ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7900 GRE OC Edition Review & Benchmarks

AMD has arrived with yet another new GPU release, and this time, it is the arrival of the RX 7900 GRE – a graphics card that is not quite as ‘brand new’ as one might be led to believe. The RX 7900 GRE previously existed as a SKU available exclusively to SIs or system integrators – companies selling prebuilt gaming PCs.

But now, as a fully-fledged retail graphics card, AMD is looking to further progress their market share in the desktop GPU space as its Radeon 7000 line-up looks to get ever more competitive.

The truth is that AMD has looked to undercut NVIDIA on pricing at virtually every turn, whether that be with the RX 7600 ($30 cheaper than the RTX 4060), RX 7800 XT ($100 cheaper than the original RTX 4070 MSRP), or the RX 7900 XT (now $100 more affordable than the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER).

The release of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) looks to cover several price brackets and use cases. Priced between the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT, at $549, it fills a void left unfilled by AMD. You get 16GB of video memory – perfect for 1440p and beyond – with promises of a nice performance bump over the RX 7800 XT.

In today’s review, we’ll be looking to evaluate whether this card is a good entrant to the GPU market and whether the 1440p performance claims a generous VRAM result in strong gaming performance or not.

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Specifications

The RX 7900 GRE has 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus, which, at a glance, are the same specs as its slightly cheaper sibling, the RX 7800 XT. The boost speed of the RX 7900 GRE sits at 2.33GHz on MSRP cards, but this particular ASUS TUF OC variant has a slight overclock up to 2.39GHz, which is a solid value add for those willing to spend the additional cash.

This card has 5120 stream processors, 80 ray accelerators, and compute units, compared to the 3840 stream processors and 60 ray accelerators and compute units on the RX 7800 XT. These hardware improvements enhance general gaming performance compared to the RX 7800 XT while providing better results from AMD’s pillar technologies, such as FSR and Fluid Motion Frames.

We’ll touch upon this later in the benchmarking section, but the specs indicate that the RX 7900 GRE should see a noticeable framerate improvement at 4K versus the RX 7800 XT. At 1440p, the RX 7800 XT is an exceptional graphics card, but at 4K, it tends to fall behind the competition and struggles with more challenging AAA titles. For this reason, the increased processor count on the RX 7900 GRE should provide the uplift that the RX 7800 XT needs to compete at 4K.

Another attractive quality of this card is its MSRP. At only $50 more than the current pricing of the RX 7800 XT and $100 more than the RX 7700 XT, the RX 7900 GRE is a very competitive GPU and a welcome addition to the mid-range market.

What are GRE Graphics Cards?

The RX 7900 GRE is part of a range of China-exclusive graphics cards that launched worldwide in March 2024. The GRE range, otherwise known as the ‘Golden Rabbit Edition,’ was labelled as such to coincide with the Chinese Year of the Rabbit celebrations. For China, the RX 7900 GRE launched in July of 2023 and was accessible within prebuilt systems across other territories.

After AMD sought to capitalise on the mid-range graphics card market, the GRE variant was made available across the world, providing another competitive GPU to choose from the already vast selection. The RX 7900 GRE came at a busy time for AMD, following a mass of price cuts to existing RDNA 3 graphics cards, such as the RX 7900 XTX, RX 7900 XT, and RX 7800 XT.

The pricing adjustment of these cards demonstrates AMD’s competitiveness in the current market. With most NVIDIA graphics cards still hovering around their expensive launch MSRPs, it is no wonder AMD is increasingly becoming a firm favourite for price-conscious PC builders.

ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7900 GRE OC Edition Design

The ASUS TUF Gaming OC Edition of the RX 7900 GRE is a triple-fan card with a grey industrial-style shroud synonymous with the TUF Gaming brand. The front of the ASUS TUF Gaming OC variant features a metallic grey finish with TUF livery around the fans. TUF cards generally offer a minimalist but sophisticated aesthetic, and the RX 7900 GRE version is no exception.

The two side fans of the ASUS TUF card spin anti-clockwise to reduce turbulence and maximise airflow throughout the heatsink. When temperatures are below 55 degrees, all fans remain at a standstill, ideal for those looking to build a near-silent PC.

The top of the TUF Gaming RX 7900 GRE OC Edition features a small strip of RGB and a TUF Gaming logo that lights up in various colours. Both areas of RGB can be fully customised and configured using the ASUS Armory Crate software, providing a way to sync up the lighting with other ASUS products.

At the rear of the TUF Gaming RX 7900 GRE OC Edition, you’ll find a sturdy metal backplate that provides extra rigidity and strength to the card. The backplate has two cut-outs towards the right side, allowing air to flow freely through the back of the GPU, which assists thermals.

Overall, I like the minimalist aesthetic of the ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7900 GRE OC Edition card. This GPU is sturdy and robust and blends in well with other dark components thanks to the grey finish across the card. The RGB lighting brightens the design and adds an element of customisation that makes the $50 price hike above MSRP easier to swallow. Furthermore, this card’s fan and cooler design ensures silence, even during intense workloads.

The length of this card (319mm) will be a bit daunting for those with smaller cases, but the included GPU support pillar reduces any sag. This support pillar also comes with a screwdriver, which can be helpful if you don’t have one for your PC build.

Performance

To test the RX 7900 GRE’s performance, we’ve put it through the wringer in a range of gaming benchmarks at 1440p and 4K. Our in-house benchmarking expert, Harry Coleman, has also put the card through its paces, comparing it against competitor GPUs. Check out our How We Test Graphics Cards article for an in-depth rundown of our testing methodologies.

Hogwarts Legacy

Settings: 1440p, Effects High, Material High, Fog High, Sky High, Foliage High, Post Process High, Shadows High, Textures High, View Distance High, Population High, Anti Aliasing TAA High, Windowed Fullscreen

In Hogwarts Legacy at 1440p high settings, the RX 7900 GRE offered an average framerate of 108FPS, which places it firmly between the RTX 4070 Ti and RX 7900 XT. Compared to the RX 7800 XT, we’re seeing a 6FPS gain, which is relatively negligible. This is more or less what we expected in terms of performance, and the overall gain versus similarly priced cards is minimal.

Hogwarts Legacy @ 4K

Settings: 4K, Effects High, Material High, Fog High, Sky High, Foliage High, Post Process High, Shadows High, Textures High, View Distance High, Population High, Anti Aliasing TAA High, Windowed Fullscreen

Dialling up the resolution to 4K slightly diminishes performance, but we’re seeing a similar result from the RX 7900 GRE. This card offered up 69FPS on average, placing it above the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and RX 7800 XT. However, the FPS gain on the RX 7900 GRE versus these cards was 2FPS and 4FPS, respectively, which is a minimal uplift overall.

Apex Legends

Settings: 4K, Anti-aliasing TSAA, Texture Filtering 8X, Model Detail High, VSync Disabled, Effects High, Ambient Occlusion Quality High

In Apex Legends at 4K, the RX 7900 GRE saw an average framerate of 163FPS, which was incredibly smooth considering the intensity of the resolution. The RX 7900 GRE easily exceeded the 144Hz sweet spot in this benchmark. In this test, the RX 7900 GRE sat between the RTX 4070 SUPER and RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and provided an 8FPS uplift compared to the RX 7800 XT.

Starfield

Settings: 1440p, Shadow Quality High, Indirect Lighting High, Reflections High, Crowd Density High, Particle Quality High, Volumetric Lighting High, Motion Blur off, GTAO Quality High, Grass Quality High, Contact Shadows High VSync Off, DLSS/FSR OFF

Moving over to Starfield, the RX 7900 GRE provided an average framerate output of around 92FPS. This was a 9FPS gain compared to the RX 7800 XT, which held firmly at 83FPS. The RX 7900 GRE places itself between the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, where framerates are closely knit together. Compared to the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, the RX 7900 GRE loses out to this card by a mere 6FPS, but with a price increase of $250 for the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, the performance difference is an impressively small gap.

Cyberpunk 2077

Settings: 1440p, Shadow Quality High, Indirect Lighting High, Reflections High, Crowd Density High, Particle Quality High, Volumetric Lighting High, Motion Blur off, GTAO Quality High, Grass Quality High, Contact Shadows High VSync Off, DLSS/FSR: On/Off, Ray Tracing: On/Off, Textures: High

In Cyberpunk 2077, at 1440p high, the RX 7900 GRE sat at 107FPS on average when ray tracing and FSR were switched off. This result put the RX 7900 GRE above the performance of the RX 7800 XT with a framerate uplift of 4FPS, which is a negligible difference.

With ray tracing and FSR switched on, performance crumbles, with the RX 7900 GRE providing a meagre 26FPS. Those looking to play their favourite games with ray tracing will want to look at NVIDIA cards, which have much stronger framerates.

Fortnite

Settings: 1080p, Quality Low, Anti-aliasing & Super Resolution TSR High, Temporal Super Resolution Performance, View Distance Far, Textures Low

In Fortnite at 1080p competitive settings, the RX 7900 GRE provided 312FPS on average across our testing. We use this 1080p benchmark to see where the performance of new cards lies compared to the vast selection of GPUs on the market. In this benchmark, the RX 7900 GRE sat between the RX 6950 XT and RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, beating out the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 SUPER.

Conclusion