AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (reference) review - Test Environment & Equipment

Test Environment & Equipment

Here is where we begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you our test system plus the software we used. We test on two platforms, older benchmarks will remain to be tested at the Intel setup whereas new benchmarks are conducted at a Ryzen platform. Over time offer benchmarks will fade out, and will be replaced with the AMD Ryzen platform.

Mainboard

ASRock Z390 Taichi Ultimate - Review
ASUS X570 Crosshair VIII HERO - Review

Processor

Core i9 9900K (8c/16t) @ defaults - Review
Ryzen 9 5950X (16x/32t) @ defaults - Review

Graphics Cards

• Radeon 6700 XT (AMD reference)

Memory

32 GB (4x 8GB) DDR4 3600 MHz

Power Supply Unit

850 Watts Platinum Certified Corsair RM850X - Review

Monitor

4K UHD Monitor at resolutions 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160

OS related software

Windows 10 64-bit
DirectX 9/10/11/12 End-User Runtime (Download)
AMD Radeon Software Driver 21.3.x (Download)
NVIDIA GeForce Driver / 461.xx (Download)

A Word About "FPS"

What are we looking for in gaming, performance-wise? First off, obviously, Guru3D tends to think that all games should be played at the best image quality (IQ) possible. There's a dilemma though, IQ often interferes with the performance of a graphics card. We measure this in FPS, the number of frames a graphics card can render per second, the higher it is the more fluently your game will display itself.

A game's frames per second (FPS) is a measured average of a series of tests. That test is often a time demo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game and its gameplay experience. After forcing the same image quality settings; this time-demo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be.

• So if a graphics card barely manages less than 30 FPS, then the game is not very playable, we want to avoid that at all cost.
• With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain graphically intensive parts. Overall a very enjoyable experience. Match the best possible resolution to this result and you'll have the best possible rendering quality versus resolution, hey you want both of them to be as high as possible.
• When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS on average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smoothly at every point in the game, turn on every possible in-game IQ setting.
• Over 100 FPS? You either have a MONSTER graphics card or a very old game.

Monitor Setup

Before playing games, setting up your monitor's contrast & brightness levels is a very important thing to do. I realized recently that a lot of you guys have set up your monitor improperly. How do we know this? Because we receive a couple of emails every now and then telling us that a reader can't distinguish between the benchmark charts (colors) in our reviews. We realized, if that happens, your monitor is not properly set up.

What Are You Looking For?

• Top bar - This simple test pattern is evenly spaced from 0 to 255 brightness levels, with no profile embedded. If your monitor is correctly set up, you should be able to distinguish each step, and each step should be visually distinct from its neighbors by the same amount. Also, the dark-end step differences should be about the same as the light-end step differences. Finally, the first step should be completely black.
• The three lower blocks - The far left box is a black box within the middle a little box a tint lighter than black. The middle box is a lined square with a central grey square. The far-right white box has a smaller "grey" box that should barely be visible.

You should be able to distinguish all small differences, only then is your monitor set up properly contrast and saturation wise.