With little over a week until the official release of the first crop of AMD Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards based on the RDNA 3 architecture, teases, leaks and spills are starting to flow free and fast. Earlier today Asus announced the default and OC mode clocks of its upcoming TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT OC and RX 7900 XTX OC edition graphics cards.
Details on the vital specs is welcome, but at the same time perhaps disappointing that these 3.6 slot behemoths with triple 8-pin power inputs only achieve an approximate 9% faster GPU clock speed, at best, compared to the relatively slim twin-8-pin power AMD reference models.
In early November Asus published the product pages for the TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT/X graphics cards, but omitted information regarding GPU clock speeds. It's not likely this is a slip by Asus, so other Radeon RX 7000 series graphics card makers like PowerColor and Sapphire might follow suit with spec reveals shortly.
So, what about these third-party custom design Asus TUF GPU clocks? The best way to check and compare the specs is via a table, which we've put together below:
|
Asus TUF RX 7900 XTX OC |
AMD Reference RX 7900 XTX |
Asus TUF RX 7900 XT OC |
AMD Reference RX 7900 XT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Default Game / Boost (MHz) |
2,395 / 2,565 |
2,300 / 2,500 |
2,130 / 2,500 |
2,000 / 2,400 |
|
OC Game / Boost (MHz) |
2,455 / 2,615 |
NA |
2,175 / 2,535 |
NA |
The overclocked (OC) game and boost clocks for the Asus TUF cards aren’t terribly exciting. The best Asus TUF OC speeds are at best approximately 9% faster than stock, with the improvements more like 4 or 5% in many cases.
When rumors of the RDNA 3 flagships first started to swirl, some were expecting GPU clocks approaching 3 GHz. Hope for RDNA 3 reaching up to this magic GPU clock milestone was rekindled three weeks ago, when AMD provided a deep dive into its latest GPU architecture. However, such lofty GPU clocks may be confined to the labs of overclockers using extreme and exotic cooling, if we base expectations on these powerfully air-cooled Asus TUF design specifications.
It is a little over a week until the Radeon RX 7900 XT/X GPUs are released by AMD. We aren’t sure when partners will push out their custom designs, and there remains a question mark regarding custom design pricing. The Asus TUF Gaming cards are ‘OC’ specimens, so will likely command a premium over the reference spec prices of $899 and $999 for the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX, respectively. Hopefully, there will be plenty of supply for the initial wave of enthusiasm, so we can avoid scalpers souring the market, again.
