Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 evaluation: Cool, quiet, and compelling

The brand new $269 Radeon RX 7600 graphics card hits the streets in the present day, and as we lined in-depth in our evaluation of AMD’s reference mannequin, it’s a breath of recent air. After years of exorbitant GPU costs and stagnant new “upgrades,” the Radeon RX 7600 delivers a real generational enchancment for a cheaper price than its predecessor—a profitable mixture. It affords quick, power-efficient 1080p gaming at an inexpensive worth level. Enter Sapphire’s Pulse Radeon RX 7600.

We’ve liked Sapphire’s Pulse line since its introduction due to its laser-focus on wonderful, cool, no-frills gaming for an inexpensive worth, whatever the GPU inside. That looks like an ideal mixture with AMD’s new wonderful, inexpensive GPU, no?

It’s. After placing the cardboard by its paces, we’re blissful to report that the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 is every part you’d need from the RX 7600 lineup. It’s simply large enough to hold a reliable cooling resolution with out being obtrusive, all for the baseline $269 MSRP worth.

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 specs and options

We’ve included AMD’s breakdown of the Radeon RX 7600’s technical specs beneath. Sapphire caught principally to reference specs with the Pulse, aside from providing a slight manufacturing facility overclock. The Pulse RX 7600 is rated for a mean sport clock velocity of two,356MHz, in comparison with the reference 2,250MHz.

AMD

We lined the Radeon RX 7600’s important technical bits in our reference card evaluation and gained’t rehash that right here. Along with the uncooked improve to the brand new 6nm RDNA 3 structure (which brings AV1 encoding, increased GPU and reminiscence clock speeds, new AI accelerators, and second-gen RT accelerators), AMD additionally packed the GPU with flat-out extra horsepower than its predecessor, the Radeon RX 6600 that launched at $329 in 2020. All informed, the Radeon RX 7600 affords a mean of 35 p.c extra 1080p gaming efficiency for 18 p.c much less cash—a real generational improve. It falters in ray tracing, nonetheless, and upscaling applied sciences like AMD’s FSR and Nvidia’s DLSS look dangerous at this decision.

The one side value briefly readdressing right here: the reminiscence configuration. AMD geared up the Radeon RX 7600 with a tiny 128-bit bus and 8GB of onboard reminiscence. That limits the Radeon RX 7600 to consideration for 1080p gaming (although it may possibly deal with 1440p with diminished settings)—an inexpensive compromise in an inexpensive GPU, not like equivalent compromises made in Nvidia’s $400 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.

However PC avid gamers are frightened that 8GB of reminiscence capability isn’t sufficient now {that a} swathe of recent triple-A video games devour greater than that commonly at Extremely decision. These edge instances are uncommon, nonetheless, and PCWorld contributor Keith Could examined the Sapphire Pulse RX 7600’s efficiency in a few of in the present day’s most VRAM-hungry video games to see what you may count on. You possibly can see his evaluation within the video beneath, however backside line? Should you bump graphics settings from Extremely to Excessive in these most-intensive titles, you continue to get a killer 1080p gaming expertise that appears nice and runs quick. Once more, at this inexpensive worth level, that’s completely affordable.

Onto the Pulse itself.

Sapphire caught to the tried-and-true Pulse design we’ve liked in playing cards just like the Pulse RX 7900 XT and last-gen’s Pulse RX 6600 XT. It’s nonetheless good. The twin-slot card encompasses a primary aluminum fin stack and a give attention to low noise output, bolstered by Sapphire’s Twin-X Cooling expertise. Twin “hybrid fan blades” and clever fan controls hold factor operating good, cool, and quiet—as you’ll see later, the Pulse affords a lot decrease temperatures than AMD’s reference card, together with peak hotspot temperatures. That’s a testomony to Sapphire’s intentional design for all Pulse fashions.

Keith Could/IDG

You gained’t discover any fancy extras like RGB lighting, dual-BIOS switches, or fan management headers on the swap, however these luxuries aren’t typical on budget-priced playing cards, or on customized choices that hit the MSRP steered by AMD and Nvidia. One minor sacrifice? Whereas the AMD reference 7600 comprises DisplayPort 2.1 connections, that’s an non-compulsory specification, and the Pulse depends on the identical DisplayPort 1.4 expertise that Nvidia affords in its RTX 40-series GPUs. The upper bandwidth supplied by DP 2.1 would principally be ineffective on a $269, 1080p-focused graphics card anyway, because it’s supposed to energy pixel-packed high-resolution shows at ultra-fast refresh charges.

Keith Could/IDG

Aesthetically, the Pulse seems nearly as good as ever, that includes a blacked-out design with crimson highlights and a stunning crimson “pulse” heartbeat touring the size of the cardboard’s metallic backplate. (Sure, Sapphire nonetheless slapped a backplate on right here regardless of the low worth—at all times welcome, since naked PCBs look horrible once you’re utilizing a case with a tempered glass window.) Energy is dealt with through a easy, single 8-pin connection, no fiddly 12VHPWR adapters required.

In fact, as a contemporary AMD graphics card, the Sapphire Pulse can faucet into AMD’s suite of Radeon options, comparable to Good Entry Reminiscence for quicker sport efficiency in Ryzen + Radeon methods, Good Entry Video for quicker encoding in all-AMD PCs, FSR 2, Radeon Tremendous Decision, Anti-Lag, and extra. And the Radeon RX 7600’s new AV1 encoding works nice with the Report & Stream options in AMD Adrenalin software program, which could really be a bit higher than Nvidia’s vaunted Shadowplay now.

Onto the benchmarks!

Our take a look at system

Keith Could examined the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 on his testing system, which runs utilizing the identical core elements as Brad’s essential PCWorld GPU testing rig. You possibly can see Keith clarify the elements in his rig in video type right here, whereas this hyperlink particulars what’s inside the principle GPU rig. Keith supplied numbers for the Zotac card; the comparability knowledge was pulled from our just-updated database of GPUs utilizing the principle take a look at rig.

We take a look at a wide range of video games spanning numerous engines, genres, vendor sponsorships (Nvidia, AMD, and Intel), and graphics APIs (DirectX 9, 11, DX12, and Vulkan), to attempt to signify a full vary of efficiency potential. Every sport is examined utilizing its in-game benchmark, sanity checked by Nvidia’s FrameView software, on the highest doable graphics presets until in any other case famous, with VSync, body price caps, real-time ray tracing or DLSS results, and FreeSync/G-Sync disabled, together with every other vendor-specific applied sciences like FidelityFX instruments or Nvidia Reflex. We’ve additionally enabled temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to push these playing cards to their limits.

We run every benchmark no less than thrice and checklist the common end result for every take a look at. We’ve targeted our testing on 1080p efficiency alone in a choose handful of video games, since our unique Radeon RX 7600 evaluation already established that this class of GPU is greatest fitted to 1080p gaming with out ray tracing enabled because of the approach it’s technically configured. If you wish to see all that work, go take a look at that evaluation; the aim of this one is to check the Sapphire Pulse’s efficiency particularly in opposition to AMD’s reference 7600, therefore limiting our benchmarks to a extra targeted choice.

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 gaming benchmarks

Keith Could/IDG

No surprises right here. The Sapphire Pulse’s modest manufacturing facility overclock and enhanced cooling let it eke out a number of extra frames than AMD’s reference Radeon RX 7600. It’s an excellent, inexpensive choice for 1080p gaming with wonderful visible constancy and quick body charges out of the field.

That’s notable, as a result of as we lined in our reference 7600 evaluation, performance-boosting picture upscaling applied sciences like AMD’s FSR and Nvidia’s DLSS negatively have an effect on visible high quality at 1080p decision, since they’re working with so many fewer pixels than at 1440p or 4K. So choosing up a 1080p graphics card that provides an excellent native expertise is essential. The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 checks that field with gusto.

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 energy and temperatures

Let’s begin with the Sapphire Pulse’s energy draw, although the thermals and acoustics are the true draw right here.

We take a look at energy draw by looping the F1 22 benchmark at 4K for about 20 minutes after we’ve benchmarked every part else (to heat up the GPU) and noting the best studying on our Watts Up Professional meter, which measures the ability consumption of our whole take a look at system. The preliminary a part of the race, the place all competing automobiles are onscreen concurrently, tends to be probably the most demanding portion. 

This isn’t a worst-case take a look at; it is a GPU-bound sport operating at a GPU-bound decision to gauge efficiency when the graphics card is sweating onerous. Should you’re taking part in a sport that additionally hammers the CPU, you might see increased general system energy attracts. Take into account your self warned.

Keith Could/IDG

The Sapphire Pulse comes with a small manufacturing facility overclock and affords barely quicker efficiency than the AMD Radeon RX 7600 reference card, so it’s no shock to see it draw barely extra energy. The power consumption stays sufficiently small that you just don’t want to fret about it in any respect.

Onto the Pulse’s sturdy swimsuit. We take a look at thermals by leaving GPU-Z open through the F1 22 energy draw take a look at, noting the best most temperature on the finish.

Sapphire’s simple, however efficient Pulse cooling design impresses but once more. Not solely does the Pulse hold general GPU temperatures decrease than the Radeon RX 7600 reference design, it tames the height GPU hotspot temperature extra successfully too, maxing out at 84 levels Celsius on the Pulse and 90 levels on the reference mannequin.

Higher but, the Pulse runs exceptionally quiet, a spotlight of Sapphire’s cooling design for the road. You’ll barely (if ever) hear it even beneath load, and the cardboard affords idle fan cease capabilities that cease the blades from spinning in any respect in the event you aren’t gaming or performing different GPU-intensive masses. The reference card could be very quiet, too, however the Pulse does it whereas operating cooler and quicker.

Must you purchase the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600?

Keith Could/IDG

Should you’re searching for an inexpensive 1080p graphics card, this could completely be in your brief checklist. The Radeon RX 7600 is the primary low-cost GPU launch value praising in years, and the Sapphire Pulse runs quicker, cooler, and simply as silent as AMD’s reference card, all for a similar wallet-friendly $269 price ticket.

It’s a testomony to Sapphire’s strict “no-frills, just great gaming” strategy to the Pulse lineup, which proves particularly welcome right here within the price range section. Fashionable AV1 encoding is a tasty cherry on high for streamers.

You shouldn’t activate ray tracing with the Radeon RX 7600, or purchase it for 1440p gaming. Our far more detailed unique AMD Radeon RX 7600 evaluation breaks down why in exacting depth (together with suggesting potential options if desired). However these aren’t essentially drawbacks on this mainstream worth vary. If you wish to purchase a contemporary graphics card that you would be able to plop into your system and expertise quick, high-fidelity 1080p gaming with minimal problem—and with out busting your checking account—the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 is nicely value shopping for.