These two irons weren't built for the same golfer or the same decade. The R7 launched in 2005 as a pure game-improvement iron: big head, deep cavity, moderate offset, built to make the ball easy to get airborne for mid-to-high handicappers. The P790, now in its fifth generation for 2025, plays in the players-distance category: a more compact, forged hollow-body iron aimed at low-to-mid handicappers who still want forgiveness without looking like they're carrying a shovel. Comparing them isn't really "which iron is better." It's "how much has actually changed," and the loft chart is where that question gets interesting.
The loft chart
Iron lofts have crept stronger across the industry for two decades, a well-known trend where manufacturers lower the loft on a given iron number to manufacture extra distance. The wrinkle here is that P790 itself only recently joined that trend: the 2025 refresh is the first generation in the model's history to change its loft chart at all, after four straight generations using the same numbers since 2017. The chart below reflects the current 2025 build, not the 2017 through 2023 lofts still floating around most retailer spec pages.
The R7 was also offered with a 2-iron (18°), not shown here since P790 has no equivalent. For 2025, P790 dropped the 3-iron from its published range entirely and moved to a 4-AW set. Every P790 number above is a full degree stronger than the same club in the 2017 through 2023 generations, except the 6-iron, which held at 26.5°. If you're cross-checking against another source, confirm which model year it's quoting before trusting the numbers.
What the numbers actually show
A real gap, but a modest and consistent one. Across the shared 4-iron through pitching wedge range, the current P790 runs 1 to 2 degrees stronger than R7 at every single club, tightest at the 9-iron and pitching wedge (1°) and widest at the 4, 5, 7, and 8-iron (2°). That's a meaningfully smaller shift than the multi-degree jump "20 years of loft creep" usually implies, but it's not nothing either, and it's more consistent than the numbers you'd get comparing R7 to the 2017 through 2023 P790, which sat even closer together before the 2025 refresh strengthened things.
Two degrees of loft is roughly the same as moving down half a club, enough to add a few yards of carry per club but not enough to explain a full club's worth of distance on its own. If you're used to your R7s and a fitter has you between numbers, expect the P790 to play a touch longer than the label alone suggests, since a "7-iron" today is doing more of a traditional 6.5-iron's job than it was in 2005.
Two things explain why the gap lands where it does. First, the R7 wasn't a traditional blade to begin with, it was already a strong-lofted, distance-oriented game-improvement iron for 2005, which narrows the gap to any modern iron compared to what you'd see against a classic muscleback blade from the same era. Second, P790 itself sat still for eight years: the 2017 through 2023 generations all shared the same chart, and only the 2025 refresh moved the lofts stronger. Compare R7 to a 2023 P790 and the gap nearly closes. Compare it to the current 2025 model and there's a real, consistent 1 to 2 degrees in it.
Where the real difference lives
If loft alone doesn't explain a 20-year gap, construction does. The R7 is a cast, deep-cavity design built around TaylorMade's Inverted Cone Technology and a soft aluminum dampening web for feel, features that were genuinely innovative for a 2005 game-improvement iron but are two full technology generations behind current manufacturing. P790 is a forged hollow-body iron using a 4340M forged face TaylorMade states is 20% stronger than its prior generation, filled with SpeedFoam Air for sound and feel, and shaped with FLTD CG, a center-of-gravity progression that sits lower in the long irons and rises through the short irons for tighter gapping and more controllable spin. That's a materials and engineering gap that loft numbers alone don't capture.
The other real difference is who each iron is built for. The R7 was aimed squarely at mid-to-high handicappers prioritizing forgiveness above all else. P790 is positioned for a wider window, TaylorMade and independent reviewers both cite a recommended handicap range of roughly 3 to 15, meaning it's built to satisfy better players who still want help on mishits, not just golfers who need maximum forgiveness.
Island Greens Pick
The loft chart shows a real but modest gap, roughly 1 to 2 degrees stronger through most of the P790 set. That alone is worth a few yards per club, not a full-club jump, so distance shouldn't be the main reason to upgrade. The real case for P790 is 20 years of forgiveness, feel, and consistency engineering: a forged face, SpeedFoam Air, and CG progression the R7 simply didn't have access to in 2005. If your R7s still match your swing and budget is the priority, they remain a genuinely playable set on the used market, just expect to hit each club a touch shorter than the same number on a current P790. If you want the current standard in feel and gapping consistency and the price gap doesn't concern you, P790 is worth it for reasons that go beyond the number stamped on the sole.
From the bag
I played R7s for years, and they're more capable than their reputation suggests. If you can generate real swing speed, they'll go surprisingly far, even though that was never really the design intent, they're built as safe, forgiving clubs for the average golfer. Switching to P790 taught me something the R7s never did: a good tempo swing beats raw power with these. The feel is real, they're genuinely forgiving, and off-center strikes still hold their distance with a tighter grouping than I expected coming from a set this much older.
We looked for current tour usage on both of these irons and came up mostly empty, which is itself informative. R7 has been out of production for two decades, so there's no current tour presence to report. P790 shows only a single, thinly sourced PGA Tour user in our research, it's built for a much wider handicap range than the tour-level irons that dominate most pro bags, so we're not attaching names to either iron here rather than stretch a weak signal.
R7 irons are discontinued and sold only on the used market; expect listings to come from marketplace sellers rather than TaylorMade directly.
Curious how P790 stacks up against a current TaylorMade players iron instead of a 2005 game-improvement set? Read the P770 vs. P790 comparison.