AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT Review: Performance and Features Under Linux
AMD has officially released the Radeon RX 7600 XT, a graphics card aimed at 1080p/1440p gaming. Priced at $329 USD, this new card offers improved performance and features compared to its predecessor, the Radeon RX 7600.
One of the key upgrades is the increase in video memory from 8GB to 16GB of GDDR6. The game clock has also been boosted from 2.25GHz to 2.47GHz, and the boost clock is now 2.76GHz, up from 2.66GHz. These improvements result in a total board power of 190 Watts, compared to 165 Watts on the non-XT model. The Radeon RX 7600 XT is priced at $329 USD, while the Radeon RX 7600 8GB graphics card is priced at $269 USD.
The Radeon RX 7600 XT shares many features with the RX 7600, including 32 compute units, ray accelerators, 64 AI accelerators, and 2048 stream processors. It also includes standard AMD RDNA3 graphics features like AV1 hardware encoding. However, the Radeon RX 7600 XT’s 16GB of video memory puts it in a slightly awkward position compared to the Radeon RX 7700 XT, which only has 12GB of video memory.
For this review, Phoronix tested the XFX QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT 16GB graphics card. This model features a tri-fan setup and is similar in appearance to the Radeon RX 7600 QICK 308 model. It comes with three DisplayPort outputs and one HDMI port, and requires two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors.
One notable aspect of the Radeon RX 7600 XT is its full open-source and upstream support for Linux. It is compatible with Ubuntu 23.10 and Fedora Workstation 39, with out-of-the-box support for the Radeon RX 7600 XT 16GB graphics card.
In terms of performance, the Radeon RX 7600 XT offers a 9% improvement over the RX 7600 in 3DMark Wild Life Extreme at 1080p. It also outperforms the GeForce RTX 4060 in this benchmark. The RX 7600 XT continues to deliver modest gains over the RX 6600 XT and the RX 7600 in 3DMark Wild Life at 1440p.
When running games like DiRT Rally 2.0 and HITMAN 3 on Linux, the Radeon RX 7600 XT performs well, offering higher frame rates compared to the RX 7600 and even surpassing the GeForce RTX 4060 in some cases. However, it struggles to maintain a consistent frame rate in X-Plane 12 flight simulator at 1080p.
In terms of power consumption, the Radeon RX 7600 XT has an average power draw of 121 Watts and a peak of 165 Watts. It also runs cooler than the RX 7600 reference model, with an average GPU core temperature of 54 degrees and a peak of 63 degrees.
Overall, the Radeon RX 7600 XT offers a solid performance upgrade over its predecessor, with improved features and better power efficiency. While it faces competition from NVIDIA’s RTX 40 series graphics cards, which will be tested in future articles, the RX 7600 XT holds its own in terms of performance and value. If you’re considering a new graphics card for Linux gaming, the Radeon RX 7600 XT is definitely worth considering.
