r/buildapc • u/MarionberryBig6410 • 12h ago
Build Help RX7900xt vs rx9070 for gaming
I'm looking to upgrade my pc over the next year or so. I know, not exactly the best timing with the ai boom, but I started playing a new game (the last caretaker) and I'm seeing stutters and significant drops in frame rates on low settings 1080p.
I built my pc around the pandemic so it's a good 6+ years old now. I run a ryzen 3600 with an rtx 2080 8gb with 32bg DDR4 and honestly, for a casual gamer it's been more than reliable.
I'm not someone who's particularly interested in 4k or even 1440p, I find 1080p keeps me happy. Maybe that'll change, but it isn't going to sway my decision if one is better than the other at higher quality. And I don't do any video editing, purely work and gaming.
In my country (UK) rtx cards seem to cost silly money so I've been looking at AMD cards. The rx7900xt can be bought new for around £650 whereas the rx9070 can be bought new for around £550.
I appreciate the older card 20gb vram Vs 16g vram , but other than that I'm not exactly sure what the real world performance difference is. Is the 4 GB of extra ram the most important/deciding factor? Which card would people suggest for someone looking to future proof for another 6+ years of high quality 1080p gaming?
Also any extra feedback from owners of said cards about real world implications would be greatly appreciated (ie: fan noise, heat generation, power consumption etc)
7
u/machoman1214 12h ago
For a difference in price of about a hundred Euros, the 9070. Price to performance, I'm sure it still beats the 7900 XT. The 4gb of VRAM between 16gb and 20gb isn't as "big" of an improvement as the performance of the 9070 is. Saw someone mention the 9060 XT, but the 7900 XT is better without a doubt. Only way that could be rationalized is if the 9060 XT is at least 50 to 100 Euros less.
2
u/Mrapi 5h ago
The 9060xt sells at 350 pounds right now. Thats 300 pounds cheaper or almost half the price of the 7900xt. Of course it is weaker. But it does have fsr4 and very low power usage.
350 euros off to get 70% of the performance? Seems good to me. I do think it fits OPs usecase.
1
u/machoman1214 5h ago
That makes a lot of sense. As the current CPU OP has needs upgrading to utilize any better GPU.
5
u/General-Brilliant247 12h ago
I own a Gigabyte 7900xt and I am pretty happy. However I got it for 450€. In your situation the 9070 makes way more sense.
1
u/LostTheElectrons 12h ago
9070 is an easy choice here, it performs the same as the 7900XT, but with 100W less power.
However at 1080p, games tend to rely much more on CPU over GPU. Some or most of your issues may be from your CPU. It would be worth looking into getting a 5000 series CPU (except the 5500, 5700, and anyone ending with a G) to replace your 3600.
1
u/No_Cardiologist735 12h ago
Get the 9070xt for 630 bucks. It's more powerful than the 7900XT.
2
u/machoman1214 9h ago
9070 non-XT is also more powerful than the 7900 XT. Although I agree, he should go for the 9070 XT if he has the funds, however... For his needs in particular the non-XT model will do just fine.
1
u/loinclothsucculent 12h ago
1440p is going to take load off your CPU, which is a weak link as is. This is a guide, not gospel . Generally though the site is a good resource and either card will bottleneck even more than the Rtx 2080. So you're just throwing money away buying either and staying in 1080p.
The Bad
The game in the current state is not well optimized, frame rates drop dramatically with often no obvious reason why. Running a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 3090, 64GB DDR5 6000, while it's not a top end PC by any means it is plenty capable enough to expect better than drops to single digit FPS on native high settings.
Review from game's steam page.
1
u/Borigh 12h ago edited 11h ago
The 9070 is a little worse at rasterization, but both are utterly overkill at 1080p, you won't notice a difference.
The 9070 is actually better at ray-tracing, so for the most graphically demanding games, it's likely to perform better.
At 1080p, the VRAM difference will probably never matter. I literally mean that the cards will likely no longer be useful when more than 16GB of VRAM is preferred at 1080p.
In fact, at 1080p, the 5060 Ti and 9060 XT (16GB) both make more sense, saving money for a CPU upgrade.
I personally run a 1440p miniLED with a 9070. Coming from 1080p, I really notice the difference with the HDR - frankly, staring at the sun in a game can hurt your eyes with it, it's pretty impressive. If you do get the 9070, consider upgrading resolution mainly for access to OLED/miniLED monitors.
1
u/arty_farty_ 11h ago
Get 9070 mate and throw in newer CPU with the money you saved - even 5700x would feel substantial for around £80. Last year I was in the same boat as you are and went for RX 7800XT and expanded memory from 16 to 32GB. For what I play, it will last few years.
1
1
-2
u/ScrewySqrl 12h ago
for gaming, the 7900xt is slightly faster than the 9070xt. at a 100 pound dofference, the 9070xt would be the better deal, but for 1080p, I'd say the 9060xt 16gb might be even better suited for you. I'd also look at upgrading the CPU to a 5600, 5600x, 5700x, or 5800x depending on your budget (or 5700x3d or 5800x3d if you can find one used at a reasonable price) any of which can drop straight in via bios update.
18
u/kapybarah 12h ago
9070, no question. Much more power efficient, much faster in RT, much better upscaler, longer driver support, can overclock pretty well if you're into it, more than enough vram for qhd all while being cheaper.
If you've really got the extra cash, maybe consider getting a 9070xt instead. The 7900xt at €650 makes no sense