VGA Reviews by stefan @ 2019-09-17
With the 210W Performance BIOS, the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB GDDR6 RAW II Ultra card can deliver quite a bit of performance, while keeping the temperatures at bay and the noise at decent levels. As we have seen with the latest Ryzen processors, the GPU overclocks itself depending on the read values from the sensors, so manual overclocking is pretty much useless in most cases.
At first, we would like to thank XFX for sending out a sample of their Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB GDDR6 RAW II Ultra video card for testing and reviewing.
“XFX dares to go where the competition would like to but can’t.
That’s because, at XFX, we don’t just create great digital video components—we build all-out, mind-blowing, performance-crushing, competition-obliterating video cards, power supplies, and computer accessories.
And, not only are they amazing, you don’t have to live on dry noodles and peanut butter to afford them. XFX is a division of PINE Technology Holdings Limited, a leading manufacturer and marketer of innovative solutions for the worldwide gaming technologies market.
Founded in 1989, PINE designs, develops, manufactures and distributes high-performance video graphics technology and computer peripherals. The company’s dedicated research and development team are continually pushing the limits to meet the demands of the ever-growing and performance-driven community.
Headquartered in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR), PINE has more than 1,000 employees worldwide with 16 offices around the globe. PINE also maintains four state-of-the-art research and development facilities in the Asia Pacific region and two factories in Mainland China.”
XFX Zero DB Auto Load Sensing Fans - Power when you need it and quiet when you don't.
XFX fans are equipped to run at the highest possible performance, while our Zero DB Fan System will also keep your fans running at efficient RPM in order to minimize annoying fan noise by lowering RPM all the way down to Zero RPM. When the heat is on during intense gaming, our fans will speed up as needed.
Fidelity FX
FidelityFX is a collection of high-quality post-process effects that automatically collapse multiple effects into fewer shader passes to reduce overhead and free up your GPU for the visceral experience you demand
Ultra HD Support
The XFX RX 5700 XT is built for high-performance and high-resolution gameplay. Experience smooth gameplay performance at 1440p and 4k. With support for 8k you are ready for Next-Gen displays. See everything in mind blowing detail without sacrificing performance.
Radeon Freesync
Radeon Freesync 1 and FreeSync 2 HDR2 take full advantage of Radeon RX 5700 series, bringing gamers the best stutter and tear-free gaming experience with higher refresh rates, lower latency, and 10-bit HDR, available on over 700 monitors.
Gaming RDNA Architecture
RDNA architecture is engineered for the next generation of high-performance gaming. It’s the DNA that powers your games, the DNA that brings your games to life, the DNA that keeps evolving, the DNA that brings your games to life.
Intuitive Gaming Features
AMD Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition gives you more control over your gaming experiences. The software's intuitive interface enables players to stream, share and tweak graphics settings in real-time without missing a second of the action or compromising in-game performance.
Seize your gaming victories with easy streaming capabilities of Radeon™ ReLive
Work smarter and cooler with Radeon™ Chill — dynamically helping save power while gaming
Tailor your gameplay with custom profiles and enhance your PC performance with Radeon™ Wattman
Tailor preferences without having to leave your game with Radeon™ Overlay
Get Day-0 driver support and more
AMD VR Ready Premium - For extraordinary virtual reality experiences.
Experience the new generation of compelling Virtual Reality content with the Radeon™ graphics card paired with the leading VR headsets. The Radeon™ card coupled with AMD LiquidVR™ technology delivers a virtually stutter-free, low latency experience, essential for remarkable Virtual Reality environments. Industry leading innovation and powerful performance enables the Radeon™ to deliver premium experiences on high-end VR games, entertainment, and applications.
XFX LED LOGO
Light up your case and show your XFX pride. Our bright XFX LED not only looks great and shows off your awesome rig, it also lets others know that this isn't some average off the shelf scrub computer, this is a hard-core gaming computer powered by the best graphics card on the market You play like a pro and your system looks just as professional.
Latest Display Connections
Radeon™ GPUs with the Radeon architecture support HDMI® 2.0b and DisplayPort™ 1.4 w/ DSC for compatibility with a new generation of monitors that would make any gamer excited: • 1080p @ 240Hz
• 1440p @ 240Hz
• 4K @ 120Hz
• 1440p ultra-wide @ 190Hz
• 8k @ 60Hz
XFX 3 Year Warranty - Giving you the performance you have come to expect from XFX.
Even though we trust that our high-quality products will continue working at peak performance well beyond your use of it, we want to put our word behind that promise. That is why we offer our 3 Year Warranty with this series of graphics cards. This means that your product is protected by a 3-year limited hardware warranty on manufacturing defects of anything on the card.
The XFX card does incorporate the latest NAVI GPU from AMD, manufactured at a 7nm node and meant to go head-to-head with Nvidia’s mainstream-to-high-end offering: RTX 2070, including the latest Super model. The card does also feature 8GB of GDDR6 memory, that should be enough for most games at 2560x1440 up to 4K resolutions. For the new NAVI architecture, we are no longer seeing a GCN implementation, but RDNA (Radeon DNA), while the cards are also PCIe Express 4.0 hardware compatible. When discussing about the 5700XT, it has got 2560 active shader processors, and while the Base operating Clock is set as 1730MHz, the Game Clock can go up to 1870MHz, while the absolute maximum frequency is set up to 1980MHz. The Game Clock term is a bit confusing and is described as the expected run frequency when running typical gaming applications, set to typical TGP (Total Graphics Power).
The RX 5700 XT is the fully-enabled chip, including 64 ROPs and 160 Texture units in terms of architecture details; the RX 5700 XT 8GB GDDR6 RAW II Ultra from XFX runs with the memory at the stock settings (14 Gbps), which renders a total bandwidth of no less than 448GB/s.
The card is shipped inside a medium-sized cardboard enclosure, with a photo of the card cooling system on the top layer, together with a list of highlights and supported technologies:
In order to clear up a bit of confusion, XFX includes the explanation of the Game Clock right on the packaging, near the sticker with the internal code name and serial number:
On the side of the box, we will also learn of the minimum system requirements, but also get a list of box contents:
On the back, we will get some explanations regarding the new RDNA architecture, but also the supported features:
After removing the top packaging, layer, we will end up with a very simple cardboard box:
Inside, we will first get to see an envelope that contains the bundle:
Under it we do have the card present, along with some extra leaflets:
The previously mentioned envelope basically includes two adapters, that would be used if your power supply does not have the necessary PCI-E power connectors:
The installation guide does instruct the user on how to perform the installation and get everything working as fast as possible:
Besides the cardboard enclosure we have mentioned, the board is also wrapped inside an anti-static bag:
In order to keep the card and cooling system in pristine condition, the manufacturer has also used a transparent film on the cooling system and on the backplate, both needing removal before the first use:
The cooling system is covered by a large, stylish plastic shroud and two 100mm fans that are pre-programmed to also feature Zero RPM mode:
In the middle, each fan does feature a chromed XFX logo:
The massive heatsink system does mean that the card occupies more than two slots inside the case:
When looking from the side, we can see the complexity of the shroud design; a metallic-grey colored middle plastic layer does imitate aluminum, whole the bottom black piece is made of real aluminum, that also reinforces the PCB:
Here are also two close shots that show the three layers:
The card area that is visible in operation on most systems with a lateral case window does also feature a LED-lighted XFX logo:
On the I/O, we have three DisplayPort 1.4 ports but also one HDMI 2.0b; the metallic shroud also comes with a nice XFX logo, so people will know that you are packing in your system an XFX video card even if the inside of the system is not easily accessible for viewing:
The whole back area of the PCB is covered by a large aluminum sink, with, guess what, another XFX subtle logo in the middle:
The top right corner houses a small sticker with some additional information:
The part of the sink that cools the NAVI GPU is secured with four spring-loaded screws, one of which being covered by the warranty sticker:
The board needs power from one PCI-E 8-pin connector, but also one PCI-E 6-pin one; nearby we have a BIOS switch that is initially set in “Performance mode”, the other position being “Quiet mode”:
By removing the top cooling system, we can take a look at the cards’ PCB; only the metallic frame remains in place, that requires the disassembly of some additional screws:
The GDDR6 memory ICs are manufactured by Micron and carry the D9WCW code; from the factory, these are designed to run at the stock frequency of 1750MHz (14Gbps effective rate):
On this card we do have a two-phase design for the memory VRM, controlled by the NCP81022 IC:
The 7-phase VRM in charge of the GPU is controlled by an IR35217 controller from International Rectifier:
Near the PCI-E power connectors, we have two unused headers:
The dual-fan plus XFX LED-lighted logo are powered by a single 4-pin header:
The BIOS switch we did discuss about before can be also spotted nearby:
The cooling system is well-thought and is split in two different radiators; the 4x 6mm composite heatpipes travel from the GPU area to the rads, where heat is expelled thanks to the large 100mm fans:
The memory interfaces with the cooling plate via thermal pads:
The card installation into the test system was a snap; surprisingly, the card is not as heavy as some may suspect (judging by its overall size):
The white XFX logo looks nice in front:
Blue LEDs are also present near the PCI-E power connectors:
CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail
CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming
RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4
Video: currently tested VGA card
Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W
SSD: OSilicon Power P34A80 PCIe 3x4 M.2 2280 1TB
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
With the help of the GPU-Z utility, we could extract lots of information regarding the video card clocks,memory type, pixel and texture fill rate and so on:
To receive more in-depth information regarding the GPU, we have used the AIDA64 utility:
For monitoring the temperatures while in load with GPU-Z, we did enable logging and started a complete run of Time Spy Extreme. With this run, we have seen GPU core not exceeding 72 degrees Celsius, only the memory temperature nearing 90 degrees Celsius. The VRM temperature kind of trails the progress of the GPU temperature curve:
For getting the temperature averages during multiple runs, we have used the HWINFO64 utility and enabled the Time Spy Extreme stress testing (5 runs). During very stressful tools such as this one, more heat can accumulate inside the case and we can see ASIC power spikes up to 239W, but the core still remains at good temperature levels. A maximum boost clock can be also observed as being 2076Mhz. During the runs, the ambient temperature was 27 degrees Celsius:
Before measuring out the noise the video card was producing, we have first measured the noise inside the room the tests took place and we found out it was 28.4 dBA (with everything turned off).
At all times, the sound meter was placed 20cm near the video card.
The GPU fan was controlled by the AMD Wattman utility:
Besides building a new test bench in order to avoid platform limitations, we have also modified the software suite and it now includes updated games, but also synthetic benchmarks.
3DMark is a computer benchmarking tool created and developed by UL, (formerly Futuremark), to determine the performance of a computer's 3D graphic rendering and CPU workload processing capabilities. Running 3DMark produces a 3DMark score, with higher numbers indicating better performance. The 3DMark measurement unit is intended to give a normalized mean for comparing different PC hardware configurations (mostly graphics processing units and central processing units), which proponents such as gamers and overclocking enthusiasts assert is indicative of end-user performance capabilities.
Superposition benchmark continues the line of GPU benchmarks by UNIGINE used by tens of millions of people around the world. Superposition is a new-generation benchmark tailored for testing reliability and performance of the latest GPUs.
Gears of War 4. Gears of War 4 is a third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition and published by Microsoft Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. It is the fifth main installment in the Gears of War series, and the first mainline entry not to be developed by Epic Games.
Forza Horizon 4 is an open world racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios. It was released on 2 October 2018 on Xbox One and Microsoft Windows after being announced at Xbox's E3 2018 conference. The game is set in a fictionalised representation of the United Kingdom.
Mankind Divided is set in 2029, two years after Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The Deus Ex series is set in a cyberpunk future rife with secret organizations and conspiracies, including the Illuminati.
Strange Brigade is a third-person shooter with a huge emphasis on cooperative gameplay. In the game, the player assumes the role of an adventurer in the 1930s and can team up with three other players to fight against different mythological enemies like mummies, giant scorpions and minotaurs.
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Similar to its predecessors, Far Cry New Dawn is an action-adventure first-person shooter set in an open world environment which the player can explore freely on foot or via various vehicles. The game is set in the fictional Hope County, Montana and uses a reimagined version of Far Cry 5's map.
The game is set in 431 BC, four hundred years before the events of Assassin's Creed Origins. It recounts a secret fictional history set during the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between the city-states of Greece.
Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter game with survival horror and stealth elements. ... The game features a mixture of linear levels and sandbox environments. It also includes a dynamic weather system, a day-night cycle, and environments that change along with the seasons as the story progresses.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game in which players control Lara Croft, who is on a quest to discover the legendary city of Kitezh.
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be.
Explore breathtaking new environments, encounter exotic new races, master exciting new jobs, and fight alongside prominent characters with the new Trust system as you embark on a new journey as the Warrior of Darkness! With over 16 million adventurers worldwide, join the next chapter and become what you must.
For Honor is an action fighting game set during a medieval, fantasy setting. Players can play as a character from three different factions, namely the Iron Legion (Knights), the Warborn (Vikings), and the Dawn Empire (Samurai).
With the 210W Performance BIOS, the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB GDDR6 RAW II Ultra card can deliver quite a bit of performance, while keeping the temperatures at bay and the noise at decent levels. As we have seen with the latest Ryzen processors, the GPU overclocks itself depending on the read values from the sensors, so manual overclocking is pretty much useless in most cases.
The employed cooling system is beefy, with two 100mm fans and occupies over two slots; in order to maintain a good cooling performance, the expelled heat must be always removed by the airflow inside the case, so it won’t get recirculated. While browsing and also when watching multimedia content, the fans will remain off but if the user launches a game or another 3D software, the clocks will ramp up and so will the fans.
When using a 1440p display, this card has no issues delivering over 60fps in most titles at maximum details; surprisingly, some titles are quite playable at 4K resolutions as well, even if the card is not marketed in this regard.
The card pricing falls in-line with the other brand offerings that feature custom cooling solutions for the 5700XT, and to be more exact 467 Euros.
We would like to thank again to XFX for making this review possible!