Asus details power demands of RDNA 3 GPUs – and they may not be as much as you think
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Asus has provided official power requirements for those buying a new RTX 4080 or 4090 graphics card from the company, as well as necessary wattages for those looking to buy an RX 7900 XT or 7900 XTX when those RDNA 3 cards come out in December.
Keep in mind that the PSUs determined for these graphics cards depend on the CPU you’re running them with, as some processors can draw a lot of power from the power supply these days too – so whatever combination you have on your PC, you’ll need to take that into account keep up.
As @momomo_us reports on Twitter (via video cardz (opens in new tab)), Asus recommends that the RTX 4090 has a power supply of at least 850W if using an Intel Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU. For those using a Core i7 or Core i9 chip or Ryzen 7 or 9, that recommendation bumps up to 1000W. For Intel HEDT (high-end desktop) or Threadripper CPUs, the PSU should be 1200W, no less.
For the RTX 4080, the base recommendation is 750W and that goes for Core i5 and i7 models, or Ryzen 5 or 7. For a Core i9 or Ryzen 9 it ramps up to 850W and 1000W for Threadripper or Intel HEDT.
What about those recommendations for AMD’s incoming RDNA 3 graphics cards? Those looking to grab an RX 7900 XT are looking at the exact same deal as the RTX 4080 – 750W for the Core i5 or i7 CPUs (and Ryzen 5 or 7), then up to 850W for a Core i9 or Ryzen 9, and 1000W for a HEDT model.
For the RX 7900 XTX, you’re looking at 850W for a Core i5 or i7 (and Ryzen 5 or 7), and 1000W in combination with a Core i9 or Ryzen 9 CPU. For a HEDT chip, the requirement is a towering 1,200W, as with the RTX 4090.
Analysis: Compare and contrast with AMD’s current generation
It’s interesting to see some official numbers from a graphics card maker for RDNA 3 products, although there are no real surprises here. The RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX in particular would never be less than quite demanding on the PC’s power supply, but the AMD flagship pushes things to the same level as the RTX 4090 – with the notable exception of a simpler time for those using Core i7 – or using Ryzen 7 CPUs (probably quite a few users since not everyone feels the need to go to Core i9 or Ryzen 9).
Perhaps what is more instructive is to compare the incoming AMD graphics cards to their predecessors, and here we see that the RX 7900 XT really is better than the 6900 XT. At least for Core i7/Ryzen 7 and Core i9/Ryzen 9 processors, where the 7900 XT draws 100W less and 150W less respectively; that’s pretty impressive in comparison. (In fact, the 7900 XT has the same requirements as the 6800 XT, believe it or not).
There’s no direct comparison for the 7900 XTX, but it does keep things the same as the 6950 XT (all but in HEDT turf where the new graphics card needs significantly more, 200W to be exact – but those are more niche cases) .
All in all, this is good news for those looking at a new AMD RDNA 3 GPU in the future, especially given Nvidia’s current problems with cable melting and the RTX 4090 (with question marks over whether this issue will also affect the RTX 4080).