ASUS AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE review: desktop graphics card made for gamers delivers pro graphics

Can the ASUS-made AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE gamer card deliver for creatives too?

An AMD Radeon 7900 GRE graphics card
(Image: © Lance Evans)

Our Verdict

The Asus AMD Radeon 7900 GRE is a card built for gamers, but it can be pressed into service in the art studio handily and affordably. As with its direct competitor, the 4070, we tend to feel they would be significantly more attractive if their street price were even slightly sub $500US. We want to underscore that other ASUS cards we have reviewed are from their “ProArt” line. A line that makes a good argument for adding a small premium to the price tags. By comparison, the cards looked at here are from ASUS regular gaming lines. For which you still pay a small premium for the ASUS brand name. If this brand’s reputation for quality means something to your purchase decisions, as well it should in many cases, then it is worth the additional $50 or so. If not, the same chipset can be had from lesser companies for around 10% less.

For

  • AMD and ASUS build good reliable cards
  • 16GB of RAM is great for today and tomorrow
  • AMD has supported Linux for many years

Against

  • A bit higher cost than same chipset from lesser vendors
  • Slower rendering/ray-tracing than NVIDIA options
  • Some NVIDIA tech missing

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Professional digital artists have been using “gamer” video cards for decades. Ever since first realizing that the cost of true professional workstation cards was in the thousands. While gamer cards could deliver some mixed results years back, they have become common and a reasonably safe bet for modern computers.

AMD’s Radeon RX 7000 line of cards is a good example. It features the latest AMD technology, including RDNA 3 architecture, computing units for raytracing and AI work, enhanced AV1 video encoding (streaming, rendering), fast clock speeds with a wide bus, and rising memory on all the cards.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
NameCompute unitsRay acceleratorsAI acceleratorsGame frequencyAMD Infinity cache technologyMax memory size
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX96961922,300 MHz96 MB24 GB
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT84841682,000 MHz80 MB20 GB
AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE80801601,880 MHz64 MB16 GB
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT60601202,124 MHz64 MB16 GB
Swipe to scroll horizontally
NameBlender RenderPugetBench PSPugetBench PremierePassmarkGPU User Bench
RTX 40705434.28,000 range9-12,00026,979190
RX 7900 GRE2773.979,000 range10-11,00026,506195
The Verdict
8

out of 10

AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE

The Asus AMD Radeon 7900 GRE is a card built for gamers, but it can be pressed into service in the art studio handily and affordably. As with its direct competitor, the 4070, we tend to feel they would be significantly more attractive if their street price were even slightly sub $500US. We want to underscore that other ASUS cards we have reviewed are from their “ProArt” line. A line that makes a good argument for adding a small premium to the price tags. By comparison, the cards looked at here are from ASUS regular gaming lines. For which you still pay a small premium for the ASUS brand name. If this brand’s reputation for quality means something to your purchase decisions, as well it should in many cases, then it is worth the additional $50 or so. If not, the same chipset can be had from lesser companies for around 10% less.

Lance Evans

Lance Evans is creative director of Graphlink Media, a "boutique" creative marketing agency that specialises in building brands and has worked with such high-profile clients as Olive Garden, Miller Beer and AMEX. Lance has written for Creative Bloq on a wide range of topics, from technical photography tips to the ins and outs of branding.