Published: February 26, 2024 | Source: Sapphire | Author: Tom Logan

Sapphire RX 7900 GRE Pulse and Nitro+ Review

Conclusion

There are clearly two ways to approach the RX 7900 GRE launch.

On the one hand we can look at it in a vacuum, and consider how Sapphire have done. On the other we can compare it to other things available on the market. One way certainly makes it look better than the other.

Sapphire

As always with Sapphire both the Pulse and Nitro+ are excellent versions of the underlying architecture. If you’ve ever looked at their Pulse webpage and scrolled down, they show off every design under that banner. Experience in a market sector is vital and Sapphire have been pumping out Radeon cards forever. This allows them to give you two takes. The Pulse RX 7900 GRE is the affordable card, coming in at MSRP. It’s also well built, with a good cooler and subtle design that will work with most builds. It is lacking anything showy such as RGB lighting, but there is a big sector of the market who like old school designs. Certainly the performance is good and it can boost a reasonable amount above its rated speeds.

Meanwhile, the Nitro+ is the opposite end of the scale. It’s a factory overclocked beast that clocks higher than the Pulse thanks it is thick cooler. Those of you who love a little lighting will enjoy the lightbar that has graced the top of every page of today’s review. It’s enough to look flash whilst fitting within any build design. Additionally places to insert ARGB strips and a system fan let the card control a bit of your overall setup. Nice if you like a harmonious view. Performance is a step ahead of the Pulse, with the Nitro+ usually creating a gap between the two.

As A Concept

However, if we beat Nvidia over the head for muddying the waters of their range with the Super cards, we can’t let AMD get away with the RX 7900 GRE. There just isn’t a spot in their range for another card. If money is tight, or needs lower, the RX 7800 XT is more than good enough. If you really want a high performance card then the RX 7900 XTX is the daddy of the Radeon range. By now most people know where their budget is, and so those who want more than the 7800 but can’t afford the XTX have got a 7900 XT. This GRE just barely slips in between those two XT cards.

Perhaps worst still is looking at the specifications. It’s impossible to look at the hardware on the 7900 XT and not come away from the 7900 GRE card with the view that AMD have deliberately built it down to just below. It’s got a little less than the XT so it doesn’t tread on its toes, but similarly has enough extra hardware to justify being a RX 7900 card, rather than a 7800 XTX. It all feels a bit cynical.

To Sum Up

That isn’t to say that if you brought either the Sapphire RX 7900 GRE Pulse or Nitro+ cards you wouldn’t be happy. Especially if you’ve not already got on board the RDNA 3 train. As an upgrade concept it has more than enough for anyone who owns a 6000 series. Additionally it has the performance around the RTX 4070 mark. It’s perfect if you want to run with everything on at 1440P, or with a few careful settings tweaks at 4K. That’s enough to win them our OC3D Gamers Choice Award. If it was our money we’d splash out the little extra on the Nitro+ for the better cooling, dab of RGB and higher performance.