XFX Radeon RX 7900 XTX Magnetic Air

[W1zzard]

The XFX Radeon RX 7900 XTX Magnetic Air comes with user-replaceable fans that pop out without any tools. It's a fantastic solution to clean your card and to simplify RMAs. The card achieved excellent performance results in our review, and the overclocking potential is highly impressive.

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[Gucky]

Seems to be the best 7900XTX in matter of noise and cooling with only 15°C between average and hotspot. (the smaller the better)
And with those easy serviceable fans.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This inner part (with the contacts and sticker) does not move when the fans are turning, so there's no risk of scraping off the contact area.

As soon as I saw those photo's, that's what I was wondering about.

 

[W1zzard]

As soon as I saw those photo's, that's what I was wondering about.

Yeah, the way it looks somehow makes you think that the fan will always scrape across that contact area, which would reduce lifetime significantly. This is not the case, but rather so that the 4 pins dont have to the rotate to a specific magic position where they work. Does that make sense?

 

[Onasi]

I assume the fans are proprietary and in case of failure you’d have to reach out to XFX and hope they can send you a replacement?

This is not the case, but rather so that the 4 pins dont have to the rotate to a specific magic position where they work. Does that make sense?

So the card itself just has the mag base, the central part of the fan itself is the rotor hub and the fan spins around that, did I get that right?

 

[W1zzard]

I assume the fans are proprietary and in case of failure you’d have to reach out to XFX and hope they can send you a replacement?

Yup

So the card itself just has the mag base, the central part of the fan itself is the rotor hub and the fan spins around that, did ai get that right?

Yes

 

[Onasi]

Oof, then let’s hope XFX actually keeps a stock of these fans for years to come in case of replacement being needed, because otherwise the benefit just boils down to “it’s easier to clean these”. Which isn’t nothing, mind, but it technically makes something like the Noctua and Asus collabs “better” in terms of user serviceability/repairability.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Yeah, the way it looks somehow makes you think that the fan will always scrape across that contact area, which would reduce lifetime significantly.

That's exactly what I envisioned. And to be fair, there are mechanisms in use that utilize such a contact-in-motion method. High speed fans aren't the general rule though.

 

[nguyen]

Funny that I have bought over 50 GPUs during the past 2 decades and have had a single instant where the fan fail, it was with the XFX R9 290

XFX should not be charging a premium for this at all.

 

[vbq7qK68eyYAH4iR]

I really like the new conclusion formatting with clear sections.
What's the TDP limit on this card? This OC looks great and equals the Nitro+, but the power consumption is lower, comparatively, before OC. Maybe the XTX chips are much more refined now than when the Nitro+ was released?

 

[jallenlabs]

Why not use COD MW3 in the benchmark suite? Lots of people play it and it has built in benchmarks.

 

[Assimilator]

A $70 price premium for magnetic fans is not the compelling value-add that XFX seems to believe it is.

 

[TheDeeGee]

5 years from now they can't be obtained anymore and you still have to resort to a deshroud mod.

Just move to regular case fan for GPU fans already, they also come in 15 mm thick variants these days. And since most GPU's are 130 mm wide you can easily fit two 120 mm fans on it, leaving room in between the shroud for excess cable clutter to hide.

 

[W1zzard]

Why not use COD MW3 in the benchmark suite? Lots of people play it and it has built in benchmarks.

I don't use integrated benchmarks, they don't represent actual gameplay quite often. MW3 is always-online and they will patch the game randomly and there's nothing I can do about it except retest 30 cards, which takes like a whole day

 

[#22]

Aren't magnetic fans nothing new? If I'm not wrong e.g. 6700XT Nitro had fans like that or similar. My friend had this card, but maybe I understood him wrong.

In general imo kinda feature nice to have, but far from being selling point. Maybe it's time for state of the art powerful magnetic 12VHPWR/12V-2x6 lol

 

[lexluthermiester]

Aren't magnetic fans nothing new? If I'm not wrong e.g. 6700XT Nitro had fans like that or similar. My friend had this card, but maybe I understood him wrong.

Yes, but not like this. These are removable/replaceable. This feature makes replacing them with fans that have different blade profiles an easy job. It also means that cleaning the fans and the heatsink is a MUCH easier situation.

 

[T1beriu]

For the sake of simplicity, we're using averages instead of geomean or more advanced math.

@W1zzard, I just noticed you use simple arithmetic average for the Average Gaming Framerate and Relative Performance. Games with high FPS, much more than the average, like CS with +600 FPS, can generate a significant impact on the results, thus skewing them. Why don't you use the industry's standard geometric mean?

 

[Dragokar]

Thanks for the review and insights. Let's hope they bring it down to 7900XT/GRE and maybe 7800XT before it is EOL.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Why don't you use the industry's standard geometric mean?

Likely because that method skews results in an unfavorable way. The method being used is applied equally across all cards tested and as such the results are valid.

 

[jallenlabs]

I don't use integrated benchmarks, they don't represent actual gameplay quite often. MW3 is always-online and they will patch the game randomly and there's nothing I can do about it except retest 30 cards, which takes like a whole day

I understand. But aren't all games getting regular updates? And the built in is repeatable, even if its not totally representative of actual mp online gameplay. I have found its pretty close to my real world fps and it would be nice to have a general idea.

 

[W1zzard]

But aren't all games getting regular updates?

Sure, but I can control when to install them, so it aligns with my full retests every few months. Definitely no plans to add any always online game. My life is complicated enough already

 

[Ruru]

I like the design, has much of a reference card look on the cooler.

 

[Denver]

What a stylish design. +1 XFX, but I still prefer Sapphire Nitro. Sorry.

However, one aspect of this methodology that I still find perplexing is the inclusion of both poorly performing games like Cities Skylines and extremely lightweight ones that push the fps to over 500+++. This skews the average fps, creating an impression that the GPUs are far more powerful than they actually are. If we analyze performance in AAA games, especially in 4K, we will see significantly lower numbers.

In other words, the methodology fails to reflect an average that represents performance in recent games.

 

[Veseleil]

@W1zzard one suggestion. Would you please consider adding just one extra photo of the bare heatsink missing here (the fans side of it), and in your future reviews? It would be nice to have a reference whether the card is a possible good deshroud option or not.
Don't get me wrong, I like the innovation with the magnetic fans, but for me it's: 3x120mm ziptied > anything else. Cheers.

 

[rusTORK]

The thermal solution on the XFX RX 7900 XTX Magnetic Air has eight heatpipes. The main heatsink also provides cooling for the memory chips and VRM circuitry.

You didn't mentioned that baseplate is actually vapor chamber.