AMD ramps up RX 7900 XT power requirements | Digital Trends

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.

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.

	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.