All the AMD Radeon VII Cards You Can Buy

With most big video card launches, this guide would be a nitty-gritty breakdown of the differences you'd find between the many different third-party card options available at launch.

Alas, for the much-anticipated Radeon VII £341.12 at Amazon UK, AMD has locked the design back to front, preventing OEMs from making any changes to the clock speeds, cooling systems, number of fans, or even additional lighting options. In fact, the main differences among the Radeon VII models releasing this month are the logo stickers on the card, the boxes they come in, and some subtle differences in bundled software and utilities. Shopping for one? Let's break 'em down.

The AMD Radeon VII Reference Card

AMD has pulled out...well, none of the stops with the design on this card, going for a sleek, featureless silver casing for its black cooling fans and a simple, understated Radeon logo running along the top edge.

Unusual with this launch, AMD is selling its own reference card direct from its online store at AMD.com, but note that the packaging you see here is a press-exclusive box; the retail box will likely be smaller. (We haven't seen what AMD is actually shipping to consumers in terms of the packaging.) The price, like with all of the third-party versions, is $699.

ASRock Phantom Gaming X Radeon VII 16G

ASRock is better known, by far, for its motherboards, but it is the newest player on the video-card scene, having joined the market a little more than a year ago. Phantom Gaming is the company's new line of gear that encompasses graphics cards, a subset of its motherboards, and even some other gamer gear, such as cases. The newest AMD-exclusive OEM has gone the traditional route with its sticker placement this year, resting its logos right smack dab in the middle of the three Radeon VII fans. From all indications, that's the main set-apart of the Phantom card from the reference card or the rest of this lot.

Asus Radeon VII (RADEONVII-16G)

Now, many of the day-one launch images of the Radeon VII are likely rendered images, representations of the card without the actual branding that will be applied to it. If indeed Asus ships its card in this fashion, it will be a bold statement with its OEM offering, opting for no stickers at all. But we doubt it.

You can, of course, use AMD's WattMan for tweaking the card, but the Asus flavor of the Radeon VII will be compatible with the company's familiar GPU Tweak II overclocking software, if you're used to the utility from previous Asus cards. To set its Radeon VII offering apart, Asus is also touting the inclusion of a six-month trial of the ping-reducing WTFast gaming service, as well as a year's license for the XSplit GameCaster streaming software.

MSI Radeon VII 16G

Offering one of our all-time favorite overclocking apps with its card (MSI Afterburner, which we often use with non-MSI cards, too), MSI—or at least its renders for its Radeon VII!—might also be going the no-sticker, no-logo route this time around. (We'll see when someone unboxes one.) Like the others here, this is a pure reference design with no variance on the spec side from the AMD Radeon VII card.

A quirky side note: Although this will be far from the minds of prospective Radeon VII buyers who are spending seven Benjamins on a video card, MSI is also touting the card's compatibility with MSI's App Player, a means of playing popular Android titles from your smartphone on your PC (using mouse-and-keyboard input).

Gigabyte Radeon VII HBM2 16G

Gigabyte is a longtime OEM for AMD, and its dedication to the craft shows with its tri-logo, mid-fan approach. The aesthete in us would call it classic, but progressive in all the right ways, if we were asked to typify it with a straight face.

But we joke, of course. Gigabyte isn't touting any Gigabyte-specific giveaways or trials with this card. (According to its downloads page, it will use the familiar Aorus Engine for its branded tweaking tool.) One thing we did note in passing, though, is that Gigabyte's spec sheet for this card recommends a 750-watt power supply, while the MSI sheet cites 650 watts. The numbers do vary from OEM to OEM, but given the consistency of the specs, we suspect some of the Radeon VII card partners are being more conservative than others with this recommendation.

PowerColor Radeon VII 16GB HBM2 (16GBHBM2-3DH)

PowerColor is a lesser-known card partner of AMD, and like Sapphire produces AMD cards alone. The company is staying in lockstep with the rest of the OEMs on the VII and not doing anything to re-invent the wheel, and won't even be providing custom software to handle tasks like lighting configurations, overclocking, or profile setups.

Like the rest of the VII offerings on this list, the one bonus you can expect is the bundle of three games that come standard with each Radeon VII card: Devil May Cry 5, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, and Anthem.

Sapphire Radeon VII 16G HBM2

Next, there's the Sapphire Radeon VII. Sapphire is one of the longest-running OEM partners of AMD, going all the way back to when the AMD graphics arm was still ATI. The main set-apart with the Sapphire offering is its compatibility with Sapphire TriXX, the company's tweaking and overclock utility. This is the same utility used by its Nitro+ Radeon RX and Vega cards, so if you're a Sapphire loyalist, the software should look familiar.

XFX Radeon VII (RX-VEGMA3FD6)

XFX is throwing its hat into the VII ring with a Radeon VII which is—surprise surprise!—virtually identical to the other cards on this list in both function and just about every aspect of form outside of the branding wrapped around the cooling system.

Same three games as a bonus, same overclocking software (AMD's own WattMan), and the same specs. Oh! But XFX offers a two-year warranty so...there's something, right?

AMD Radeon VII vs. Nvidia RTX 2080

With AMD's Radeon VII fresh off the fabs, how does it stack against Nvidia's competing GeForce RTX 2080? We've tested both, so let's look at these two killer graphics cards, feature by feature.

About Our Expert

John Burek

Executive Editor and PC Labs Director

My Experience

I have been a technology journalist for almost 30 years and have covered just about every kind of computer gear—from the 386SX to 64-core processors—in my long tenure as an editor, a writer, and an advice columnist. For almost a quarter-century, I worked on the seminal, gigantic Computer Shopper magazine (and later, its digital counterpart), aka the phone book for PC buyers, and the nemesis of every postal delivery person. I was Computer Shopper's editor in chief for its final nine years, after which much of its digital content was folded into PCMag.com. I also served, briefly, as the editor in chief of the well-known hard-core tech site Tom's Hardware.

During that time, I've built and torn down enough desktop PCs to equip a city block's worth of internet cafes. Under race conditions, I've built PCs from bare-board to bootup in under 5 minutes. I never met a screwdriver I didn't like.

I was also a copy chief and a fact checker early in my career. (Editing and polishing technical content to make it palatable for consumer audiences is my forte.) I also worked as an editor of scholarly science books, and as an editor of "Dummies"-style computer guidebooks for Brady Books (now, BradyGames). I'm a lifetime New Yorker, a graduate of New York University's journalism program, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

The Technology I Use

I use a lot of computers on rotation in my daily work, but I rely on just a few to get things done. I split my work life mostly between a Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (a 15-inch Ryzen model), paired with a Lenovo ThinkVision portable monitor, and a custom-built big-chassis Windows 10 desktop PC that has served me well for years now. (Specs: Liquid-cooled Intel Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition, 32GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1080 card.) That's all in a giant chassis with six hard drives and SSDs packing its bays. (As I upgrade systems, I just keep moving the old warhorse drives over.) This behemoth is hooked up to a 32-inch LG monitor.

I also have a bunch of PCs around the house, all custom builds: another one attached to my main TV (for gaming and occasional forays into VR), a mini-PC on the bedroom TV (acting as a media server), and a Mini-ITX desktop in a corner of the living room...just because. I carry around an oversize OnePlus phone, but when I do long-haul travel, a vintage iPod Touch comes along, too, for old times' sake.

I wasn't always a PC guy. I cut my teeth on a cassette-drive-equipped Commodore VIC-20 in the 1980s. But I got serious with Apple desktops in the early 1990s, starting with a Macintosh SE, then a Macintosh LC, and finally one of the short-lived Umax "clone" Macs, before building my first PC and never looking back.

With all my typing and editing work over the years, I've become a huge proponent of thumb trackballs, which minimize wrist action (and my wrist pain). I have a secret cache of the long-discontinued Microsoft Trackball Optical Mouse (my personal favorite), held in an undisclosed location.

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