Introduction
In this review, we’ll focus on the little brother of the Radeon RX 5700 XT, the RX 5700. Featuring a reduced feature set, this card targets a larger 1080p performance market. A market that heavily focus on more FPS given the large selection of 144hz to 240hz monitor coming out of this range.
The Radeon RX 5700 Series graphics cards is a major leap forward for the company as it is heavily touted to compete with NVIDIA’s mainstream offering but this time come in at a more efficient power envelope than before. Fabbed in 7nm and features AMD’s brand new RDNA architecture as well some driver-level features, AMD is positioning this card in the mainstream, filling in the confusing price point that sees the NVIDIA GeForce 1660 Ti, NVIDIA RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 compete with their older part options, the GTX 1080 Ti and also the Radeon Vega cards.
AMD is focusing on performance foremost and does not introduce any new features and foregoes attempts at real-raytracing whatsoever. Even at its best, NVIDIA has not had any game changing title to champion as its RTX flagbearer and development has just recently picked up. With the larger portion of the market after more FPS above all, it is a smart move from AMD to focus on what’s needed rather than what’s nice. With that said, the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700 target both the RTX 2070 and RTX 2060 at their respective price point. AMD, made an announcement earlier that the previously announced prices of the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700 of $450 and $380, respectively, are now at a lower $400 and $350. This is AMD’s answer to NVIDIA’s release of the RTX Super lineup replacing the RTX 2070 with a more-CUDA core endowed RTX 2070 Super sharing the same TU104 die as the RTX 2080 versus the older RTX 2070 on a TU106 silicon. The RTX 2060 will now live on side-by-side with an RTX 2060 Super that features more CUDA cores and a larger 8GB VRAM on a wider memory bus.
These changes has made the NVIDIA RTX line-up a bit more competitive but from a price-point perspective, AMD has the advantage coming in. Still, what matters is performance and that’s we’re about to look at today. Featuring our new batch of gameplay test suite, we put the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700 to the test in some of the most popular games today.
In this review, we’ll focus on the AMD Radeon RX 5700 . This card goes against the RTX 2060 from NVIDIA. Please see our review of the Radeon RX 5700 XT here.
Unboxing
About the Radeon RX 5700 XT
RDNA Architecture & Radeon Features
Architecture
Most of the changes and improvements that can be seen in the new Radeon RX 5000 series cards are thanks to the introduction of a new architecture. Moving away from GCN, AMD is introducing RDNA featuring a new compute unit design as well as multi-level cache and a more streamlined graphics pipeline. Design cues from the Ryzen chips were poured onto the design of RDNA allowing for a more efficient and faster overall computing than against GCN leading to performance improvement up to 50%.
As we can as well in the slide above, AMD does have plans for realtime raytracing but is still in the development pipeline. AMD will be introducing select lighting effects with a next-gen RDNA and full-scene raytracing via cloud onwards.
Features
AMD is also gearing its cards with an array of driver features including AMD Radeon ReLive, AMD Link, AMD Radeon Chill, AMD Anti-Lag, AMD Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS) and AMD FidelityFX.
We’ll cover some of these in a future review or article. Slides are self-explanatory.
Test Setup and Methodology
Processor: Intel Core i9 9900K
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z390 AORUS MASTER
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3600 16GB
Storage: WD Blue SSD 1TB SATA
PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1050w
Cooling: Fractal Design Celsius S36 AIO Liquid cooler
Monitor: Viewsonic VX2475smhl-4K
VGA: AMD Radeon RX 5700XT, AMD Radeon RX 5700, NVIDIA RTX 2070 Founders Edition, ASUS ROG Strix RTX 2060
For a full-hardware workout, visit https://benchmarks.ul.com for our system warm-up and stress test of choice.
For benchmarking methodology please see our game benchmark method guide.
Frame rates and frame times of a 60-second game play were recorded using FRAPS v3.5.99. The test results are the average of 3 benchmark runs. Since this is a GPU review, we benchmarked the area of the games that put heavy load on the GPU.
All our test runs are repeatable, click the links below for area and details. Read our benchmarking methodology.
- DOTA2 – Kiev Major Grand Finals Game 5: OG vs Virtus.Pro (54:05 – 55:05)
- The Witcher 3 – Woesong Bridge
- Grand Theft Auto V – Palomino Highlands
- F1 2017 – Benchmark Mode (Australia, Clear Weather, Morning)
- Battlefield V – Nordlys
- Rainbow Six: Siege – Benchmark Mode (30 second)
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Kuwaq Yaqu
See our Youtube playlist for benchmark sequences.
Note: Some proprietary technologies of NVIDIA like PCSS, HBAO+, and HairWorks work on AMD GPU’s BUT to maintain uniformity amongst GPUs, these have been turned OFF.
Battlefield V
Powered by DICE’s Frostbite 3 engine, Battlfield V takes the game back to World War II where the game offers a fresh, controversial take on this historic moment. The game retains Campaign mode which looks at various characters’ stories throughout the war. Multiplayer continues some of Batttlefield’s well-known modes but with the trend shifting towards battle royale format shooters, EA has also introduced Firestorm. Battlefield V still retains wide maps as well as mechanized warfare.
DirectX 12
DXR Disabled
Future Frame Rendering Off
Graphics Quality: Ultra
Anti-Aliasing: TAA High
Ambient Occlusion: HBAO
DOTA2
The most popular game on Steam and the biggest competition in eSports; DOTA 2 is powered by the Source 2 engine. The game is fairly light on low to medium settings but maxed out with heavy action on screen especially during clashes can really stress most systems especially with Reborn update. This is a game where frame times matter as responsiveness is very important in high-stakes competition.
DirectX9 (default)
Best-Looking slider setting (Ultra)
FPS_MAX 240
Vsync OFF
F1 2017
Set as the foundation of the Formula One eSports series, F1 2017 is a hallmark installment in the F1 sim-racing series as it expands previously introduced features and creates a great, F1 career simulation experience. The game is powered by EGO Engine 3.0 and features highly detailed cars with exceptional attention to environmental effects including those that simulate road condition and car condition.
Ultra High graphics settings
HBAO+
TAA
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Vsync OFF
Grand Theft Auto V
The fifth and most successful installment to date in the highly controversial Grand Theft Auto series brings a graphical overhaul to the PC version of GTA V which many have lauded as a superior approach in porting a console game to PC. Featuring large areas and detailing, GTA V is a highly challenging application in terms of scene complexity.
FXAA Off
MSAA 4x
TXAA Off
Very High settings
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Motion Blur disabled
Advanced Graphics enabled
Vsync OFF
Rainbow Six: Siege
Nearly 4 years later and Rainbow Six: Siege has become a phenomenon after a lukewarm beginning. The massive shift in focus of the game sees it stepping into eSports territory and the excellent mix of gameplay mechanics, good design and a dedicated dev team has put R6: Siege in a position it couldn’t even picture during launch. Rainbow Six: Siege focuses heavily on tactical and creative gameplay and its vertical levels and highly destructible maps encourage players to be quick on their feet so the action is always going. Powered by Ubisoft’s own AnvilNext 2.0 engine which powers some of Ubi’s recent visual masterpieces, R6:Siege also feature excellent graphics and can get very taxing at high detail settings. The game also features an Ultra HD texture pack download for those that want higher resolution textures but will of course demand more from the system.
Ultra Settings
Anti Aliasing: TAA
Ultra HD Texture pack not installed
Ambient Occlusion: SSBC
Vsync OFF
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
DirectX 12
Graphics Settings Preset: Highest
Texture Quality: Ultra
Texture Filtering: 8x Anisotropic
Anti-Aliasing: TAA
DLSS: OFF
Raytraced Shadow: OFF
Vsync OFF
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
CD Projekt Red’s latest installment in the Witcher saga features one of the most graphically intense offering the company has to date. As Geralt of Rivia, slay monsters, beasts and men as you unravel the mysteries of your past. Vast worlds and lush sceneries make this game a visual feast and promises to make any system crawl at its highest settings.
Frame Rate: Unlimited
Nvidia HairWorks: Off
Ultra Settings
Motion Blur: Off
Blur: Off
Anti-aliasing: On
Bloom: On
Sharpening: High
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On
VSync OFF
Performance Summary
We’ve taken all our performance scores and tallied them together to show you how each cards compares with others.
Temperature and Power Draw
To measure both power consumption and heat, we stress the video card and record the peak values for heat and wattage. We use default values on the cards and stress test them using 3DMark FireStrike Ultra in 20 loops to simulate gaming loads and this is where we also base our power draw. Our AC wattmeter has a USB interface that allows logging of data which gives us a good average of what draw is during the load scenario.
System power draw is measured from the socket. We subtract the idle power draw reading from the load power draw reading to get a good estimate of what the graphics card draws. The reading is an estimated figure and is affected by other factors like PSU efficiency. As our stress load is not a power virus that creates unrealistic and extreme workloads, we take the peak readings from these test and treat them as equivalent to gaming workloads that the products may be subject to.
Thermal Images
Conclusion
Most content of this review pulls from our Radeon RX 5700 XT review as that puts all the data in one place so we’ll leave you with a definitive advise if and should you get this card. The simple answer is yes. It outperforms the RTX 2060 and consumes less power. While going past 1080p shouldn’t be much of a concern, the card does decently in 1440p as well. Ultimately, it boils down to AMD’s choice of cooler again which sees it at an impasse for some folks.
The card gets really warm under load and for gamers that want a long-session gaming card and are conscious of heat output, this may be a turn-off. Even at its price point, potential damage to the card or other part of the system due to the inherent heat output is a concern and something in tropical and warmer climates should take note off. Increasing fan speed may be a solution but the cooler is just so noisy past 70% its just not worth it.
Concerns aside, the Radeon RX 5700 is a great performer considering its price. Should AMD decide to cut prices lower, it should readily win the 1080p value crown as the NVIDIA RTX Super still resides at this price points and is expected to perform just a bit better.
Again, if you’re looking for a card that performs beyond an RTX 2060 but want to save a couple more bucks, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 is a great choice.
1 Comment
I got the gigabyte RX 5700 8gb it’s true its hot but can fixed by simply enabling fan curve in the MS Afterburner does not go beyond 68 degrees no matter what game I play on 68% fan speed noise not an issue since my electricfan is louder & I use heaphone anyways very happy with my purchase. I find it weird though your using a 9900k your hitting 88 fps while im getting 92 fps on shadow of the tomb raider but im only using a ryzen 5 1600 only with the same settings you have on the graphs on 1080p, does SOTR favor amd instead of intel ? Can some other R5 1600 + Rx 5700 user here confirm my findings?