MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT Gaming X review - Introduction

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 03/17/2021 03:00 PM [

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MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT Gaming X review

Pitted against the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and 3070, we test MSI's offering of the Radeon RX 6700 XT, specifically the beefed-up Gaming X model. Things once again look good for this product series. Armed with a dual-fan cooler and a fully customized design, MSI is back in da house. Armed with 12GB of graphics memory, will it be enough? In this review, we start an with overview and analysis; we'll be discussing the Radeon Series 6700 XT from AMD that stems from the RDNA2 architecture. It certainly took a while for AMD to release it; back in July 2019, AMD announced the NAVI-based Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT., a product series that ever since has been well respected. The 5700 series does offer some good performance. However, from there onwards, things were pushed back for various reasons like all COVID-19 related, in the world of graphics technology; also a new dynamic was added, Raytracing. Or, I should say DirectX Raytracing (DX-R). NVIDIA was pioneering two years ago with their RTX 2000 series already, and AMD made the call to delay that for the original Navi GPU. As the graphics landscape changed somewhere done the line, so this the roadmap for AMD change. Microsoft and Sony consoles embedded with AMD technology revealed that Ray tracing was going to be supported. And that did set the trend for the desktop graphics card we see announced today as well.

Radeon RX 6700 XT

AMD announced the card at their 'Where Gaming Begins epi3' presentation (March 3, 2021). As earlier indicated, only one NAVI22 SKU is released at this time. The Radeon RX 6700 XT. A Non-XT version may follow at a later date. The RX 6700 XT will be commercially available starting on the 18th of March 2021. Reference cards and customs cards launch on the same date. Navi22 XL, the GPU that resides on the 6700 XT graphics card series has been paired with 12 GB of GDDR6 graphics memory Armed with RDNA2 architecture and 40 CUs this offers 2560 shading processors, the same amount as the Radeon RX 5700 XT, the architecture, however, is much faster. The memory makes use of a 192-bit wide memory bus. The reference boards use 11 phases of power. It will have a base clock of 2321 MHz, a game clock of 2424 MHz, and a boost clock of 2581 MHz. The graphics card features 160 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 40 Raytracing cores for raytracing hardware acceleration. The graphics card is equipped with a high-quality PCB with an 8-pin and 6-pin power connector. The official TDP is listed at 230W.

Desktop
GPU	Stream Processors	RT Cores	Max Boost GPU clock (MHz)	RAM type	RAM volume (GB)	RAM bandwidth (GB/s)	RAM width	TDP (watts)
Radeon RX 6900 XT	5120	80	2250	GDDR6	16	512	256-bit	300
Radeon RX 6800 XT	4608	72	2250	GDDR6	16	512	256-bit	300
Radeon RX 6800	3840	60	2105	GDDR6	16	512	256-bit	250
6700 XT MSI GX	2560	40	2622	GDDR6	12	384	192-bit	230
Radeon RX 6700 XT	2560	40	2581	GDDR6	12	384	192-bit	230
Radeon RX 5700 XT	2560		1605	GDDR6	8	448	256-bit	225
Radeon RX 5700	2304		1465	GDDR6	8	448	256-bit	180
Radeon VII	3840		1400	HBM2	16	1024	4096-bit	300
Radeon RX Vega 64	4096		1247	HBM2	8	484	2048-bit	295
Radeon RX Vega 56	3584		1156	HBM2	8	410	2048-bit	210
Radeon RX 590	2304		1469	GDDR5	8GB	256	256-bit	185

All 6000 cards released by AMD and their board partners will be fitted with GDDR6 memory; the 6700 XT however, sees 12 GB of it. And that means a more bandwidth-limited 192-bit wide memory bus. However, AMD has got that trick up their sleeves architecture-wise, as they added an L3 cache into the GPU. All RDNA2 based graphics processors are DirectX Ultimate compatible, a naming placeholder for extra feature levels such as DirectX Raytracing (DXR), Variable Rate Shading (VRS), Mesh Shaders, and Sampler Feedback.

Pricing

The Radeon RX 6700 XT reference is to cost a rather excessive 479 USD. You can thus expect board partner cards with custom designs and cooling to sit above the 500 even 550 USD marker. At the time of writing, we just cannot make any sense of price levels as where NVIDIA increases pricing, AMD now follows suit. Unfortunately, prices are now at such ludicrous levels that people will flee to consoles far more easily. Traditionally the Radeon RX x700 Series should have been mainstream to high-end product. Coming from the last-gen 5700 XT, AMD increased pricing by 80 USD. By doing so they priced their product close to the GeForce RTX 3070. However, with AMD's Raytracing performance and lack of any form of DLSS/MLSS we can already share that the pricing makes little sense. Hours prior to this review going live, MSI was not willing to share and position this product with an MSRP.

MSI 6700 XT Gaming X

MSI submitted their Gaming X model, and it surely has been revamped compacted to the older 5700 XT model. As you have learned, MSI has released a deck of cards ready for the Radeon RX 6700 XT series. The Gaming X model is a more premium version as well as being the faster one within the product line. The Gaming X has a newly updated style cooler combining a mix of black and gunmetal grey, at the top side (albeit really subtle) some RGB light effects on the outside. The Gaming X is fitted with two Torx (v4.0) fans based on a Zero Frozr design, which means below 60 Degrees C the fans do not spin. The card has a length of close to 28cm and has two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Connectivity-wise, you're looking at three DisplayPort outputs and one HDMI port. MSI also allowing a higher clock frequencies on max boost, 2622 MHz, however an increased power limited makes the card run faster closer to 2700 MHz. We have a lot to talk about, have a peek at what is reviewed today—one the next two pages, some in-house photos, after which we then head onwards into the review.

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