AMD Radeon VII

Overall, the Radeon VII is certainly the best card AMD has released in some time, and is capable of modern gaming at 4K resolutions. But if I were buying a new GPU today, I’d have a hard time choosing the Radeon VII over the more capable RTX 2080 for the same price.

Probably the best-looking graphics card AMD has ever made, with some serious engineering wins. But it's an incredibly expensive GPU when it's offering performance parity with Nvidia's last-gen GTX 1080 Ti... for the same price. For many though, the fact AMD is competing might just be all they need.

From a raw gaming performance standpoint, the Radeon VII certainly comes close to the RTX 2080. When we factor in everything else – including noise levels, power draw and overclocking headroom – at the expected price of £649, Radeon VII really struggles to justify itself over RTX 2080 cards available for the same money.

We will have to see how things shake out over time, what AMD's board partners do with custom solutions, and what street prices look like once availability ramps, but we suspect anyone that sprung for a GeForce RTX 2080 isn’t sweating their decision this morning. On the other hand, conversely, AMD fans will probably be happy that the company has a competitive offering at the high end of the gaming graphics card market again.

On the one hand it's frustrating to wait so long for a GPU that delivers the same performance we've had access to with Nvidia GPUs for almost two years now. On the other hand, it's good to see AMD deliver a great GPU for 4K and 1440p gaming after such a long wait. Most people won't need or even fully use its 16GB of memory, but at least it's future proof, and the three-game bundle makes it a pretty great value. Just be sure to adjust that fan curve.

AMD re-enters the high-end/enthusiast GPU race once again with its new Radeon VII, the world's first 7nm gaming GPU that packs a huge 16GB of super-fast HBM2. It trades blows with the GeForce RTX 2080 which is a big deal, #TeamRed is back and swinging.

AMD's new Radeon flagship graphics card, the Radeon VII is a worthwhile if power-hungrier alternative to the GeForce RTX 2080 for 4K gaming, but it generally isn't as fast at 1080p or 1440p resolutions.