Jesper Berg
The ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX AQUA OC is a rare variant of AMD’s flagship GPU from 2022/2023. There are currently (mid-2023) only two manufacturers that offer Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards with pre-mounted water blocks – the other one being PowerColor with its Liquid Devil card.
In other words, there isn’t much competition to speak of unless you count third-party water blocks or AIO solutions.
ASRock’s Aqua model is nevertheless quite full-features, with triple 8-pin power connectors and an option to use an ‘Extreme’ BIOS that allegedly boosts performance by as much as 13.5% compared to the reference design.
Specifications
| Specifications | ASRock RX 7900 XTX Aqua OC | PowerColor Liquid Devil RX 7900 XTX | Gigabyte Aorus RX 7900 XTX Elite | AMD RX 7900 XTX Reference Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Navi 31 XTX | Navi 31 XTX | Navi 31 XTX | Navi 31 XTX |
| Shading Units | 6144 | 6144 | 6144 | 6144 |
| GPU Clock: Base/Game/Boost | 1855 MHz / 2510 MHz / 2680 MHz | 1855 MHz / 2510 MHz / 2680 MHz | 1855 MHz / 2510 MHz / 2680 MHz | 1855 MHz / 2300 MHz / 2499 MHz |
| FP32 Theoretical Performance | 65.8 TFLOPS | 65.8 TFLOPS | 65.8 TFLOPS | 61.4 TFLOPS |
| Dual BIOS | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Memory Configuration | 24 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR6 | 24 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Clock (Effective) | 2500 MHz (20 Gbps) | 2500 MHz (20 Gbps) | 2500 MHz (20 Gbps) | 2500 MHz (20 Gbps) |
| Memory Bandwidth (Bus Width) | 960 GB/s (384-bit) | 960 GB/s (384-bit) | 960 GB/s (384-bit) | 960 GB/s (384-bit) |
| Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1a 3x DisplayPort 2.1 | 1x HDMI 2.1a 3x DisplayPort 2.1 | 2x HDMI 2.1a 2x DisplayPort 2.1 | 1x HDMI 2.1a 2x DisplayPort 2.1 1x USB Type-C |
| TDP | 355 Watt | 355 Watt | 355 Watt | 355 Watt |
| Recommended Power Supply | 1000 Watt | 900 Watt | 850 Watt | 800 Watt |
| PCIe Power Connectors | 3x 8-pin | 3x 8-pin | 3x 8-pin | 2x 8-pin |
| Slots | 2-Slot | 1-Slot | 3.5-Slot | 2.5-Slot |
| Dimensions (Length/Width/Height) | 275 mm (10.8 in) 157 mm (6.2 in) 22 mm (0.9 in) | 288 mm (11.3 in) 163 mm (6.4 in) 28 mm (1.1 in) | 335 mm (13.2 in) 137 mm (5.4 in) 69 mm (2.7 in) | 287 mm (11.3 in) 110 mm (4.3 in) 51 mm (2 in) |
One of the more obvious advantages of using a water block for your GPU is size. All air-cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards are very large and some of them, like the Asus TUF and PoweColor Red Devil, are gigantic. Both the ASRock Aqua and PowerColor’s Liquid Devil are essentially single-slot cards, even if ASRock has opted for a dual-slot PCI bracket.
The OC-mode clocks for both of the liquid-cooled cards stay within the same ranges as premium air-cooled cards like the Sapphire Nitro+ and Gigabyte Aorus Elite. This may be due to AMD restrictions related to factory overclocking.
Owners of the ASRock RX 7900 XTX Aqua are nevertheless able to download an ‘Extreme’ vBIOS that allows the card to boost all the way up to 2935 MHz. This is the highest maximum clock rate for any RX 7900 XTX card on the market without user intervention. According to ASRock, the resulting performance increase is approximately 13.5%
The RX 7900 XTX Aqua is also equipped with an extra 8-pin PCIe power connector, which increases the theoretical upper power limit to 525 W from the reference 355 W. Instead of the usual power supply (PSU) recommendation of 800 W, ASRock recommends a minimum 1000 W PSU.
Cooling Solution
ASRock’s Aqua water-cooling solution is styled with a see-through window facing the water block and comes with addressable Polychrome SYNC RGB highlights on both sides of the card. There is also an additional ARGB header on the card as well as a physical on/off switch for all LEDs.
The water block itself is made of nickel-plated copper and uses 0.3 mm jet microchannels that supposedly enhance water flow and heat dissipation. Unlike most air-cooled cards, the Aqua card’s backplate is acrylic instead of metal.
In terms of power delivery to the GPU and VRAM, the ASRock RX 7900 XTX Aqua is equipped with a 22-phase power design that is likely similar to the RX 7900 XTX Taichi, meaning that it uses 18 phases for GPU voltage and 4 phases for the VRAM.
About the GPU
The Radeon RX 7900 XTX was released in November of 2022 and is AMD’s flagship GPU for 2022 and 2023. Internally, it uses the Navi 31 (XTX) designation and is one of the first consumer GPUs to be built using chiplet manufacturing technology (5 nm and 6 nm at TSMC). The chip incorporates 57.7 million transistors and has a die area is 529 mm².
Additionally, the RX 7900 XTX GPU has 6144 shading units, 192 ROPs (render output units), 384 TMUs (texture mapping units), and 96 raytracing acceleration cores. All 7900 XTX graphics cards are equipped with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory that runs at an effective memory clock rate of 20 Gbps (384-bit memory bus).
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