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

Price When Reviewed

$269

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

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

It is. After placing the cardboard via its paces, we’re comfortable to report that the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 is every part you’ll need from the RX 7600 lineup. It’s simply large enough to hold a reliable cooling answer 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 under. Sapphire caught principally to reference specs with the Pulse, aside from providing a slight manufacturing unit overclock. The Pulse RX 7600 is rated for a median sport clock velocity of two,356MHz, in comparison with the reference 2,250MHz.

AMD

We lined the Radeon RX 7600’s essential technical bits in our reference card review and received’t rehash that right here. In addition to the uncooked improve to the brand new 6nm RDNA 3 structure (which brings AV1 encoding, larger 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 instructed, the Radeon RX 7600 affords a median of 35 % extra 1080p gaming efficiency for 18 % much less cash—a real generational improve. It falters in ray tracing, nevertheless, and upscaling applied sciences like AMD’s FSR and Nvidia’s DLSS look unhealthy at this decision.

The one side value briefly readdressing right here: the reminiscence configuration. AMD outfitted 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 well deal with 1440p with diminished settings)—an inexpensive compromise in an reasonably priced GPU, not like equivalent compromises made in Nvidia’s $400 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.

But PC avid gamers are anxious that 8GB of reminiscence capability isn’t sufficient now {that a} swathe of recent triple-A video games eat greater than that usually at Ultra decision. Those edge instances are uncommon, nevertheless, and PCWorld contributor Keith May examined the Sapphire Pulse RX 7600’s performance in some of today’s most VRAM-hungry games to see what you may count on. You can see his evaluation within the video under, however backside line? If you bump graphics settings from Ultra to High in these most-intensive titles, you continue to get a killer 1080p gaming expertise that appears nice and runs quick. Again, at this reasonably priced worth level, that’s completely affordable.

Onto the Pulse itself.

Sapphire caught to the tried-and-true Pulse design we’ve beloved in playing cards just like the Pulse RX 7900 XT and last-gen’s Pulse RX 6600 XT. It’s nonetheless good. The dual-slot card includes a fundamental aluminum fin stack and a concentrate on low noise output, bolstered by Sapphire’s Dual-X Cooling know-how. Dual “hybrid fan blades” and clever fan controls preserve factor working 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 May/IDG

You received’t discover any fancy extras like RGB lighting, dual-BIOS switches, or fan management headers on the change, however these luxuries aren’t typical on budget-priced playing cards, or on customized choices that hit the MSRP recommended by AMD and Nvidia. One minor sacrifice? While the AMD reference 7600 accommodates DisplayPort 2.1 connections, that’s an elective specification, and the Pulse depends on the identical DisplayPort 1.4 know-how that Nvidia affords in its RTX 40-series GPUs. The larger 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 May/IDG

Aesthetically, the Pulse seems to be pretty much as good as ever, that includes a blacked-out design with pink highlights and a beautiful pink “pulse” heartbeat touring the size of the cardboard’s metallic backplate. (Yes, Sapphire nonetheless slapped a backplate on right here regardless of the low worth—all the time welcome, since naked PCBs look horrible once you’re utilizing a case with a tempered glass window.) Power is dealt with by way of a easy, single 8-pin connection, no fiddly 12VHPWR adapters required.

Of course, as a contemporary AMD graphics card, the Sapphire Pulse can faucet into AMD’s suite of Radeon options, reminiscent of Smart Access Memory for quicker sport efficiency in Ryzen + Radeon programs, Smart Access Video for quicker encoding in all-AMD PCs, FSR 2, Radeon Super Resolution, Anti-Lag, and extra. And the Radeon RX 7600’s new AV1 encoding works nice with the Record & Stream options in AMD Adrenalin software program, which could truly be a bit higher than Nvidia’s vaunted Shadowplay now.

Onto the benchmarks!

Our take a look at system

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

We take a look at quite a lot of video games spanning varied engines, genres, vendor sponsorships (Nvidia, AMD, and Intel), and graphics APIs (DirectX 9, 11, DX12, and Vulkan), to attempt to characterize a full vary of efficiency potential. Each sport is examined utilizing its in-game benchmark, sanity checked by Nvidia’s FrameView tool, on the highest doable graphics presets except in any other case famous, with VSync, body charge caps, real-time ray tracing or DLSS results, and FreeSync/G-Sync disabled, together with some 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 not less than thrice and listing the common outcome for every take a look at. We’ve centered our testing on 1080p efficiency alone in a choose handful of video games, since our original Radeon RX 7600 review already established that this class of GPU is finest suited to 1080p gaming with out ray tracing enabled as a result of method it’s technically configured. If you need to see all that work, go try that evaluate; 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 centered choice.

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 gaming benchmarks

Keith May/IDG

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

That’s notable, as a result of as we lined in our reference 7600 evaluate, 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 selecting up a 1080p graphics card that gives an amazing native expertise is vital. 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 actual 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 Pro meter, which measures the facility consumption of our complete take a look at system. The preliminary a part of the race, the place all competing vehicles 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 working at a GPU-bound decision to gauge efficiency when the graphics card is sweating laborious. If you’re enjoying a sport that additionally hammers the CPU, you could possibly see larger total system energy attracts. Consider your self warned.

Keith May/IDG

The Sapphire Pulse comes with a small manufacturing unit 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 simply don’t want to fret about it in anyway.

Onto the Pulse’s sturdy go well with. 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 easy, however efficient Pulse cooling design impresses but once more. Not solely does the Pulse preserve total 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.

Better 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 anyway in case you aren’t gaming or performing different GPU-intensive hundreds. The reference card may be very quiet, too, however the Pulse does it whereas working cooler and quicker.

Should you purchase the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600?

Keith May/IDG

If you’re on the lookout for an reasonably priced 1080p graphics card, this could completely be in your quick listing. 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 phase. Modern 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 original AMD Radeon RX 7600 review breaks down why in exacting depth (together with suggesting potential options if desired). But these aren’t essentially drawbacks on this mainstream worth vary. If you need to purchase a contemporary graphics card that you may plop into your system and expertise quick, high-fidelity 1080p gaming with minimal trouble—and with out busting your checking account—the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 is nicely value shopping for.