the cost, I've been happy with it the last few years. But I think AMD straight up made better cards this gen. Maybe the last one too tbh. The 6600xt, 6800, and 6800xt were monsters for their price. The 7900xtx is like 80% of the 4090 performance for what? 50% of the cost? IDK. If you guys can run raytracing at 280 hz, then fair enough. But the incoming gen I am going to have a very, very good look at whatever AMD comes out with

[@sstier48]

​@@zzavatskino.. the super is a better value ($ per fps)

[@zzavatski]

@@sstier48 When game requires more than 12GB both are the same (unplayable) performance. That's why the cheaper one is better deal.

[@moc5661]

​@@hansolo631 the 4080 hasn't even been released for a "few years" lol unless you're talking about the 3080..

[@t5kcannon1]

Great content. Thanks Hardware Unboxed!

[@chrisfanning5842]

I think your wider analysis of all the existing RT-enabled games is going to be really important. I've owned an RTX card since the very start and I've found two games where the (considerable) framerate hit was even a noticeable visual improvement. Of the 75ish games Steam claims I've played since buying a first-gen RTX card, I didn't bother playing with RT effects enabled, I merely experimented with settings and decided that the massive hit to performance detracted from the experience far more than the slightly better visuals added to it.

[@sergioav7278]

I think it should be important to point out if the 7900GRE was memory overclocked or not, since the uncap update gave this GPU a significant performance increase.

[@tommysimonsen4043]

He was on vacation before the new driver came with the Vram OC. So this is done with no Vram OC

[@wowzer4919]

It did not give it a significant performance update for everybody. Only if you have the hynix memory. A lot of us can't even reach 2400 stable. So we're still pretty much 2316 fast timings. Nothing has really changed. And this is actually much more common than you think.

[@aaronbulmahn7715]

@@wowzer4919 Why does it only increase performance with a hynix memory?

[@brucethen]

Steve's idea of relaxing sounds like hard work, over the Easter break I was at a friends 60th birthday party and a great time was had by all

[@dazzlerweb]

We appreciate the work involved.

[@brad4690]

I went with the 7900 gre. I saved $50, got more vram for longevity, and I don't have to worry about that Nvidia power connector. If Nvidia had put that other 4gb of vram in there, they would have had my money.

[@asdf_asdf948]

Now overclock the memory for a free 10% performance

[@SmellsLikeNirvanna]

There’s basically 0 cases of connector issues below 4090, a 4070 super with like 200 watt power consumption will never have an issue

[@NCore_._]

@@asdf_asdf948 Except it ain't free, it's a dice roll

[@ThePurplePassage]

given how well the GRE can respond to overclocking, I think the benchmarks ought to have included this (although I get there is a separate video on this already)

[@NeverSettleForMediocrity]

it responds badly to overclocking due to the lottery, don't count on more than 5% + instability in different titles

[@markgutierez9922]

​​@@NeverSettleForMediocrity lol you regardless of oc performance, Ray Tracing and DLSS premiums aren't worth if the GPU has only 12 GB . The only GPU worth buying is the 4090 for you know $1500

[@MassivePaper]

My gre memory crashes on anything over 2350mhz so yeah, basically stock. Got core to work at 26-2700 but it eats like 330 watts at max load

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@markgutierez9922 They said literally nothing about Nvidia, just stated a fact about the cards. The GRE is cheaper because it's using lower-quality bins so the lottery is real. I get the temptation to shit on the big monopoly at ever opportunity but this comment kinda just adds nothing

[@markgutierez9922]

@@colbyboucher6391 we watched a video comparing two GPUs all comments are made with the context in mind. His comment is basically saying there is no point in OC 7900 GRE not going to see any noticeable performance, I point out that Nvidia is still over priced. So we both point out negative aspects of one of the GPUs presented.

[@no_ideaman]

Thank you Sir for apparently being the only media outlet that I know about that includes comprehensive DLSS details. I was doubting between exactly these 2 cards for a 3-4 year life span, and DLSS was exactly the hard-to-answer yet all important question I needed to know about.

[@vernerikuittinen6360]

What did you end up choosing? Having the same comparison battle between these cards right now

[@no_ideaman]

@@vernerikuittinen6360 I landed on an RTX 4070TI (non super) since there was a pretty good deal available here. I play on 1440p.

[@Krisz94HU]

I chose 4070 super. I had 6700 XT and the biggest upgrade for me is the FSR to DLSS. The flickering and shimmering is so annoying considering you pay 500+$ for a card. In raster GRE is better by 5-7% but when you enable upscaling or RT nvidia take the win. I adore 7900 GRE tho so good card for its price.

[@m4d.d0x]

Thank you for the great info I just really think that there should have been some OC numbers for the 7900 GRE since I think most will be rocking it with some degree of OC even more so with the new drivers and the memory unlock for way more than what we were able to. Other than being a bit more power hungry, about 100W compared to the 4070 Super the difference is quite noticeable and there’s a lot of frames to be gained from what I’ve seen, then again, thank you for all the work and the info on so many test for these cards!

[@thanumgaming]

Here I am, debating between these two exact cards. Extremely helpful. Thanks for the info as always!!

[@MrSilverio13]

which one did you get?

[@thanumgaming]

@@MrSilverio13 I ended up getting a MSI Ventus 3X 4070. Main reason being the better encoders for streaming and recording. It's been running great!

[@poppinbubblez702]

Thank you guys for all your hard work!

[@alti6942]

The 7900 GRE with memory OC's hits the same figures as a 7900 XT (~10-15% increase on average) for $550 USD and with the 4 extra gigs of VRAM I think its a shame that it wasn't taken into consideration more heavily for your final thoughts especially since the only technical drawback to the GRE itself is its memory throughput compared to its much beefier CUs and its also relatively easy to do in AMD's own software

[@hassosigbjoernson5738]

4 Gigs less VRAM of the 7900 GRE compared to the 7900 XT is indeed another technical drawback.

[@mihirojha4475]

​@@hassosigbjoernson5738 I mean 16 GB is more than enough even for 4k gaming on most titles.

[@Birdman._.]

You could overclock rtx 4070 super too which matches a rx 7900 gre still(in hardware unboxed's video)

[@tommysimonsen4043]

@@Birdman._. I don't know wich video you watche, but in the newest video, the 7900 GRE is faster then the 4070 super when both cards are OC'ed kzbin.info/www/bejne/p2bXk3aYopZ8j68

[@ulquiorrasciffer04]

Yeah but no amount of OC can get close to Nvidia's rendering speed. That 50 bucks difference is well damn worth it specialty if do both work and games. And Nvidia is more worth it in my country since they are priced at the same as amd cards.

[@HeirofCarthage]

These benchmark videos are awesome. The hard work put in definitely shows in the result. Also so helpful when it comes to choosing parts. Helps someone see what is right in their scenario.

[@richardnpaul_mob]

Yeah the non-overclocked GRE isn't great in this match up, pushing the memory interface though really let's it accelerate away from the 4070S from the benchmarks I've seen (and that was OC to OC). I've tried RT, I was not blown away by it given the free marketing everyone has been giving it, so I'll be interested in and watching the future videos.

[@chriswright8074]

He needs test more games that doesn't favor one or the other

[@richardnpaul_mob]

​​@@chriswright8074 by saying that you're not appreciating the amount of work goes into testing the 25-odd games (over 50 game tests when including FSR/DLSS, RT) that he already tests

[@norbertnagy4468]

Finally Helledivers 2!!!!! Thanks Steve

[@seamon9732]

Thrilled that you added Helldivers 2, the game is taking the gaming world by storm and is played so much!

[@Ziggyangeldust0]

Thoughts on this now?🤣

[@ktvx.94]

If the new FSR really gets 80-90% of the way there compared to DLSS, the GRE is a no-brainer. You'll only be really upscaling to 4K where the better samples mitigate its issues, maybe to 1440p just to save energy. If it doesn't I'm slightly inclined towards the GRE.

[@tibordavid6716]

I managed to get a 4070 super for $569 a few days ago. I am very satisfied with it. Both cards are suitable, but because of DLSS and RT, it feels like a good decision for 1440P.

[@mohammadosman1474]

what about the power consumption ?

[@Nightss10]

I'm really surprised there was no overclocked comparison at the end of this. Even just on 3 titles. It seems make quite a big difference actually. Great work as always Steve! Been here since before covid!

[@jakeny7399]

Not surprised here. Overclocking capabilities varies widely depending on silicon that the cards got shipped with. You can have two 7900 gre/ 4070s from the same manufacturer with very different overclocking results.

[@brianbarker6876]

Great review. I was able to get the Gigabyte GAMING OC 4070 Super for $610 (as of now from New Egg) then combine with 5% discount using a Microcenter account so a 4070 Super Gaming OC for $579.50. If you’re looking for a 4070 Super right now and are in position to take advantage of this combo discount I hope this helps you get the max value for your money. Started my search in March thinking I might get a 4060ti but reviews convinced me to stretch my budget. I wanted best possible 1player visuals at 1440 for cyberpunk and helldivers so it was a no brainer between these cards.

[@mraltoid19]

This is an excellent video. I really like my 7900GRE, I just wish that overclocking was included. It looks like you can make a 7900GRE perform like a 7900XT, with skill and luck, while I don't think the 4070-Super is capable of overclocking to the performance of the 4070-TI Super. Would've been interesting to include, but I get why due to variance in models...thanks for the excellent video.

[@bearsbeatsbattlestargalact4297]

Lately it has been just gaming performance comparison. You guys should include some productivity benchmarks as well like video editing, 3d softwares, etc. It helps in choosing relatively better GPU suited according to your needs. Not everyone plays games day & night. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

[@timothywilliamz007]

Love the information, maybe a dark grey background behind the graphs would be more appealing and easier on the eyes ? Just a suggestion !

[@SaviorInTheSun]

If ANYONE gets upset by Steve and Tim saying "It depends" when someone asks them what GPU to get, please refer them to this video. It truly matters what games someone is going to play, and what resolution you're looking to display. This video clearly demonstrates that unless you're willing to pay a huge premium, there really isn't a one shoe fits all approach to GPU's.

[@darrannorman6185]

Interesting and great analysis. I wonder what happened in MW3. GRE was well ahead of 4070 Super in your GRE Retest Video, now reversed. Different quality settings though.

[@selohcin]

I've watched a thousand Hardware Unboxed videos over the years, but never until today have I watched one during a week when I was actually planning to buy a GPU. I'm honored that Steve just happened to put in such an enormous amount of work on the one day I really needed it. I'm going AMD. Thanks, Steve.

[@lawyerlawyer1215]

Do you put attention and still took the wrong choice going AMD? Yikes

[@Pand0rasAct0r_]

great choice personally i would have gotten nvidia if they didnt ask shit prices and specs on cards that just arent good. i like amd software a lot. more user friendly.

[@josejuanandrade4439]

So you didn't watch the video then? GRE loses at everything but 4k. And lots of tittles the performance at 4k isnt good... just better then the 4070 super. Then you also lose at upscaling, raytracing, and power consumption. AMD trained their fanboys well LOL

[@dare2liv_nlove]

@@josejuanandrade4439 You mean, Nvidia trained their fanboys well (judging by your comment). As Steve clearly said at the end of the video, "you could go either way" depending on what you are prioritizing in your purchase.

[@pluschy7886]

@@dare2liv_nlovelisten I like both Sides AMD and NVIDIA but I probably would’ve gotten the 4070 super at this route. If it was the 4070 Ti super and 7900 XT then I would’ve gotten 7900 XT. Both are good sides with pros and cons.

[@TerraWare]

Thanks Steve.

[@clifflenoir4323]

Back to you Steve.

[@AndrewCC01]

Recently built my PC with a RX7900 GRE, but unfortunately it was bad. Drivers wouldn’t load while the OS recognized there was a problem with the card. Ran every possible fix (OS reset, DDU, re-seat, etc.) Ended up exchanging it for a 4070 Super (figured I’d go with something more reliable, AMD’s drivers are notoriously unreliable/unstable). Fantastic job so far on ultra settings (HD2, Fortnite, CoD)!

[@Extreme96PL]

DLDSR + DLSS combo is alone worth it only way to make game with bad TAA to not look like blurry mess at 1080p. Difference in games like RDR2 or Jedi Survivor is like day and night on top of that DLDSR also help when game is aliased af.

[@someasianguy8493]

Yep, people don't realise this. If you don't have DLDSR + DLSS, you are forced to increase the render scale and increase the sharpening in games like RDR2 if you want to reduce the blurriness of the awful TAA implementation.

[@Extreme96PL]

​@@someasianguy8493increasing rendering scale increases the resolution, which is roughly what DLDSR does, but without the additional improvements that DLDSR and DLSS make to ensure image stability through AI. Sharpening isn't really the solution as there's still blurring that gets worse as you start moving. Plus, it's possible that sharpening will reveal what TAA is trying to hide. So far, the only way I've found to fix the blur is to increase the resolution, which will make the image more stable and less blurry. DLDSR + DLSS is the best because both of these things are intended to improve image stability and reduce TAA blur, but if you can't use it, the resolution scale will also improve the quality, but without DLSS the performance hit will be higher

[@mercurio822]

no the Nvidia premium is not worth it when you only get 12gb vram.

[@The_Noticer.]

Nvidia's "premium" is more mindshare than anything else.

[@joelconolly5574]

It's enough for 1440p gaming

[@gunturbayu6779]

​@@joelconolly5574 same mindset as people who bought 8gb 3070/ti , look at them now lol

[@gcz4457]

​@@joelconolly5574 Maybe now, but in the future?

[@CrazO9111]

AMD need 1-2GB VRAM more ingame aswell dont forget that. Nvidia Card is fine for 1080p/1440p for the next 3 Years.

[@pkerch00b1]

Managed to snag a 7900gre for 510 euro. Seems like a good deal.

[@izidor]

good deal mate. Well done. Bought mine a week ago for 560€, no regrets tho. The card is a beast, specially in OC.

[@PillowOfEvil]

Sounds like mindfactory prices. I can't find anything in my country under 670€

[@Sirpesari]

Would love one for that price, in Finland they're unfortunately starting at 649

[@PillowOfEvil]

Sucks. I could find some for around 630€, but immediately after the oc unlock, prices jumped up.

[@urgay1992]

Yeah both the cheapest 4070 super and 7900 GRE are 650€ here.

[@NainGeantMiniature]

This was very useful. I ended up going for the GRE a few days ago simply because of the OC performance uplift it showcases at 1440p. The 4070S is simply not competitive vs. an OC'ed 7900GRE

[@sparkplugbarrens]

It's great that you clarify, how raytracing drops frame rate to subjectively unplayable gaming experience in most titles at 1440p even with the 4070 super.

[@AndyViant]

I remember buying a 2070 Super over a 2060 Super in the hope of playing ray traced games with it. Oh, how I laugh about that now.

[@oktusprime3637]

Tha's complete bullshit. Most RT titles run great at 1440p on the 4070S. They fall apart at 4K but the 4070S is not a 4K+RT card anyway.

[@SimplCup]

"in most titles" which were like 3, one of them unoptimized as shit (ratchet n clank), another is Cyberpunk which literally has real life lighting option basically and the most insane graphics in gaming history, and hogwarts legacy. And they all can be run with dlss/fsr and fg at at least 60-100 fps. while in reality most titles run smoothly at 1440p ultra ray tracing setting at 70-150 fps even without dlss and fg (tho i still turn them on, cus TSR and TAA AA solutions look horrendous compared to dlss quality mode, and fg is just free fps basically). Both rtx 4070 super and 7900 gre showed great results.

[@ALLInOne-vq5em]

Nope, they're not. Take Nvidia titles like Alan Wake 2; the 4070 Super won't hit 60 fps at RT high on 1440P. Same deal with Cyberpunk 2077. Other games don't hit GPUs as hard, though, for both AMD and Nvidia.

[@SimplCup]

@@ALLInOne-vq5em yes, but is it "most titles"? no, it's just a couple very demanding games, or unoptimized. 99% of games will run perfectly fine on 4070 super and 7900gre, some even at 4k.

[@micahottaway8455]

Great video. Looks like DLSS is better for speed than FSR in this head-to-head. It's too bad DLSS is NVIDIA only, but it's easy to understand why they would make and keep it that way ($$$$$$). I wonder if the 4070 Super loses much performance when using FSR or XESS instead of DLSS. Upscaling is a BS gimmick...

[@emelyanychcool3715]

4070S consumes about 200w,GRE about 300w for a few FPS more,not costs it.

[@JesManVP]

Gre consumes 265

[@lifeisinserthere]

After this video, my Ray Tracing FOMO has finally been cured. I no longer have concerns about picking Team Red over Green, which is my default bias anyway. That being said, VRAM and pricing still has me in a SERIOUS PICKLE--as I'm still undecided between 7900 GRE, XT, or XTX and seem to change my mind everyday. Ughhhh. If only pricing was the way it used to be, I would shell out for the XTX no questions asked!! Thanks for the vid as always!!

[@Joeyratatouille]

I love my GRE. Got it a few weeks ago finally after using the 1070 for over 6 years. It took me a while to figure out the amd tweaks and settings but once I got it all set it is working great.

[@juliocardona3378]

what did you end up doing to the settings?

[@Joeyratatouille]

@@juliocardona3378 memory OC and just general game-to-game optimization.

[@farhanrafid5907]

What about productivity mate? Is it good for both?​@@Joeyratatouille

[@4bodeyt646]

What u doing for warzone to be stable and no stutters?

[@Lazarosaliths]

Their price difference in Europe is 25-30€, something negligible at thatbprice range. The RTX model in your review seems the better buy, but the limited Vram and memory bandwidth of the RTX card, makes the purchase unreasonable. I think the OC results of the GRE, make the Radeon card a better buy, along with the memory advantage of size and bandwidth. Thank Steve for the amazing review!!! And all the hard work putting all of this information together!!!

[@mikesunboxing]

Just swapped my 7800xt for the msi Rtx 4070 super slim and don’t regret it

[@silvio351]

you`ll regret it, just not today,

[@lucaschenJC]

Congrats 4070 super is great

[@mikesunboxing]

@@lucaschenJC yeah for me it was a better choice for my work as rasterisation in games is less important than a smooth timeline in premiere

[@Danny-ex3tj]

@@silvio351 I got a Radeon 7800XT previously and had serious driver issue timed out twice in an hour, black screen. DDU in safe mode, reinstalled latest drivers(tried older and newer gen), RMA and received another dud, checked all my connections if plugged in properly. Do you know how to solve this problem, cause it's driving me crazy, in-fact I am not the only one with this issue(Can easily google it). I previously had 6800XT(XFX RMA twice) , Zotac 1080Ti (Artifacting so can't RMA since warranty expired) My current specs: 7800x3d 2x16GB 6000MHz (EXPO enabled) Team Group RAM TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI Corsair RM850e 2TB 980 Pro (Game drive) In my country it cost converted ~USD$50 more to get RTX 4070 super, so was thinking about it. I already regret my 7800XT many months ago. Was thinking about 7900XTX but even people reported driver timeout issue...

[@seaneriksen2695]

wtf? thats barely an upgrade...

[@coyotegoot]

great info on both. ended up going w the asus 4070 super dual. BTW your video quality is frkn crisssssp!

[@Neonagi]

I ended up going with the 4070 super because it has less of a power draw, and for very small case builds this is important to keep heat and noise levels down.

[@alexchavez3244]

I hope your card can’t handle games because 12Gb is becoming absolute like 16gb of ram

[@Neonagi]

@@alexchavez3244 Hey there, no problems with any of the latest big games. I play on 1440p 165Hz though so I don't need large ram cache for 4K textures. My next big upgrade will be to 4K 240Hz one day when a single GPU can handle it.

[@JesManVP]

My card does not run hot it's 65 c will overclocked

[@walter274]

Great Video. I can think of 6 games that i think really benefit from RT: Control, Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk, Ratchet and Clank, Dying Light 2, and Metro. In general, I think RT reflections can have a big visual impact. RT shadows are noticable, but underwhelming. RT GI is verry noticable, but very costly.

[@spoots1234]

After seeing the RTX remix for NFS underground, its hard to ignore RT completely anymore.

[@mihairomulus2488]

I've been saying stuff like this for 4 years and they still have to enter my library

[@Metetron]

Dragon's Dogma 2 has surprisingly nice RT for how relatively cheap it is, though without mods it's locked at just 0.4x resolution. I still found it worthwhile to use for about half of my playtime on a 6800 XT, it made the forests gorgeous. I opted for 0.75x resolution as a compromise.

[@colossusrageblack]

It's because it's global illumination which makes a much bigger visual difference than shadows which is what a lot of games that claim to have RT use.

[@Yellowswift3]

A very detailed and thorough dive into the benchmarks there, thanks for the hard work, Steve. The ray tracing deep dive you mentioned would also be an interesting piece of content should you decide to undertake it.

[@OPmonkey_gaming]

Just picked a up a RX 7900 GRE thanks to all the information in this video seems to work nicely with my i5 13500.

[@SilverforceX]

I don't give a rats about ray tracing. Its still way too heavy on perf for the minor visual gains, and in many titles, the shadows aren't even better with RT, just different.

[@Frozoken]

Yep they need to learn that the most exciting features are the ones with little to no downsides. This is why barely anyone actually cares about/uses features like ray tracing and frame gen. There's way too much of a trade off with both. Thats the same reason i love reflex so much because while the benefit is mild to moderate, there's literally 0 downside so I can always enable it no matter what.

[@noahflare6825]

💯

[@pelpiBro]

someone having amd and he cant play games with ray tracing,so mad

[@EthanLeitch]

Thanks for the great video! I've just ordered a 4070 SUPER here in Australia for $950. It was a difficult choice between the 4060 Ti 8gb/16gb, 7800 XT, and 7900 XT. In the end I compared $ per frame on all of them: 4060 Ti 8GB was good, but the 16GB was a terrible value even at 4K. The 7800 XT was fantastic value but I really just wanted the NVIDIA features, and the 4070 SUPER actually had better price to performance than the 4070 with current pricing.

[@hendersonseena]

I believe you paid too much money. I got the rx 7900 gre for $520.00 close to the proformace of your card for hundreds cheaper. All the extra bells for the nivida card is not worth the price difference. But it's your choice.

[@EthanLeitch]

@@hendersonseena that's Australian dollars, here the cheapest new 7900 GRE is $929 and 4070 SUPER is $949.

[@Hjorth87]

Great video. I love the amount of data 😊

[@Nitro-Blue]

Absolutely love my 7900GRE. I upgraded from a 4060 to play in 1440p, and I can say that I am very satisfied with my purchase

[@richardwinstanley8219]

£600 for abysmal ray tracing performance is just not worth it. Paying a premium for a compromised experience is such a poor decision. I would rather get the 7900 GRE and not enable Ray Tracing, instead of paying more just to say "I play with RT" at a low FPS.

[@itouchgr4ss]

i don't care about ray tracing but for upscaling DLSS is way better than FSR. if AMD somehow can match nvidia with their RX8000 series then im switching to AMD.

[@Nick-nf1kd]

I play RT on a 3060ti. Man I love 30 fps and stuttering from running out of vram, so fun!

[@vladimirdosen6677]

@@itouchgr4ss People pretending how Nvidia is selling mist never ceases to amaze me. They have proven time and again that their software is superior. Just because their rasterized performance sometimes is slower(by a small margin than AMD counterparts), doesn't mean that they don't have an overall well-balanced product.

[@Superdazzu2]

ehm 1440p dlss quality 60+ fps with everything maxed including ray tracing is a compromised experience? LOL

[@kraithaywire]

@@Superdazzu2 people who say ray tracing isn't worth it have never seen it in person.

[@dutyofcall7659]

swapped my rtx 3060 for a rtx 4070 super OC and it's a huge improvement.

[@michahojwa8132]

Fabio from Ancient Gameplays did a piece on this, but with OC/UV - he basically redefined the Way it's done - like raising core voltage for better result. With the new way GRE becomes OC monster. About your video - I really like how you put raster and rt results in one place.

[@andrewbroadfort6856]

Bought the 7900 GRE for iRacing in VR. Paired with a 5800X3D AM4 setup that had started life with an 1800X. No RT in iRacing.

[@jimmybobby9400]

It does really well in iracing, especially after an overclock.

[@Uthleber]

You should only buy a 7900 GRE if you are willing to (memory) OC it. otherwise just take the 7800 xt for the AMD side.

[@jimmybobby9400]

You just move a slider and click a button.

[@Uthleber]

@@jimmybobby9400 and even this, could be a challenge for some folks 🙂

[@andersjjensen]

It generally takes a pretty good core bump too. I haven't heard of silicon so bad that people can't get 2700MHz with a 1010mv baseline and a +15% TDP.

[@pauloazuela8488]

@@andersjjensen so far the issue of GRE with the bad overclock wasn't silicon related but bugs due to driver issues that AMD released a driver that should be the fix and I've seen videos of it that it fixes it. But I do not know how stable it is

[@andersjjensen]

@@pauloazuela8488 The numbers above are post "fix" numbers. You could do it before, but you had to use PowerTables via the registry.

[@MrSmitheroons]

What a polished and thorough conclusion. If the charts were a bit complicated and showed mixed results depending on which particular games/settings you care about, the conclusion was easy to follow and went way beyond just digesting the graphs. Tons of context added about the market, games, value, upscaling/frame gen tech and what it is/isn't good for... Amazingly thorough! I won't buy either GPU, but I feel a lot more informed about the state of games and PC hardware after watching this! That said, if you folks need to take more breaks and put out slightly fewer videos, I wouldn't mind and I think most of the viewers wouldn't either. Sure, there might be a loss of revenue from having less videos (less total watch time, fewer ad views, that's how KZbin revenue works, right?) but trade-offs, you know. If it'd help you folks have a better work-life balance it may be worth it! Anyway, I'll leave that sort of thing to you folks, you know your own needs best. Just thought I'd put that out there. Best to you! Thanks for all the wisdom!

[@anthonyc2159]

7900 GRE: 16GB VRAM @ 256 bits vs 4070 Super: 12GB VRAM @ 192 bits. Which one do you think will age better? And even Steve admits raytracing is still a joke in most games. It is NOT worth the loss of 40% FPS over some 'enhanced reflections' that I can barely notice during gameplay. If Nvidia had a bit of shame, they would be releasing RT with Blackwell since full path tracing brings even the 4090 to its knees. 😮‍💨

[@w04h]

What will age better? A gpu that uses hardware upscaling and has a company that consistently updates it and also introduces new features every few months, compared to company that let their sh1t software upscaling rot with no major updates for over a year so badly that Intel, a competitor that just entered the gpu market, already has a better looking hardware and software solution? Tell me. Even as a programmer who likes using AMD's Xilinx products I have to say they have been stagnating pretty bad on the software and feature side.

[@ranjitmandal1612]

😮

[@Guwapo77]

Really loving the new graphical overlay.

[@Tainted79]

The problem with benchmarking the 7900GRE is it's bandwidth starved out of the box. It needs to be memory Oc'd to see its full potential. And then you'll get into endless arguments saying its not a fair match up.

[@sgredsch]

yea well without manual tuning its basically a 7800xt. the 7900gre is really only interesting as a tinker gpu that needs manual tuning. thats where the value of the gpu is.

[@The_Noticer.]

Then they should have released it that way. Which perfectly illustrates steve's comment that AMD can't afford to leave performance on the table at low market-share.

[@markgutierez9922]

@@sgredsch it's been a while since I had the chance to mess with a GPU and get decent results. And with the radeon software per game profiles I get to set individual oc profiles for each game for maximum performance. Indeed I have been having more fun playing with the GPU settings than the actual games 😂.

[@stangamer1151]

What do you mean by "needs"? Every card can be overclocked, including 4070 Super. And it is even more constrained by it's mem bandwidth than GRE.

[@josejuanandrade4439]

If a product NEEDS to be tinkered with, to work as it should.. THEN IS A BAD PRODUCT. Then again, all cards can benefit from oc'ing, not just your precious AMD cards. So please, lower your fanboyism a notch, would you?

[@Steve30x]

I bought a 7900gre two weeks ago and I have a feeling my 5600x is bottlenecking it even though my ram is 3733mhz. Also I have the CPU set to boost @ 4.85ghz with pno2 curve optimizer at negative 20. I'm going to upgrade my CPU to either a 5700x3d or 5800x3d.

[@roki977]

It does for sure. 5800x3d is minimum for that GPU.. Skip 5700x3d if you can..

[@Steve30x]

@@roki977 there's only about €30 difference between the two anyway but it will have to wait a few weeks because my cooker died just a week after buying the 7900gre

[@roki977]

@@Steve30x i had 5700x at 4.85ghz and frames drops in every cpu demanding scenario like in cp2077 with lots of NPCs or simillar thing in Warzone and all that with rx 6800. With 5800x3d all those drops are almost gone, i have 7800xt now. Just saying its out of my exp..

[@Pand0rasAct0r_]

yes just buy a 5800x3d and enjoy the motherboard for a long time still. till hell maybe even am6

[@darkfeeels]

I cannot believe the amount of effort you put into testing these products consistently. Thank you so much for your sincere efforts for this community - you guys are the GOAT.

[@Shannon-ul5re]

Most players are using 1080p or 1440p displays, isn't 12GB of VRAM enough for that resolution?

[@wizardfire555]

Yes

[@anhiirr]

yep and most broke bois like to parrot 'talking points" as if theyve ever owned/tuned/ran "flagship" ranged products NGL. PPL that parrot bs talkingpoints and "what about ism" about played out scenarios...theyll never even live/encounter themselves just QQ'ing about how they can make an excuse to not upgrade/have what they wish they could run......mean while....im the "GUY" looking at 38" ultrwawides...driectdrive racing wheels etc....the whole shebang.... on account of GAMING interests. Played cp2077 and RDR2 on PC 21:9 day 1...had 2080ti/5700xt/3070/3080/4070ti as far as my experience with recent Faster gpus among the budget/range cards and laptops ive had/tested/sold...i owned a 7990 as well prior...and nothing comes across as more obvious to me....ppl griping about miniscule BS that in reality doesnt cross the MIND of ppl with these actual BUILDS/nice rigs if not EVER.

[@kennwan9917]

Yep I'm on 1080p 244hz. Just went for the 4070 super. More CPU intensive at those res with high refresh rates. I don't know why people consider these 4k cards. Maybe for Simpsons hit and run. Vram won't be an issue. Pretty much the same as a PS5 pro with a 4070s especially if you can get some oc in there. So I'd assume it'll be fine for a lot longer than 2 years like people keep claiming. Plus PS5 just upscales, I'm native with the 4070s. If I upscale like the PS5 pro then it'll last me 10 years.

[@anhiirr]

@@kennwan9917 trust me vram is only an issue in games where theres high asset/specularity/particle components where RAM gets eaten up to render them and how they intereact with shadow/surrounding graphics. Any other API/rendering code or etc engine. Utilizes a fair amount....IJS bc you can see how many games the 4070-4070S competing with the 3080 12gb...or AMD cards with more ram....same with the 4070ti in competition with the 3090ti as far as 1440p....yet that gpu has 1/2 the vram....yet similar yeilds to a 3090-3090ti....so outside of 4k....theres generally still no need for 16gb gpus...and in 4YEARS the 3090ti has proven that the vram 24gb etc....is only useful in the case of 4k....a lot of new AAA titles benchmarked showcasing 10-13gb max vram populated/usage in RTSS with gpus that have 16-24gb....total in 1440p

[@MauriceMosss]

Just bought a 4070 Super and i happy with it

[@vvhitevvizard_]

12GB of 4070S is a big nono Nvidia could make RTX 4070 Super much better if they make it with 256bit bus width and 16GB VRAM. With 4000 series, Nvidia lost its touch with reality. 4060, 4060 ti 8/16, 4070(ti) just feel as a rip-off. And RX 7900 GRE would be more compelling for $500.

[@exception6651]

I’m sorry but most people that buy these cards won’t be playing in 4k or using max settings, Evan if they are they’ll be using dlss anyway. In new games 12gb will not be a issue it’s very rare I use over 12gb on my 4090 at 4k 🤷‍♂️

[@vvhitevvizard_]

@@exception6651 12GB is not enuf for frame generation, RTX, etc. Even for 1080P very high settings. Also, more VRAM is required for AI related stuff. TODAY. And its definitely NOT-FUTUREPROOF.

[@itouchgr4ss]

@@vvhitevvizard_May i know what game required more than 12GB VRAM at 1080p? i own 4070ti. So far the game i've played never exceed 12GB VRAM at 1440p (i don't have 4K monitor). Even if memory usage exceed 12GB VRAM 4070ti is not capable to run most of the game in 4k anyway. The same apply to the 7900GRE. Even if the VRAM is sufficient it cant do 4K too.

[@angeltzepesh1]

The Nvidia rip-off started way before the 4000 series, just look how bad the RTX 2000 series was, it was basically the 1000 series with RT cores while increasing the price. 3000 and 4000 series are good in a vacuum, but they suffer from gimped memory configurations and overprice, most of the lineup at least.

[@kraithaywire]

@@vvhitevvizard_ then how the hell is 4070 Super outperforming the 7900GRE at 1440p and 4k with ray tracing????????????

[@jamminen74]

The pricing is pretty crucial, because it varies country by country. I already bought 7800xt soon it became available for 550€ and now 4070super sells here for 680€, so i gotta say I'm still happy. 7900gre sells for 640-650€, so that to me isn't low enough price to be sorry.

[@X2yt]

Nvidia is not worth it, unless you need CUDA support. So basically anything even remotely AI related, Nvidia is a must. Also for productivity. Then it's worth it. For pure 100% gaming, AMD is almost always better for the money.

[@mikesunboxing]

i might have missed it in the video, but which models of the cards were used?

[@fateunleashed9680]

Both are Gigabyte cards. It's shown on the thumbnail, mentioned at 1:20 which you can always find in the chapters of the video.

[@ahairylobster8524]

@@fateunleashed9680 GROSS

[@evergaolbird]

In my region the RTX 4070 Super (ZOTAC Twin EDGE) is 690 USD while the RX 7900 GRE (SAPPHIRE Nitro+) is 819USD.

[@fracturedlife1393]

Thanks for democratically benching Helldivers 2. Must try this dx11 switch 😅

[@ronaldgutman5980]

Hi Steve, had to watch this video twice because it is jam packed with your detailed benchmarking results and your valued opinions. I have 3 Sons I have built Gaming Rigs for, and I must say I finally have swung my own advice to the value proposition and RAM of the GRE GPU. Rasterization performance is still key here and that's where I believe you have solid data combined with the few titles that utilize Ray Tracing at an acceptable level. Overall, thank you for the quality and thorough analysis I have come to enjoy and rely on from Hardware Unboxed. Thank Sir, your efforts are always appreciated!

[@ИванГадияк]

In my opinion you should add Witcher 3 in RT tests, difference there is huge in visuals.

[@kraithaywire]

True! And 4070 Super should be a lot faster in that game with RT.

[@band0lero]

@@pravnav Only on Novigrad, where it is heavily CPU limited. On more graphics intensive scenario it can give a pretty good indication of RTX performance. It is pretty heavy, but so is every Ray Tracing implementation that makes a difference.

[@evanhooper1]

@@band0lero The thing about the TW3 next gen update is now even with RTX turned off, the performance is much worse than the 1.32 'last gen' version. The directX 12 implementation was horribly done

[@kren4449]

​@@evanhooper1with rt off, fsr quality and pretty high settings (a mix of high/ultra/ultra+) the new directx 12 version works decently enough on my radeon 6600 @ 1440p while looking better than the old version. From what I've read online it appears that people with amd cards and rt off generally don't have many problems with getting decent performance on witcher 3 ng

[@band0lero]

@@evanhooper1 yup, it is definetly worse overall, but it shouldn't matter very much if we're looking for performance deltas between GPUs rather than analyzing the game itself. Other than CPU limitations, of course.

[@twithnell]

I think overall, the 7900 XTX looks to be the most compelling for me. I am coming from an EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra 12GB version. I have the updated bios installed that increases the power limit to 450 watts. SO my card basically performs like a 4070, but with the faster memory bandwidth on my card, it sometimes performs better than than what the 4070 would do. The cut memory bus and bandwidth on those 4000 series cards make me not want them because it will probably make it age out faster with newer titles. They really want to push that DLSS. I know that FSR is an option on AMD, but they aren't handicapping they hardware to push it. It's more of a product of them building console hardware and porting the technology to PC. I feel more confident in buying an AMD card nowadays and having a longer life out of it.

[@lucidnonsense942]

12GB vram for 600$? Yeah, hard pass...

[@schwazernebe]

perfectly fine for wqhd

[@PSXman9]

i rather take 12GB on a functional GPU with basically flawless drivers compared to the absolute abomination of what RDNA3 is... (and i own a 7800XT and 7900XTX)

[@nexii1479]

How about ultrawide?​@@schwazernebe

[@enragedbacon470]

kekw you probably aren't buying either of them, you're just here to complain and validate your salt

[@isaacx593]

Agreed, should have been 16gb

[@bk201xe]

must've been so much work. appreciate you guys.

[@kraithaywire]

Hi Steve you probably hear this a lot but i love you

[@Hardwareunboxed]

Not enough for my liking, so thank you haha

[@kraithaywire]

@@Hardwareunboxed

[@Ludak021]

I came to see how much better 7900 GRE is at 1080p! My favorite 1080p performance channel on the YT!

[@izidor]

I got yesterday my 7900 GRE Pulse...the GPU is just a monster in terms of OC. 25 262 Timespy points. Since they open up the MEM OC the card is super interesting. Easy 4070 Ti Super performance possible. OFC this is not the standard. Super luck with my sample.

[@niteh4wkk926]

fr I managed to get my 7800xt running with mem clocks over 2750mhz and the uplift was crazy

[@ArchieBunker11]

If you remove the games with 500fps the 4070S wins raster, it wins massively in RT, it win’s massively in upscale quality, and its more efficient

[@TearyBoi]

Can we get a massive GPU benchmark for helldivers 2? 😮

[@fracturedlife1393]

Maybe some CPU 🤞

[@magikarp2063]

Well you basically got everything you need to know from this video - Nvidia massive advantage. But it would be okay to see since its a veryy popular one.

[@hak116]

Heres to hoping that amd users get driver updates to bring the gre up to par with nvidia cards, so everyone can spread democracy with smoooth framerates!

[@ranjitmandal1612]

🔥

[@toad7395]

Nvidia currently has the advantage (I assume in all 4000 vs 7000 series gpus). Probably because the developers tested using nvidia GPUs and not AMD gpus. Hopefully AMD updates their drivers to combat it, I doubt helldivers 2 will release an update to increase AMD performance.

[@j_pascua]

Ultimately went with the 7900GRE (It's $130+ more for the 4070 Super in maple syrup land) and thanks to this video, I don't feel like I'm really missing out on anything from the Nvidia side as I'm not a big RT user.

[@NBAThrowback00]

What did you end up paying, if you don't mind me asking? I'm on the hunt as well.

[@j_pascua]

@@NBAThrowback00 At the time, it was $735

[@BSDShoes]

​@@j_pascua I just grabbed a 7900 gre for 719 CAD myself, with AFMF2 and FSR 3 it's a killer card

[@pw1169]

Can we have a linux vs windows benchmark with these cards and cpu?

[@シミズルリ]

Oh man, that would be such a pain to benchmark! I can 100% guarantee that the moment Linux is mentioned, there will be comments like "yOu UsEd wRoNg dIsTrO" and "ummm ackshually thats the wrong version of dxvk it has 1.3% worse performance". Considering the sheer amount of variables to the amount of games tested it probably isn't worth it...

[@pw1169]

@@シミズルリ It don't think it would be too bad. Just go for an 'out of the box' distro config and start benchmarking. At worst the benchmarks have to be run twice. It would be so interesting though! Don't tell me you wouldn't be interested :D

[@fugitive6549]

no one cares about linux in gaming.

[@pw1169]

@@fugitive6549 enjoy gaming on your spyware infested os 😂

[@TheGrizz485]

Not considering the 7900GREs huge ~%15 overclocking headroom is huge oversight in the analysis. It's the only reason many people are buying it. I think that this and it's 16gb memory buffer makes it a direct competitor to the 4070ti Super.

[@fVNzO]

It's not guaranteed performance, both cards can be overclocked. And no, the vast majority of people do not overclock or undervolt. You should be able to easily make that decision yourself armed with your own knowledge about OC'ing if that's what you're intending to do. There's no "oversight", the video is not a big maths equation it just relays data. It's up to you calculate your own weighted sum. It's not that deep.

[@TheGrizz485]

But most cards have only %4-%5 OC headroom. It's a waste not capatalize on the GREs oc headroom if it's being considered.

[@Eleganttf2]

lol these amd fanboys are never satisfied

[@AndyViant]

@@TheGrizz485 yes, but you might get a 7900GRE that only lets you memory O/C to 2300. Or you might buy a brand of 7900 GRE with a really bad power limit. The same goes the other way, the Nvidia reference Super boards were crap for power limits but some AIB partners fixed that, and that allows more like 7-8% O/C. Some people have had minimal memory overclocking success with the GRE and stability issues. Applying the fast memory timings option on the card seem to be almost as good as higher memory overclocks anyway. The only fair way to do it is to benchmark what you get with factory settings, naming the specific products, and if you've played with overclocking and found one seems pretty good (or heard it through industry) then mention it might be a plus but YMMV. Which is exactly what Steve did.

[@mihirojha4475]

I'm impressed at the improvement at Ray Tracing for the AMD GPU here, still not as good as Nvidia but its a lot closer now that it may not be an actual factor to be considered while purchasing.

[@The_Noticer.]

Hey Steve, a much fairer assessment in the final thoughts than the previous "AMD has to be 20% cheaper" argument. Fair on VRAM, Ray Tracing and the pro's and con's of both. As for the rest in my opinion: I still say the Adrenaline software suite is still a bit better than GFE (or whatever its called now), but DLSS is better than FSR. However, since both make your visual quality noticably softer and blurrier, i'd never use them either way. And FG is just terrible for both vendors. And as you said, ray tracing only really matters with the 4080/4090. This class of GPU's just isn't fast enough without upscaling. So you have slightly more accurate shadows, but a blurrier visual. Not really a selling point to me.

[@tomgreene5388]

How is this a much more fair assessment when all you said was a bunch of opinions and things you prefer lol. Not everyone will want or prioritize the same things as you.

[@The_Noticer.]

@@tomgreene5388 The first part of the comment is a remark to steve, then a new line starts, and it literally says: "IN MY OPINION". I did that specifically to prevent comments like these. But alas, bellcurve and everything. There is no way you can provide enough caveats for some room temp IQ's that failed basic reading skills.

[@LDSrouquin]

It would be very interesting to see a revisit of this comparison in 1-3 years from now, especially as modern games are using more and more VRAM. The longevity of the cards will be important for those of us who don't like to upgrade very often. If I were to upgrade right now, I'd be more tempted to get the 7900GRE for of the larger VRAM buffer for games I will play in the next few years, such as the third Star Wars: Jedi game. Just a thought from a random viewer.

[@lloydaran]

It ultimately depends on what games you like to play, personally, for just 50 bucks at this price point for 1440p gaming, I'd go for the Nvidia GPU here, overall superior upscaling and frame generation and ray-tracing, Reflex > Anti-Lag, less power consumption. On the AMD side, there are 4 GBs more of VRAM for "future-proofing" and nothing else really. The GRE needs to be no more than 500 bucks in my opinion.

[@jutube821]

And much better in Blender, local LLM's or any AI compute in general. The 4070 super is absolutely worth it the 50 bucks more. Who says otherwise is being dishonest. I say this as someone who has had more AMD cards in the past than Nvidia.

[@ravenspire9691]

I basically have done this over the last 2 weeks. Nephew got together the money for a PC and I wanted an upgrade to mine. He wanted a 4070 Super, I got a 7900 GRE. Main difference is he only managed to get a 2 fan Palit model for his Gefore premium (£584.99) while I got a 3 fan ASrock Steel Legends (£537.98) (which are in White for the GRE). I am happy with my build, he is a bit disappointed by how his looks but time will tell which was the best buy

[@metabolic2057]

Im upgrading from a gtx 1070 to 7900 gre oc 😂

[@tomaattiX]

Doing The same but from a 1050 lmao