How does AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX compare to Nvidia's RTX 3090? RDNA 3, specs, and more explained

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the highest-end graphics card in the newly announced Radeon RX 7000 series from Team Red. This graphics card will hit the shelves on December 13 alongside the Radeon RX 7900 XT. AMD has promised a 50 to 70% performance uplift with these new graphics cards over the last generation.

However, the last-gen high-end Nvidia cards, like the RTX 3080 Ti, the RTX 3090, and the RTX 3090 Ti were noticeably faster than the RX 6000 series offerings. Thus, many gamers are considering opting for an RTX 30 series card this Black Friday sale as prices have come down by a solid margin.

However, there are a few more key points to consider before finalizing a graphics card purchase. The next-gen cards have a few key benefits over the RTX 30 series options. The list includes, but is not limited to, longer driver support. Thus, gamers should make an informed decision as the new Team Red cards are still almost a month away from release.

---

How much of a jump is the Radeon RX 7900 XTX over the RTX 3090?

Both the new AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the Nvidia RTX 3090 are very impressive cards on paper. Gamers will not be disappointed with the 4K gaming performance of either offering.

The RX 7900 XTX is based on the new RDNA 3 architecture. It packs the flagship Navi 31 GPU that comes with 6,244 streaming processors, 384 Texture Mapping Units (TMUs), 192 Render Output Units (ROPs), 96 Ray Tracing (RT) cores, and 96 Compute Units (CUs). The 7900 XTX comes with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory that is based on a wide 384-bit bus.

Similarly, the RTX 3090 is based on the flagship AD102 processor from the last generation. It comes with 10,496 CUDA cores, 328 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 82 RT cores, 328 Tensor cores, and 24 GB of GDDR6X memory that is based on a similar 384-bit memory bus.

Thus, it is no surprise that both of these graphics cards perform quite well in every modern video game. Nvidia markets the RTX 3090 as an "8K capable" video card. However, its 8K gaming performance is questionable and the number of gamers with such high-fidelity monitors is quite minute.

At the current industry standard of 4K, either of these GPUs deliver unmatched performance. However, it is worth noting that the RX 7900 XTX is almost 60-70% faster than the last-gen flagship GPU from Team Red, the RX 6950 XT, depending on the game it is being benchmarked in.

According to reviews and performance benchmarks, the RX 6950 XT is slightly faster than the RTX 3090 in terms of rasterization performance. Thus, the gap between the RX 7900 XTX and the 3090 will be larger than the advertised percentage margins if not even larger.

In addition to this massive performance difference, the RX 7900 XTX is cheaper than the RTX 3090. The best deal on the first BFGPU Nvidia ever made came in at $1,100 in this Black Friday sale. In contrast, the Team Red flagship is priced at $999.

Thus, gamers can save a bunch of money and get extra performance if they opt for the 7900 XTX. Thus, the AMD GPU is a sensible option once it hits shelves on December 13.