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The Sapphire RX 7900 XTX Nitro+ Vapor-X — because who doesn't like extra descriptors in a product name — ends up as a potentially interesting card, but only if prices come down. That goes for all RX 7900 XTX models, incidentally. While you can make the argument that the XTX outperforms the RTX 4080 in rasterization performance, it lacks some of the features that Nvidia's latest GPUs provide and certainly doesn't warrant the currently higher price.
Sapphire's top variant packs on a massive cooler that does its job well. It requires a large case and has some very bright RGB strips, which some people will love and others might not appreciate. If you don't want the RGB but also don't want the reference 7900 XTX, Sapphire makes a 7900 XTX Pulse, which omits all the RGB bling but changes the fans and cooler and has a lower boost clock of 2525 MHz (compared to 2680 MHz on the Vapor-X). But given what we've seen from performance so far, there's probably not much difference there.
There's plenty to like with the Vapor-X, but a lot of it ultimately feels like overkill. Power use was consistently 50W higher than the reference 7900 XTX, a 14% increase that only delivered about 2% better performance on average. You could run with the secondary BIOS that lowers clocks and power use (or use Sapphire's TriXX software to switch modes), but then why buy a premium model for reference performance?
Okay, you can do that for the lower noise levels and improved thermals. Buy it for the looks and features, in other words, and not for any potential improvement in performance. And when you're already looking at a graphics card that costs a grand, what's another ten percent to get a design you like more — or not?
Unfortunately for gamers everywhere, right now isn't a great time in the world of consumer GPUs, despite having five new generation cards launch in the past three months. The issue is that prices have shot up across the entire gamut, so rather than getting better performance than the previous generation at a lower price, the best we can do is better performance at a similar or higher price — and it's mostly higher prices.
Third-party AIB cards like the Sapphire Nitro+ Vapor-X aren't spared, as they cost even more than the reference cards or models that don't pack in quite as many extras, usually for minimal performance gains. If we look at generational upgrades, you get about 40% higher performance than last generation's RX 6950 XT (at 4K). However, while the official launch MSRPs might be similar, the cheapest RX 6950 XT currently costs $699, while the best we can find for the 7900 XTX is $1,299 for Sapphire's reference card. That's 86% more expensive for 40% higher performance, definitely not the direction we want to be heading.
There was a big outcry over Nvidia's RTX 4070 Ti launching at $799, and deservedly so. But the RX 7900 XTX is no better and actually ends up quite a bit worse at current prices. Again, hopefully things will settle down in the coming weeks and months, because this is nearly as bad as what we saw during the height of the cryptocurrency mining boom in 2021. Frankly, no one should be paying such prices for these latest generation GPUs.
If you can find the Sapphire Vapor-X for close to its official $1,099 MSRP, it's far more tolerable for the top performing AMD solution. Until and unless that happens, we recommend sitting tight with whatever GPU you currently have, or perhaps consider something like the RX 6700 XT or 6750 XT. Sure, that's only a bit more than half the performance, but for less than one third the price it's a far more sensible option.
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