NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 vs AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3090 | Radeon RX 7900 XT |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 24GB GDDR6X | 20GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 936.2 GB/s | 800 GB/s |
| Shaders | 10496 | 5376 |
| Boost Clock | 1695 MHz | 2400 MHz |
| TDP | 350W | 300W |
| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 3.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 5,117 | 5,616 |
| Best Price | $1,499 | $680 |
| Value Score | 18/100 | 56/100 |
Verdict
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 vs AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT: Which Should You Buy?
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is 19% faster at 1440p ultra (125.9 fps against 106 fps). That is roughly one settings notch — enough to matter if you are chasing a specific refresh rate, not enough to rescue a bad price.
Pricing settles it: the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is both faster and 120% cheaper at $680 versus $1,499. There is no scenario in this pairing where the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is the better buy at these prices.
Two things beyond raw speed: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 carries 24GB against 20GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 20GB cards age badly; and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT draws 50W less (300W versus 350W), which can mean a smaller PSU and a quieter case; and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is 2 years newer (2022 versus 2020), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.