[Hardware] AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT RDNA 3 “Navi 31” Graphics Card Specs, Performance, Price & Availability – Everything We Know So Far

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AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics card based on the RDNA 3 "Navi 31" GPU is going to be the next-gen flagship for the red team, ushering in performance levels never before seen in the PC gaming segment, and here's everything from specs, price, and performance that you need to know.

 

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT RDNA 3 Graphics Card: The Next-Gen Navi 31 Flagship Infused With Chiplet Architecture

[Updated- 05/07/22]

The AMD Radeon RX 6000 RDNA 2 graphics cards proved that the red team can offer performance on par and even exceed that of the competing GeForce RTX lineup. Each segment saw a massive increase in performance but the Navi 21 series was where the real action was, with performance higher than the RTX 3090 Ti graphics card across the board.

AMD not just delivered a brand new GPU package to its gaming audience but a package that was uplifted with a wide variety of architectural and software innovations such as Infinity Cache tech, FSR, and Smart Access Memory. All of these features combined to give Radeon users a fluid and smooth gaming experience while enjoying all the benefits that modern-day games have to offer such as Ray Tracing, DirectX 12 Ultimate, and visual upscalers technologies.

We should expect similar things with the next-generation flagship too but an important factor to consider is that GPUs are becoming more power-hungry and more pricey. It is a trend that might continue into the future as we get better products but in return, there's always a cost to pay for end consumers. So starting with what we know so far, first we should take a look at the brand new RDNA 3 GPU core that is expected to debut on the next-gen Radeon RX 7000 series graphics card lineup.

AMD Navi 31 'Plum Bonito' GPU - The Next-Gen RDNA 3 Powerhouse

At the top of the RDNA 3 SKU lineup is the Navi 31 GPU. Although there's an even faster chip in the works that is expected to debut next year, the 2022 flagship is said to be based on the Navi 31 GPU. The AMD RDNA 3 GPUs will be part of the 'GFX11' family and the flagship Navi 31 GPU is internally codenamed 'Plum Bonito' whereas the RDNA 2 flagship, the Navi 21 GPU was internally known as 'Sienna Cichlid'. AMD has become quite fond of using fish names as its internal codenames for the gaming GPU lineup and that's expected to continue with the RDNA 3 lineup.

AMD confirmed that its RDNA 3 GPUs will be coming later this year with a huge performance uplift. The company's Senior Vice President of Engineering, Radeon Technologies Group, David Wang, said that the next-gen GPUs for Radeon RX 7000 series will offer over 50% performance per watt uplift vs the existing RDNA 2 GPUs. Some of the key features of the RDNA 3 GPUs highlighted by AMD will include:

 

In the information published by AMD, the company highlighted a few key features of its RDNA 3 GPUs that will power the next generation of Radeon RX graphics cards. The RDNA 3 GPU will be based on a 5nm process node and utilize an advanced chiplet packaging that delivers increased performance per watt. Furthermore, the GPU will house a range of new technologies such as a brand new and rearchitected Compute Unit, an optimized graphics pipeline, and the next-gen of Infinity Cache.

AAMD will be rearchitecting the compute units within RDNA 3 to deliver enhanced raytracing capabilities. Although there's no mention of what these capabilities are if we were to guess, we would say it's definitely talking about performance and a set of advanced features on the RDNA 3 GPU core for Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards.

AMD's RDNA 2 GPU-powered Radeon RX 6000 series were the first to feature raytracing capabilities on the red camp. They were a generation behind NVIDIA who introduced their first raytracing GPUs two years prior on the Turing graphics architecture and fine-tuned it further to deliver better performance in the second generation on Ampere. With RDNA 3 GPU-powered Radeon RX 7000 pitted for launch later this year, we can expect AMD to offer a similar jump in performance or even exceed Ampere's ray-tracing capabilities. But the real challenge ahead would be to rival NVIDIA's 3rd Gen RT (Raytracing) cores which are expected to debut on the Ada Lovelace-powered GeForce RTX 40 series.

Besides raytracing, AMD will also be adding an Optimized Graphics Pipeline for RDNA 3 GPUs will allow for even higher clock speeds than RDNA 2 GPUs. The AMD Radeon RX 6000 cards already run close to 3 GHz so, with an improved 5nm process node, we can expect AMD to breach past the 3 GHz clock limit. This is essential for AMD as their competitor isn't holding back either with RTX 40 series rumors also hinting at up to 3 GHz clock speeds utilizing the more efficient 4N (optimized 5nm process node).

In addition to these, AMD will also be leveraging advanced GPU capabilities of its RDNA 3 graphics architecture to deliver a richer software ecosystem such as support for AV1 and brand new WMMA Instructions which will allow AI-Learning through the assistance of dedicated hardware blocks. The company is expected to debut its next-gen FSR 3.0 technology with RDNA 3 GPUs which will tackle NVIDIA's AI-Assisted DLSS feature suite. The GPUs will also be amongst the first to utilize the brand new PCIe Gen 5.0 protocol, allowing for up to 128 GB/s transfer rates. This will be a crucial step in enhancing the Smart Access Memory feature and also drive the way forward for SAS (Smart Access Storage) which is a brand new feature designed in compliance with Microsoft's Direct Storage API to deliver faster loading times and better texture streaming in game. Display capabilities such as DP2.0 and HDMI 2.1 will also be present on the new graphics cards.