AMD’s RDNA 3 graphics structure has confirmed its capacity to ship vital efficiency enhancements and higher vitality effectivity over its RDNA 2 graphics playing cards. This has been a boon for gaming, however one may argue this will likely be even higher for workstation playing cards. We received an thought of what a high-performance RDNA 3 workstation card can do with the AMD Radeon Professional W7800 ($599). Now, with the Radeon Professional W7600, we get to see what a balanced answer can do, and it does fairly nicely in its personal means with low energy draw and a compact construct.
Design: Radeon RX 7600 Goes to Work
Anybody who has saved up with the latest graphics card releases will discover the Radeon Professional W7600 to be acquainted. That’s as a result of the cardboard is just like the AMD Radeon RX 7600 in some ways. Each playing cards characteristic the identical GPU core, with the very same quantity of assets accessible and even the identical reminiscence interface. You will discover solely a handful of particulars that differ between the 2 playing cards.
Workstation playing cards are sometimes packed in with as many different playing cards as potential right into a chassis to achieve further efficiency, which makes the scale and cooling scheme of playing cards matter greater than with consumer-grade graphics playing cards, which these days are principally put in solo. This led AMD to design the W7600 as a extra complacent single-slot card that might allow you to wedge way more playing cards in collectively than with dual-slot playing cards. Naturally, this comes with some trade-offs, together with a smaller cooler and a barely decrease clock velocity.
Aside from that, the largest modifications between the W7600 and the RX 7600 lie within the BIOS, which is optimized for workstation duties on the W7600. You will additionally discover the worth distinction that units the W7600 at $599, which is greater than double the Radeon RX 7600’s base value of $269. Skilled-grade merchandise are priced otherwise for companies and usually are bought in bulk purchases.
The ports on the cardboard had been additionally modified up barely versus the Radeon RX 7600, with no HDMI port and 4 DisplayPort 2.1 connections. The facility connections can range considerably on Radeon RX 7600 playing cards, however most of these additionally ship with a single 8-pin PCIe energy connection, whereas the Radeon Professional W7600 as a substitute depends on a single 6-pin PCIe energy connection as a substitute.
Take a look at Setup and Spec Comparability
The AMD Radeon Professional W7600 was examined utilizing our 2022 GPU check mattress with an Intel Core i9-12900K processor and an Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard. The processor was operated at inventory clock speeds with a Corsair Hydro Sequence H100X water cooler and 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM clocked at 5,600MHz.
To make sure the system has loads of energy for all checks, I outfitted the check mattress with a Corsair HX1500i energy provide that may deal with as much as 1,500 watts of energy. All checks had been carried out within Home windows 11 Professional with all the newest updates put in.
Earlier than diving into the check outcomes, it’s necessary to notice that the Radeon Professional W7600 and the same Radeon Professional W7500 are markedly totally different merchandise from the opposite playing cards we had been in a position to check. These AMD GPUs are far inexpensive, way more compact, and naturally have far fewer assets. This resulted in them being outperformed in most checks. However, on the uncommon events they pushed forward barely, we may be certain it was due solely to the benefits inherent in these being workstation playing cards.
Artificial Exams
3DMark’s Port Royal is a helpful check for graphics playing cards that takes full benefit of ray-tracing {hardware} on GPUs. Adobe’s Premiere Professional and Luxmark are each centered on testing content material creation and GPGPU efficiency.
Although the Radeon Professional W7600 carried out poorly in these checks in contrast with the opposite playing cards, it is not a nasty displaying if you happen to contemplate the price-for-performance ratio. The Radeon Professional W7800 prices $2,499, and this makes the $599 W7600 hitting a couple of third or extra of its efficiency numbers look like a average cut price. Nonetheless, for these specific checks, you’d be higher off with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which was quicker than each whereas costing simply $999.
SPECworkstation 3.1
Exams which are extra oriented in the direction of workstation playing cards, like these included within the SPECworkstation 3.1 check suite, give us a greater thought of the Radeon Professional W7600’s potential.
In all of those checks, the Radeon Professional W7600 continued to carry out no less than a couple of third as quick because the Radeon Professional W7800, and in lots of checks it fared much better than that. This may increasingly not sound like a win for the Radeon Professional W7600, nevertheless it’s price remembering that these playing cards are supposed for use in tandem with different workstation playing cards. You may purchase 4 Radeon Professional W7600 playing cards for barely lower than what a single Radeon Professional W7800 prices, and people playing cards working collectively would possibly internet you higher outcomes than what that sole W7800 card can muster.
That stated, we will’t converse to precisely how it will carry out, as scaling throughout a number of playing cards is rarely fairly so simple. However, it’s potential that might end in higher efficiency general than the Radeon Professional W7800. This additionally holds up compared with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, which is already behind the Radeon Professional W7600 in choose check units like medical-02, snx-03 (Siemens CAD), and sw-04 (Solidworks). In most of the checks that present the RTX 4090 forward, including a second Radeon Professional W7600 would are inclined to even issues up or hand the win to the Radeon Professional W7600 playing cards.
AIDA64 GPGPU Exams
AIDA64 proves extremely helpful for testing workstation playing cards and graphics playing cards alike. It checks numerous totally different metrics however doesn’t are inclined to favor the workstation playing cards.
The reminiscence bandwidth portion of the AIDA64 offers us perception into the bandwidth between the RAM and the GPU on a graphics card, which is all the time vitally necessary to efficiency. The Radeon Professional W7600 has only a 128-bit reminiscence interface, which left it at an obstacle right here. That is partly what precipitated it to lag behind the opposite playing cards on this check, with its considerably fewer assets being the opposite a part of what held it again.
Although these outcomes look bleak, it’s once more price contemplating the numerous distinction in value, because it carried out higher than you’ll anticipate for a card that prices far lower than the competitors.
Sport Exams
Workstation playing cards usually are not supposed for gaming, however video games serve far too nicely at pushing playing cards to their limits and gauging their efficiency for us to not make the most of them right here for testing as an “attention-grabbing apart.”
Although you may get related outcomes with an RX 7600 for much less, the Radeon Professional W7600 ran the video games we examined nicely even at larger resolutions. Working video games at 4K was a little bit of a wrestle, however this was helped by FSR that boosted body charges again to playable ranges.
Energy Consumption
Utilizing a Kill-A-Watt energy meter, I measured the ability draw of the GPU check mattress as an entire with a purpose to decide the tough energy consumption of every of the examined playing cards whereas working the AIDA64 GPGPU check. Solely the graphics card in query was modified between checks, which provides us a relative thought of the ability consumption of every card.
That is one space wherein the Radeon Professional W7600 got here out nicely forward of its competitors. When it got here to efficiency, the Radeon Professional W7600 might have achieved solely a 3rd of the W7800’s output, nevertheless it additionally consumed far much less energy. This makes the cardboard all of the extra alluring to be used within compact techniques and particularly people who have strict energy and warmth limitations.
Verdict: A Slim Sleeper Workstation Card
AMD’s Radeon Professional W7600 managed to carry out comparatively nicely all through our checks. It by no means beat out the competitors, however as many of the competing playing cards price considerably extra, are far bigger, and draw way more energy, that’s to be anticipated. As a substitute, the cardboard performs fairly nicely for its place available in the market, driving a hefty quantity of compute efficiency at a much more palatable value of $599 and with a way more compact type issue and decrease energy draw.
These traits assist it stand out for people who want some quantity of compute efficiency for workstation purposes however don’t want or can’t afford the likes of an AMD Radeon Professional W7800. That stated, if you happen to needn’t run workstation purposes, the shine comes off; you would be higher off contemplating shopper playing cards that can work nicely sufficient for much less.
