Graphics card
AMD Radeon RX 7600
With so much competition in the market, Chris Szewczyk tries to work out whether the new RX 7600 does enough to beat the pack.
SPECS
GPU: Navi 33
Arch: RDNA 3
Process: TSMC 6nm
Clock: 2.6GHz boost
Mem: 8GB GDDR6, 128-bit, 288GB/s
Stream: 2,048 Compute: 32
RT cores: 32
AI cores: 64
ROPs: 64
Cache: 32MB
TGP: 165W
Die: 204mm²
Trans: 13.3B
Following the release of the Radeon RX 7900 XT, AMD surprisingly followed up with the ‘budget’ second desktop RDNA 3 GPU, the Radeon RX 7600. It’s easily the cheapest of the current generation of GPUs from either AMD or Nvidia, though it’s important not to overlook Intel’s Arc cards, at least regarding value.
AMD promotes the RX 7600 as a card for mainstream 1080p gamers. Its purpose is to bring competitive performance plus the latest technology and features down to an affordable price point. But don’t go expecting wonders from the RX 7600. It’s not a magical card that will compete with the top cards of the Radeon RX 6000-series. It’s nowhere near. It’s best described as an affordable upgrade for mid-tier GPUs of yesteryear. Think cards like the RX 580 or GTX 1060 and you’d be on the right track.
Then there’s the elephant in the room. AMD did miss a trick by sticking with 8GB of VRAM. It’s enough for 1080p in almost every current game, but can we say that two years from now? What if the next Grand Theft Auto turns out to be a VRAM-hogging monster? 192-bit and 12GB of VRAM would have given the card more appeal and a longer life. We’re seeing popular cards like the GTX 1060 and RTX 2060 6GB running into limits now, and there’s no reason to expect the RX 7600 won’t hit similar limits in a couple of years’ time, if not sooner.