Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

AMD ramps up RX 7900 XT power requirements

Jacob Roach
By

AMD’s RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT launch on Tuesday, December 13, but before you pick up a card, you need to know about an important change on what could be two of the best graphics cards of the year. AMD raised the Total Board Power (TBP) on the RX 7900 XT.

When AMD announced the RX 7900 XT, it said the card would have a TBP of 300 watts. The release version goes slightly higher to 315W. AMD says the change is due to disappointing performance for the RX 7900 XT compared to the RX 7900 XTX, so it increased the power draw slightly to give the lower-end card a little extra juice.

RX 7900 XTX slotted into a test bench.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Although the card draws more power now, AMD’s recommend power supply requirements remain the same. The RX 7900 XT calls for a 750W power supply, while AMD recommends an 800W power supply for the RX 7900 XTX. That’s more generous than Nvidia, which recommends an 850W power supply for the RTX 4090 despite that card sporting a TBP of 450W.

Related

The power connectors remain the same. Both the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT require dual 8-pin power for the reference design. Some third-party designs may go up to three 8-pin power connectors, so make sure your PC is equipped with one of the best PC power supplies to have all the connectors you need.

Recommended Videos
RX 7900 XTX RX 7900 XT
Compute Units 96 84
AI accelerators 192 168
Ray tracing accelerators 96 84
Memory 24GB GDDR6 20GB GDDR6
Memory speed 20Gbps 20Gbps
Memory bus size 384-bit 320-bit
Game clock speed 2.3GHz 2GHz
Connection support DisplayPort 2.1 DisplayPort 2.1
Total board power 355W 315W
Recommended power supply 750W 800W
List price $1,000 $900

The RX 7900 XT received a power increase, but it may not be enough. As you can read in our RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT review, the XT model is about 15% behind the XTX despite costing only $100 less. In some cases, even last-gen’s RX 6950 XT bests the RX 7900 XT.

That’s not the case for the RX 7900 XTX, however. Although it occasionally loses to Nvidia’s RTX 4080, it offers a much better value. In some games, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2, the RX 7900 XTX actually beats the $1,200 RTX 4080 despite costing $200 less.

The power change for the RX 7900 XT isn’t a big deal, but it’s an important update to keep in mind as cards start hitting store shelves. Both the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT will launch on December 13 for $1,000 and $900, respectively. In addition to reference designs, board partners like Asus, XFX, and PowerColor are expected to have models available on release day.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jacob Roach
Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
The surprising reason your powerful PC still can’t handle the latest games
Nvidia's RTX 3070 Ti graphics card.

We're off to a rocky start with PC releases in 2023. Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Forspoken, and most recently and notably The Last of Us Part One have all launched in dire states, with crashes, hitches, and lower performance despite a minor increase in visual quality. And a big reason why is that the graphics cards of the last few years aren't equipped to handle the demands of games today.

The GPUs themselves are powerful enough; games haven't suddenly gotten more demanding for no reason. The problem is video memory or VRAM. Many of the most powerful GPUs from the previous generation weren't set up to handle the VRAM demands of modern games, which may explain why your relatively powerful PC can't handle the latest and most exciting new games.
What does your VRAM do anyway?

Read more
No, The Last of Us PC requirements aren’t changing
Ellie looking concerned.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) released an updated PC requirement chart for The Last of Us Part One on Monday, clarifying the system requirements players will need if they want to play the game when it launches on March 28. Some reports claim that the PC requirements have been downgraded, but they haven't; if anything, the port calls for a slightly more powerful system.

The original PC requirements (below) called for a Radeon RX 5800 XT at the Recommended tier, which is to run the game at 1080p with 60 frames per second (fps). The updated requirements call for an RX 5700 XT instead. That sounds like a downgrade, but AMD never released an RX 5800 XT -- it was a typo. You don't need to look further than the next GPU recommendation to see that, which is an AMD "Radeom" RX 6600 XT. The updated requirements have fixed that typo, as well.

Read more
Here’s how you can get The Last of Us for free from AMD
the-best-stealth-games-of-all-time

AMD has just announced a particularly well-timed bundle. If you're a fan of The Last of Us, be it the game or the show, you might find this deal worth picking up.

Starting today, you'll be able to score a free copy of the upcoming The Last of Us Part I for PC if you buy an AMD GPU. The chipmaker is also throwing in a discount on one of its best graphics cards.

Read more