Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Review – Stepping forward towards the next gen framerates

It is no surprise to many gamers and enthusiast out there knowing there will be GPU coming from AMD. As some might know, its been almost a year that the brand did not reveal any proper mid-high tier cards to compete, till now where recently during Gamescom 2023, AMD revealed 2 models that fill in the gaps, the Radeon RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT

We’ll take a quick look at the Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, one of two AMD AIB/Reference offerings and part of AMD’s latest Radeon series of GPU that brings in the current RDNA 3 GPU architecture, which arrives in our lab for performance benchmarks and testing alongside our new test companion motherboards, processors, and memory to pair with and keep the fierce GPU competitions on par.

To begin, this card competes with Nvidia’s 2023 RTX 4060 and 4060Ti, putting the RX 7700 XT among the mid level GPU capable of delivering comfortable framerates in 2K resolutions over 90FPS for most games at a competitive price tag, while AMD still brings in several current features under the RDNA3 GPU architecture, as well as game developers bringing in new updates to existing games to support. We’ll list some of the important features of the new RX series below under features in summary so you can have a look.

Specifications (Compared to RX 6700 XT)

Unboxing & Contents

• Graphics Card Unit
• User Manual/Guide

The remainder of the information and drivers are available at amd.com. or AIB Cards website.

Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Features

• Digital Power Design – SAPPHIRE NITRO+ & PULSE AMD Radeon™ RX 7700 Series are designed with digital power which provides accurate power control and excellent power efficiency
• Conductive Polymer Aluminum Capacitor – 14-phase power with stable capacitance at a high frequency and temperature with very low signal noise
• Angular Velocity Fan Blade – Provides a double layer of downward air pressure which alongside the air pressure on the outer ring of the Axial fan

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Features

• AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution (FSR3) – uses cutting-edge upscaling technologies to help boost your framerates in select titles and deliver high-quality, high-resolution gaming experiences, without having to upgrade to a new graphics card.
• AMD HYPR-RX
  Allows AMD Radeon™ Super Resolution, AMD Radeon™Anti-Lag, and AMD Radeon™ Boost to work together in games to achieve a performance-stacking effect.
• AMD Radeon™ Boost – Dynamically lowers resolution of the entire frame when fast on-screen character motion is detected via user input, allowing for higher FPS with little perceived impact to quality. 
• AMD Smart Access Memory – Combine an AMD Ryzen 5000/7000 Series processor with an AMD Radeon RX 6000/7000 Series graphics card to boost system’s performance. Enjoy increased performance with all-AMD system for the better gaming advantage.
• AMD Radeon™ Image Sharpening
  Employs a contrast adaptive sharpening algorithm that restores clarity to in-game visuals that may have been softened by other effects, bringing out details of objects without creating some of the visual artifacts seen in other sharpening effects.

• AMD Radeon Anti-Lag – Controls the pace of the CPU work to make sure it doesn’t get too far ahead of the GPU, reducing the amount of CPU work queued up by shrinking input lag by almost a full frame, helping to restore the responsiveness to your game.
• 2nd Generation AMD Infinity Cache – Allows fast data access and acts as a high performance bandwidth amplifier with great power efficiency delivering 2912GB/s of bandwidth
• AMD RDNA 3 – Featuring new AI acceleration and 2nd generation Ray Tracing for maximizing image quality while delivering high framerates.

Card Output Ports Lists

• Output : 2x HDMI 2x DisplayPort

Test Setup

We will be using the below as a test setup for the Radeon RX 7700 XT for the purpose of the benchmark, with comparison used on other cards, SAM/BAR is enabled.

Note : since we have passed embargo dates, the 7700 XT will be tested on official drivers

Cards in reference

Benchmark Scores (With BAR Enabled). Ambient Room Temp : 23 Celsius

* Benchmarks charts and numbers may be updated from time to time due to driver updates, enhancements and changes/fixes.

Verdict & thoughts

This is for those who really want to upgrade from older generations of Radeon or a competitive card portfolio but with the latest features, with all the multiple display capabilities and mid to high gaming power. Coming back to the gaming performance stats, you can easily game at an acceptable frame rate of around 60 FPS even at 4K for some games, while at 2K, expect anything above 90 FPS when running, best to be paired with Intel i5 12th generation series or AMD Ryzen 5 5000/7000 series or higher. Highly recommended for those looking to upgrade from a lower mid-range NVIDIA 20 series card or AMD`s Radeon 5000 series or higher, just make sure you’re matched with a reasonably capable CPU and you’ll be fine. From a financial perspective, if you are about to upgrade your graphics card, this is also a good choice, because it is believed that from a price and performance perspective, it is still feasible and somewhat reasonable compared to the average. Overall, if you’re a streamer, you have a pretty wide window with OBS and the games you want to play simultaneously.

Pricing and Availability

It is announced that the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT will start from 450USD, however branded AIB cards price may varied such as the Sapphire model, it should be hovering around the price bracket as well.

For More information on the Product, Visit Below for more info.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT | AIB : Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT |

Special thanks to AMD, ASRock, Sapphire, Kingston, Thermaltake on providing/loaning us the needed hardware for this review and games provided by AMD, Bethesda, Sony Computer Entertainment, Ubisoft