GRAPHICSCARDS
74 JANUARY2020|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE383
THESECONDANDmore expensive offfAMD’s
2019 GPUs is the full,unshackled Navi
experience:it’s the same underlyingprocessor
as theRX5700 with none of thehardddware
switched off.That means ahigher strrream core
count of 2,560,aswellashigher baseeeand
boostclock frequenciesof1,605MHzzzand
1,905MHzrespectively.
The RX 5700XTalsohas 40 commmpu
units, essentially clusters of stream
processors, while the RX 5700only has36.
Both have thesame 8GBofGDDR6 66 memory,
however, runningatamaximummemory
bandwidth of 448GB/s in both cases.
FRESHSTARTS
When it launched afew months ago,these
specswere enough to make theRX5700XTa
clearvictorover its then-rival theGTX 2070.
The arrival of the RTX2070Super complicates
matters, if you’re lookingspecifically in the
lower-high-end regionofgraphicscards, but
AMD’s card weathers this more powerful
challenger well.
Forone thing, it’salot cheaper.We’re
testingthe reference design,which you can
buy directlyfor £329 from AMD –£211less
than the Zotac-madeRTX 2070Super model
on page78. Partner versionsofthe RX 5700
XT are also generally more affordable,evenif
theycommonly landcloser to £400.
Second, the performancedifference isn’t
particularly wide,and even when it is clearly in
the RTX2070 Super’s favour, it’s not quite to
the extent that you’dexpect that extra money
to buy you. The RX 5700XTisstill averygood
performer, at 1080p and 1440p especially: in
Metro: LastLight Redux,itmanaged96fps
and58fps at theserespectiveresoluuutttiiiooonnnsss.
4K was toomuch on max settings, with
performancedroppingto26fps, but thiswas
quicklyraised to 52fps by turningggoff SSAA.
To give due credit to theRTX 2070 Super, i
came out ahead by between4fp (at 4K) and
11fps(at 1440p), whichcould be lightly
noticeable,althoughinDirt Showdown, the
two GPUsran aboutthe same.Te 570
XT produced 111fps at 1080p, 111fp
1440pand 103fps at 4K, which wwwa
worstjust3fps behindthe RTX2
Super. Again, the biggest differen
came at 4K,althoughthe RX 570 XT
shows it canhappilyrun older oress
intensive games at this resolutiooo
without the need to lower anyseeettings.
It could manage Tomb Raiderrrat 4K
as well, averaging 67fps –more ttthan
AMD RadeonRX
5700XT
★★★★★
£329•From shop.amd.cccom
VERDICT
AmuchmoreaffordableRTX2070Suppper
alternativefor1440pand4K
enough forsmooth
visuals, and only8fps
behindthe RTX2070 Super.
PPPurelyyynumerically, the Nvidia GPU
achieved muchhhhhhiiighhheeerrrfffrrraaammmeeerrratesat1080p –
the RX 5700XTproduced199fps to the RTXXX
2070Super’s 230fps –but not only would
you needanimmensely expensive 240Hz
monitor to show these in action,you’dneed
superhuman vision to perceive ameaningful
difference.What’s more,the RX 5700 XT
managed to becomethe faster of thetwo at
1440p,with an excellent 166fps.
Lastly, the RX 5700 XT attained aperfect
score of 11 in theSteamVRPerformance Test.
This card willtherefore runany VR game on
the market, at high quality, for90fps or higher.
This, however,bringsusontoacertain oddity:
AMD is amember of the VirtualLink
Consortium, an organisation promotingthe
VirtualLink connectivity standard forVR
headsets, yet there’s no VirtualLink port on
the RX 5700XT’s reference design.
RADEON GAGA
In any event, the RX 5700 XT finally delivers
somethingwehaven’t really seensincethe
GTX 1070: a4K-ready graphics card forless
than£350.The RTX2060 –which,
iiinnnttteeerrreeessstttiiinnnggglllyyy, aaalllsssooolllaaaunchedat£ 329 was
another 1440pcontender that could handle
4
re capable of suchahighresolution
without having to dropquality settings,
except in the most demanding games.
The bigcatch,itwould seem,isthe lackof
special features, or at leastthoseonthe same
iiimmmpppaaaccctttlevelasray-tr ng andDLSS.Radeon
Image Sharpeningisgennneeerrraaallllllyyywwwooorrrttthturning
on if youcan: it’s afilter that addsamodest
sharpeningeffecttopartsofin-game scenery
that might otherwise look softorblurred.
Whilethe performance costisnegligible,
however,itdoesn’toutrightimprove
performance as DLSS does,and currently
there’snosupport forDirectX 11,making
uncountablegames incompatible.
As we say, however,bothDLSSand
ray-tracing have support issues of their own,
so if you’re happyeithertowait or justto
ignore allthese bells andwhistles entirely,
the RX 5700XT’scoreperformance
shouldn’t be any less appealing.
HOTBLOODED
The only other disappointment with thisGPU
–or, at least, this specific model–isthe
blower-stylecooler. It’s noisy,for one thing: we
measureditat53dbfrom adistanceof15cm,
whichisalmostasloudasiftherewas a
person inside speaking to you. Despitethis, it’s
notthatgrrreeeaaatttaaasssaaacccoooooollleeer: idletemperatures
satatahigh 60°C, while hanging around80°C
under load and peaking at 82°C.
Zotac’s RTX2070 Suppper cooler is much
ch rand quieter,whhgoessomeway
toward aking th her price more
tol bl 57 0 XXXTis, conversely,
mo p cient,geeenerallyusing around
180W load compaaared to the RTX2070
Sup 15W,although we’d givethat up in
exchangefor be ercooling.
Nonetheless,the RX 5700 XT
the big erbargain of thetwo
PUs.If ouonly want to playat
por 4 40p, the RX 5700is
cheaper and almost as
apable, ut at £329 the RX
00 XT emains agreatbuy for
ose w wantanextra kick.
