Introduction

ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Taichi White is a special edition of the company's top air-cooled graphics card that's suitable for boutique gaming PC builds with an all-white theme. This is ASRock's first such graphics card, although the white-theme can be had with the company's Taichi Carrara series motherboards, such as the Z790 Taichi Carrara and the X670E Taichi Carrara. We have also reviewed the regular ASRock RX 7900 XTX Taichi OC a while ago, this review is the white version. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the fastest graphics card from Team-Red, and rocks the latest AMD RDNA 3 graphics architecture. The company is promising to repeat a generational 50% performance/Watt increase like it had with the RX 6000 series, which would put the company back in competition with NVIDIA's fastest GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" GPUs, such as the RTX 4080, and occasionally even the RTX 4090.

The RDNA 3 graphics architecture debuts the world's first chiplets-based gaming GPU. The "Navi 31" ASIC at the heart of the RX 7900 XTX sees the core number-crunching and graphics rendering machinery of the GPU placed on a large central die based on the 5 nm process, called the Graphics Compute Die (GCD), while the parts of the GPU that don't benefit as much from the switch to the latest foundry process, namely the Infinity Cache memory, and the memory controllers, are disintegrated into six chiplets surrounding the GCD. Each chiplet has a 16 MB segment of the GPU's 96 MB of Infinity Cache, and a 64-bit GDDR6 memory interface; and is hence called the Memory Cache Die (MCD). There are six of these, making up the GPU's 384-bit GDDR6 memory interface, handling 24 GB of memory.



The RDNA 3 graphics architecture debuts a new-generation Compute Unit with dual instruction issue-rate SIMD components, support for new math formats, AI acceleration integrated at the CU-level, and 2nd generation Ray Accelerators that improve ray tracing performance over the previous generation. AMD claims a 17.5% IPC uplift over RDNA 2 compute units, which when combined with generationally increased clock-speeds, and a 20% increase in CU counts over "Navi 21," form the bedrock of the performance uplift over the previous generation, with the company claiming to have retained the streak of 50% performance/Watt uplift with each generation of RDNA. With a 50% wider memory interface and proportionately larger memory, the GPU's reliance on the Infinity Cache isn't as much, and so it is reduced in size to 96 MB (compared to 128 MB on the RX 6900 XT). AMD is also using faster 20 Gbps-rated GDDR6 memory, which means the total memory bandwidth is now all the way up to 960 GB/s, a massive 87% generational increase.

As we mentioned earlier, the ASRock Taichi White is a color-scheme based variant of the company's original RX 7900 XTX Taichi OC. Both cards offer the same factory overclocked speed of 2510 MHz game clocks, and 2680 MHz boost (compared to 2269 MHz game and 2499 MHz boost); while the memory is left untouched at 20 Gbps (GDDR6-effective). Matte white replaces gunmetal-gray on all the gunmetal-colored bits of the original RX 7900 XTX Taichi, including the cooler shroud, the fan impellers, and the backplate. The underlying PCB is still black, but that's barely noticeable. The card draws power from three 8-pin PCIe power connectors, for a total power input capability of 525 W, which means the GPU enjoys much better boost frequency residency, particularly to sustain the factory-overclock. ASRock is pricing the RX 7900 XTX Taichi White at $1,120, a small $40 premium over the original Taichi price of $1080, and $120 higher than the $999 AMD MSRP.

Packaging

The Card

ASRock created a new design for their RX 7900 Series Taichi cooler. They kept the blocky, industrial design of previous Taichi products, but the cogwheel iconography is now only present on the center fan hub. The fan frames are now solid, which helps make the card look less busy. On the metal backplate we get to meet the cogwheel design again, ASRock has added more white highlights here compared to previous generations.


ASRock has placed two RGB zones in the front cooler, one along the top edge, the second near the middle fan. On the back you get a third RGB element that illuminates the Taichi logo.


Dimensions of the card are 35.0 x 14.0 cm, and it weighs 1772 g.


Installation requires three slots in your system.


Display connectivity includes two standard DisplayPort 2.1 ports (RDNA 2 had 1.4a) and two HDMI 2.1a (same as RDNA 2).

AMD has upgraded their encode/decode setup. It now comes with two independent hardware units that can encode and decode two streams of video in parallel, or one stream at double the FPS rate. There's support for VP9, H.264, H.265 and AV1 decode, and encoding is supported for H.264, H.265 and AV1.


The card uses a classic triple 8-pin power input config, rated for 525 W maximum power. NVIDIA on the other hand uses the new 12+4 pin ATX 12VHPWR connector, which is rated for up to 600 W of power draw.


Near the power connectors you'll find a 3-pin ARGB header, which lets you sync the graphics card lighting effects to the rest of your system.


I love this! A dedicated switch lets you turn off the RGB lighting—no software needed.


The dual BIOS feature lets you switch between the default "Performance" BIOS and a "Quiet" BIOS. While other vendors reduce the fan speed and allow higher temperatures, ASRock has decided to reduce clocks and voltages instead, which lowers heat output, which makes it easier for the fans to cool the card. This means that both Performance and Quiet mode are running at the same temperatures. Quiet mode is roughly 4% slower, but considerably quieter.

Teardown

ASRock has engineered an excellent thermal solution that uses eight heatpipes to move heat away quickly from the GPU. The main cooler also provides cooling for the VRM and memory chips.


Once the main cooler is removed, a metal reinforcement brace appears, which helps strengthen the card, to protect against warping and sagging.


The backplate is made of metal and protects the card against damage during installation and handling.

High-resolution PCB Pictures

These pictures are for the convenience of volt modders and people who would like to see all the finer details on the PCB. Feel free to link back to us and use these in your articles, videos or forum posts.


High-resolution versions are also available (front, back).

Circuit Board (PCB) Analysis

GPU voltage is a 18-phase design, managed by a Monolithic Power Systems MP2857 controller.


Monolithic MP87997 DrMOS components are used for GPU voltage; they are rated for 70 A of current each.


Memory voltage is a four-phase design, managed by a Monolithic Power Systems MP2856 controller.


For memory, Monolithic MP87997 DrMOS with a 70 A rating are used again.


The GDDR6 memory chips are made by Hynix and carry the model number H56G42AS8DX-014. They are specified to run at 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective).


AMD's new Navi 31 graphics processor is the world's first GPU that uses a chiplet architecture. Note the large die in the center, called "GCD," graphics compute die, which houses the compute units, it is surrounded by six smaller "MCD," memory cache dies, that contain one memory controller interface and one slice of cache each. While they look similar, the MCDs are not HBM chips. The MCDs are fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC Taiwan with a die size of 36.6 mm² each, the GCD is fabricated using TSMC's 5 nanometer node, with a die size of 300 mm². The combined transistor count of the GPU is 57.7 billion.