ISSUE 380|COMPUTER SHOPPER|OCTOBER 2019 19
IT’STAKENSEVENyearsand fivesub-
generations, but AMD has finally replaced its
creaking Graphics Core Next (GCN) GPU
architecture.With the release of both the
Radeon RX 5700 XT and the Radeon RX
5700, the vanguard of AMD’s Navi family of
graphics cards, the new RDNA architecture,
takes over.
This is,frankly,atleast ayear overdue:
while Nvidia has been wowing the
technology world with the real-time ray-
tracing and AI-powered anti-aliasing
capabilities of its latest Turing GPUs, AMD
has only been able to cough out acouple of
underwhelming Vega and Polaris cards: the
overpriced Radeon VII and the poorly timed
Radeon RX 590. However,the switch to
Radeon DNA (RDNA)atlast gives AMD the
chance to truly catch up,much as its Ryzen
CPUs closed the gap with Intel.
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Both the RX 5700 XT (on test here) and the
cheaper RX 5700 (page 31) use the same
underlying GPU; the RX 5700 XT simply has
more of its hardware switched on. That means
ahigher stream processor –inother words,
core –count of 2,560, as well as higher base
and boost clock frequencies of 1,605MHz and
1,905MHz respectively.The RX 5700 XT also
has 40 computeunits, essentially clusters of
stream processors, while the RX 5700 has
only 36. Both have the same 8GB of GDDR
memory,running at amaximum memory
bandwidth of 448GB/s in both cases.
It should be noted that, at least
conceptually,RDNA doesn’t represent quite
as big ajump from GCN variants such as
Vega and Polaris as Turing did from Nvidia’s
old Pascal architecture.The switch to GDDR
RAM from HBM2 is one of afew changes
that are worth mentioning, without getting
exceedingly technical. There are no massive,
headline-grabbing special features in terms
of what these cards can do; instead, AMD
has focused on greatly improving efficiency,
pushing the cards to do more within each
clock cycle,with aview to boosting core
gaming performance.
In other words, there’s nothing like
ray-tracing or DLSS on offer here,but since
both of Nvidia’s tentpole technologies are
still somewhat lacking in support from game
developers, competitive performance could
well be all that AMD needs.
That’s especially true when even the more
premium Radeon RX 5700 XT is so much
more affordable than its closest Nvidia
equivalent. Both manufacturers have been
engaged in some corporatemind games in
the build-up to the Navi launches. Nvidia
has attempted to throw water over the
fireworks by surprise-unveiling its RTX
Supercards,slightlyfaster versions of
GeForce RTX20-series. Anticipating this,
AMD intentionally announced the Navi
cards with higher prices than would be
implemented at launch, encouraging Nvidia
intokeeping its own prices higher.
Now,having hit shelves at £329 rather
than the expected £379,the RX 5700 XT is
£70 cheaper than the RTX2070 it originally
aimed to rival, and ahefty£146 cheaper
than the RTX2070 Super that Nvidia hoped
would overshadow it.OVERTAKING MANOEUVRES
What’s more,AMD’s bait-and-switchhas
fully paid off in its favour.While our
benchmark testing shows it to be only on
roughly equal terms with the RTX2070,
which means it almost certainly won’t
outpace the RTX2070 Super,the fact that it
hits such parity while being significantly
cheaper makes it an attractive proposition.
To throw it in at the deep end, let’s start
with our most difficult benchmark game,
Metro: Last Light Redux. Running the Very
High quality preset at 1,920x1,080 with SSAA
enabled, the RX 5700 XT averaged aslick
96fps –2fps faster than the RTX2070. It was
ahead by the same amount at 2,560x1,440,scoring 56fps, while both cards were dead
even at 3,840x2,160 with 26fps. The RX 5700
XT still has impressive 4K capability,as
switching off SSAA gave us amuch smoother
52fps without aclear loss in visual fidelity.
Next up was Tomb Raider,running at
Ultimatequality with FXAA switched on. At
1080p,the RX 5700 XT came within asingle
frame of the RTX2070, averaging afantastic
199fps, but it was at 1440p where AMD’s card
got its first big win, with 166fps to the RTX
2070’s 130fps.Sure, at such high framerates
it canbehardertoperceive differences, but if
you’re luckyenough to have a240Hz monitor,
then this will help you make the most of it.
The RX 5700 XT also came out ahead at 4K,
with amore than playable 67fps.
Dirt Showdown is becoming ever less
useful fortesting high-power GPUs, as its
heavy reliance on the CPU typically causes
bottlenecking once you get to the higher
frame rates. Case in point, with Ultra quality
and 4x MSAA, the RX 5700 XT scored 111fps