ASRock Radeon RX 7800 XT Steel Legend

[Daven]

"

• +$20 over MSRP
• Only small gen-over-gen performance improvement"

20$ is nothing for a better cooler than ref, this isn't a con, it looks like you're fishing.
"Gen over gen", the real predecessor to this is the 6700 XT (full chip of Navi 22 vs this, Navi 32, not 31 which is the 6800 XT's successor, bigger chip), the improvement is actually huge, price is only 70$ higher (well post covid, post mining way lower), and 100$ less than 6800 XT msrp. You can maybe blame AMD for the naming of their cards which was made awkward by the 7900 "XTX" which moved everything up one notch.

Seeing this is probably the best AMD card of this gen (best selling by far), highly competitive against nvidias offerings (4070 Ti, 4070 and 4060 Ti), this should get more than this "highly recommended" (2nd place award). To be honest I don't even know what "Editor's Choice" means here, the ROG MATRIX gets it, is this in a dream world where the author will buy it? While actually using a 4080, which is a cheap card compared to a 3200$ card. Editor's Choice actually means it is something which the author would buy. But it's also something which the best cards get. So this kinda should get it. But whatever, perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

This is an interesting take that I did not consider before. AMD really just screwed up the model naming. The real comparison is the full chips at the different Navi levels. So if we take the full chip at each Navi level at the series launch and compare, you get the following:

Navi 23(6600xt) vs Navi 33(7600) - 5% performance increase @1080p
Navi 22(6700xt) vs Navi 32(7800xt) - 50% performance increase @2.5k
Navi 21(6900xt) vs Navi 31(7900xtx) - 50% performance increase @4k

That’s more helpful. The 7600 was more of a rebrand. But the other levels fall closer to expectations.

 

[HD64G]

Because the PowerColor Hellhound comes at $500 MSRP and has better cooling, better heat, better noise, better perf

I hear that. But, if you review a better than the Hellhound GPU for the same money or even a bit less, would you change the review cons of the Hellhound then? I think the cons should be referred to more significant points that aren't related to a few % between custom GPUs. Thanks again for your quality job!

 

[ViperXZ]

This is an interesting take that I did not consider before. AMD really just screwed up the model naming. The real comparison is the full chips at the different Navi levels. So if we take the full chip at each Navi level at the series launch and compare, you get the following:

Navi 23(6600xt) vs Navi 33(7600) - 5% performance increase @1080p
Navi 22(6700xt) vs Navi 32(7800xt) - 50% performance increase @2.5k
Navi 21(6900xt) vs Navi 31(7900xtx) - 50% performance increase @4k

That’s more helpful. The 7600 was more of a rebrand. But the other levels fall closer to expectations.

Exactly, and this is also why AMD didn't name the 7600 the "7600 XT" as it would've been even more odd. So the reason why the 7600 isn't that great (aside from a few games that scale greatly with Dual Issue shaders), is, because the 7600 is still on a very comparable node to 6600 XT, which is 6nm vs 7nm. 6nm is a very much improved 7nm node, very similar to TSMC 7N+, which uses EUV, regular 7N does not use it. This will also explain, to those who are interested, why the chip is clearly smaller than 6600 XT's while still having new features like AI cores and bigger cores in general that have Dual Issue feature among other things that are less significant.

Also yes, it's kinda likely that a successor to 6950XT (basically a 7900 XTX with higher clocks) could come. We will see. Especially if "high end RDNA 4" was canned. Well, this part is speculative.

I hear that. But, if you review a better than the Hellhound GPU for the same money or even a bit less, would you change the review cons of the Hellhound then? I think the cons should be referred to more significant points that aren't related to a few % between custom GPUs. Thanks again for your quality job!

Maybe nobody here cares about RGB, but this card has it and the Hellhound only has 2-Color-LEDs (switchable) - this will make a huge difference to people who use PCs with windows. Just saying. Here goes the 20$ bucks.

 

[Octavean]

I considered the ASRock RX 7800 XT Challenger and the 7800 XT Steel Legend but eventually opted to buy the ASRock 7800 XT Phantom Gaming at Microcenter for about ~$530 USD. The Steel Legend and the Phantom Gaming seem to have similar cooling, RGB switch and likely perform similarly.

These aren’t spectacular cards (7800XT) but given the state of the market and the MSRP there is little wonder that they are flying off the shelves

IMO, if you can get a 7900 XT at ~$600 USD or a little less that would be a better buy but if you can’t go from ~$500 to ~$600 the 7800XT is a great option.

The RTX 4070 should probably be officially dropped to ~$500 or a little less and the 4070Ti should probably be about ~$550.

These 7800XT cards are hefty though. You’ll definitely need some additional support.

BTW, if someone has such a card and the RGB is a problem for them (absent a switch), one might be able to just pull the RGB cable from the card easily enough.

 

[Dwarden]

i'm bit confused about the noise levels on this one, it's 3rd worst result of all tested 7800XT by TPU, worse 2.1 dB than Phantom and 5.4 dB worse than best Hellhound (non-quiet bios)

PowerColor RX 7800 XT Hellhound	36°C​	Fan Stop​	59°C​	80°C​	25.0 dBA​	1001 RPM​

ASRock RX 7800 XT Phantom	36°C​	Fan Stop​	62°C​	81°C​	28.3 dBA​	983 RPM​

ASRock RX 7800 XT Steel Legend	35°C​	Fan Stop​	61°C​	81°C​	30.4 dBA​	1528 RPM​

 

[W1zzard]

i'm bit confused about the noise levels on this one, it's 3rd worst result of all tested 7800XT by TPU, worse 2.1 dB than Phantom and 5.4 dB worse than best Hellhound (non-quiet bios)

Yeah, but dBA is not linear, all these cards are very quiet

 

[ViperXZ]

"They are specified to run at 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective), but are running at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective)."

you made a small mistake there, it runs at 2425 MHz which is 19400 or 19.4 Gbps effectively. My guess is they lowered it because the card has more than enough bandwidth anyway.

 

[W1zzard]

"They are specified to run at 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective), but are running at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective)."

you made a small mistake there, it runs at 2425 MHz which is 19400 or 19.4 Gbps effectively. My guess is they lowered it because the card has more than enough bandwidth anyway.

Fixed, thanks!

 

[GodisanAtheist]

This is an interesting take that I did not consider before. AMD really just screwed up the model naming. The real comparison is the full chips at the different Navi levels. So if we take the full chip at each Navi level at the series launch and compare, you get the following:

Navi 23(6600xt) vs Navi 33(7600) - 5% performance increase @1080p
Navi 22(6700xt) vs Navi 32(7800xt) - 50% performance increase @2.5k
Navi 21(6900xt) vs Navi 31(7900xtx) - 50% performance increase @4k

That’s more helpful. The 7600 was more of a rebrand. But the other levels fall closer to expectations.

-Yep, and now AMD has a performance and price gap in their line-up large enough to drive a Mac truck through.

It looks like they should have given N22 the RDNA3 treatment, ported to 6nm, and released it as the 7700.