Between new entries on the low end and competition heating up on the high end, it’s a good time to be in the market for a graphics card upgrade. (Not as good a time as before the AI boom, pandemic, and cryptocurrency bubble, but hey, whaddayagonnado.) Today one model of the Radeon RX 7900 XT, AMD’s current penultimate GPU, have hit $699. That’s the best price yet for this card, and an impressive $200 off its initial retail price just over a year ago.
The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7900 XT hit that low at a few retailers early this morning, but it seems to be quickly selling out, and currently can only be found at Newegg and Walmart. We’ve seen this card get some dramatic discounts before, but I’d guess that this new low comes as Nvidia has felt the pressure and decided to fight back with the new 40-series Super cards, specifically the RTX 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super. Those cards come with 12GB and 16GB of RAM, respectively, still well below the 20GB RX 7900 XT, but Nvidia’s cards can often close the gap with better ray tracing and super-sampling thanks to the proprietary DLSS. Read our full review of the Sapphire RX 7900 XT if you’re on the fence.
If you can’t find the Sapphire card at $699.99, there are a couple of other options. Walmart is offering a PowerColor Hellhound version of the same card, with a strikingly similar triple-fan cooler, for the same price with free shipping. Over on Amazon an XFX version is also going for $724.99, which might actually be a better deal if you have Prime and other Amazon benefits working for you.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.