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Our graphics card test PC uses an Nvidia PCAT v2 device, as it gives us far more data without the need to run separate tests. PCAT with FrameView allows us to capture power, temperature, and GPU clocks from our full gaming suite — along with the usual frame times. The charts below are the geometric mean across all 15 games, and we also have full tables showing the individual results further down the page.
PCAT does not favor Nvidia GPUs in any measurable way. We checked power with our previous setup for the same workload and compared that with the PCAT, and any differences were well within the margin of error (less than 1%). PCAT is external hardware that simply monitors the power draw of the PCIe power cables as well as the PCIe x16 slot by sitting between the PSU/motherboard and the graphics card.
We have separate charts for 1080p medium/ultra, 1440p ultra, and 4K ultra in the galleries below. There's no reference design for the RX 7900 GRE, and the Sapphire Pulse does appear to come with a factory overclock. It's a bit difficult to say exactly how far it's overclocked, though, because we can only see the maximum boost clock of 2460 MHz, while AMD's specs page lists an 1880 MHz "Game clock" and a 2245 MHz "Boost clock" — and the latter mostly dovetails with our in-game measurements, but quite a few games can exceed that clock.
AMD RX 7900 GRE Power Use
Officially, the RX 7900 GRE has a 260W TBP (Total Board Power) rating, but we don't know if Sapphire adheres to that or bumps things slightly. All of the games we tested, at all four resolutions, averaged less than 270W of power use, often substantially less at 1080p. Across all 15 games in our test suite, the 7900 GRE averaged 232W at 1080p medium, 250W at 1080p ultra, 255W at 1440p ultra, and 263W at 4K ultra.
That's decent overall, and represents some of the best results we've seen from RDNA 3 in terms of efficiency — the 7900 XT and XTX are only slightly better in our 4K tests. However, the 7900 GRE and AMD in general remain far behind Nvidia's competing GPUs. The overall similarly performing RTX 4070 for example has up to 50% higher FPS/W at 1080p, 35% higher at 1440p, and 25% higher at 4K.
The good news is that the 7900 GRE typically beats the 7800 XT in performance, while only using slightly more power. Still, officially the TBP for the 7800 XT is 263W and the 7900 GRE is 260W, but in practice the GRE almost always has slightly higher power use.
AMD RX 7900 GRE Clock Speeds
While AMD used its largest Navi 31 GCD for the 7900 GRE, with a lot more compute units than even a fully enabled Navi 32 GCD, it also specified substantially lower clocks. There could be a lot of overclocking headroom if you lift the power limit (we ran out of time and haven't done detailed overclocking tests yet), but the net result is that the 7900 GRE is the lowest clocked desktop GPU of the modern era that we've tested.
Average clocks across our test suite do match or exceed AMD's official boost clock, and it only ends up trailing the (reference) 7800 XT by 65~115 MHz, depending on the setting and resolution. With a higher power limit and some overclocking, though, it ought to be able to get relatively close to the 7900 XT clocks.
We do have another 7900 GRE for testing that has a higher factory overclock, so it will be interesting to see how that does in a future review.
AMD RX 7900 GRE Temperatures
GPU temperatures and fan speeds go hand in hand, and most modern GPUs are perfectly fine at up to 90C, give or take. Sapphire's 7900 GRE Pulse appears to aim for 75C or less, often staying below 70C, but in raw terms that makes it one of the hotter cards that we've tested.
We test in a 21C ambient, +/-2C, and the triple 95mm "Angular Velocity" fans should be more than enough to keep the GPU frosty. So, given the temperatures, let's see what noise levels and fan speeds look like.
AMD RX 7900 GRE Noise Levels
Here's where the Sapphire RX 7900 GRE earns an extra half star from our overall score. It's exceptionally quiet, considering the level of performance it offers, easily besting all of the other cards in this roundup. Of course the Nvidia cards are mostly Founders Edition reference designs — the Gigabyte 4060 Ti 16GB and Asus 4070 Ti Super being the exceptions. Even those two custom cards can't beat Sapphire.
We measured a noise level of just under 36 dB(A) at 10cm while running a demanding game. To put that into context, our newer test PCs are louder than that even when sitting idle. Our noise testbed is an older Core i9-9900K with an NZXT Kraken Z73 cooler just because it doesn't make much noise. The fan speed during our testing was only 25%.
We also test with fan speed set to a static 75%, which is more about seeing how much headroom there is for additional cooling if needed. The Sapphire card naturally created a lot more noise, hitting 58 dB(A), but we suspect the only way you'd ever get the card to reach that noise level would be with manually adjustments like we used.
Our noise test consists of running Metro Exodus, because it's one of the more power hungry games. We load a save, with graphics set to appropriately strenuous levels (4K ultra in this case), and then let the game sit for at least 15 minutes before checking noise levels.
We place the SPL (sound pressure level) meter 10cm from the card, with the mic aimed at the center of the middle fan. This helps minimize the impact of other noise sources, like the fans on the CPU cooler. The noise floor of our test environment and equipment is around 31~32 dB(A).
Full Gaming Test Results
For those who like to look at the finer details, we've provided the above tables showing all of our gaming benchmarks, which include FPS/$ and FPS/W metrics. We use the best prices we can find at the time of writing, and MSRP for newly launched cards like the RX 7900 GRE. In this case, the 4080 Super is the only card that starts at more than its $999 MSRP, with many cards costing substantially more — $1,300+ isn't uncommon.
More expensive cards generally have worse values, as measured by FPS/$. Of course, the cost of the rest of the system should also be considered if you're not just upgrading your graphics card. The RTX 4070 and 4070 Super end up being the top values out of the ten tested cards, with AMD's top value being the RX 7700 XT, though the 7800 XT and 7900 GRE aren't far behind.
The efficiency crown meanwhile isn't even close. The RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4070 Super take the pole position, depending on what resolution you look at, with the other RTX 40-series GPUs not too far behind. AMD's RX 7900 GRE ends up as its most efficient GPU that we've tested, but Nvidia's competing 4070 and 4070 Super are 25–50 percent more efficient.
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