Sapphire RX 7600 XT Pulse or the cheapest 16 GB graphics card

Sapphire RX 7600 XT Pulse in detail

Higher GPU clock speeds and double the memory. These are the parameters that characterize the Radeon RX 7600 XT compared to the non-XT model (RX 7600). At the same time, it is a very affordable solution attractive for users prioritizing large video memory, even with a relatively weaker GPU (it doesn’t matter that much…). In our tests, we’ll break down how Sapphire’s design – the RX 7600 XT Pulse – fares in games and beyond.

Conclusion

The extra serving of memory is also useful next to a relatively weaker GPU (Navi 33 XT), which the RX 7600 XT has. Sometimes the benefit is greater, sometimes less or none. In cases where a given situation fails to benefit from the 16GB, the RX 7600 XT’s increase in speed over the RX 7600 is only due to the higher GPU clock speeds, for which the power draw of this graphics card has gone up by about 30W. At maximum performance, the difference is closer to 40 W, but some of the power draw must be attributed to the memory, of which there is more. The latter also increases power draw “indirectly”, in that 16GB is less of a bottleneck for the GPU than the 8GB of the RX 7600.

Gaming-wise, the RX 7600 XT is on average 4% faster than the RX 7600 even at the relatively lower Full HD resolution that this class of graphics card is targeting. Also notable are the smaller fps drops than with the RX 7600. And sometimes quite dramatically so. Even an undemanding game like Age of Empires II: DE had (with a minimum of 6 fps) difficulties with the RX 7600 that don’t appear with the RX 7600 XT. There is also an above-average fps increase in more challenging raytracing games, in Cyberpunk 2077 +47% in terms of average fps and +60% in terms of minimum fps. In Battlefield V then +27% on average and the gaming experience is better in this game also due to significantly higher minimum fps. When you dig through the results of all the games we tested, though, you’ll also find that in many cases the 16GB of memory doesn’t really come through.

Sometimes you’ll also run into a little worsening where the RX 7600 XT is a hair slower than the RX 7600. Such results look rather paradoxical, illogical and don’t correspond to the hardware (RX 7600 XT is better equipped in everything…), but they do happen. For what reason it’s hard to say, but after the RTX 4070 Ti Ventus 3X’s troubles it’s perhaps not so surprising. At the BIOS and driver level alone, there may be various hidden “brakes”.

Note that in one of the Aida 64 tests (memory copy), the RX 7600 XT achieves significantly lower memory bandwidth than the RX 7600. It is possible that this is a “fixable thing” (e.g. with new firmware), but it may not be and, of course, it cannot be ruled out that the Aida64 measurements are erroneous or, even if they were not, they do not correlate with performance in practice in any way. But the latter is sometimes a hair lower and something has to be causing that. Even outside of gaming, for example, in Blender (Cycles) tests, the RX 7600 XT Pulse is the slower card (by some 3–4%) than the RX 7600 Pulse, and this is matched by the 8% lower power draw (RX 7600 XT) in this test as well.

Specifically in Blender, this is to some extent due to the lower GPU clock speeds. Those end at 2800 MHz with the RX 7600 XT (and go up to 2928 MHz with the RX 7600). But in games, with 2700–2800 MHz, the XT model (7600 XT) is always faster, at least by 100 MHz. The RX 7600 Pulse does not go past 2673 MHz.

As a low-cost option to a low-budget workstation, the RX 7600 XT is also of interest for OpenGL applications such as Energy or Medical. Not only are they better optimized for Radeons than GeForces, but they also utilize the 16GB of VRAM (the increase in speed over the RX 7600 is 45–48%). And there are more of those cases where the RX 7600 XT has an edge of more than 20%, even under OpenCL. And what was mentioned in the introduction of the articles is still true – in some situations, more memory (than the 8 GB of the RX 7600) is necessary to be able to process the task at all and not end up crashing.

The noise level of the cooler on the RX 7600 XT is average. However, it can be seen from the temperature results that Sapphire preferred the best possible cooling rather than the quietest possible operation. Compared to the RX 7600, even with higher power draw, lower temperatures are achieved (both GPU and VRAM), which is perhaps also related to the need to reach higher clock speeds, for which the GPU hotspots need to be colder. Although the cooler is not one of the quieter ones, it cannot be described as noisy. Such (noisy) are only the coils. In this case, it should be emphasized. The coils are really noisy, we haven’t had a graphics card with noisier coils in our tests yet, the RX 6900 XT Toxic LE is at a comparable level. But for a model with almost half the power draw of the RX 7600 XT Pulse, this result is quite surprising. Anyway, at least we have a good card that is suitable for investigating the effect of different (ATX) power supplies on coil whine.

In summary, the RX 7600 XT Pulse has to be evaluated positively. The price-to-performance ratio here is very decent (especially when you can benefit from 16GB of VRAM), overall this graphics card is one of the physically smaller ones, so there’s good all-around compatibility, and the cooler is still a solid, efficient one at that.When it comes to power efficiency, it can’t compete with the rival RTX 4060. The Radeon RX 7600 XT is significantly worse in this regard, with comparable gaming/computing performance it has about 70% higher power draw. That’s one of the things you have to accept because of the RX 7600 XT’s lower purchase price.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

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• Contents
• Sapphire RX 7600 XT Pulse in detail
• Table of parameters
• Methodology: performance tests
• Methodology: how we measure power draw
• Methodology: noise and sound measurement
• Methodology: temperature tests
• Test setup
• 3DMark
• Age of Empires II: DE
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
• Battlefield V
• Battlefield V with DXR
• Borderlands 3
• Control
• Control with DXR
• Counter-Strike: GO
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Cyberpunk 2077 with DXR
• DOOM Eternal
• F1 2020
• FIFA 21
• Forza Horizon 4
• Mafia: DE
• Metro Exodus
• Metro Exodus with DXR
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (Vulkan)
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (Dx12)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider with DXR
• Total War Saga: Troy
• Wasteland 3
• Overall gaming performance and performance per euro
• CompuBench (OpenCL)
• SPECviewperf 2020 and SPECworkstation 3
• FLOPS, IOPS and memory speed tests
• 3D rendering 1/2 (LuxMark and Blender@Cycles)
• 3D rendering 2/2 (Blender@Radeon ProRender and Eevee)
• Photo editing (Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo)
• Broadcasting (OBS and Xsplit)
• Password cracking
• GPU clock speed
• GPU and VRAM temperatures
• Net graphics card power draw and performance per watt
• Analysis of 12 V rail power supply (higher load)
• Analysis of 12 V rail power supply (lower load)
• Analysis of 3.3 V rail power supply
• Noise level
• Frequency response of sound
• Conclusion