AMD's Radeon RX 7700 XT may soon replace the Radeon RX 6800 as one of the best graphics cards. A new leaked Time Spy score has the Radeon RX 7700 XT delivering performance in the same alley as the Radeon RX 6800.
When AMD announced the Radeon RX 7700 XT, the chipmaker wasn't shy to compare it to Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. AMD's internal benchmarks showed the Radeon RX 7700 XT outperforming the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB by up to 31% at native 1440p (2560x1440) resolution at maximum settings. The company also briefly compared the Radeon RX 7700 XT to the Radeon RX 5700 XT, which was an odd choice considering that the latter is a first-generation RDNA graphics card.
For reasons unknown, AMD didn't include an RDNA 2 comparison, which would have been much more interesting since consumers would like to see the advances of RDNA 3 over a similar RDNA 2 product rather than RDNA. We won't have to wait long to find out since the Radeon RX 7700 XT launches on September 6; however, hardware leaker HXL has provided a Radeon RX 7700 XT Time Spy score that gives us a peep into the RDNA 3 graphics card's performance. Remember that 3DMark Time Spy is a synthetic benchmark, and the real-world performance may vary. So throw some salt over the leaked result.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Time Spy Benchmark
| Graphics Card | Time Spy Score | GPU Cores | RT Cores | Memory | Memory Bus | Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) | TDP (W) | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radeon RX 6800 XT | 19,517 | 4,608 | 72 | 16GB GDDR6 | 256 bit | 512 | 300 | $649 |
| GeForce RTX 4070 | 17,840 | 5,888 | 46 | 12GB GDDR6X | 192 bit | 504 | 200 | $599 |
| Radeon RX 7700 XT | 17,000 | 3,456 | 54 | 12GB GDDR6 | 192 bit | 432 | 245 | $449 |
| Radeon RX 6800 | 16,466 | 3,840 | 60 | 16GB GDDR6 | 256 bit | 512 | 250 | $579 |
| GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | 13,355 | 4,352 | 34 | 16GB GDDR6 | 128 bit | 288 | 165 | $499 |
The Time Spy graphics scores for the other graphics cards are from 3DMark's database.
According to HXL, the Radeon RX 7700 XT's Time Spy graphics score is in the ballpark of 17,000 points. If accurate, the Radeon RX 7700 XT is around 3.2% faster than the Radeon RX 6800. The Radeon RX 7700 XT may not be too far from the GeForce RTX 4070, which only had a 5% higher score. The RDNA 3 graphics card had a 27.3% higher score than the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB.
The Radeon RX 7700 XT's performance looks about right. Based on the specifications and the generation-over-generation performance uplifts we've seen in the past, we estimated that the Radeon RX 7700 XT would perform very closely to the Radeon RX 6800. The Radeon RX 6800 isn't so far behind the GeForce RTX 4070. If AMD makes the Radeon RX 7700 XT a bit faster, the graphics card has the potential to catch up to the GeForce RTX 4070.
We know the Navi 32 silicon will power the Radeon RX 7700 XT and the Radeon RX 7800 XT. Like Navi 31 (Plum Bonito), Navi 32 (Wheat Nas) also leverages TSMC's N5 process node for the GCD (Graphics Complex Die) and the N6 process node for the MCDs (Memory Chiplet Dies). AMD hasn't officially revealed the die size for the Navi 32 silicon. Luckily, in addition to leaking the Time Spy score, HXL also shared a GPU-Z screenshot of the Radeon RX 7700 XT.
Navi 32 seemingly measures 346 mm², only 3.3% larger than Navi 22 (Navy Flounder) found inside SKUs, such as the Radeon RX 6700 XT. It's 8.7% smaller than Nvidia's AD103 (Ada Lovelace), which Nvidia utilized for the GeForce RTX 4080.
The Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT will hit the retail market on September 6 for $499 and $449, respectively. With Navi 32, AMD has finally completed the company's RDNA 3 portfolio. The chipmaker has confirmed that it has no plans to release new RDNA 3 ASICs. However, the company did leave the door open for different versions, likely based on the current lineup of ASICs.
