AMD Radeon RX 7600 and Sapphire RX 7600 Pulse Review

Introduction

It seems that you wait ages for one new high-value graphics card to arrive and two come along at once. Hot on the heels of the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti, AMD have released the latest card in their RDNA 3 range, the RX 7600.

If you've been following along with AMD in recent years you'll be aware that, after some period in the doldrums, they exploded with the launch of their Ryzen processors, and this was quickly followed by the release of their RDNA architecture for their graphics cards. To say that both of these events have turned their fortunes around is a bit like suggesting that Inuits like fish, or Brexit was a bad idea. The Ryzen processors are now at the very least a match, and in some cases dominate, anything else you care to mention. Similarly their early RDNA architecture required a lot of catching up to its main rival, but the funds acquired from its use in the major consoles has meant AMD have rapidly evolved it to the point that the RX 7900 XT is a worthy contender at its price point.

All of which brings us to the model we have for you today, the card that is aimed squarely at the 1080P gamers in the audience, the Radeon RX 7600. We have both the regular AMD card and the Sapphire Pulse versions to show you today, and both of them come in at the recommended retail price. Special kudos to Sapphire for managing to squeeze so much extra on their card without bumping the price. Naturally you all know what a 1080P card needs to have - fantastic value for money and hopefully a few surprises - so let's tell you what's new with this baby Radeon and then get on to how it performs in our gaming benchmark tests.

Technical Specifications

As with any new graphics card not only are we interested in what it is bringing to the table, but how it compares to the model that came before. With the latest RDNA 3 architecture running under the hood and the latest iteration of the AMD Infinity Cache, the RX 7600 certainly is a marked step forwards from the 6000 series card it replaces.

That isn't the only benefit either. We all know that streaming has taken over the world in a way that seemed impossible when we were kids. We were told that games couldn't be a career, now people make a career from people watching other people play. To this end the RX 7600 sports the newest AV1 hardware encoders which improve visual fidelity when streaming. Anyone who has endured a poorly compressed feed will know the frustrating it can bring, and the RX 7600 eliminates this issue when combined with OBS.

What we think really emphasises the step forwards that AMD have made with their Radeon cards is that the RDNA 3 Compute Units mounted to the RX 7600 are the same ones to be found in the flagship RX 7900 XT. Blending all this together is the latest iteration of AMDs FidelityFX Super Resolution. This works in a similar manner to Nvidia's DLSS technology, except the AMD version is open source and the newest v2.1 seems some serious gains, as we'll soon demonstrate. Open source might be the golden ticket to seeing FSR dominate the market, as anyone who remembers the PhysX vs Havok war will attest.