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This new AMD graphics card needs an 850W power supply

A new XFX AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX model packs the GPU into a massive card, with a phase change thermal pad and three 8-pin power sockets.

xfx radeon rx 7900 xtx phoenix nirvana ptm

XFX has just unveiled a new souped-up variant of the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which uses a huge cooler and has similarly massive power requirements. The XFX Radeon RX 7900 XTX Phoenix Nirvana also uses a phase change interface pad, rather than a standard thermal compound, to achieve peak cooling performance.

As one of the best graphics card models on the market when it comes to raw, non-ray traced gaming performance, the RX 7900 XTX is already no slouch, and AMD‘s top-tier card already comes in some very power-hungry and enormous configurations. However, XFX fancied turning it up a notch, it seems.

The card has dimensions of 34.6 x 13.2 x 6.8cm, making it 3.5 PCIe slots wide and immensely long and tall too. What’s more, XFX has packed in three eight-pin PCIe power sockets on that towering top edge, meaning you’ll need a power supply with at least three such cables. It will also need to be at least an 850W PSU, as that’s the minimum rating for this card – a 50W leap up from a standard RX 7900 XTX.

Meanwhile, that colossal cooler uses six heatpipes and a heatsink with an array of 216 fins. It’s not often we hear about the specific number of fins in a heatsink, but 216 is certainly a lot.

xfx radeon rx 7900 xtx phoenix nirvana power sockets

One of the more interesting features of this card is that it also uses a Honeywell PTM 7950 phase change thermal interface pad, instead of normal thermal paste. Although the claimed 8.5 W/mK thermal conductivity of the product matches that of ARCTIC MX-4 thermal compound, many users report that the PTM 7950 material is more effective when used to upgrade devices such as the Steam Deck, particularly when it comes to longevity.

xfx radeon rx 7900 xtx phoenix nirvana tease

In terms of styling, we don’t really have a clear picture of the card yet as XFX has only teased it. However, we do have a price, which is set at 7,899RMB, which equates to $1,090. Whatever we think of the card, though, it’s only destined for the Chinese market at the moment, so we’ll have to wait for reports from there about whether it’s any good or not.

In the meantime, plenty of more conventional RX 7900 XTX cards are available for quite a bit less money, while this card’s smaller sibling is even more competitive right now thanks to a steady stream of RX 7900 XT discounts going on at the moment.