PCWorld – August 2019

AUGUST 2019 PCWorld 67

GPU gets a solid back edge.

The cards ship with an HDMI 2.0b port and

a trio of DisplayPort 1.4 connections. The

DisplayPorts support Display Stream

Compression 1.2a, which lets the GPU power

fearsome monitors over a single cord, maxing

out at 4K/240Hz, 4K HDR

at 120Hz, and 8K HDR at

60Hz. More significantly,

Display Stream

Compression lets you run

those high-speed 4K HDR

monitors without leaning

on chroma subsampling,

which can affect the

readability of fine text in

some scenarios. Asus

teased the “world’s first

Display Stream

Compression monitor” at

AMD’s E3 event. With 4K,

144Hz speeds and HDR

1000 support, it appears

poised to challenge

Nvidia’s vaunted G-Sync

Ultimate (previously G-Sync

HDR) monitors, like the

superb Acer Predator X27

(go.pcworld.com/pr27).

Finally, the Radeon RX

5700 series introduces a

new version of the Radeon

Media Engine, with better

hardware accelerated

demanding 185 watts of total board power
and the Radeon RX 5700 XT needing 225W.
The Radeon RX 5700 XT ships with a
backplate; the Radeon RX 5700 does not. The
RX 5700 XT includes additional venting at the
rear edge of the card, while the cheaper Navi

The Radeon RX 5700.

The Radeon RX 5700 XT.