Radeon RX 7800 XT vs Radeon RX 7900 XT for Local AI

Quick answer: The RX 7900 XT gives you 20GB VRAM and 800 GB/s over the 7800 XT's 16GB/624 GB/s for $150 more at launch.

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Which GPU is better for local AI workloads?

The 7900 XT's 20GB is an odd-but-useful capacity: it fits 32B LLMs at tight Q4 and gives image batching headroom. The 7800 XT is the value 16GB pick. Both are gfx1100-class with solid ROCm support.

Spec comparison: what actually differs

The table below is computed live from our hardware database. Positive deltas favor the Radeon RX 7800 XT.

SpecificationRadeon RX 7800 XTRadeon RX 7900 XTDifference
VRAM 16 20 -20%
Memory bandwidth 624 800 -22%
Memory type GDDR6 GDDR6
Memory bus 256 320
TDP 263 315 -17%
Stream processors 3840 10752 -64%
Architecture RDNA 3 RDNA 3
Launch MSRP $499 $649 -23%
Street price $499 $649 -23%

Specs from our sourced product database. See how we source data.

What about price?

Launch MSRP: $499 (7800 XT) versus $649 (7900 XT, 2022).

Which one should you buy for LLMs and image generation?

AMD · 2023

Radeon RX 7800 XT

Buy the 7800 XT for straightforward 16GB value.

Full specs & benchmarks →
AMD · 2022

Radeon RX 7900 XT

Buy the 7900 XT used/discounted for 20GB-class capacity.

Full specs & benchmarks →

Is it faster for LLM inference?

20GB holds 32B at IQ4/Q4-tight; 16GB tops at 14B Q8. Decode faster on 800 vs 624 GB/s.

How does it handle image generation?

Both run Flux; 7900 XT batches harder.

Which AI models fit on each card?

Computed from our model VRAM database at Q4 quantization: Radeon RX 7800 XT has 16 GB, Radeon RX 7900 XT has 20 GB.

Fit only on the Radeon RX 7900 XT (20 GB)

DeepSeek R1-Distill 32B ✓ Qwen 3 32B ✓

Fit on both cards

Gemma 3 27B Wan 2.2 (A14B & TI2V-5B) Mistral Small 3.2 24B FLUX.1 dev Llama 3.1 8B Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 Whisper large-v3 Coqui XTTS-v2

Q4_K_M-equivalent sizes; context and quantization choices shift real limits. Check each model page for full quantization tables.

Frequently asked questions

7800 XT vs 7900 XT for LLMs?

7900 XT: 20GB fits 32B models at tight Q4 quants; 7800 XT's 16GB stops at 14B Q8. Bandwidth 800 vs 624 GB/s also favors the XT.

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