A new 16GB AMD Radeon gaming GPU just launched with truly bizarre specs

AMD has just quietly launched a brand new 16GB Radeon graphics card, but it's based on the company's last-gen RDNA 3 architecture, rather than its latest RDNA 4 tech. The new AMD Radeon RX 7700 (non-XT) has a bizarrely different spec from the Radeon RX 7700 XT, which only has 12GB of VRAM and came out two years ago. AMD says the new GPU is designed for gaming at 1440p, and says it can run several of the latest games at this resolution, including Hogwarts Legacy and Ghost of Tsushima, at over 60fps.

One of the games listed is Call of Duty Black Ops 6, which AMD says can run at 71fps on the new Radeon RX 7700 at 1440p with ultra settings, which isn't a bad result. However, as our Radeon RX 9060 XT review shows, AMD's new budget GPU can run this same game at 76fps using the higher extreme preset at the same resolution, so the Radeon RX 7700 is going to need to be priced really keenly to be worth buying. Black Ops 6 also supports FSR 4, which improved the frame rate to 102fps on the Quality setting, while the Radeon RX 7700 officially only supports FSR 3, which has much worse image quality in action.

AMD Radeon RX 7700 specs

The specs of the Radeon RX 7700 make for a curious hybrid of low-end and mid-range GPUs. In terms of memory, it's a decent upgrade over the standard Radeon RX 7700 XT. Its 256-bit memory interface is wider than the 192-bit bus found on the 7700 XT, and it has 4GB more GDDR6 VRAM too, with 16GB compared to 12GB.

What's more, the RAM on this new GPU runs at up to 19.5Gbps, compared to just 18Gbps on the stock-speed 7700 XT. That gives the new Radeon RX 7700 a total memory bandwidth of 624GB/s, which is much quicker than the 432GB/s of the 7700 XT.

Conversely, the GPU itself has much less rendering power than the 7700 XT, with just 40 compute units equating to 2,560 stream processors. That puts it between the 2,048 stream processors of the Radeon RX 7600 XT and the 3,456 of the 7700 XT. It may have a decent amount of memory compared to the 7700 XT, but that's a big step down when it comes to GPU power.

Meanwhile, it has 40 RT cores for ray tracing, which is again a big drop from the 54 on the 7700 XT, but at least a step up from the 32 on the 7600 XT. There are also 80 AI cores inside the Radeon RX 7700, which are more limited compared to the new AI cores in AMD's latest GPUs, but while the RDNA 3 architecture doesn't officially support FSR 4 yet, modders have found ways to get it working.

AMD Radeon RX 7700 price estimate

AMD hasn't revealed a price for the Radeon RX 7700 yet, which makes us suspect that it will be an OEM-only product for pre-built system manufacturers, rather than gamers looking to build their own system. However, AMD is up against some serious competition in this field, from the 16GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti to its own Radeon RX 9060 XT, and it will need to be priced seriously competitively to be worth considering.

If you're looking to upgrade your GPU now, check out our full guide to buying the best graphics card, which covers all the latest GPUs, with all our recommendations based on in-depth benchmarking from our own reviews.

Would you consider buying an AMD Radeon RX 7700 at the right price? Let us know your thoughts in our community Discord channel.