XFX MERC 310 Radeon RX 7900 XT Review: Bigger, Badder RDNA 3

3DMark Time Spy is a synthetic DirectX benchmark test from UL. It features a DirectX 12 engine built from the ground up to support bleeding-edge features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading. Time Spy is designed to test the DX12 performance of the latest graphics cards using a variety of techniques and varied visual sequences. This benchmark was developed with input from AMD, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and the other members of the UL Benchmark Development Program, to showcase the performance and visual potential of graphics cards driven by close-to-the-metal, low-overhead APIs.

UL 3DMark Time Spy DX12 Benchmarks

UL 3DMark Port Royal Ray Tracing Benchmarks

Port Royal was released as an update to UL’s popular 3DMark suite. It is designed to test real-time ray tracing performance of graphics cards that support Microsoft DirectX Raytracing, or DXR. Although DXR is technically compatible with all DX12-class GPUs, the graphics card must have drivers that enable support for the feature.

In the Port Royal ray tracing benchmark, both Radeon RX 7900 XT cards can't keep up with NVIDIA's previous gen RTX 3090 Ti. However, AMD's reference RX 7900 XTX bests the older GeForce nicely and nearly keeps pace with an RTX 4080. The XFX MERC 310 RX 7900 XT again just ekes out a victory over the reference 7900 XT. 

DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR) Feature Test

We also tested the cards with UL's DirectX Ray Tracing Feature test. This test is laser-focused on path-tracing performance, and uses few of the card's other resources.
The 3DMark ray tracing feature test shows the new Radeon RX 7900 XT cards in an even lower ranking versus NVIDIA's previous gen, and far behind the current-gen RTX 40 series. The XFX MERC 310 RX 7900 XT once again slips past the AMD reference card and both 7900 XTs are about 2X faster than AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XT. 

Crytek Neon Noir Benchmarks

The Crytek Neon Noir benchmark ranks the new Radeon RX 7900 XT cards right on top of a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti at 1440p resolution but cranking things up to 4K let's the 3090 Ti stretch its legs a bit more. Finally, the XFX MERC 310 RX 7900 XT puts up yet another repeat performance with just a smidge more juice than the reference 7900 XT card.

VR Benchmarks: VR Mark & Unigine Superposition

Superposition is the latest benchmark from Unigine, powered by the UNIGINE 2 Engine. It offers an array of benchmark modes, targeting gaming workloads as well as VR, with both DirectX and OpenGL code paths. There is an extreme hardware stability test built-in too. Unigine Superposition uses the developer’s unique SSRTGI (Screen-Space Ray-Traced Global Illumination) dynamic lighting technology, along with high quality textures and models, to produce some excellent visuals. We ran Superposition's VR Future benchmark to compare the performance of all of the graphics cards featured here.

Unigine Superposition VR Future Test

In our first VR-related benchmark, Unigine Superposition slots both Radeon RX 7900 XT cards within striking distance but behind a GeForce RTX 4080, and once again XFX's custom 7900 XT card is able to put up a few more frames per second over the reference design with its slightly higher GPU clock speed. 

UL VR Mark Blue Room Benchmarks

UL's VRMark is designed to test a PC’s readiness for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets. The benchmark does not, however, require that one of the headsets is attached to the PC to run and it uses an in-house graphics engine and content to ensure comparable results between different platforms. We ran the "Blue Room" VRMark test at defaults settings here, which is currently the most taxing test offered by the tool.


VRMark shows the new AMD Radeon RX 7900 series sandwiching the GeForce RTX 4080 in this virtual reality benchmark, and the XFX custom 7900 XT card puts up around a 2% better overall score versus the AMD stock reference design.