Review – Acer Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC

While graphics cards continue to advance in power with each new release, the highest-tier models often come with a hefty price tag that may not be accessible to everyone. Interestingly, despite assertions by many that 1440P is emerging as the new mainstream resolution for gaming, the reality remains that 1080P is still widely embraced, making it the prevalent choice for gaming among the majority. The Radeon RX 7600 is AMD’s take on the 1080P segment and this time, we’ll be taking a look at the Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC from Acer for a quick performance gauge.

The Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC is Acer’s take on the Radeon RX 7600, equipped with its custom cooling solution and factory overclocked with a slightly higher boost clock for some extra performance. We’ve compared it against the RTX 4060 which is the direct competing model against the RX 7600 in the 1080P gaming segment, just so we can see which is the better-performing card that is the better value for your money.

Specifications

Unboxing

The Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC ships in a surprisingly well-designed box, which is something you don’t see very often for an entry-level graphics cards for 1080P gaming. At the back of the box, you’ll find most of the basic details you’ll need to know about the product i.e the AMD Radeon proprietary features, the cooling solution, as well as the display output options.

Design-wise, the Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC has a much more minimalist design compared to the majority of the RX 7600 we’ve seen in the market which is equipped with tons of RGB lightings. As we take a closer look at the card, we can see a rather uncommon cooler design which consists of a blower fan and an axial fan.

Since it’s an entry-level graphics card, the dual-slot design is much expected as you don’t need to have a triple-fan cooling solution on it due to its TBP of 165W according to the official specs from AMD, which makes it easy to fit into the majority of the PC cases you’ll find in the market. With the low TBP of 165W, a single 8-pin PCIe power connector is all you need to power up the card and you don’t need any special proprietary power connector for it.

Now for the display output, you’ll get the standard 3 x DisplayPort and 1 x HDMI on the Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC.

System Specifications

As mentioned earlier, we are comparing the Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC against a GeForce RX 4060 so we can better gauge the performance of these cards and see which one is better in terms of performance. Here are the specifications of the test system used:

Gaming Benchmark – Raster Performance

We conducted tests at three distinct resolutions—1080p, 1440p, and 4K so we can have a better idea of the capabilities of both cards being put to the test.

Although acceptable frame rates can still be attained at 4K resolution, it’s crucial to note that this applies to only a subset of the tested titles. I would advise exercising caution when pushing the card to its limits under these conditions.

The performance metrics exhibit improvement when we transition to 1440p, showcasing frame rates exceeding 60fps in the majority of the tested titles, rendering them very playable with both the Radeon RX 7600 and GeForce RTX 4060.

At 1080p, an average frame rate exceeding 80fps is observed across all tested titles. While the overall performance is comparable to that of an RTX 3060 Ti, it falls slightly below this benchmark.

Gaming Benchmark – Ray Tracing

Following that, we evaluate the ray tracing performance by configuring graphics settings and enabling ultra-ray tracing, in conjunction with the FSR Quality preset for the Radeon RX 7600 and DLSS Quality preset for the GeForce RTX 4060. This assessment aims to ascertain the card’s capabilities under these specific conditions.

The findings suggest that the RX 7600 is not suitable for 4K gaming with ultra settings and full ray tracing, as adjustments to graphics settings and utilization of the performance FSR preset do not significantly enhance the situation, especially on titles that are very demanding on the VRAM capacity.

At a resolution of 1440p, games are playable, but only for those titles that don’t demand extensive ray tracing processing even if ray tracing is available as an option.

More favorable outcomes are observed at 1080p resolution, but exceptions exist for titles heavily reliant on ray tracing processing, such as the notorious Cyberpunk 2077, along with other RT-enabled titles featuring only DLSS support, placing the new Radeon cards at a disadvantage.

AMD still has room for improvement in terms of ray-tracing performance, that’s certain. With the growing adoption of FSR 2.X and FSR 3 by game developers, there’s optimism for increased support, enabling Radeon cards to compete more effectively in the predominantly NVIDIA-dominated realm of ray-traced titles.

What about FSR 3 and Frame Generation then?

With AMD finally announcing the availability of titles that are ready with FSR 3, Radeon cards can now stand better against the newer GeForce cards and its proprietary DLSS 3. It will still take a while before we see more of these titles but as of now, there are already a handful of titles that have FSR 3, with Immortals of Aveum and Forspoken being two of the FSR 3 ready titles that are available right now.

FSR 3 Frame Generation options can be seen in the graphics settings menu for each title and we can observe a very significant performance boost as soon as it is enabled:

Things are looking well for AMD so far and we’re looking forward to seeing more titles to support FSR 3 soon but as for how the game developers will favor either FSR 3 or DLSS 3, only time will tell. Hopefully, we can see titles that support both, if it’s not too difficult to be implemented.

Thermals & Power Draw

Now, let’s delve into thermal performance and power consumption. In comparison to the RTX 4060 which registers a peak power draw of 120W, the RX 7600 has a higher power draw that goes up to 176W at peak. So in terms of power efficiency, it’s not as efficient compared to what the competitor has to offer.

In terms of temperatures, despite AMD’s assertion that the RX 7600 may reach up to 105°C on the junction temperature during operation, our temperature readings consistently stay below 100°C across all pertinent sensors, with the hotspot temperature peaked at 90°C, memory junction temperature at 80°C, and GPU temperature at 70°C. Drawing from past experiences with AMD Radeon cards, it’s reasonable to infer that the observed temperatures fall well within safe limits.

Final Thoughts

The RX 7600 lives up to AMD’s design intent as a GPU tailored for 1080p gaming with high or ultra settings, excelling in raster performance. While it can deliver acceptable performance at times for 1440p resolution, this card’s primary strength lies in 1080p gaming.

On the flip side, its ray tracing performance falls short, necessitating compromises such as lowering graphics settings and utilizing FSR presets for reasonable and playable frame rates. Despite the growing list of games supporting FSR 2.x, the RX 7600 can still struggle with certain demanding titles even with FSR enabled. While we can already see titles with FSR 3 feature available, it will still take some time before we can see more titles getting the support – at least the situation is somewhat better right now compared to a few months back then. Playing RT-enabled titles is possible, but concessions must be made to achieve satisfactory results.

The question of whether the $269 price tag for the Predator BiFrost Radeon RX 7600 OC is justified depends on one’s perspective. Compared to what the competing model GeForce RTX 4060 has to offer, it may make the RX 7600 seem inferior, especially in the ray tracing performance and power efficiency despite having a well-performing cooling solution. However, if features like AV1 encoding capability, AMD Smart technology suite, AI capabilities, or optimization for creative workloads matter to you, the $269 price tag could still be considered reasonable as the cheapest RTX 4060 we can find right now is priced at $299.