At first, we would like to thank XFX for sending out a sample of their Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB GDDR6 THICC III Ultra video card for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About XFX:

 

“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

 

The AMD Radeon™ RX 5600 XT graphics card powers high-fidelity gaming for immersive explosions, physics, and lighting effects, bringing realism to life. The RDNA architecture was engineered to greatly enhance features like FidelityFX, Radeon™ Image Sharpening, and Integer Display Scaling for maximum performance and beautiful gaming experiences.

 

Ultra HD Support

 

The XFX RX 5600 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 Freesync2

 

Take your gaming experience to the next level with higher response times. Features like AMD FreeSync™ technology, Radeon™ Anti-Lag and Radeon™ Boost deliver stutter-free, tear-free, highly responsive gameplay.

 

EXTREME GAMING DNA

 

The AMD Radeon™ RX 5600 XT graphics card is designed for the ultimate 1080p gaming experience. Turn up your settings for higher fidelity and boost gaming performance for higher frame rates with ultra-fast response times. Get the power of the highly acclaimed RDNA architecture, the heart of AMD’s advanced 7nm technology process,as well as GDDR6 high-speed memory and PCI® Express 4.0 support, delivering a highly responsive, ultimate 1080p gaming experience.

 

Intuitive Gaming Features

 

AMD Radeon™ Software Adrenalin 2020 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™ Performance Tuning

Tailor preferences without having to leave your game with Radeon™ Overlay

Get Day-0 driver support and more

 

AMD Integer Display Scaling

 

Play classic games and relive the retro experience by scaling on-screen images from one pixel to four pixels (or more) to deliver a retro-like visual gaming experience.

 

Radeon™ Boost

 

Radeon™ Boost delivers added performance and fluidity when fast motion via mouse input is detected, dynamically lowering resolution of the entire frame to allow for higher FPS with little perceived impact to quality.

 

Latest Display Connections - ready for the latest displays

 

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.

 

 

At CES, AMD has debuted with another midrange video card, the RX 5600 XT, aimed for gaming at 1080P resolutions and with an interesting twist; while the initial pricing of the card was done to counteract the GeForce GTX 1660Ti from Nvidia and position itself between the RX 5500XT and the RX 5700, Nvidia have done an unexpected move by re-releasing their GeForce GTX 2060 at a lower price than before. This action really mixed up AMD’s plans so the last moment decision was to increase both GPU and memory clocks in order to compete and win over the GTX 2060 instead. This move was not done in the right moment, because a lot of cards were already shipped to the distributors with the old clocks, so each customer must read the extra info and flash the new BIOSes themselves.

 

Before the announcement, the XFX AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB GDDR6 THICC III Ultra video card has had 1495MHz clock as Base, the memory ran at 1500MHz, while the total Boost clock was rated at 1620MHz. The new final BIOS did raise the Base clock to as much as 1660MHz, with a Boost of 1750MHz, while the memory remained at the same clocks.

 

The card features 36 CUs which translates into 2304 SPs, 144 Texture Units, 64ROPs, while the memory bus was shrinked to 192-bit. The GPU name is Navi 10 XLE, manufactured on 7nm at TSMC, while the total memory quantity is 6GB, enough for most titles at FHD, while running at maximum details.

 

XFX AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB GDDR6 THICC III Ultra has arrived in a medium-sized cardboard enclosure and on the top area we will get to see some of the product highlights such as the video outputs, supported technologies, total memory quantity and supported PCIe bus:

 

 

 

The manufacturer did not forget to mention that we are dealing with a pre-overclocked SKU by including a separate Ultra sticker:

 

 

 

On one of the sides, we will note an additional sticker with the product internal code name but also the serial number:

 

 

 

Nearby, XFX does list the minimum system requirements, along with the box contents:

 

 

 

On the back, we will get to see some explanations regarding AMD-specific technologies such as FreeSync2 HDR, FidelityFX, Image Sharpening or Anti-Lag:

 

 

 

After removing the top packaging layer, we will end up with a plain cardboard box, that holds a subtle XFX logo in the middle:

 

 

 

After opening the box, we will get to see an additional cover:

 

 

 

Underneath, we will find some documentation, but also the card, that is wrapped inside a black bubble bag:

 

 

 

The documentation includes a notification regarding the driver location on the Internet, but also a Quick Start Guide / Warranty Card:

 

 

 

For the users that do not have the necessary PSU connectors, XFX has included an 8-pin and a 6-pin adapter cable connection as well:

 

 

 

The Guide includes general information regarding the cards’ installation:

 

 

 

As we have seen with the RX 5700 XT 8GB Ultra THICC III, the Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB GDDR6 THICC III Ultra does feature a massive heatsink that has been even more optimized than before. The plastic elements, but also the backplate are covered in a thin plastic film, to avoid any incidents during transit:

 

 

 

The card does come with a professional look, without any weird designs on the top shroud; we are dealing with two fan sizes: the ones from the sides are 90mm, while the middle one is 100mm, featuring ZeroDB Fanstop Technology:

 

 

 

In the middle of the fans we will find a metallic sticker with the XFX logo:

 

 

 

 

 

One interesting aspect to notice is that the RX 5600 XT THICC III Ultra cooling system is much slimmer than before, by occupying only two slots inside the case:

 

 

 

In the back, we will be able to take a glimpse over the internal heatsink and heatpipe terminations:

 

 

 

The new THICC III Ultra frame does also have additional cut-outs for a better airflow, XFX naming it “enhanced open-air design”:

 

 

 

On the bottom we do have a large backplate, that houses a large XFX middle logo:

 

 

 

Near the 8+6-pin PCIe power connectors, we will also spot the Dual BIOS switch:

 

 

 

On the I/O, we will find three DisplayPort 1.4 HDR ports and one HDMI 2.0b:

 

 

 

Removing the heatsink assembly is a pretty simple process; we need to remove the spring-loaded screws around the GPU, the two screws in the VRM area but also two screws that are fixed to the plastic frame in the back:

 

 

 

In the middle we will get to see the Navi 10 GPU, which is surrounded by only 6 memory packages:

 

 

 

Nearby we will be able to spot the NCP81022 controller from OnSemi which takes care of the dual-phase memory VRM:

 

 

 

The MOSFET drivers are OnSemi 302045:

 

 

 

The memory packages are manufactured by Micron and have the D9WCW internal code name. These are approved to operate at 1750MHz, so 14Gbps GDDR6 effective is possible with this board via manual overclocking:

 

 

 

Here is a closer shot between the I/O area and the memory compartment:

 

 

 

Also, here is how the 6-phase GPU VRM is positioned:

 

 

 

A large portion of the PCB is mostly empty in the right area and only holds the power connectors, along with the BIOS switch and the fan power header:

 

 

 

 

The revised cooling system does hold 4x6mm copper composite heatpipes, which travel from one side to the other of the radiators:

 

 

 

The GPU and memory plates are 100% made of copper, while the pads have an enhanced formula over the ones we have seen along with the 5700XT series:

 

 

 

 

Here are some additional shots of the cooling system:

 

 

 

Test Setup

 

CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming

RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4

Video: currently tested VGA card

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: Silicon Power P34A80 PCIe 3x4 M.2 2280 1TB

Case: Cooler Master HAF 922

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:

 

 

 

 

Temperature tests:

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 63 degrees Celsius, while the memory has also remained at very safe values of 74 degrees Celsius. The VRM temperature monitoring was not possible with the latest version of GPU-Z.

 

 

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 at the same time we can see ASIC power spikes up to 137W. A maximum boost clock can be also observed as being 1736Mhz. During the runs, the ambient temperature was 23.5 degrees Celsius:

 

 

 

Noise measurements

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 29.5 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

 

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.

 

Time Spy

Time Spy Extreme

Port Royal

Fire Strike Ultra

Fire Strike Extreme

Fire Strike

Unigine Superposition

 

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

Details: Ultra

 

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

Details: Ultra

 

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.

 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Details: Ultra

 

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

Details: Ultra

 

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.

 

Hitman 2

Details: Ultra

 

Sniper Assassin mode brings a co-op experience to the Hitman series for the first time, allowing two players to work together online to take down their targets as Stone And Knight. ... Ghost Mode is a brand new game mode for HITMAN 2 that introduces competitive multiplayer for the first time ever in the franchise!

 

FarCry New Dawn

Details: Ultra

 

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.

 

 

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Details: Ultra High

 

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

Details: Ultra

 

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

Details: Very High

 

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.

 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Details: Highest

 

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.

 

Final Fantasy XIV ShadowBringers

Details: Maximum

 

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

Details: Extreme

 

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 release of the Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB GDDR6 Ultra THICC III, XFX has refined the cooling system quite a bit and now we do have a card that only occupies two slots, remains cool during maximum load and at the same time the fans remain at very low noise levels. Even though the card runs with the memory at 12Gbps, the used packages are rated at 14Gbps, so we have some overlocking headroom for sure in this regard, while the GPU reaches nearly 1750MHz boost clock in Time Spy Extreme, as the manufacturer intended. XFX and AMD themselves have intended to recommend this card for 1080P resolutions while gaming, but we have seen situations when this card can handle 1440P resolutions at around 60FPS in some titles, without exceeding 140W package power.

 

 

 

The 5600XT shares many hardware specifications with the regular 5700, minus the memory bus; the cards come with a total of 6GB of GDDR6, which is enough for up to 1440P when using medium to high details.

 

At the time of the review, the XFX AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB GDDR6 THICC III Ultra video card could be found online for about 319 Euros.

XFX AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB GDDR6 THICC III Ultra Video Card is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to XFX for making this review possible!