If Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 Ti or RTX 4070 are a tad too pricey for you, then consider either the AMD RX 7700 XT or the 7800 XT. These AMD graphics cards offer comparable performance, but at the cost of more power, and inferior ray tracing (RT) performance. But they will still provide you with great 1440p gaming.

AMD is very clear that its two new cards are meant for 1440p gaming. So if you have say, the Pixle 27-inch 2K QHD IPS monitor, then you'd probably want either of these cards. The 7800 XT is the more powerful of the two, with more video RAM to boot. In my tests, the 7700 XT is slower by around 5% to 8%. In games such as Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, you get around 53fps versus 46fps at 1440p at Ultra settings with RT on. Without RT, you get 106fps versus 88fps. These were tested with AMD's FSR turned on as well as per the game's default graphics settings.

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For the 7800 XT, non RT performance is much better than the RTX 4070, but the 4070 still does better when RT is on. This is the same across all the games we've tested at 1440p, such as Marvel's Spider-Man and Returnal. For the 7800 XT, you get 78.7fps on Very High with RT on Spider-Man, and 99fps for Returnal on Epic settings with RT on. The 7700 XT does 65.3fps and 85fps respectively. It's a familiar tale, where the Nvidia cards have better software in the form of DLSS and DLSS 3 that allows them to perform better with less power consumption, but AMD cards work better in non-RT settings. However, AMD's upcoming FSR 3 could finally give their graphics cards a foothold at last. That said, Nvidia's already working on DLSS 3.5, so maybe AMD's catch-up moment won't last.

Power draw is AMD's usual weakness, and it's the same here. You get 21W at idle with two monitors for both cards. The 7700 XT pulled around 238W in my tests, while the 7800XT did 260W, which is close to their total board power draw of 245W and 263W. Compare this with the lower power draw of the RTX 4070 (200W) and the RTX 4060 Ti (160W). Temperatures also run hotter for the AMD contingent, too, at 75 degrees Celsius (7800 XT) and 62 degrees Celsius (7700 XT). The RTX 4070 we tested previously was only 63 degrees Celsius at load. If you want something that doesn't run too hot, then the 7700 XT makes more sense.

With prices starting at S$829 for the AMD RX 7800 XT and S$739 for the AMD RX 7700 XT, these new AMD cards give Nvidia's S$949 RTX 4070 and the S$629 RTX 4060 Ti a run for the money. The RX 7700 XT hits the sweet spot here, but bear in mind that Nvidia still has an RT leg up (especially on the software side of things). Get the AMD cards from Shopee, Lazada, or Amazon SG.

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Note: Review units provided by AMD.