AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT: Is the 16GB graphics card worth the money?

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is undoubtedly an extremely interesting graphics card that stands out from the crowd with its impressive 16GB of graphics memory. Its release in January 2024 was intended to close the gap between the existing RX 7600 and RX 7700 XT models.

What are the RX 7600 XT’s technical specifications?

The RX 7600 XT not only offers an impressive 16GB of graphics memory, but also an FP32 computing power of around 11.3 TFLOPS. These figures promise a smooth gaming experience, especially in Full HD resolution. The GPU has various clock frequencies, including a base clock of 1,720MHz, a gaming clock of 2,470MHz and a boost clock of 2,755MHz.

Compared to its little sister, the RX 7600, the RX 7600 XT not only shows a slight increase in performance, but also offers twice as much graphics memory. This is particularly advantageous for users who work with resource-intensive applications or high-resolution textures. Although the GPU is mainly designed for Full HD gaming, it can also achieve satisfactory results in 1440p resolution as long as you can limit yourself to games such as Baldur’s Gate 3.

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How does the RX 7600 XT with 16GB perform?

The market for graphics cards in the $300 to $400 price range is highly competitive, and the RX 7600 XT has to go against rivals such as the RTX 4060 Ti (8GB), Intel Arc A770 (16GB), and the RX 6750 XT. This shows that the RX 7600 XT offers a solid price-performance ratio, albeit not the best.

Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that despite the large memory, the RX 7600 XT is not necessarily the most powerful card in this price range. Both the RTX 4060 Ti and the RX 6750 XT offer slightly more performance, especially in more demanding games. So if you’re looking for a graphics card for QHD gaming, the RX 7600 XT might not fulfil all expectations.

One interesting aspect of the RX 7600 XT is its connection of eight PCIe 4.0 lanes. Unfortunately, this comes with some limitations, such as the fact that the card is not designed for older systems with PCIe 3.0. An “upgrade” with this graphics card would result in read and write speeds being halved. This should be taken into account when deciding on the RX 7600 XT, especially if you plan to use it in an older system.

Another highlight of the RX 7600 XT is the support of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR 3). This upscaling technology is designed to improve image quality without significantly compromising performance. FSR makes it possible to enjoy games in higher resolutions without compromising on performance. This makes the RX 7600 XT particularly attractive for users who value a future-proof graphics card, as the 7000 generation benefits best from upscaling technology according to AMD.

The large graphics memory of 16GB offers several advantages, which become apparent in a direct comparison with the RX 7600. For example, the Radeon RX 7600 XT can achieve a 40 percent increase in ray tracing performance compared to the RX 7600, because the smaller 8GB memory fills up very quickly with ray tracing activated. Nevertheless, a graphics card in this price range is not recommended for the use of ray tracing and the performance of the RX 7600 XT is still behind that of an Intel Arc A770, despite a better efficiency of around 30 percent.

Conclusion

The extra charge for the 16GB graphics memory does not make the price-performance ratio of the card look particularly good. Even an RTX 4060 Ti is more attractive than the RX 7600 XT due to the additional performance. The larger memory makes it possible to process more complex scenes and higher resolutions smoothly, which is reflected in better future-proofing. In addition, a larger graphics memory can also improve performance when using technologies such as ray tracing, but this is not a selling point.

The big problem with the RX 7600 XT is the competition, which simply offers better performance. In addition, there are cards like the RX 6750 XT (6700 XT), which also offer very good future-proofing with their 12GB of graphics memory, cost no more, and are even designed for higher resolutions.

If you’re looking for a good graphics card for gaming in Full HD, then it is best to go for the price-performance hit, the RX 6600 (8GB). It costs just under $200 and will be able to display everything in a smooth 60fps. If you want to gain your first experience with ray tracing, then the RTX 4060 Ti (16GB) offers 64 percent better performance compared to the RX 7600 XT, with 95 percent better efficiency — but it costs quite a bit more, too.

This article was translated from German to English and originally appeared on pcwelt.de.