Custom PC – October 2019

OVERALLSCORE

83

PERFORMANCE

32 / 40

FEATURES

12 / 20

VALUE

39 / 40

AMDRadeon

RX 5700

REVIEWS / GRAPHICS CARDS

£351-£400

NvidiaGeForceRTX 2060 Super

/£380incVAT

SUPPLIERscan.co.uk

Thisis wherethewaterstartstogetmuddy.AMD’s

RadeonRX 5700 XTis undoubtedlyfasterthanthe

RTX 2060 Superinmostgames,andit coststhesame

amountofmoney.However,atthispriceweexpectsome

futureproofing,andAMD’slackofhardwareraytracing

hurtsit here.WhenCyberpunk 2077 comesoutnextyear,

we’regoingtowanttoplayit withraytracingenabled.

Thatsaid,thelineis verythinhere,andwe’vegiven

bothGPUsthesamescore.If yourpriorityis getting

thefastestframeratespossible,AMD’sRadeonRX

5700 XTis a betterbuyalthough,aswiththeRX5700,

ccuu

sstommPPCC

A

PP

ROVE

D

werecommendholdingoutforthird-partycardswith

quietercoolers.If youwantthebestgraphicaleyecandy,

though,theRTX 2060 Superis thecardofchoice.Unlike

itspredecessor,it canhandleraytracingat2,560x 1,440,

andit’sstillplentyfastenoughingamesat2,560x

1,440,evenif it can’tquitecatchtheAMDcompetition.

Nvidia’sFoundersEdition,asusedinourbuildthismonth

(seep76),is ourcardofchoicehereforthemoney,although

thesimilarly-pricedZotacMinicardalsoholdsupwellif the

FoundersEditionis outofstock,orif youwanta smallercard.

OVERALLSCORE

84

PERFORMANCE

33 / 40

FEATURES

17 / 20

VALUE

34 / 40

ZotacGeForceRTX

2060 SuperMini

£300-£350

AMD Radeon RX 5700

/£320 inc VAT

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk

AMD is back with a bang! The Radeon RX 5700 is

significantly quicker than the original GeForce RTX 2060

in almost every test, and it hardly consumes any more

power either. It can’t do hardware ray tracing, but then the

RTX 2060 can only realistically do it at 1080p anyway.

However, the blower coolers on the first Radeon RX 5700

cards are horribly noisy – we recommend holding out for

third-party cards with quieter coolers before purchasing.

Which card

should I buy?

Now that we’ve got a good snapshot of the graphics
card landscape, here are Custom PC’s graphics
card recommendations for various budgets

£401-£500

Nvidia GeForceRTX 2070 Super

Interestingly, the RTX 2060 SuperandRadeonRX 5700

XT have basically made the original RTX 2070 redundant.

You can get faster performance for less money from the

AMD card, and there’s little you can do with the RTX 2070

that you can’t now do with the RTX 2060 Super. That

means there’s now a £100 gap between budgets before

you get an appreciable difference for your money.

As such, the current king of the sub-£500 price league is

clearly the RTX 2070 Super. It races through games at 2,560

x 1,440, and it can even handle 4K gaming if you don’t mind

dropping to frame rates in the mid-30s. Most importantly, it

also has plenty of ray-tracing power, nearly hitting a 60fps

minimum in Battlefield V with High DXR at 2,560 x 1,440.

We recommend buying Nvidia’s Founders Edition

of this card, which costs £475 inc VAT. Nvidia’s cooler is

superb, and the small overclock on the Palit Game Rock

card doesn’t do enough to justify the price difference.

The Game Rock card is also needlessly massive.

Super

cc

uuss

tommPP

CC

A

PP

ROVE

D

cc

uuss

tommPP

CC

A

PP

ROVE

D