During CES 2019, AMD revealed the Radeon 7 (Radeon VII) graphics card, which is the first GPU created using the 7 nm process. What does this mean to the common gamer? Well, it means greater performance, so higher frame-rates and resolution in games, making for a very interesting Radeon 7 vs RTX 2080 showdown.
Seen in the (hopefully accurate) figures provided by AMD, the Radeon 7 GPU offers “up to 29 percent higher gaming performance on average, and up to 36 percent higher performance on average in demanding content creation applications compared to Radeon RX Vega 64 GPU.” But what does this all mean in real-world terms, and how does it compare to Nvidia’s latest RTX cards?
Radeon 7 vs RTX 2080 – Is Radeon 7 worth buying?
The messaging surrounding the Radeon 7 graphics card largely targets gamers. AMD has pushed performance in games as one of the big selling points and, while those benchmarks are reasonably impressive, the Radeon 7’s $699 price tag holds it back somewhat.
However, for those who primarily game in 4K, the gaming performance does offer a 25 percent increase over the Vega 64, while still drawing the same amount of power. That’s some pretty impressive efficiency!
What’s more, the Radeon 7’s 16 GB of HBM2 is double that of the Vega 64, offering more bandwidth for tasks that require a lot of VRAM. For gamers, this will largely come down to gaming at ridiculous resolutions, while incorporating heavy anti-aliasing. For those who work in design, the Radeon 7’s increased memory will be a boon in intensive applications. While AMD is pushing this as a gaming card, it seems more well-suited to the prosumer market, where consumers are less likely to balk at the higher price.
Radeon 7 vs RTX 2080 – Which is better?
When it comes to the Radeon 7 vs RTX 2080 showdown, potential buyers have to not only consider the raw performance on offer, but also support for the future. Graphics cards will likely remain in a system for multiple years, receiving driver updates to increase their performance over time. If you’re choosing between AMD and Nvidia, you’ll want to ensure that you trust whoever you pick.
Bringing things back to raw performance, when you look at the benchmarks offered by AMD (grain of salt needed here!), you’ll see that the Radeon 7 and RTX 2080 are pretty well-matched.
We’ll learn more about what the Radeon 7 is capable of doing as more independent reviewers get their hands on it. Until AMD’s benchmark results can be verified, potential buyers can at least consider the value proposition and impressive overall compute power.
