Sapphire RX 7800 XT Nitro+ Review

1. Introduction2. Meet the Sapphire RX 7800 XT Nitro+3. Testing Methodology4. Game Benchmarks5. Clock Speed6. GPU Temperatures7. Acoustics8. Noise-Normalised Temperatures9. Power Draw and Efficiency10. Overclocking11. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

The RX 7800 XT reviews continue today as we take a look at the Sapphire Nitro+ model. Sporting an eye-catching design with RGB light bar, dual-BIOS and a thick, triple-slot cooler, Sapphire's Nitro+ series has offered some of the best AMD-based cards to hit the market in recent years. Today we find out if this £539 RX 7800 XT can live up to that billing.

We've already reviewed the Sapphire RX 7900 XTX Nitro+ this generation and came away seriously impressed, so we have have high hopes for the RX 7800 XT Nitro+. Utilising a near-identical design as its more expensive sibling, the 7800 XT Nitro+ is certainly a looker and Sapphire will be hoping it has the cooling grunt to back up that swish design. We'll find out soon enough, so let's dive in…

 

	RX 7900 XT	RX 7800 XT	RX 7700 XT	RX 6800 XT	RX 6800	RX 6700 XT
Architecture	RDNA 3	RDNA 3	RDNA 3	RDNA 2	RDNA 2	RDNA 2
Manufacturing Process	5nm GCD + 6nm MCD	5nm GCD + 6nm MCD	5nm GCD + 6nm MCD	7nm	7nm	7nm
Transistor Count	57.7 billion	28.1 billion	28.1 billion	26.8 billion	26.8 billion	17.2 billion
Die Size	300 mm² GCD 220 mm² MCD	200 mm² GCD 150 mm² MCD	200 mm² GCD 150 mm² MCD	519 mm²	519 mm²	336 mm²
Compute Units	84	60	54	72	60	40
Ray Accelerators	84	60	54	72	60	40
Stream Processors	5376	3840	3456	4608	3840	2560
Game GPU Clock	Up to 2000 MHz	2124 MHz	2171 MHz	Up to 2015MHz	Up to 1815MHz	Up to 2424MHz
Boost GPU Clock	Up to 2400 MHz	Up to 2430 MHz	Up to 2544 MHz	Up to 2250MHz	Up to 2105MHz	Up to 2581MHz
ROPs	192	96	96	128	96	64
AMD Infinity Cache	80MB	64MB	48MB	128MB	128MB	96MB
Memory	20GB GDDR6 20Gbps	16GB GDDR6 19.5 Gbps	12GB GDDR6 18Gbps	16GB GDDR6 16Gbps	16GB GDDR6 16Gbps	12GB GDDR6 16Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	800 GB/s	624 GB/s	432 GB/s	512 GB/s	512 GB/s	384 GB/s
Memory Interface	320-bit	256-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit
Board Power	315W	263W	245W	300W	250W	230W

First, let's take a quick look at the specs. Unlike the most recent RDNA 3 GPU – the RX 7600 – AMD has made a return to its chiplet-based design for the RX 7800 XT, as we initially saw last year with the RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT. This time around, the 7800 XT offers a 200mm² Graphics Compute Die (GCD) using TSMC's 5nm process, flanked by four 150 mm² Memory Compute Dies (MCDs) built on TSMC's 6nm node.

Internally though, the compute makeup hasn't been radically changed. Navi 32 packs in 60 Compute Units, each of which houses 64 Stream Processors, for a total of 3840 shaders. There are also 60 Ray Accelerators – one per CU – and 96 ROPs.

As for clock speed, this remains high with the RX 7800 XT, with AMD touting a boost of up to 2430MHz. Sapphire has increased this to 2565MHz for the OC BIOS, though the Silent BIOS remains with the reference 2430MHz target speed,

Meanwhile, the memory configuration is almost identical to the previous generation RX 6800 XT. We still find 16GB GDDR6 operating over a 256-bit interface, but this time the memory clocks in at 19.5Gbps, up from 16Gbps. This gives a memory bandwidth of 624 GB/s, though AMD claims an ‘effective' bandwidth of 2708.4 GB/s due to the 64MB of 2nd Gen Infinity cache.

Power draw for the RX 7800 XT is rated at 263W Total Board Power (TBP),  though Sapphire has again increased this for the OC BIOS. We are using our well-established GPU power testing methodology in this review, so read on for our most detailed power and efficiency testing yet.

The Sapphire RX 7800 XT Nitro+ ships in a mostly black box, but with a large Nitro+ logo dominating the front. On the back, the company highlights required specifications and there's some marketing-speak about the card.

Inside, we find a quick start guide, but more interesting is the included GPU support bracket which sits below the card to help prevent GPU sag. There's also an ARGB 5V cable which connects the graphics card to your motherboard if you want to synchronise the LED lighting that way.

As for the card itself then, as we've already alluded to, it's very similar to the RX 7900 XTX Nitro+ we reviewed at the back-end of last year. That's a very good thing though, as I think this is up there as one of the very best-looking GPU designs on the market right now. The grey shroud wraps beautifully around both the front and end of the card, creating the sense of a unibody design – it's not, but it looks very sleek.

We get a good look at the triple fan setup, too. These utilise Sapphire's Angular Velocity Blade design, notable for their very sharp and angular appearance, while each fan measures 100mm in diameter. These fans also feature Sapphire's Quick Connect technology, so they can be removed after unscrewing just one screw per fan.

In terms of its dimensions, this is a particularly large 7800 XT, measuring 320 x 134.85 x 61.57mm, so it's well over 30cm in length and is over three-slots thick. It weighed in at 1609g on my scales.

On the front side of the card, you will notice a metal frame that sits just below the backplate. Sapphire calls this a ‘Cold Rolled Steel Frame', and it's essentially a bracket screwed onto the PCB to offer extra structural rigidity to the card.

We also get a good look at the ARGB light bar running the length of the card. This is a lovely RGB implementation, the LEDs blend together very well and there are no visible hot spots.

As for the backplate, this is made of metal and runs the length of the card but with a relatively large cut-out towards the end to allow air to pass through the heatsink. The Sapphire logo is another RGB zone on the card.

We can also note the dual-BIOS switch positioned near to the I/O bracket – this offers a choice of either the OC or Silent modes, or a third setting allowing you to toggle between those two modes using TriXX software instead.

Above we can see the ARGB header which is positioned next to the power inputs. This lets you connect the graphics card to your motherboard if you want to synchronise the LED lighting that way, though do note you have to download the TriXX software and set the LED setting to ‘external source'.

Another header is positioned at the end of the PCB, this one is a 4-pin PWM fan header allowing you to connect a case fan and have it directly controlled by the GPU's temperature.

We already mentioned the power connectors, with 2x 8-pin connectors utilised here, while display outputs consist of 2x HDMI 2.1 and 2x DisplayPort 2.1, an increasingly common allocation.

Moving onto the PCB, despite being a Nitro+ card, the overall design looks very similar to the reference PCB, with an 11+3 VRM configuration. 70A Monolithic Power Systems MP87997 MOSFETs are used throughout, with a trio of Monolithic MP2856 controllers as well.

The cooler, meanwhile, utilises two hefty finstacks, connected by 5x 6mm heatpipes. The GPU makes contact with a copper baseplate, while the memory meets a slightly raised section of copper. There's also four other secondary baseplates that handle the VRM components.

Driver Notes

• AMD GPUs (except RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT) were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 23.8.1 driver.
• AMD's RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 23.20.01.05 driver supplied to press.
• All Nvidia GPUs were benchmarked with the 537.13 driver.

Results are only directly comparable where this exact configuration has been used.

Test System:

We test using a custom built system from PCSpecialist, based on Intel’s Rocket Lake platform. You can read more about this system HERE and configure your own PCSpecialist system HERE.

CPU	Intel Core i9-13900KS
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX
Memory	32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5 6000MHz
Graphics Card	Varies
SSD	4TB Seagate Firecuda 530 Gen 4 PCIe NVMe
Chassis	Corsair 5000D Airflow Tempered Glass Gaming Case
CPU Cooler	Corsair iCUE H150i Elite RGB High Performance CPU Cooler
Power Supply	Corsair 1600W Pro Series Titanium AX1600i Digital Modular PSU
Operating System	Windows 11 22H2
Monitor	MSI Optix MPG321UR-QD
Resizable BAR	Enabled for all supported GPUs

Comparison Graphics Cards List

• AMD RX 7900 XT 20GB
• AMD RX 7800 XT 16GB
• Gigabyte RX 7800 XT Gaming OC 16GB
• PowerColor RX 7800 XT Hellhound 16GB
• Sapphire RX 7800 XT Nitro+ 16GB
• AMD RX 6800 XT 16GB
• AMD RX 6800 16GB
• AMD RX 6700 XT 12GB
• AMD RX 5700 XT 8GB
• Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Gaming 12GB
• Nvidia RTX 4070 FE 12GB
• MSI RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 2X 16GB
• Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti FE 8GB
• Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti FE 8GB

All cards were tested at reference specifications.

Software and Games List

• 3DMark Fire Strike & Fire Strike Ultra (DX11 Synthetic)
• 3DMark Time Spy (DX12 Synthetic)
• 3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test (DXR Synthetic)
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla (DX12)
• Control (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• F1 23 (DX12)
• Forza Horizon 5 (DX12)
• God of War (DX11)
• Hitman 3 (DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• The Last of Us Part 1 (DX12)
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12)
• Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (DX12)
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (DX12)
• Resident Evil 4 (DX12)
• Returnal (DX12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

We run each benchmark/game three times, and present mean averages in our graphs. We use FrameView to measure average frame rates as well as 1% low values across our three runs.

Here we test three games, all at 2560×1440 resolution using maximum image quality settings.

Getting the game benchmarks out of the way first, the Nitro+ comes in 2-3% faster than AMD's reference card, and is on-par with the PowerColor Hellhound that we reviewed last week. As a reminder, we don't focus heavily on game benchmarks in these AIB reviews as the performance differences are very small, but if you do want to see performance of the RX 7800 XT in a much larger sample of games, including ray tracing, you can find our launch day review here.

Here we present the average clock speed for each graphics card while running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes. We use GPU-Z to record the GPU core frequency during gameplay. We calculate the average core frequency during the 30 minute run to present here.

Those small performance gains directly correlate to the Nitro+'s clock speed, as it comes in slightly faster than reference. Using the OC BIOS for instance, it averaged 2446MHz over our thirty minute stress test, making it 20MHz faster than the Hellhound but 112MHz faster than AMD's reference. The Silent BIOS, meanwhile, does run slower, averaging 2319MHz, which is still only a touch behind the reference design.

For our temperature testing, we measure the peak GPU core temperature under load. A reading under load comes from running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes.

As for thermal performance, here the Nitro does very well, with the OC BIOS recording a peak GPU temperature of 62C. There is a slightly larger disparity between the GPU and hot spot temperature however, with the latter hitting 88C, perhaps indicating a slight imperfection with the cooler mount – but also know that AMD's chiplet-based GPUs are not perfectly flat due to the MCD and GCDs being slightly different dimensions. The Silent BIOS runs a touch hotter, but still offers a noticeable improvement over the reference card, hitting 70C and 91C, respectively.

We take our noise measurements with the sound meter positioned 1 foot from the graphics card. I measured the noise floor to be 32 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics cards. The power supply is passive for the entire power output range we tested all graphics cards in, while all CPU and system fans were disabled. A reading under load comes from running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes for 30 minutes.

Noise levels are a real success story for the Nitro+. Even using the OC BIOS, we saw fan speed hit just 25%/1150rpm, barely registering at 33dBa on my sound meter. Switching to the Silent BIOS drops this further, to just 17%/810rpm, which is absurdly slow, and at that point we actually hit our ambient noise floor of 32dBa. In other words, the card ran so quietly it became impossible to accurately measure its noise levels in my test environment. There was also no audible coil whine throughout my testing.

Following on from our stock thermal and acoustic testing, here we re-test the operating temperature of the GPU, but with noise levels normalised to 40dBa. This allows us to measure the efficiency of the overall cooling solution as varying noise levels as a result of more aggressive fan curves are no longer a factor.

For noise-normalised testing, I increased fan speed to 47%/1895rpm to hit 40dBa of noise. Re-running thermals with that increased fan speed saw the GPU temperature drop to 55C, with the hot spot at 82C. This isn't quite as good as the PowerColor Hellhound, which has a really impressive cooler, but it's still a huge improvement over the reference card and beats out the Gigabyte Gaming OC.

We use Nvidia PCAT to measure power draw of the graphics card only, with readings from both the PCIe slot and the PCIe power cables combined into a single figure. We use Cyberpunk 2077 (4K) for this testing.

Power draw, meanwhile, has been increased by almost 40W compared to AMD's reference card. That's when looking at the OC BIOS, at least, which pulled 286W, though the Silent BIOS is more frugal, this time drawing 256W.

Combining the power draw values shown above with the performance data, we present performance per Watt for each graphics card tested:

That increased power draw, coupled with small 2-3% performance gains, does mean efficiency is reduced for the Nitro+ – performance per Watt is 12% worse than the reference RX 7800 XT.

For our manual overclocking tests, we used AMD's built-in tuning tool. Our best results are as below.

To overclock the Nitro+, we maximised the power limit and maximum clock speed slider before trying to undervolt as far as we could. Our sample was stable with 930mV, while we pushed the memory to 2630MHz (21.04 Gbps effective).

This brought the card's real-world clock speed up by around 380MHz, averaging 2821MHz in our thirty minute stress test, which it also managed with 100% stability.

This extra frequency boosted our frame rate by 11-12% in the three titles we re-tested. Overclocking is well worth doing for the RX 7800 XT, provided you don't mind increase the power draw…

We say that because the Nitro+ drew just under 340W when overclocked, which is a 52W (+18%) increase compared to its default settings.

Naturally that results in diminished efficiency, as the Nitro+ now offers 7% worse performance per Watt than it did at stock settings.
The third RX 7800 XT partner card to pass through our doors, today we have assessed the Sapphire Nitro+, and it is another quality design from the company.

For me, as good as the cooler is, I think the Nitro+'s best feature is its visual appearance. It's just a sexy graphics card – I'm not sure how else I can describe it! Sure, if you don't care what your PC looks like, it may not be the card for you, but even just having this in for review makes me want to build a bespoke rig to show it off in all its glory.

The beauty's not just skin-deep though, as the cooler is very effective. Out of the box we saw it run at just 62C, while fan speeds are incredibly low regardless of which BIOS you are using. It may not be quite so efficient as the PowerColor Hellhound when noise-normalised, but this cooler is more than good enough to effectively deal with the 290W load.

Actual gaming performance is about as expected, with 2-3% gains over the reference RX 7800 XT. Overclocking the Nitro+ proved very fruitful though, with further gains in the 11-12% region once the card was at its limit, so that's well worth doing provided you are happy with increasing power draw by another 50W.

In terms of pricing then, Sapphire communicated to us before the launch that the Nitro+ will have a £529 MSRP, however it is currently retailing for more than that. At the time of writing, Scan has it for £539.99 while it's £559.99 at OCUK. That does put the Nitro+ rather closer to the RTX 4070 than I'd like, with 4070s starting for £569.99 these days – and that GPU is more efficient, offers better ray tracing performance and all the benefits of DLSS 2/3.

However, it is worth considering that while RTX 4070s start at £570, the cards at that price are very cut-down in terms of their features and coolers, while visually they really are no match for the allure of the Nitro+. A proper RTX 4070 equivalent to the Nitro+ would be something like the Gigabyte Aero, and that's about £100 more expensive.

With that in mind, we can still recommend the Sapphire RX 7800 XT Nitro+ as it's a cracking card with a jaw-dropping design. Its current pricing does put it slightly too close to the RTX 4070 for comfort, but we are sure many would still opt for the Nitro+ over a much more basic entry-level RTX 4070.

You can buy the Nitro+ for £539.99 from Scan while it's £559.99 at Overclockers UK.

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Pros

• Beautiful aesthetic.
• Whisper quiet in either BIOS mode.
• Runs cool even at very low noise levels.
• Overclocked very well.
• Dual-BIOS.
• Additional 4-pin PWM fan header.
• Option to control ARGB lighting via your motherboard.

Cons

• Pricing at £540+ does bring it close to the RTX 4070.
• PowerColor Hellhound is superior in terms of noise-normalised thermals.

KitGuru says: It's one of the best-looking graphics cards I've ever seen and it performs very well, too. Hopefully an increase in availability will bring pricing closer to the £529 MSRP.

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