The fact that high-end graphics cards perform worse than slower models in terms of price/performance is nothing new. However, it is remarkable that a manufacturer is focusing on this itself, and thus making its new generation look worse than the old one. AMD is now doing this with the RX-7900 series.
There's “never been a better time to upgrade to Radeon graphics,” says AMD's product marketing manager Matthew Hummels his article in the company blog. It contains recommendations for different resolutions based on our own benchmarks. In the entry-level range for 1080p and 1440p gaming, these are mainly the older and cheaper models of the RX 6000 series. The new RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX (test) are again at the top for 2160p gaming.
In another graphic, however, AMD practically cuts itself in the foot, because in the overview of how many FPS per US dollar the respective model delivers, the new generation performs worst. The average FPS at 1080p resolution in the six games Apex Legends, Valorant, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, The Callisto Protocol, GTA V, and Overwatch 2 serve as a benchmark. According to AMD, the maximum details were always used, only medium details were used for the slowest representative, the RX 6400. The market prices prevailing on January 19, 2023 were used for the prices.
AMD's own “FPS per dollar” list for current graphics cards (Image: AMD)The graph makes it clear: The new generation delivers the lowest FPS per dollar. At least for 1080p gaming, it is worth reaching for the older and, depending on the requirements, slower models. There are no incentives to upgrade from an RX 6800 XT to an RX 7900 XT, for example.
However, AMD's comparisons are unfortunate even at high resolutions. The new RX 7900 XT, for example, is only 7 percent faster than the RX 6950 XT in the 2160p ranking, but costs a whopping 28 percent more at USD 899 instead of USD 699, as Videocardz noticed.
It should be noted that the Radeon RX 6000 are gradually being sold off to make room for their successors. As a result, prices have fallen relatively sharply. You can't exactly say that about the GeForce RTX 3000 at Nvidia, which are much more stable in price.
The price-performance ratio is that bad Ratio not at all
It would not have been necessary for AMD to draw such an unfavorable picture of its own RX-7000 graphics cards. Because, for example, in the comprehensive overview of the current price-performance ratio of graphics cards from “Maine” from the ComputerBase community, AMD's Radeon RX 7900 are much better off.
Also in the “Performance per dollar” rankings from Techpowerup, the new models perform slightly better and, with the exception of the RTX 4070 Ti, also significantly better than the new graphics cards of the competition.
Performance per dollar of the Radeon RX 7900 at Techpowerup (Image: Techpowerup (via VideoCardz))