Last month, I took our new Sapphire 7900 XT graphics card for a spin with the rather fantastic AOC Q24G2A, a 165Hz gaming monitor that didn’t cost the earth, but made for a great competition gaming experience that can be had for under £1000 when purchased with a 7900 XT. However, I’m actually not a very good competitive gamer, I’m too old, lazy, and tired, and my wrists hurt using a keyboard and mouse for gaming. This is why I like to kick back in a recliner, feet on the footrest, controller in hand and enjoy a more immersive experience… so that’s exactly what I did (I would have done it anyway, but that’s beside the point).
The Sapphire 7900 XT is no slouch when it comes to rasterisation performance and has proven a potent enough card to deliver high-end graphics and high framerates in the latest and greatest games. But while benchmarks tell you the stats, what’s it like to actually live with and game on? It’s something that we weirdly never get time to do with our graphics card reviews, so this is a welcome change of pace. I’m going all-out too, as I’ll be using the £1000 AOC AGON Pro AG344UXM gaming monitor. This 21:9 ultrawide is one of the best gaming monitors we’ve ever tested. It comes with an 1152-zone MiniLED backlight that gives it exceptional brightness, contrast and black levels, while still being able to deliver 600 nits in SDR and 100 nits of brightness in HDR mode. Furthermore, it does all this with an impressive 170Hz refresh rate and some of the best colour reproduction you’ll find a monitor today, with 99% of DCI-P3 and an accuracy Delta-E 1. All gibberish? Well, as I said, it’s one of the best gaming monitors we’ve ever tested, and we’ve tested a LOT. Check out my full review of the AG344UXM here, the link opens in a new tab.
The Sapphire 7900 XT proved to be a great gaming card when we tested it for review, but our reviews focus on 1080, 1440 and 2160 resolutions, or Full HD, 2K and 4K if you prefer that format. So today, I’m sticking with not so much benchmarking the ultrawide 3440 x 1440 resolution but getting hands-on with it.
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