RX 570 Upgrade: Is the RX 7700 XT the Radeon to Get?

The RX 7700 XT is the Radeon to buy when an RX 570 has fallen under a game’s minimum requirements and the budget sits near 400 dollars: it carries 12GB of VRAM, it is built for 1440p, and it clears the newer minimums (hardware ray tracing, mesh shaders) that the Polaris-based RX 570 cannot meet. The conditions are a power supply that can feed a 245W card and a case that takes a long, two-fan board. If either is a problem, there is a cheaper step down and a pricier step up, covered below.

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Why an RX 570 is now under the line

The RX 570 is a 2017 Polaris card with 4GB or 8GB of GDDR5 and a board power of about 150W. It has no hardware ray tracing and no mesh-shader support. Recent titles have started listing RDNA 2-class cards (RX 6600 and up) as their minimum for that reason, so the failure is a missing feature, not just low frame rates. Games built around mandatory ray tracing or mesh shaders (Alan Wake 2 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are typical examples; check each game’s own requirements page) will not run properly on a Polaris card at any settings.

Any RDNA 2 or RDNA 3 card fixes that. What differs between them is VRAM and how many years of headroom you get.

What the RX 7700 XT is

The RX 7700 XT is an RDNA 3 card with 12GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus. Its board power is 245W, and AMD’s guidance is a 700W-class power supply. It takes two 8-pin PCIe connectors on most partner boards, so check your PSU has both.

Reviewers’ findings, as reported:

• VRAM: TechRadar called 12GB the bare minimum for effective 1440p play, which the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti lacks.
• Against Nvidia’s 8GB card: Kowatek found it comfortably ahead of the RTX 4060 Ti at 1440p, and Tom’s Hardware found ray tracing roughly a wash against that card, with Nvidia ahead overall (about 22 percent in Cyberpunk with ray tracing).
• Against the previous generation: one aggregate comparison of 139 games puts it only about 6 percent ahead of the RX 6700 XT at 1440p. TechRadar’s synthetic tests showed a much larger gap, so treat real-game gains over a 6700 XT as small.
• Weak point: power. TechRadar names consumption as its main weakness, against 200W for the RTX 4070 and 160W for the RTX 4060 Ti, and PCWorld notes it is less efficient than GeForce rivals.

I could not retrieve a measured RX 570 to RX 7700 XT figure from a test lab for this page, so no exact multiplier is quoted. The gap is large, since the 7700 XT is a 1440p card and the RX 570 was a 1080p one.

How the options compare

Skip the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti at this budget

Nvidia is the default many people meet, but the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti is the wrong buy if the goal is a long-lived 1440p upgrade: reviewers favoured the 7700 XT at 1440p, and 12GB against 8GB is the margin that matters as texture budgets grow. It is the better pick only if you want Nvidia’s ray-tracing lead or lower power draw above all else.

When the cheaper RX 7600 is enough

If the monitor is 1080p and will stay that way, and the PSU is under about 550W, the RX 7600 (8GB, lower power) clears the same feature minimums and avoids a PSU swap. The catch is that 8GB is exactly the limit the RX 570 8GB owner is already feeling, so it buys fewer years.

When the RX 7800 XT is worth the stretch

The RX 7800 XT has 16GB and is the card to choose if you play at 1440p with high textures or plan on 4K occasionally. It is not required to escape the RX 570.

Platform and PSU checks before ordering

• AM4 and PCIe: the 7700 XT is a PCIe 4.0 x16 card. It works in a PCIe 3.0 slot, as on many B350 and B450 boards, and a small loss is expected at most settings. Confirm in your board manual.
• CPU: an older Ryzen 5 1600 or 2600 will hold a 7700 XT back in CPU-heavy games. A Ryzen 5 5600 or better on AM4 is a sensible second step, but the GPU is the immediate fix because the missing features are on the card.
• PSU: an old 500W unit sized for an RX 570 is the common failure. Check for two 8-pin PCIe leads and total wattage.
• Case: measure clearance, since many 7700 XT boards are long.

What this page cannot settle

Prices move weekly, and a discounted RX 6700 XT (12GB, about the same real-game speed per the aggregate comparison) can beat the 7700 XT on value where it is still in stock. It lacks the newer RDNA 3 features, so confirm that matters to you.