MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming X review

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Final words and conclusion

.final words

I like this Gaming X much better than I did while testing the Evoke, as the latter one was just too noisy IMHO. The Gaming X resets that benchmark, not only is it the fastest 5700 XT (by narrow margins), it also is a nice looking product with proper acoustics. As stated in the reference reviews already, NAVI sits at the Vega performance level. That makes this architecture sound and working. The realm AMD is sitting in performance-wise with the RX 5700 series is the non-Super models 2060 and 2070 with exceptions here and there. Then there is, of course, the discussion on how relevant you find hardware-accelerated Raytracing and Tensor support. Most of you don't care at this time, but much like anything in the tech industry, everything will evolve, and AMD positioned itself to be smack down in the middle of that next step in the gaming evolution. By not offering at least RT support, their trump card really needs to be pricing and proper shader-based gaming performance. 



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.performance

I'll generalize both the 5700 and 5700 XT here, both show good, in fact, super (pardon the pun) strength at Quad HD resolutions in that 2560x1440 realm of resolutions. Games like Battlefield V will make you aim, shoot and smile. As always comparing apples and oranges, the performance results vary here and there as each architecture offers advantages and disadvantaged in certain game render workloads. Battlefield V and Metro: Exodus skyrockets for NAVI. So you'll be seeing wins and losses in perf compared to team green. AMD has got the right amount of graphics memory applied, the right type this time as well as 8GB GDDR6 graphics memory running over that 256-bit bus at 14 Gbps, is done right. The new architecture does show strength and IPC increase, especially seen from Polaris the results are pretty amazing. However, that statement has no merit, as they are not priced the same region. Realistically the XT card makes good sense in the Wide Quad HD space (monitor resolution of 2560x1440) and can even properly handle games at 3840x2160 (Ultra HD). Result vary per game title though. 

.pricing

The XT reference models are priced at 399 USD for the reference model. The AIB custom premium boards should be roughly 25~50 bucks more expensive, but we need to wait and see how things pan out with availability, as that has an extensive effect on street prices. Even today we're not even sure if there will be heaps of volume for these cards available. MSI is inserting the card at 449 USD / 405 EUR (ex. VAT) into the market (that is an MSRP and not street price).

.cooling & noise levels

The Gaming X model tops out at roughly 69 Degrees C while gaming. That's quite normal for Radeon 5700 XT (NAVI10) so yeah, not bad at all, the acoustics I'd rate a good. We measured 36 DBa under gaming load, and while you may hear a tiny bit of airflow it is a silent acoustic level. We heard no coil whine, however as always, any graphics card that reaches 200+ FPS can make a bit of whine, you'll often heat such a thing in the in-game menu etc. Btw we rated the card as silent, but if you need it to be even more silent, through the MSI Dragon APP, you can select a silent mode, at the cost of a bit of performance. We know how everybody feels about software applied tweaks and acoustic modes, ergo we test out of the box performance. 

.energy

The TDP for this XT we measure to be roughly 254 Watts. That number varies a bit per game title, workload, resolution and even refresh rate of course. It's a substantial wattage, especially compared to the competition's products in the same performance bracket however, MSI does offer the fastest tested card here. 


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.conclusion

Yes, I can finally hand out a well deserved recommended award towards a 5700 XT. We have to face the fact that NAVI10 is difficult to tame beast, the XT simply put shows a sharp curve thermal curve as you approach and exceed the 200w mark with Navi, and only the biggest and most badass cooler can deal with that. For those that wonder, MSI will also offer a non-Gaming X (called just Gaming), that card has a little less board power allowance but will be cheaper with the same design and cooler. I say this because the factory tweaks on NAVI10 do not yield heaps of extra performance. Manual tweaking wise open up that power limiter, give it a bit of a bump in frequency and you'll easily gain extra perf with a manual tweak in a ~2050 MHz domain. The memory can be tweaked, but again is limited by AMD to a max value of 950 MHz (= 15.200 GHz effective data-rate). These cards behave well in the normalized 2560x1440 range of resolutions, but with some titles, perf can cave in where at others it takes a lead. Whether or not this performance is justified at the recommended retail prices, I don't know and we'll have to wait and see how that pans out but the EVOKE should be priced very close to the reference MSRP. The card comes with a proper 8GB of GDDR6 memory. Really, that's exactly right and what these products it get. Games like Battlefield V manages to pull roughly 110 FPS on average in WQHD for the XT. That's 80 FPS for Shadow of the Tomb Raider and 100 FPS in Far Cry: New Dawn. These are good values at such monitor resolutions and remember we always apply the better if not best, relevant image quality settings. With cooling, the somewhat average noise levels and looks addressed the rest all boils down to performance and sheer pricing. The XT does perform well in many games, and a bit less in others. As such pricing will be so important as NVIDIA has some very competitive 2060/2070 Super cards available as well. And whether you like or disklike RT and DLSS, it does come as an extra added benefit to fool around with. In closing, MSI offers one of the more attractive XT cards currently available. If the price is a good chunk better we'd recommend the non-X model, so just the Gaming version as it's the same hardware and cooler, pretty much offering the very same performance. Opposed to the EVOKE, this cooler is showing good acoustics, good performance, and a nice new aesthetic design. pricing we're not 1005 user of what it'll do in stores, but if that is acceptable as well, we can really recommend the MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming (X).


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