AMD introduces $650 ‘RX 7800 XT’ under a different name — Radeon 7900 GRE (a cut down 7900 XT with 16 GB VRAM & 80 CUs) launched from China

[Marees]

AMD's China-Only Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16GB Debuts: Navi 31 with Cut-Down Memory​

EDIT:

During AMD’s presentation at China Joy in Shanghai, China, the much-anticipated Radeon RX 7900 GRE “Golden Rabbit Edition” was officially announced. This new graphics card is equipped with the Navi 31 GPU, which has slightly fewer cores compared to the 7900 XT models. It will be shipped with 16 GB of memory.

end EDIT

@wxnod has just published pictures of Sapphire's Radeon RX 7900 GRE


ScrubWiki revealed its specifications:

(China-exclusive) Radeon RX 7900 GRE is based on the Navi 31 GPU with 5376 5120 stream processors enabled and running at 1.50 1.2 GHz – 2.40 2.2 GHz, which is the same configuration as that of the Radeon RX 7900 XT.

There is one important difference though. The Radeon RX 7900 GRE disables one more memory controller die (MCD) and therefore comes with 16GB of GDDR6 memory along with a 256-bit memory interface.

As a result, AMD's Radeon RX 7900 GRE can boast the same 32 FP32 TFLOPS – 51.6 FP32 TFLOPS (base – boost) compute horsepower as the Radeon RX 7900 XT, yet it only has 64MB of Infinity Cache (with bandwidth reduced to 2.56 GB/s) as well as 16GB of memory (with bandwidth reduced to 640 MB/s).



When it comes to Sapphire's Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 GRE, this graphics board features two eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connectors and is rated for around 300W thermal graphics power (TGP). To cool down the rather hot Navi 31 GRE GPU, Sapphire uses a rather large 2.5-wide triple-fan cooling system, which is considerably thinner than the company uses on its Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 XT.


https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-rx-7900-gre-debuts

It should be noted that AMD's alleged test systems appear to have been running unreleased graphics hardware - a Radeon RX 7900 GRE GPU with 16 GB of memory is listed in LHC@home's entry

 

[Marees]

Would AMD save any money by fitting a Navi 31 GPU in a Navi 32 packaging

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Would AMD save any money by fitting a Navi 31 GPU in a Navi 32 packaging

Maybe they are using binned dies that have a defective memory controller link, but otherwise are OK?

 

[Marees]

Maybe they are using binned dies that have a defective memory controller link, but otherwise are OK?

You mean 2 defective links ?

7900xt is already cut down by 1 from 7900xtx

Why I asked this was because there was a leak by MLID that had demoed such a chimera to its board partners but not sure if it has made its way into a production model

 

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

The regular 7900xt is about 10-15% faster than the 6950xt at 4k so it would be curious to see where this would slot in. The 6950xt looks to go for about $650 while the 7900xt is around $750.
I dont see any games having issues with 'just' 16 GB, so it would be a good metric on how much bandwidth/cache is needed for various games on the high end.

 

[Lakados]

The fact this card exists sort of scares me, China isn't a small market, and the fact they can release this card there in a space that should reasonably be taken by the 7800 makes me wonder 2 things, how hard is the binning for the 7900 XT and XTX, and is there actually a 7800 series coming down the line any time soon?

 

[philb2]

The fact this card exists sort of scares me

Why?

, China isn't a small market

No kidding!

, and the fact they can release this card there in a space that should reasonably be taken by the 7800

Ok, so I'm an AMD GPU noob. How so?

makes me wonder 2 things, how hard is the binning for the 7900 XT and XTX, and is there actually a 7800 series coming down the line any time soon?

 

[LukeTbk]

how hard is the binning for the 7900 XT and XTX

That could be indicating that they still have a lot of xt for each xtx coming out, at launch it was a surprising amount, one would expect 300mm of quite old by now TSMC 5 to have better success rate.

Maybe they have started to sales near or even xtx capable as lower one too.

 

[pavel]

Nvidia = AMD. Also, vice versa.

 

[LukeTbk]

Nvidia = AMD. Also, vice versa.

Depend on the price, cheaping out on the memory bus-ram if the rebate is past to the customer and has option they are free to choose or not is not an issue.

 

[pavel]

Depend on the price, cheaping out on the memory bus-ram if the rebate is past to the customer and has option they are free to choose or not is not an issue.

Well, most ppl give AMD a pass for high vram and imply that only Nvidia cripples their cards. That's not true.
AMD cards also suffer from high power consumption, high temperatures and the high idle power consumption merely from using high refresh rate displays and playing a video.

 

[Lakados]

Ok, so I'm an AMD GPU noob. How so?

Well the gap between a 6950 and a 7900xt is already small 10-15%.

The gap between a 6800xt and a 6950xt also isn’t that big similarly 10-15%

This will perform somewhere between the 6950 and the 7900xt.

So if a 7800xt were to exist it would fall below the 7900GRE which would put it far too close to the 6850xt which would be an absolutely terrible generational increase. The likes of which we are already shitting on Nvidia for, so if AMD and Nvidia completely fail at their current generation then what do we really have to look forward to and that’s why the launch scares me.

Because either the 7900 binning is bad enough to support China with silicon that doesn’t make the cut for the xt, or they are intentionally gimping good silicon to meet a market. But if they have to resort to crippling what was otherwise a good 7900xt or xtx then AMD is in an even weaker position than I had realized because the 7800xt launch should sit basically where that GRE is going to occupy, but the 7800 silicon is nowhere to be seen.

 

[LukeTbk]

Because either the 7900 binning is bad enough to support China with silicon that doesn’t make the cut for the xt,

Is that the case ?, the GRE seem to have same frequency boost, same core count, same GPU just cheaper board-memory bus and memory, no ?

If it is a China only product, maybe it does not matter if the 7800xt is really close to it (and could be why it is a China only affair, to not muddy the sku line).

 

[Lakados]

Is that the case ?, the GRE seem to have same frequency boost, same core count, same GPU just cheaper board-memory bus and memory, no ?

If it is a China only product, maybe it does not matter if the 7800xt is really close to it (and could be why it is a China only affair, to not muddy the sku line).

I understand it as them cutting down the memory interface and disabling the extra lanes at a hardware level not just using less cheaper memory.

But why sell a GRE instead of an XT? If it’s silicon that doesn’t make the bin and they have a lot of it that’s one thing but fusing off is another.

If this is like the 7600x3D then all good, but it took AMD years to get enough bad bins to release that to just Microcenter in just the US.
The 7900 series is less than a year old and having that much left over bad bins to support China this early on can’t be a good sign.

Why not just release a 7800xt instead?

 

[Marees]

Why not just release a 7800xt instead?

The 7800xt if it is ever released would be between a 6900xt & 6950xt

Rumours point to a 7800 (60 cu) likely between 6800xt & 6900xt

Igor takes a cut down 70 CU workstation that has not been released for desktop consumers & concludes that performance ties with a 6900xt or between a 4070 & 4070 ti

https://www.igorslab.de/en/amd-radeon-rx-7800xt-review-as-radeon-pro-w7800/8/



I would add a third point for not selling a 70 CU Navi 31 card.
It is too close to a 60 CU Navi 32 & what if AMD managed to fix the "performance bugs" in RDNA 3

 

[LukeTbk]

I understand it as them cutting down the memory interface and disabling the extra lanes at a hardware level not just using less cheaper memory.

Could be all wrong here obviously but isn't a lot of the memory interface on the 6nm MCD (thus the 5/6 of the bandwith available on the xt making possible for one of them to be bad for some reason)

But why sell a GRE instead of an XT?

The board with a smaller memory bus and the memory controller can have one more faulty MCD could be both cheaper I imagine: the main difference in the Radeon RX 7900 GRE is the single MCD chiplet with the memory controller disabled
https://technewsspace.com/amd-relea...t-with-reduced-memory-specifically-for-china/

A less bit bus PCB should cost less.

Why not just release a 7800xt instead?

Could indicate that the rumours of an cut down navi 31 would not happen for them and they will be on navi 32 ? That GRE could be way too close to the XT in some scenario to their liking to be called a 7800 something.

 

[Lakados]

The 7800xt if it is ever released would be between a 6900xt & 6950xt

Rumours point to a 7800 (60 cu) likely between 6800xt & 6900xt

I understand that but that would give the 7800 something around a 7% generational uplift which is terrible even when compared to the already bad standards set by NVidia.

The board with a smaller memory bus and the memory controller can have one more faulty MCD could be both cheaper I imagine: the main difference in the Radeon RX 7900 GRE is the single MCD chiplet with the memory controller disabled
https://technewsspace.com/amd-relea...t-with-reduced-memory-specifically-for-china/

A less bit bus PCB should cost less.

But are the 7900xt sales so bad that they are having to artificially cut down the silicon to meet this price segment or are the yields so bad that 9 months in they can support an entire product line with it?

 

[LukeTbk]

But are the 7900xt sales so bad that they are having to artificially cut down the silicon to meet this price segment or are the yields so bad that 9 months in they can support an entire product line with it?

I am not sure by artificially cut down, are we talkign about the MCD silicon or the GCD silicon, I feel it is not cut down or not achieved to be an XT. If you mean still getting a giant proportion of XT level gpu out of their Navi 31 that like they did at launch diminishing a lot the attraction of using chiplet, that could be an indication of that but it could simply be that the XTX price point is so niche they artificially cut down XTX to XT-GRE.

I can imagine the sales being quite low if southkorea is an indication:

If they run out of 6900xt- 6950xt the price point between the 6800 and the 7900xt would become all empty until the 7800-7800xt launch, why those take so long, could be too much 6800 to 6950xt in non China channels still available, could be they want to launch a new GPU with StarField in September to bundle sales.

 

[Marees]

Would AMD save any money by fitting a Navi 31 GPU in a Navi 32 packaging

Josh Norem of ExtremeTech seems to think the same that this is Navi 31 in Navi 32 clothing !!

One fascinating detail is that when comparing the backside of the GRE card, which stands for Golden Rabbit Edition, to the existing Radeon RX 7900 XT, you can see the underbelly of the die and the retention bracket are a bit smaller on the new GPU. This is odd since both models use the same Navi31 die. However, the mystery could be solved by a new leak showing AMD has developed a smaller package for Navi31 that is designed to let its partners create dummy boards for the incoming Navi32 GPUs. According to Videocardz, the smaller Navi31 has been shipping to partners for months to let them prepare their Radeon 7800 and 7700 boards without having the actual dies.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/amd-radeon-rx-7900-spotted-with-similar-specs-as-xt-model

Via wccftech:

An interesting detail spotted by @Olrak29_ is that the Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 GRE features a smaller retention bracket and the capacitor area on the flipside of the PCB and underneath the Navi 31 GPU looks to be rather smaller compared to the same model using the 7900 XT design. This could be due to a smaller chip package used for this particular Navi 31 SKU or it could be a compact chip that was leaked out a while ago by Moore's Law is Dead.

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-7900-gre-16-gb-gpu-sapphire-pictured-same-core-count-as-7900-xt/

 

[Marees]

Josh Norem of ExtremeTech seems to think the same that this is Navi 31 in Navi 32 clothing !!

One fascinating detail is that when comparing the backside of the GRE card, which stands for Golden Rabbit Edition, to the existing Radeon RX 7900 XT, you can see the underbelly of the die and the retention bracket are a bit smaller on the new GPU. This is odd since both models use the same Navi31 die. However, the mystery could be solved by a new leak showing AMD has developed a smaller package for Navi31 that is designed to let its partners create dummy boards for the incoming Navi32 GPUs. According to Videocardz, the smaller Navi31 has been shipping to partners for months to let them prepare their Radeon 7800 and 7700 boards without having the actual dies.

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/amd-radeon-rx-7900-spotted-with-similar-specs-as-xt-model

Via wccftech:

An interesting detail spotted by @Olrak29_ is that the Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 GRE features a smaller retention bracket and the capacitor area on the flipside of the PCB and underneath the Navi 31 GPU looks to be rather smaller compared to the same model using the 7900 XT design. This could be due to a smaller chip package used for this particular Navi 31 SKU or it could be a compact chip that was leaked out a while ago by Moore's Law is Dead.

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-7900-gre-16-gb-gpu-sapphire-pictured-same-core-count-as-7900-xt/

Coverage by TechPoweUp

It turns out that the upcoming Radeon RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) is built on the mysterious Navi 31 + Navi 32 hybrid GPU that's been in the news for a few weeks now.

VideoCardz caught whiff of the new GPU by comparing the back sides of the Sapphire RX 7900 GRE from yesterday's leak, with that of the production Sapphire RX 7900 XT/XTX NITRO+. There are visible differences in the layout of the SMDs, and the reinforcement brace behind the GPU has a square cutout, compared to the rectangular one behind the "Navi 31" powering the RX 7900 XT/XTX NITRO+. On the RX 7900 GRE, the GCD is configured with 84 CU, or the same core-config as the RX 7900 XT, albeit with the narrower 256-bit memory interface, and 64 MB of Infinity Cache memory

https://www.techpowerup.com/311630/radeon-rx-7900-gre-confirmed-to-debut-new-navi-3x-gpu

 

[Marees]

Specs & Benchmarks leak for the 7900 GRE

It is 80 CUs. Slightly lesser than 84 CU of 7900xt. And AMD is targetting 1440p ultra with this card !!!

https://www.worldlingo.com/SQ2qXvRviga,AH7PInXkoIjXkF8waGQUY/translate

 

[Marees]

It's interesting that while the Radeon RX 7900 GRE is (potentially) a global launch, it's entirely been marketed as a Chinese launch which isn't the case since the company also lists down NA (North American) pricing.

the card will be sold for 5299 RMB ($740 US) in China and $649 US in North America. This is $200 US cheaper than the $849 US MSRP of the RX 7900 XT and 400 RMB cheaper than the Chinese MSRP of the 7900 XT.

Clocks for the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE are maintained at a boost clock of up to 2245 MHz but an ironically low base frequency of just 1270 MHz, a 730 MHz reduction over the XT variant. The G6 memory operates at 18 Gbps speeds, delivering 576 GB/s of bandwidth versus the 20 Gbps pin speeds on the higher-end XT & XTX variants.

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-7900-gre-16-gb-gpu-launch-rtx-4070-competitor-649-usd-price/

 

[Marees]

In terms of availability, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE will only be released by three board partners: Sapphire, PowerColor, and XFX. AMD itself will produce a reference model, as indicated by official materials and its availability for media reviews. Official slides show US pricing of $649 and AMD China did confirm that RX 7900 GRE will launch globally through system integrators.

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-rad...5120-cores-16gb-memory-and-260w-tbp-costs-649

Unlike the rumored 5376 Stream Processors, this model offers 5120 cores, with only 80 Compute Units enabled on the GPU. As a result, the card comes with reduced specifications compared to the RX 7900 XT, affecting memory (20 GB vs. 16 GB) and memory bus (320 vs. 256-bit). The Infinity Cache has also been reduced from 80MB to 64MB. Additionally, the TBP (Total Board Power) has been lowered to just 260W.

It’s worth noting that the memory has been down-clocked to 18 Gbps, resulting in a bandwidth of 576 GB/s instead of the expected 640 GB/s. Moreover, the card features lower clock speeds, with a base, game, and boost clock of 1270/1880/2245 MHz, compared to the XT’s 1385/2025/2395 MHz.

The GPU is identified as Navi 31 XL, but its package is noticeably smaller, confirming the presence of a hybrid Navi 31/32 design. This design suggests that a smaller package will be utilized for the upcoming Navi 32 graphics processor, indicating that 2 out of 6 Infinity Cache dies are disabled or dummy.

Chinese media has already tested the graphics card, and while it is slower than the RX 7900 XT, it outperforms NVIDIA’s RTX 4070. Its performance is expected to be similar to the Radeon RX 6950XT, though. Notably, AMD advertises it as the successor to the RX 6800 XT.

 

[Marees]

AMD's Radeon RX 7900 GRE Gets Benchmarked​

AMD's China exclusive Radeon RX 7900 GRE has been put through its paces by Expreview

when it comes the GeForce RTX 4070 AMD struggles at 1080p, where NVIDIA takes home the win in games like The Last of US Part 1 and Diablo 4. In games like F1 22 and Assassin's Creed Hall of Valor, AMD is only ahead by a mere percentage point or less. Once ray tracing is enabled, AMD only wins in F1 22 and it's by less than one percent again and Far Cry 6, where AMD is almost three percent faster. Moving up in resolution, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE ends up being a clear winner, most likely partially due to having 16 GB of VRAM and at 1440p the GeForce RTX 4070 also falls behind in most of the ray traced game tests, if only just in most of them. At 4K the NVIDIA card can no longer keep up, but the Radeon RX 7900 GRE isn't really a 4K champion either, dropping under 60 FPS in more resource heavy games like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us Part 1.

 

[LukeTbk]

It is 80 CUs. Slightly lesser than 84 CU of 7900xt.

So all the rumours-coverage were wrong for everything.... from the GPU core count, clock, to the china exclusivity, they had the memory right too ?

With that price point and performance gap to the 7900xt, all the question above with will they made a 7800xt-7800-7700xt-7700-7600xt are well alive, the 7900GRE seem already below the 6950xt level (maybe 6900xt even ?)....

Does the room exist for a 7800xt enough better than a 6800xt but enough below a 7900 GRE to start with ? 7900xt being 34% above an 6800xt while being often 20-27% above the GRE.

 

[Lakados]

Those benchmarks don’t track for me as the 7900xt and the 4070ti are generally very close at 1440p only slightly beating the 4070TI out. If the GRE is below the XT I would need to see what they call a clear winner and what they used for a test environment because that doesn’t quite match what we’ve been seeing from the other reviewers.

 

[Marees]

Those benchmarks don’t track for me as the 7900xt and the 4070ti are generally very close at 1440p only slightly beating the 4070TI out. If the GRE is below the XT I would need to see what they call a clear winner and what they used for a test environment because that doesn’t quite match what we’ve been seeing from the other reviewers.

The GRE is being compared to the 4070 & not the 4070 ti

 

[Lakados]

So all the rumours-coverage were wrong for everything.... from the GPU core count, clock, to the china exclusivity, they had the memory right too ?

With that price point and performance gap to the 7900xt, all the question above with will they made a 7800xt-7800-7700xt-7700-7600xt are well alive, the 7900GRE seem already below the 6950xt level (maybe 6900xt even ?)....

To me this screams that the RDNA 3 architecture isn’t working as intended and AMD has given up on it and is riding this gen out.

 

[Lakados]

The GRE is being compared to the 4070 & not the 4070 ti

AH ok. I misread that.
So it’s falling right between the two cards which is a pretty good place to land assuming the price is right.
But with that I can’t see a 7800 launch making sense unless that is now intended to compete between the 4060 and the 4060ti.

 

[Marees]

AH ok. I misread that.
So it’s falling right between the two cards which is a pretty good place to land assuming the price is right.
But with that I can’t see a 7800 launch making sense unless that is now intended to compete between the 4060 and the 4060ti.

My speculation based purely on the CU count

Based on the fact that AMD's 80 CU 7900 GRE costs $650 & MLID claim that there would be no further reduction in GPU prices, for now, we can speculate how AMD can position the rest of the cards, as below:

80 CU 16gb 7900 GRE = $650
70 CU 16gb 7900 = $580

60 CU 16gb 7800 = $500
54 CU 16gb/12gb 7700xt = $450
48 CU 12gb 7700 = $400

32 CU 16gb 7600xt = $300-$350

 

[LukeTbk]

To me this screams that the RDNA 3 architecture isn’t working as intended and AMD has given up on it and is riding this gen out.

The fact that a card with a x900 branding is being compared to Nvidia xx70 in benchmark with no 7800 product even announced to be launched 7 months after the release of the 7900 was probably not the original plan.

 

[HockeyJon]

With their third “7900” card now out, I propose AMD name ALL of their Radeon cards “7900” with some collection of letters at the end to differentiate them, because this is good for the consumer. I’m personally interested in seeing how the 7900 XTXXX Only Fans edition performs. It’s another 7900 card, only it has like 6 fans but with 12GB of VRAM. They wanted less memory on it because AMD marketing wants you to forget about how stupid this naming scheme is.

 

[Lakados]

The fact that a card with a x900 branding is being compared to Nvidia xx70 in benchmark with no 7800 product even announced to be launched 7 months after the release of the 7900 was probably not the original plan.

And that 4070 we’ve collectively decided should have been a 4060 based on how it actually performs so…

So let’s all play name that GPU where the names don’t matter and the points are all made up anyways

 

[Armenius]

With their third “7900” card now out, I propose AMD name ALL of their Radeon cards “7900” with some collection of letters at the end to differentiate them, because this is good for the consumer. I’m personally interested in seeing how the 7900 XTXXX Only Fans edition performs. It’s another 7900 card, only it has like 6 fans but with 12GB of VRAM. They wanted less memory on it because AMD marketing wants you to forget about how stupid this naming scheme is.

7900 X2
7900 XTX 3GHz Edition
7900 XTX Uber Edition
7900 XTX
7900 XT Platinum
7900 XT
7900 XL
7900 Boost Edition
7900 6000SP
7900
7900 Fury X2
7900 Fury X
7900 Fury
7900 Nano
7900 GTO
7900 GT
7900 Pro
7900 SE
7900 LE

 

[NightReaver]

7900 X2
7900 XTX 3GHz Edition
7900 XTX Uber Edition
7900 XTX
7900 XT Platinum
7900 XT
7900 XL
7900 Boost Edition
7900 6000SP
7900
7900 Fury X2
7900 Fury X
7900 Fury
7900 Nano
7900 GTO
7900 GT
7900 Pro
7900 SE
7900 LE

Can we squeeze in an anniversary edition for something?

 

[Lakados]

Can we squeeze in an anniversary edition for something?

7900 Signature Edition with Lisa’s signature on the back plate and the Anniversary Edition but the Anniversary Edition is actually an 8800XT with a similar performance profile to a heavily overclocked 7900xtx but with a cooling shroud to look like the stock AMD 7900xtx but with RGB.

 

[cjcox]

( Nvidia | AMD ) + used = joy

(the best answer)

 

[Eymar]

So when do get AI reviews stating that this is the high end card to get like the `glorbo` mess happening with Destiny 2? If someone does start something like that, add a feature called "Descaler 2.0" with removes any upscaling tech so you get a "natural image that developers intended".

 

[LukeTbk]

with removes any upscaling tech so you get a "natural image that developers intended".

Almost all game (at least if they have a console version) are intended for upscalers (how many native 4K-60fps title is there in the wild ?), if dev intend people to run native, make a game that run well at native resolution (with less of a game and lesser graphic), they decide.

 

[Eymar]

Almost all game (at least if they have a console version) are intended for upscalers (how many native 4K-60fps title is there in the wild ?)

I don't know, was hoping if someone does fool AI to make a fake review to add stick figures as source images.