Introduction
The original review for this card was posted on the day of the announcement of the RTX 30-series and around that time, prices for the RTX 20-series cards were dropping like flies. That put any Radeon card at a significant value disadvantage. Today, AMD is releasing their Radeon RX 6000 cards but while get first glimpse into the performance of those cards, I’m updating this review to pit it against the RTX 30 series cards namely the RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and the RTX 3070. Most of these cards place above the RX 5700 XT but given the current pricing of the RX 5700 XT, the now-discounted surplus of post-RTX 30 cards still have to go somewhere and with majority of gamers still not giving much care about raytracing, a high-performance card like the RX 5700 XT sits on a perfect place especially with its current pricing.
In this review we’ll take a look at the Sapphire NITRO+ RX 5700 XT 8G. Many of you have seen this card before in our RTX 30 series reviews, disrupting what appears to be an all-out NVIDIA performance proving that this card still has what it takes to take on the latest and great. I really don’t partake in the “Fine Wine” legend that has perpetuated for AMD cards as its more a assumption that show possible incompetence for AMD’s driver development team than anything else and that is very unfair to them. Let’s take a closer look at how a custom-cooled RX 5700 XT really performs versus the new hotness.
Quick Specs
- 8GB 256-Bit GDDR6
- Core Clock 1770 MHz
- Boost Clock 2010 MHz
- 2 x HDMI 2 x DisplayPort 1.4
- 2560 Stream Processors
- PCI Express 4.0 x16
This review will focus primarily on comparative performance but please refer to the conclusion for a more detailed breakdown. For those of you that I share my region with which is the Philippines, I’ll be sharing some pricing breakdown for a more definitive reference for your buying needs.
Sapphire Nitro+ 5700 XT | RTX 2080 Ti FE | RTX 3080 FE | RTX 3070 FE | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Architecture | RDNA | Turing | Ampere | Ampere |
Stream Processors/ CUDA Cores | 2560 | 4352 | 8704 | 5888 |
Boost frequency | 2010 Mhz | 1635Mhz | 1710 MHz | 1725 MHz |
Memory | 8GB GDDR6 | 11GB GDDR6 | 10GB GDDR6X | 8GB GDDR6 |
Memory bus | 256-bit | 352-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit |
Closer Look
Sapphire’s Nitro cards feature the Nitro cooler which is the company’s high-end enthusiast custom card line which can be compared to their older Toxic line in terms of tiering. The card uses a fresh redesign of the older Nitro cards, this time around sporting a black and silver theme with a muscular cooler that I’m excited to see how it tames the Navi chip inside.
The card features RGB lighting on the backplate area and on the side but the fans themselves are not RGB illuminated. Its a nice approach and keeps the card subtle yet still somewhere customizable. It does make vertically mounting the card a rather dull display as the fans don’t have light or anything.
Power Draw, Clock Speed and Temperature
We’ll switch things up and open with the power and temperature behavior of the graphics card first. We use Final Fantasy XV Benchmark to simulate a gaming workload but for those looking extreme loads, we do put our cards through Kombustor on first installation for stress testing to check for stability. For our reviews though, we use Final Fantasy XV to simulate a true gaming scenario. Power draw is captured inline via PCAT or Powenetics so no other components affects readings. Readings are taken from the average 15 min idle readings for both load and idle.
Let’s take a look at clock behavior versus temperature:
I had to stretch the table here to show you the dips we have down to 1200Mhz. These dips seem to align to scene transitions in the scene but regardless these are momentary and the run itself doesn’t show any stuttering. With regards to temperature, we see the card idle at 42*C as the charts above show so running our workload we see the temperatures climb from 42 to 67*C. The temperature reading the the average taken from a continuous workload of 15 mins. Overall, this is great to see and Sapphire did a great job tuning their fans while keeping the card cool.
Test Setup and Methodology
Processor: Intel Core i9 10900K
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3600 32GB
Storage: WD Blue SSD 1TB SATA
PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1050w
Cooling: Corsair H150i Pro 360mm AIO
Monitor: ROG PG27UQ 4K 144hz HDR1000
VGA: Listed
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.
Test results are gathered and produced on CapFrameX. This makes it easier for use to get both line graph comparison and raw averages without extra tools. Simply the easiest tool for benchmarking and its available for everyone to use, free of charge. Check it out at capframex.com.
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)
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: FPS Benchmark Workshop Map
- The Witcher 3 – Woesong Bridge
- Grand Theft Auto V – Palomino Highlands
- Rainbow Six: Siege – Benchmark Mode
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Kuwaq Yaqu
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019 – Fog of War
- Monster Hunter World: Iceborne – Wildspire Waste
- F1 2020 – Benchmark Mode
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.
You can click on any of the benchmark charts enlarge. You can also move forward and backwards to quickly navigate through our charts via gallery view. For this test, only the out-of-box normal mode will be tested.
Kindly let me know if you spot an errors in the charts. I do my best to keep them error free but while test results are reliable and accurate, bringing them over to Excel and relying on formulas to generate the reports sometimes can cause mix-ups.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, popularly known as CSGO, competes for Steam’s most popular game. It has found a resurgence in its popularity and has recently peaked in 2020 in the number of players that play the game. Based on Valve’s Source Engine, the game received major asset overhauls during the years since its inception nearly 10 years ago. Still, it’s a light game and can be played on fairly lighter systems but the competitive scene for CSGO has seen average players demand high FPS from their systems thus gaining favorable standing with GPU vendors just from the demand for higher FPS alone. CSGO is a game that can easily go past 500FPS on enthusiast systems on maximum settings. We’re including CSGO as requested by our community.
API: DirectX9 (default)
Maximum In-Game Settings
Texture Streaming Disabled
Vsync OFF
DOTA 2
Note: JUNE 2020 – DOTA2 has recently implemented a transition from DirectX9 to DirectX11 and new install of the game will prompt users to switch from DX9 to DX11. With that said, we are testing DOTA2 in DX11 from now on.
In contention for 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. This is a game where frame times matter as responsiveness is very important in high-stakes competition. We’re looking at consistently low frametimes in this game for the best experience
Our test uses actual game replay, using the segment from game 5 of the Kiev Major 2017 Grand Finals between OG and VP. The clash during the 54:05 to 55:05 of the game is a nice example of how much a system will get punished during intense team fights in DOTA2.
You can watch the replay of the actual game used in the benchmark here in Youtube or download the replay file here for your DOTA2 client: Game 3149572447. (save it to your DOTA2 replays folder)
API: DirectX11 (default)
Best-Looking slider setting (Ultra)
FPS_MAX 240
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.
API: DirectX 11
Ultra Settings
Anti Aliasing: TAA
Ultra HD Texture pack not installed
Ambient Occlusion: SSBC
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. This game has found great resurgence in its playerbase thanks to the release of Netflix’ Witcher series.
API: DirectX 11
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
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.
Our benchmark uses a run from Palomina Highlands running through a lush area to a remote road all the way to a neighborhood in our car to simulate multiple scene changes.
API: DirectX 11
FXAA Off
MSAA 4x
TXAA Off
Very High settings
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Motion Blur disabled
Advanced Graphics enabled
Vsync OFF
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
API: DirectX 12
Graphics Settings Preset: Highest
Texture Quality: Ultra
Texture Filtering: 8x Anisotropic
Anti-Aliasing: TAA
DLSS: OFF
Raytraced Shadow: OFF
Vsync OFF
Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019)
Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a reboot of the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare storyline, set in a different world where you, along with Captain Price have to stop the world from going to war. Call of Duty Modern Warfare reignites the franchise by introducing full crossplay support where Xbox and PS4 players can play together with PC players. On PC, the game features a new engine pushing photorealism for COD far beyond what their older engine is capable of. The new engine also introduces raytracing and the AI is designed to perceive light as well. With a revitalized multiplayer arena, the game will require fast frame rates.
API: DirectX 12
Render Resolution: 100%
Texture Resolution: High
Texture Filter Anisotropic: High
Particle Quality: High
Tessellation: All
Shadow Map Resolution: Extra
Particle Lighting: Ultra
DirectX Raytracing: OFF
Ambient Occlusion: Both
Anti-Aliasing: Filmic SMAA T2X
World Motion Blur: Off
Vsync: OFF
Shaders Installed before benchmarks*
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
Easily Capcom’s most successful game to date. Available in both consoles and PC, Monster Hunter World ranks in Steam’s top played games for the platform. The 2020 Iceborne update for PC brings the game to new PC frontier, introducing DirectX 12 support. The game features rich graphical detail settings and an Ultra HD texture pack for highend gamers. MHW’s features fast-paced action with traditional RPG farings and has captured a new market thanks to the transition from portable.
Our benchmark for this game uses an expedition track in the Wildspire Waste Southwest Camp (Area 1) and finishes in the Rathian nest at Area 12 in the caves. This run gives us runs from barren area, to watery area with lush vegetation to a cave which replicates the varied nature of exploration and monster combat in MHW.
API: DirectX 12
Graphical Settings: Manual (customized from High)
All variable settings set to High
Image Quality: High
Anti-Aliasing: TAA
Max LOD Level: No Limit
Volume Rendering Quality: High
Motion Blur: Off
DLSS and AMD FidelityFX: OFF
F1 2020
The latest iteration of the F1 series from CodeMasters features support for DirectX 12 as well as more photorealistic graphics than ever. Now heavily featured in the official F1 esports scene, much attention has been given in the development of this game particularly for added realism.
API: DirectX 12
Settings: Ultra High
Vsync: OFF
Conclusion
In the original version of this review, we compared it to the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2070. Priced at Php28000 back then versus the higher priced RTX 2070 Super, the only argument for the RTX 2070 Super was if you were in favor of the NVIDIA software ecosystem or use raytracing.
As of this posting, the Radeon 6800 and 6800 XT has been released and prices for the Radeon 5700XT and the entire 5000-series Radeons are dropping in prices. With NVIDIA already clearing their RTX 20 series stocks, the AMD is looking to do the same and for those that want to scoop up these deals, a refreshed look is definitely a good reference hence why I re-did this review.
The charts shows us that the RTX 30 is indeed more powerful and the Radeon 6000 is promising two-fold performance leap from the RX 5700 XT. The challenge for both new-gen cards is supplies. AMD and NVIDIA are both suffering from volumes and its going to be hard to see these cards in the wild. For the rest of us though, the sale prices of the 5700XT is a great relief particularly if AMD’s supply issue causes massive price surges.
As it is, if you don’t need NVIDIA Broadcast and its WFH or streamer benefits as well as raytracing then the Radeon RX 5700 XT is a great option and with Sapphire offering an excellently-built 5700 XT with their Nitro + model, its a great choice for value-oriented gamers.
PCHUB currently lists the Sapphire Nitro+ RX 5700 XT at Php22990, a compelling price particularly for brands that are still yet to drop their prices for their RTX 2060. The Sapphire Nitro+ RX 5700 XT crushes the 2060 Super and is a pure gaming performance option for anyone looking to jump to 1440p or go faster in 1080p. Sapphire did a great job with the build quality as well and should satisfy a lot of gamers.
Sapphire backs the Nitro+ Radeon RX 5700 XT with a 2-year warranty. We give it our B2G Silver Award!
- Quiet operation
- Excellent build quality
- Great RGB placement
- BIOS Switch
- Price drop (post Radeon 6000 launc)
- 2-year warranty lower than competition