b»graphicscardwars
$629|WWW.AMD.COMAMD Radeon
RX 5700 XT
Welcome competition.
T
he R X 5700 XT
makes use of the
full Navi GPU. Its
2,560 processors
are clearly a massive
efficiency step forward
compared to the much
higher shader count of the
aging Vega architecture.
The card makes use of a
stylish blower style
cooler, but again we feel
it’s a bit too loud for our
liking and we’d rather
wait for the partner cards
which should be cooler
and quieter.
The 5700 XT comes with
a standard set of outputs,
consisting of three DP 1.4
and a HDMI 2.0b port.
Given how much AMD
talked about its power
efficiency gains, we wish it
could have kept this card
under 200W. It certainly
would have helped keep
temperatures under
control as our sample went
up to into the 80s at times.
Performance wise, the
5700 XT gets its nose in
front of the 2060 Super and
isn’t that far behind the
2070 Super, which isimpressive as now it’s
significantly cheaper. If
you’ve got a high end
Freesync monitor, this is
clearly the card to get.
Which card you go for
may come down not to
performance, but whether
things like ray tracing are
important to you. AMD has
its nose in front at its price
points, but still it feels too
high for what are
ostensibly mid-range GPUs.
Navi is a strong start for
AMD. If it can refine the
architecture and perhaps
bring the pricing back to
levels more gamers will
appreciate, then we’re sure
Navi can become a big
success for AMD. But for
Radeon, the ‘Ryzen
moment’ isn’t quite
here yet.Verdic t
The 5700 XT has a lot of potential,
but the reference card is hampered
by its inefficient cooler.$549 | WWW.AMD.COM
AMD Radeon
RX 5700
Reinvigorating the mid-range
GPU marketplace.
T
he R X 5700 uses a
slightly pared
down version of
the full Navi GPU
found in the 5700 XT. It’s
not the first 7nm GPU
(The Radeon VII takes
that honour) but it is the
first to use AMD’s new
RDNA architecture.
Clearly AMD has done its
job as Navi trounces Vega
and AMD feels confident
it can go head to head
with Nvidia given the
relative price increases
over similar Polaris
based R X 500 GPUs.
The R X 5700 makes use
of a blower style cooler.
We understand why AMD
chose to go with this, but
having experienced the
Nvidia Founder’s Edition
cards, we feel that AMD’s
reference coolers are still
too noisy and inefficient.
The incoming partner
cards should address this
and turn the 5700 into the
cool and quiet cards we
want to see. It’s got a
185W TDP which
indicates AMD is trying to
extract performance
rather than go for absolute
power efficiency in an
attempt to compete with
Nvidia. And compete it
does. It’s an excellent
choice of card to pair with a
high refresh rate 1080p
Freesync monitor.
The 5700 isn’t too much
slower than the RTX 2060
Super and with the
pre-launch price drop, it’s
the one we’d choose of the
two, but only from a price/
performance point of view.
AMD still can’t catch
Nvidia in the power
efficiency stakes and it
lacks some key
technologies such as ray
tracing support. If those
things aren’t important to
you, then by all means the
R X 5700 is a good value
performer.Verdic t
The RX 5700 is good value but
partner cards are worth waiting for.AMDRadeonR X5 700, 2304 StreamProcessors
1725MHzBoostClock,8GBGDDR6 14 Gb
Bandwidth,3xDisplaypyPort1.4,1xHDMI2.0b,1x8-Pin,1x6-PinPower
Connector, 18 0WTDP.
Bandw ,
Connector, 22l
ssors 465MHzBaseC
44 Memory
werRadeonR X5 700XT, 2560 StreamProcessors,1605MHzBaseClo
/
Port 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x 8-Pin, 1x 6-Pin Power