At the same time as the publication customs RTX 4060 Ti 8G, AMD officialy launched its entry-level graphics card, the RX 7600. As a reminder, AMD currently only had two high-end cards of its new generation with the AMD RX 7900 XT model and the AMD RX 7900 XTX version. We received the RX 7600 reference card from AMD, not to be confused with RX 7600 XT.
This card is intended for the entry-level 1080p 60 FPS and has an MSRP of $ 269. This could be an excellent price if you want to upgrade your old GPU at a lower cost because we are talking about a card close to the characteristics of the RX 6500 XT. As a reminder, this one was released at a price of $399 in May 2022, one year to the day.
We took advantage of this article to redo all our tests in 1080p and 1440p with the latest drivers available from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel. As you can see in our test protocol, all our graphics have just been updated!
A special thanks to AMD for making this Radeon RX 7600 available.
[nextpage title=”AMD RX 7600:”]
Architecture:
This AMD Radeon RX 7600 is the third card that we have in our hands and that benefits from the brand new RDNA3architecture. This new architecture succeeds RDNA2 which was represented by the last high-end model, the RX 6950 XT. AMD made the choice to launch directly its two high-end models as NVIDIA does with its RTX 4090. AMD had and still has stocks of cards of the previous generation, hence this choice of launch. On the other hand, with this RX 7600, we are really on the entry level for the 1080p 60 FPS definition. It is a card that could interest many gamers especially with this price of 299 euros.
Based on the table from our colleagues at Videocardz, the characteristics of this new RX 7600 are almost identical to those of the RX 6650 XT, a card that we did not have the opportunity to test and therefore that we do not have in our hands (no need to cry conspiracy). Currently, we can find some models of RX 6650 XT under the bar of 300 euros and therefore slightly lower than the price of this new RX 7600.
Our tests will allow us to see how it performs against the RX 6600 XT, knowing that the RX 6650 XT is slightly more powerful.
The bundle:
As you can see from the photos below, the box for our copy of the AMD RX 7600 has the same layout as its two larger sisters. The reference of the model is on the top left of the box whose dimensions are 260 x 170 x 65 mm. We are on a very compact packaging and it is therefore rather excellent news on the size of the card.
On the back, no technical information but some info about the Adrenaline Edition software. We are here on two boxes rather compact and which play on the sobriety. The opening is done by the front side and reveals directly the cards. We can also discover for both models the annotation: ” Welcome to the red team “.
These are the reference cards offered by AMD as NVIDIA does with its Founders Edition. However, if on the green side only NVIDIA sells its Founders Edition, AMD offers its partners to buy this reference card and then resell it by simply adding their brand. Unfortunately, it seems that the cost of a sticker has also increased since some brands do not hesitate to raise the price of the reference card while it is completely identical to the one proposed by AMD and that we test today.
Cooling:
Our reference card sports a cooling system consisting of two 80mm fans. The design of the reference board is very visually pleasing and without any touch of RGB backlighting. Its dark aesthetics will allow it to be associated with any motherboard and in any case.
The two fans are responsible for keeping the heat sink in contact with the graphics chip and the various components of the PCB cool. These fans have 9 blades and will remain at rest when the card is not solicited and vice versa. They become active again when the temperature requires it. As you can see, the hot air only escapes through the top edge of the board since the bracket is not perforated.
The back of the card is protected by an imposing black and rather thick backplate. Its role is to avoid the torsion of the PCB but it also plays a role of thermal dissipation with probably the presence of pads between it and the PCB. As you can see, the backplate is joined to the fan shroud, which gives the impression that the PCB is enclosed in a shell. There is also a small icon indicating that this is a hot surface. We will judge the temperatures of the latter during our tests. Regarding the thickness, our sample occupies 2 slots.
Connections:
To power our card, and this is great news, AMD made the choice to keep an 8-pin power connector, that is to say, with 8 pins. AMD announces a consumption of 165 watts for our RX 7600, which is slightly more than the 132 watts of the RX 6600 but less than the 180 of the RX 6650 XT. We also know that regarding memory, AMD uses GDDR6 instead of GDDR6X for both cards, mainly because it consumes less power and is incidentally less expensive.
AMD has opted for DisplayPort 2.1 support on these new cards. AMD offers simultaneous encoding or decoding for AV1, which will interest content creators. So in the end we have three DisplayPort 2.1 and one HDMI 2.1.
[nextpage title=”Specifications and PCB:”]
Technical specifications:
In terms of frequency, here is the one of our AMD RX 7600. The basic one is announced at 2250 MHz while the Boost is at 2655 MHz. The 8 GB of G-DDR6 memory runs at 2250 MHz (288 GB/s) on a 128-bit bus. Compared to the previous generation, the RX 6600, the frequencies have been increased. These frequencies correspond to those of the reference card, we should have factory overclocked cards from AMD partners with perhaps higher frequencies.
A little passage through GPU-Z to check that the information read is correct. Don’t forget that the latter will be superior during benchmarks depending on the quality of your chip and the cooling system.
Let’s unpack the PCB:
As we hinted to you, we did not disassemble our RX 7600 at this time. The launch of new graphics cards by AMD and NVIDIA at one day intervals and the reception of several samples did not leave us enough time. But we’ll come back to this as we’ll talk about the temperatures of this card which are far too high for our taste.
[nextpage title=”The test configuration: “]
As we said in the introduction, we are (again) busy updating all our graphics using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, AMD and of course now from INTEL. We also took the opportunity to slightly modify our test configuration. So here we go again for a new series of tests and therefore of graphics on this slightly modified configuration:
- Motherboard: ROG Maximus Z690 APEX
- Processor: Intel Alder Lake i9-12900K
- Memory : 32 GB Corsair Vengeance 5200 CL38 DDR5
- Graphics Card : AMD RX 7600
- Cooling system : ROG Ryujin II 360 from Asus
- SSD : Western Digital Black SN750 2 TB + EKWB radiator
- Power supply : Corsair AX1600i + 12VHPWR 600W adapter
- Operating system : Windows 11 64 bits
For this test, we used a high-end configuration using an i9-12900K processor and DDR5. The use of a 144 Hz 4K display is also a prerequisite. For our tests we use a copy of the ROG PG27UQ.
As we said in the introduction of this article, all our tests have been redone in the last few days with all our cards and with the latest drivers available!
The drivers used are the latest ones for each manufacturer, with NVIDIA 531.93, on the AMD side the Adrenalin-Edition-23.10.01.16 and finally for the two ARC models from Intel, the 31.0.101.4369.
Our test protocol:
All cards are tested at stock frequencies and without any optimization. For the various benchmarks, whether synthetic or gaming, we will opt for 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolutions depending on the performance of the card. Here, with this model, we will use 1080p and 1440p for rasterization and 1080p for raytracing.
As you can see, we are now running Windows 11 and we have enabled the ” ReSize BAR ” in the BIOS, which is visible in GPU-Z. Now that you know everything about our test configuration, it’s time to start!
[nextpage title=”Synthetic benchmarks: “]
Our first series of tests will be dedicated to synthetic benchmarks. These are often used for overclocking competitions but are also very interesting to compare different GPUs. So we will focus on the 3DMark benchmarks.
We will test the following benchmarks:
- Fire Strike (1080p)
- Fire Strike Ultra (2160p)
- Time Spy (1440p)
- Time Spy Extreme (2160p)
- 3DMark Speed Way
- DirectX Raytracing
- Intel XeSS
- Mesh Shader
- 3DMark DLSS Feature Test (2160p)
3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra:
Let’s start with 3DMark Fire Strike, which is one of the most used benchmarks today. It consists of two graphics tests, a CPU test and a fourth test that combines GPU and CPU. Don’t forget to deactivate the demo which doesn’t bring anything in the final score and prolongs the benchmark duration (unnecessarily). The version used for these tests is of course the latest one.
The first benchmark that we carry out with this AMD RX 7600 and the least we can say is that it is indeed where we expected it to be with performances clearly superior to the RX 6600 (+30%) and especially RX 6600 XT (+8%). It obtains here a score of 29054 points.
Under Fire Strike Ultra, the observation is the same and we can also see that it outperforms the Intel ARC A750 and is close to the A770 model.
3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme:
The second test is 3DMark Time Spy. Although this one is done in 1440p, it has the particularity of using DirectX 12. It consists of two graphical tests and a CPU test. As for Fire Strike, don’t forget to disable the demo. These two first benchmarks are proposed by UL Benchmark.
The performance obtained in Time Spy is often representative of what we will have in games. Here, our sample of the day gets a score of 11541 points and is therefore quite close to the RTX 3060 Ti. As we can see, the RTX 3060 is far behind.
Under 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, it is a good score that we obtain since it reaches 5442 points which represents a performance gain of 13% compared to the RX 6600 XT and 31% compared to the previous generation model, the RX 6600.
3DMark Speed Way
The latest benchmark from Ulbenchmark and it’s nice to be able to say that we’re going to have a good time on this Speed Way. It uses DirectX 12 and is by default in a 1440p definition. We have not modified anything and we use the original benchmark.
Here again, our AMD RX 7600 scores 1950 points. When encoding our graphics, we realized that we were missing the results of the previous generation. We will update this chart in the next few hours.
3DMark DirectX Raytracing:
UL Benchmarks has added a new test to its series of benchmarks to measure Ray Tracing performance. The idea will be to use the 3DMark DirectX Ray Tracing test to compare the performance of Ray Tracing hardware dedicated to AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards but now also to Intel!
The 3DMark DirectX Ray Tracing test is designed to make Ray Tracing the limiting factor. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the entire scene is traced and drawn in one pass. The test result will depend entirely on the performance of the Ray Tracing. It will be easy to measure and compare the performance of the different cards between them.
This benchmark has always been dominated by NVIDIA cards and our sample of the day is therefore logically behind with a score of 19 FPS but which still allows it to take the lead over the RX 6700 XT. In the coming weeks we will add the 3DMark benchmark which tests AMD’s FSR technology.
3DMark Intel XeSS
UL Benchmarks in collaboration with Intel will add this new benchmark to the 3DMark suite. We had early access to this new test for our testing. This Intel XeSS test is designed to evaluate and compare the performance and image quality of XeSS (Xe Super Sampling). There are four XeSS modes to choose from: Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced and Performance. The 3DMark inspection tool helps you compare image quality with a side-by-side view of XeSS rendering and native resolution rendering. You need a graphics card that supports Intel XeSS to run this test.
So we’ll have two scores, a FPS number with XeSS disabled and then on the right with XeSS enabled. The mode chosen is “Ultra Quality” which is actually the default mode for the benchmark.
In this new benchmark, all graphics cards without exception take advantage of XeSS, but it is Intel that has the best gain. ARC models see a gain of 50% while NVIDIA and AMD models see a gain of more or less 30 to 35%.
[nextpage title=”1080p and 1440p gaming performance: “]
We decided to select six games because they seem to be representative enough. We have opted for DirectX12 and Vulkan with the following games:
- The Division 2 (DirectX 12)
- Borderlands 3 (DirectX 12)
- Red Dead Redemption II (Vulkan)
- Far Cry 6 (DirectX 12)
- Watch Dogs: Legion (DirectX 12)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (DirectX12)
We have chosen to use the benchmarks integrated in these different games.
Why do we do this? Simply to allow you to compare your results with ours if you also have a copy of one of these games. It’s a thought that seemed relevant to us and that will allow you to compare your results with ours.
As we mentioned on page 4 of this article, we have activated the Resizable Bar in the BIOS, which is now supported by all (recent) GPUs. Finally, we have chosen only 1080p and 1440p resolutions, which is what you should expect from these cards.
The Division 2:
The Division 2 game will be tested under DirectX 12. As far as graphics settings are concerned, they will be set to ” ultra ” mode with vertical synchronization disabled.
First game and if it is quite logical to see our AMD RX 7600 in front of the RX 6600 XT, we can also see that our sample of the day does better than the two Intel Arc cards in 1080p. In 1440p, it is equal to the Arc A770 model. We will keep an eye on the results in the next games.
Borderlands 3:
For the second game, we switch to Borderlands 3. The graphic options are set to ” Brutal “. It is important to know that Borderlands 3 is quite greedy and that this choice of settings has a strong impact on the FPS. It is a game that is often praised in the announcements of new graphics cards and precisely in this Brutal mode.
The performance here is excellent with our AMD RX 7600 outperforming the RTX 3060 Ti in both definitions. Now, we know that Borderlands 3 is in favor of the AMD cards.
Red Dead Redemption 2:
Third game and not the least, Red Dead Redemption II on PC. The advantage of this opus is to offer the possibility to test the integrated benchmark under Vulkan. We opt for the graphics options in ” ultra “.
Third game and not the least, RDR2 offers the possibility to test the integrated benchmark under Vulkan. The performances are once again identical to what we have already encountered.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports the DXR as well as the SFR proposed by AMD. We will also find it on the next page. For our benchmarks, we opted for an ” ultra” graphic quality.
Even though this game showed an advantage for the RX 6000 cards, our AMD RX 7600 once again comes out perfectly and once again dominates the RX 6600 XT but also and above all the two Intel GPUs.
Watch Dogs Legion:
Last but not least, Watch Dogs Legion which will also be used for our tests with Ray Tracing. For our benchmarks, we have opted for a graphic quality in ” very high”.
In the Watch Dogs Legion benchmark, we are forced to set the graphics quality to “very high” and not to “ultra” because the benchmark then tells us that the 8 GB of memory is not enough.
Cyberpunk 2077:
This is a game that we wanted to add for a while and now it’s done since it has an integrated benchmark. We will also use this game for our tests with Ray Tracing. For our benchmarks, we have opted for an “ultra” graphic quality.
New and last benchmark of this panel of games. In 1080p, an average of 85.6 FPS is reached, which is excellent for an Ultra graphics quality. In 1440p, things get a bit more complicated but our AMD RX 7600 is not so far from the RX 6700 XT.
The gaming average:
For the gaming average, it is the RTX 3060 that acts as the reference card in 1080p while it is the RTX 3070 in the 1440p definition. The other cards score either higher or lower depending on their performance against this model.
These results are excellent for this AMD RX 7600, which performs almost 30% better than the identical version of the previous generation. In comparison to the RX 6600 XT, the gain is visible and even if we don’t have the RX 6650 XT at our disposal, there is no doubt that our AMD RX 7600 would have been equal. It is also worth noting that our sample is ahead of the two Intel GPUs, whether in 1080p or 1440p.
[nextpage title=”Ray tracing and DLSS/FSR performance:”]
Let’s now take a look at the seven games we have selected that support Ray Tracing as well as DLSS and for some of them AMD’s FSR as well as Intel’s new XeSS technology which is supported by Shadow Tomb Raider and Hitman 3. As we have already reminded you, if DLSS remains the property of NVIDIA, FSR and XeSS can be used with all cards from AMD, Intel and even NVIDIA.
The seven DirectX 12 games that we will test with Ray Tracing and DLSS, FSR or XeSS are :
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DLSS)
- Watch Dogs: Legion (DLSS)
- Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DLSS)
- Far Cry 6 (DLSS – FSR)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (DLSS 3 – FSR)
- Hitman 3 (DLSS 3 – XeSS)
- Forza Horizon 5 (DLSS 3)
No change for this new series of games since we remain in 1080p definition. Depending on the card, we will use DLSS for NVIDIA and either FSR or XeSS for AMD models. If FSR is not available in a game, then we will use XeSS on our AMD card.
DLSS 3: watch out for our results!
As you know, NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 3 when the RTX 4000 graphics cards were released, and in particular for the launch of the RTX 4090 version. So why a warning? Because NVIDIA now offers DLSS3 support on many games but it is only supported by RTX 4000. To put it simply, if we test a game that benefits from DLSS 3, our RTX 4060 Ti will take advantage of it but an RTX 30xx will be satisfied with DLSS 2, resulting in even bigger gaps.
We currently have three games that support DLSS 3 and will be increasing that number in the coming weeks. It has taken us a long time to upgrade all of our graphics to 1080p and 1440p. You can find the list of supported games by following this link.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
First we add to this comparison and it supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and the four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for ” very high ” graphics quality, ” ultra ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS.
With Ray Tracing enabled in ultra, an average of 74 FPS is achieved. The game doesn’t seem to be to the advantage of AMD’s x6xx series cards. A small note, Shadow Of The Tomb Raider has been implemented with XeSS, which allows AMD cards to benefit from this technology. But unfortunately, for some unknown reason, enabling XeSS makes us lose FPS in this game.
Watch Dogs Legion:
Second game, Watch Dogs Legion supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. It is one of the most demanding games of the moment. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for a very high graphics quality, a ” high ” Ray Tracing and a ” balanced ” DLSS.
The Ray Tracing in Watch Dogs Legion is starting to take its toll on the cards and our sample is no exception as it averages 35 FPS. Without the possibility of FSR or XeSS, it is impossible to gain FPS.
Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition:
Third game and supports DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game and four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we chose ultra graphics quality, ultra Ray Tracing and DLSS in ” balanced ” mode.
We continue with the greedy games and here a very good score of 49.2 FPS for our AMD RX 7600. It becomes difficult for our sample to compete with the Intel ARC cards when raytracing is enabled.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR as well as the FSR proposed by AMD but not DLSS.
For our benchmarks, we have opted for an Ultra graphics quality, we have activated both DRX options as well as FSR in ” balanced ” mode.
In Far Cry 6, FSR is the only choice available to boost FPS after enabling Ray Tracing. All our cards can benefit from it, regardless of the manufacturer. Nothing really changes in the hierarchy with our AMD RX 7600 still ahead of the previous generation.
Cyberpunk 2077:
New game we added that offers in its settings the activation of DLSS but also FSR. Note that this is the first game to enable DLSS3 for RTX 40xx graphics cards.
For our benchmarks, we have chosen a “high” graphics quality, a “medium” Ray Tracing and a ” balanced ” DLSS/FSR.
This is the most demanding game where our cards have a hard time keeping up. Here, an average of 29.8 FPS is obtained. The FSR works perfectly here since we almost manage to reach 60 FPS when it is activated.
Hitman 3:
Hitman 3 now supports DLSS, FSR and XeSS technology. Depending on the model of the tested card, we choose one of these three technologies.
For our benchmarks, we chose “high” graphics quality, ” enabled ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/Xess.
We find a situation already usual with our AMD RX 7600 better than the RX 6600 XT. The FSR also works efficiently since it allows a gain of 64%.
Forza Horizon 5:
Latest game added to our panel as this one is now DLSS 3 compatible. For our benchmarks, we chose ” extreme ” graphics quality, ” extreme ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/Xess.
This new game, which also supports DLSS 3 but also XeSS and FSR. It is therefore him who will allow our AMD RX 7600 to go from 53 FPS to 74 FPS when it is activated.
So raytracing with the AMD RX 7600 :
On our seven games tested, we realize that raytracing hurts our AMD RX 7600 a lot even if we are in 1080p. When the FSR technology is present, it allows our card to pass the 60 FPS mark. So you’ll have to make the choice to use raytracing, if you want, only in this case.
[nextpage title=”Temperature, power consumption and nuisance: “]
Temperature:
In order to measure the temperatures, we opted for the Superposition stress test in Extreme mode. We opted for three 5 minutes runs with 10 minutes interval between each test. We took advantage of this benchmark in order to measure the power consumption of the graphics card for the table above.
In order to know the temperature in Idle, after having finished the three loops of the stress test, we let the card rest for 20 minutes before reading the temperature. It should be taken into account that most of the cards have the “0 dBa” technology and therefore, the fans turn off below a certain temperature, often between 50 and 55°C. This means that it takes longer to dissipate the heat after a period of stress testing or gaming. A card without this technology will be noisier than the others at rest. Small reminder: our temperature readings are taken in Open-Air. In a closed case, the cards will necessarily be hotter.
Boom, that’s what I was afraid of, the temperatures are really high and probably due to the design. We think that a bracket with an opening and a perforated backplate would have allowed to decrease this temperature. As a reminder, these measurements are made outside the case and we imagine that they will be even higher inside a case. We will come back in a few days on how to optimize the cooling of the card.
Consumption (whole configuration) :
We use a power meter by reading the power consumption on the outlet of our power supply. Our modular power supply is a CORSAIR AX1600i. The result we propose is the average of the total consumption of our configuration. Only the graphics card changes between each reading. It is therefore easy to calculate the difference between each graphics card.
Good news about the power consumption. Even if it is higher than the RX 6600, it is lower than the RX 6600 XT. As a reminder, this is the total power consumption of our configuration. Of course, we would have liked to see a better result, but it doesn’t seem to be a negative point.
[nextpage title=”The last word: “]
It is now time to give you our impressions on this AMD RX 7600 which is intended for the entry-level 1080p 60 FPS. One thing is for sure, we have a lot to say about this new graphics card from AMD. Let’s start with the 1080p rasterization performance which is excellent. As we said, even if we didn’t have an RX 6650 XT, no doubt the performance would have been very close. Compared to the previous generation with the RX 6600, we measured a performance gain close to 30%. Still in rasterization, you can also enjoy some games in 1440p and have performance above 60 FPS.
Things get a little more complicated when raytracing is enabled in 1080p, but if the game has FSR, it allows our AMD RX 7600 to see its performance boosted and thus allow our card to fully benefit from the contribution of this technology.
A very competitive card!
As we have seen in our tests, this AMD RX 7600 is a direct competitor to the two Intel ARC GPUs. As a reminder, the A750 model is available for around 259 euros and the A770 version for 380 euros, even if the ASRock cards have a more aggressive price. With its price of 299 euros, our AMD RX 7600 is therefore in an excellent position.
On the NVIDIA side, if the RTX 3060 is a formality, our RX 7600 still can’t reach the performance of an RTX 3060 Ti. Now, at the moment, an RTX 3060 Ti is at best 329 euros but in Germany. That’s why we’re looking forward to seeing the NVIDIA RTX 4060 in July, because it promises a very interesting duel. This card is announced at 335 euros but in the absence of Founders Edition, will the partners manage to keep this price?
The only fault we can find with this card is the temperature, which we found too high. Now that the NVIDIA and AMD launches are over, we’ll take the time to see if the cooling curve can be optimized or done in another way. We’ll tell you more about that in the coming days. Let’s also hope to see partner cards come in with the same or close to the 299 euro price tag and a more efficient cooling system.
The 8 GB debate:
As was the case with our tests regarding the RTX 4060 Ti, the question regarding 8 GB of ram in 2023 resurfaces. Our impressions are the same. Currently, we don’t feel like it’s a limiting factor but it’s hard to judge in the coming months. We are on a card under the 300 euro mark and it is difficult to ask more from AMD without seeing the price increase. We know that in the past we have seen GPUs at 150/200 euros but we imagine that this will no longer be the case in the coming months.
AMD RX 7600:
We liked:
- A card to take full advantage of 1080p or even 1440p
- The sober design of this AMD version
- The use of a classic 8-pin connector
- The very reliable sound quality
- The quality of design of the card
- The possibility of partners to sell this “reference” card
- A card that competes with the Intel ARC GPUs and the RTX 3060 Ti
- A very interesting price/performance ratio
- The FSR which, when present, allows a gain in terms of FPS
We would have liked :
- A better management of the temperatures by the cooling system
- The absence of Coil Whine still slightly present on our sample
To be honest, it was a close call for this AMD RX 7600 to leave with a “coup de coeur” mention. The price/performance ratio in rasterization is very good and the contribution of FSR when raytracing is activated allows to boost the number of FPS. Unfortunately, the high temperatures do not allow us to give it this award. In the next few days, we will give it a test on overclocking and cooling optimization to see what can be done. Thanks to AMD for making this sample available.