[smartPC사랑=이백현 기자]Last March, when AMD announced that it would lift restrictions on memory overclocking for the Radeon RX 7900 GRE, the graphics card suddenly became a hot topic.
Up until now, overclocking graphics card memory, or VRAM overclocking, has not been an overclocking method that has received much attention. This is because the performance improvement that can be felt through overclocking VRAM is not as great as the effort, and users often turn their attention first to overclocking the CPU and RAM, which are slightly more effective.
On the other hand, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE has become a hot topic due to the improved performance when overclocking VRAM. So why was the RX 7900 GRE’s memory overclocking effect so high? Let’s take a look at the Radeon RX 7900 GRE, a graphics card whose cost-effectiveness is increased by eliminating overclocking restrictions.
Radeon “Golden Rabbit Edition”
Even for users who are familiar with AMD graphics cards, the name “Radeon RX 7900 GRE” is unfamiliar. GRE stands for Golden Rabbit Edition, a name given because it was first released in China in 2023, the Year of the Pig.
Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 GRE Pulse used for benchmarking. It currently has an affordable price of around 700,000 won.
AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE attracted attention due to its unique position and naming upon its release. The position of the RX 7900 GRE can be summed up in one word as “between RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT”. In particular, since the number of installed computing units differs by only around 5% compared to the 7900 XT, a high cost-effectiveness ratio was expected depending on the price.
model name
calculation unit
GDDR6
Game Clock (GHz)
Clock Boost (GHZ)
memory interface
infinite cache
TBP
Introductory Price (USD)
RadeonRX7900XT
84
20GB
2025
2394
320 bits
80MB
315W
899
Radeon RX7900GRE
80
16 GB
1880
2245
256 bits
64MB
260W
599
RadeonRX7800XT
60
16 GB
2124
2430
256 bits
64MB
263W
499
RadeonRX7700XT
54
12GB
2171
2544
192 bits
48MB
245W
449
Meanwhile, what held back was the GPU and memory operating clock. Compared to other RX 7000 series, it failed to fully demonstrate its performance due to the significantly lower clock and as a result, despite the low price, it did not stand out compared to other RX series. Also, due to the limited release in China, it did not receive much attention after release.
However, things took a turn when AMD released the RX 7900 GRE globally in February and lifted the memory overclocking restrictions applied to the Radeon RX 7900 GRE in March. This is because when the previously low operating clock was brought to a normal level, performance increased significantly even in simple benchmarks.
7900 GRE with different cotyledons
If you look closely at the 7900 XT and 7800XT graphics cards above and below the spec sheet, you can quickly see why the RX 7900 GRE has a high overclocking effect. This is because both the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT have memory clocks of 2400 MHz or higher, while the RX 7900 GRE’s memory clock is 2250 MHz. Additionally, in the case of compute units , the RX 7900 GRE (80 units) is close to the RX 7900 XT (84 units), but the power consumption of the RX 7900 GRE is 260 W, lower than that of the RX 7800 XT (263 W).
Therefore, if the memory frequency and power consumption of the RX 7900 GRE are increased to a similar level to that of the current RX 7000 series, one can expect performance commensurate with the number of compute units installed (80) to be achieved .
The memory clocks of the RX 7900 XT and RX 7800 XT both top 2400 MHz.
Considering that the launch price of the RX 7900 XT with 84 compute units is $899, it is interesting to note that the launch price of the RX 7900 GRE with 80 compute units is $599. So how much more potential can reveal the RX 7900 GRE through overclocking? Let’s take a look through real benchmarks.
What is the actual performance?
The reference system environment is AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, Micron Crucial DDR5-6000 Pro CL36 Overclocking 16G x2, Corsair HYDRO SERIES H115i, SK Hynix P31 M.2 NVMe SSD 1TB. It is composed of Micronics ASTRO II PT 850W 80PLUS PLATINUM.
The graphics card used in the benchmark was the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 GRE, and the base state and the overclocked state were compared (memory clock 2400 MHz, power limit +15%). All play testing was conducted using the highest options.
GPU-Z
I checked the information with GPU-Z. You can control the low base clock and boost clock, including the 2250 MHz memory clock.
3DMark
game test
In short
Even though the memory clock has been increased by 150 MHz and the power limit has been increased, an overall performance improvement has been noticed in the “Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 GRE Pulse”. Additionally, since the benchmark did not change the GPU’s core clock, you can expect further performance improvements depending on the user’s degree of overclocking.
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