The Wccftech Test Bench
AMD showcased some impressive performance uplifts with its first outing of the RDNA 2 graphics architecture in the form of Big Navi but those cards are aimed at the ultra-enthusiast segment. It's time now that AMD focuses its efforts on the sub-$500 US segment with its second RDNA 2 Navi-based GPU, the Navi 22.
The 2nd Generation RDNA 2 architecture delivers an impressive leap in performance per watt while offering a range of new features. Now, these features and the same performance uplift are coming to the mainstream segment in the form of the Radeon RX 6700 series graphics cards which we will be testing today.
The AMD RDNA 2 architecture for its Big Navi Radeon RX 6800/RX 6900 & mainstream Radeon RX 6700 series graphics cards has a lot to offer. In addition to architectural enhancements, you can expect hardware-accelerated ray tracing, smart access memory, Infinity Cache, and a lot more features on-deck which make the lineup one of the most competitive enthusiast families that AMD has ever positioned against NVIDIA.
Some of the main features for the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards include:
- AMD Infinity Cache – A high-performance, last-level data cache suitable for 4K and 1440p gaming with the highest level of detail enabled. 128/96 MB of on-die cache dramatically reduces latency and power consumption, delivering higher overall gaming performance than traditional architectural designs.
- AMD Smart Access Memory – An exclusive feature of systems with AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processors, AMD B550 and X570 motherboards, and Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards. It gives AMD Ryzen processors greater access to the high-speed GDDR6 graphics memory, accelerating CPU processing and providing up to a 13-percent performance increase on an AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card in Forza Horizon 4 at 4K when combined with the new Rage Mode one-click overclocking setting.
- Built for Standard Chassis – With a length of 267mm and 2x8 standard 8-pin power connectors, and designed to operate with existing enthusiast-class 650W-750W power supplies, gamers can easily upgrade their existing large to small form factor PCs without additional cost.
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT "Navi 22 XT" GPU Powered 12 GB Graphics Card Specifications
The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT will come packed with the Navi 22 XT GPU which is the full-fat SKU featuring 40 Compute Units or 2560 SPs. The card will also feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 192-bit bus interface, a 384 GB/s total bandwidth, and clock speeds of 2321 MHz base and 2581 MHz boost at reference specs. The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT also packs 40 Ray Accelerators which are dedicated to real-time raytracing workloads. The card will feature a based TBP of 230W with factory-overclocked models pushing it above 250W.
In addition to the standard memory, the Radeon RX 6700 series graphics cards will also feature 96 MB of Infinity Cache on the GPU die. The cache will help boost bandwidth for higher performance at resolutions beyond 1080p HD. The 96 MB Infinity Cache boosts the standard 384 GB/s bandwidth by 3.25x, delivering an effective bandwidth of up to 1.248 TB/s across all Navi 22 GPU-based graphics cards.
In terms of performance, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is shown to compete against the GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card. The card features a 10 higher total board power & delivers better GPU performance in several AAA titles using the best API (Vulkan / DirectX 12). AMD is also bringing its Rage-mode back which is an automatic overclocking tool within its Radeon Software suite that delivers even higher performance along with a nifty new feature known as Smart Access. Gains of up to 13% were showcased with the said features as can be seen below.
So for this review, I will be taking a look at the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT reference edition that will be available from AMD for the MSRP of $479.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series "RDNA 2" Graphics Card Lineup:
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6800 | AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6700 | AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6600 | AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6400 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Navi 21 KXTX | Navi 21 XTX | Navi 21 XT | Navi 21 XL | Navi 22 KXT | Navi 22 XT | Navi 22 XL | Navi 23 KXT | Navi 23 (XT) | Navi 23 (XL) | Navi 24 (XT) | Navi 24 (XL) |
| Process Node | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 6nm | 6nm |
| Die Size | 520mm2 | 520mm2 | 520mm2 | 520mm2 | 336mm2 | 336mm2 | 336mm2 | 237mm2 | 237mm2 | 237mm2 | 107mm2 | 107mm2 |
| Transistors | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion | 17.2 Billion | 17.2 Billion | 17.2 Billion | 11.06 Billion | 11.06 Billion | 11.06 Billion | 5.4 Billion | 5.4 Billion |
| Compute Units | 80 | 80 | 72 | 60 | 40 | 40 | 36 | 32 | 32 | 28 | 16 | 12 |
| Stream Processors | 5120 | 5120 | 4608 | 3840 | 2560 | 2560 | 2304 | 2048 | 2048 | 1792 | 1024 | 768 |
| TMUs/ROPs | 320 / 128 | 320 / 128 | 288 / 128 | 240 / 96 | 160/64 | 160/64 | 144/64 | 128/64 | 128/64 | 112/64 | 64/32 | 48/32 |
| Game Clock | 2116 MHz | 2015 MHz | 2015 MHz | 1815 MHz | 2495 MHz | 2424 MHz | 2330 MHz | 2410 MHz | 2359 MHz | 2044 MHz | 2610 MHz | 2039 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 2324 MHz | 2250 MHz | 2250 MHz | 2105 MHz | 2600 MHz | 2581 MHz | 2495 MHz | 2635 MHz | 2589 MHz | 2491 MHz | 2815 MHz | 2321 MHz |
| FP32 TFLOPs | 23.80 TFLOPs | 23.04 TFLOPs | 20.74 TFLOPs | 16.17 TFLOPs | 13.31 TFLOPs | 13.21 TFLOPs | 11.50 TFLOPs | 10.79 TFLOPs | 10.6 TFLOPs | 9.0 TFLOPs | 5.7 TFLOPs | 3.5 TFLOPs |
| Memory Size | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 12 GB GDDR6 + 96 MB Infinity Cache | 12 GB GDDR6 + 96 MB Infinity Cache | 10 GB GDDR5 + 80 MB Infinity Cache | 8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache | 8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache | 8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache | 4 GB / 8 GB GDDR6 + 16 MB Infinity Cache | 4 GB GDDR6 + 16 MB Infinity Cache |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 160-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 64-bit | 64-bit |
| Memory Clock | 18 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 18 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 17.5 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 18 Gbps | 14 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 576 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 432 GB/s | 384 GB/s | 320 GB/s | 280 GB/s | 256 GB/s | 224 GB/s | 144 GB/s | 112 GB/s |
| TDP | 335W | 300W | 300W | 250W | 250W | 230W | 220W | 176W | 160W | 132W | 107W | 53W |
| Price | $1099 US | $999 US | $649 US | $579 US | $549 US | $479 US | TBD | $399 US | $379 US | $329 US | $199 US | $159 US? |
In case you want to read our full AMD RDNA 2 GPU architecture deep dive and Radeon RX 6800 XT reference model review, head over to this link.
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Box and presentation
The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT comes packaged nicely in closed-cell foam to protect the card on its arduous journey from around the world to your doorstep. It's presented similarly to the higher-end RX 6000 Series but not quite as premium as expected with its cut back pricing but still done in a classy way that is improved over the past.
The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is a relatively large card but only in length, and quite light. It still fits within a two-slot design package and doesn't carry extra width like its higher tier Navi 21 bigger brothers. This time we're getting a pair of fans rather than a triple fan reference cooler.
Those two fans are the same as what you got on the reference Radeon RX 6800 and 6900 Series and continue the legacy of providing fan-stop technology on the reference models. This is a very welcome feature as it can cut noise and long term dust accumulation on the heatsink.
The rear of the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is adorned with a solid chunk of aluminum that makes up the very attractive backplate. There are no cutouts allowing for airflow, no lights on it either, just a simple and lightly decorated painted solution with a recessed 'R' stamped into it.
Power connectors include 8-pin + 6-pin connectors to feed the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT's rated 230w TDP and its 11 phase power design. You're not going to find a dual vBIOS switch on the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT which was missing on the bigger Navi cards, a feature that seems to have gone the way of the dodo for AMD's reference cards in a post Vega world for their higher tier solutions.
Rear I/O on the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT are much more akin to what you've likely grown to expect from modern graphics cards. AMD has ditched the Type-C connector like we see on the reference RX 6800 and 6900 Series cards so far and replaces it with a third Display Port and from where I'm standing it was likely a good move.
The cooler on the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is toned down from the 6800 Series and no longer features a robust vapor chamber but instead now uses a heat pipe + fin solution. And to reiterate, we're down a fan and the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT only features two axial fans. That all combined still delivers good thermals, even if it is a bit warmer operating than even the Radeon RX 6800.
Popping the backplate off reveals that the PCB is slightly shorter than the full heatsink assembly, this almost makes me wish the card had been made slightly shorter. There are also no thermal pads on the backside of the PCB, and while the card runs fine thermally this seems like a missed opportunity to utilize the backplate for additional cooling and not just for aesthetics, perhaps that's something I can test out later.
We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
*Note on Resizable BAR. The GeForce RTX 3060 marks the beginning of the rollout for NVIDIA with Resizable BAR support. With Radeon supporting it through Smart Access Memory and my test bench is fully compliant with both, going forward this feature will be enabled through the testings. So in this review and future reviews, it will be noted that the results are with that feature enabled.
Test System
| Components | X570 |
|---|---|
| CPU | Ryzen 9 5900X (stock) |
| Memory | 32GB Hyper X Predator DDR4 3600 |
| Motherboard | ASUS TUF Gaming X570 Plus-WiFi |
| Storage | TeamGroup Cardea 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 |
| PSU | Cooler Master V1200 Platinum |
| Windows Version | Latest verion of windows at the time of testing |
| Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling | On if supported by GPU and driver. |
| Smart Access Memory/Resizable BAR | Enabled. |
Graphics Cards Tested:
| GPU | Architecture | Core Count | Clock Speed | Memory Capacity | Memory Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 | RDNA2 | 3840 | 1815/2105MHz | 16GB | 16Gbps |
| AMD RX 6700 XT | RDNA2 | 2560 | 2424/2581 | 12GB | 16Gbps |
| NVIDIA RTX 3070 FE | Ampere | 5888 | 1500/1730 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti FE | Ampere | 4864 | 1410/1665 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| AMD Radeon RX 5700XT | RDNA | 2560 | 1605/1755/1905 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| NVIDIA RTX 2060 SUPER | Turing | 2176 | 1470/1650 | 8GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
Drivers Used
| Drivers | |
|---|---|
| Radeon Settings | Press Drivers |
| GeForce | 461.72 |
- All games were tested at 1440p and Ultrawide (3440x1440) resolutions for traditional rasterized games and 1080p and 2560x1440 (QHD) for Ray Traced gaming tests.
- Image Quality and graphics configurations are provided with each game description.
- The "reference" cards are the stock configs.
Firestrike
Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance, in this test we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike which runs at 1440p and 4K and we recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined are not pertinent to this review.
3DMark Firestrike Extreme Graphics
3DMark Firestrike Ultra Graphics
Time Spy
Time Spy is running the DX12 API and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme where we only recorded the Graphics Score as the Physics score is recording the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.
3DMark Time Spy Graphics
3DMark Time Spy Extreme Graphics
Port Royal
Port Royal is another great tool in the 3DMark suite, but this one is 100% targeting Ray Tracing performance. It loads up ray traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination to really tax the performance of the graphics cards that either have hardware-based or software-based ray tracing support.
3DMark Port Royal Score
3DMark Pure Ray Tracing Feature Test
Thermals
Thermals were measured from our open test bench after running the Time Spy graphics test 2 on loop for 30 minutes recording the highest temperatures reported. The room was climate controlled and kept at a constant 22c throughout the testing.
*Hot Spot only reported on cards that feature that monitoring point.
Temperatures (22c Ambient)
Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series. The latest DX12 powered entry is beautifully crafted and amazingly well executed and is a great showcase of DX12 games. We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.
Forza Horizon 4 1440p Ultra
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider, unlike its predecessor, does a good job putting DX12 to use and results in higher performance than the DX11 counterpart in this title and because of that, we test this title in DX12. I do use the second segment of the benchmark run to gather these numbers as it is more indicative of in-game scenarios where the foliage is heavy.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p DX12 Highest
DOOM Eternal
DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan powered idTech 7. We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.
DOOM Eternal 1440p Ultra Nightmare
Watchdogs Legion
Watchdogs Legions sees a return of the Disrupt Engine they've been using since the early days with the original Watchdogs but this time it has been updated to next-generation feature support. Dropping DX11 for DX12 we see much better utilization than in the past. Being one of the recent top sellers it earned a place in our test suite.
Watchdogs Legion 1440p Very High
Call of Duty Modern Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is the latest installment of the Call of Duty Series. Returning with DX12 support just like the Modern Warfare remake we tested this game during the opening of the Fractured Jaw level with the highest settings selected.
Call of Duty Cold War 1440p Highest
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the two major PS4 exclusives that rocked their way onto the PC scene with massive acceptance and sales. Horizon Zero Dawn is powered by the Decima Engine and has been ported to DX12. We used the in-game benchmark to account for performance.
Horizon Zero Dawn 1440p DX11 Maximum
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3 has made its way into the test lineup thanks to strong demand by gamers and simply delivering MORE Borderlands. This game is rather intensive after the Medium preset but since we're testing the 'Ultimate UW 1440p' card, High it is. We tested using the built-in benchmark utility
Borderlands 3 1440p High
Total War Saga: Troy
Total War Saga: Troy is powered by their TW Engine 3 (Total War Engine 3) and in this iteration, they have stuck to a strictly DX11 release. We tested the game using the built-in benchmark using the Dynasty model that represents a battle with many soldiers interacting at once and is more representative of normal gameplay.
Total War Saga - Troy 1440p Ultra
Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series. The latest DX12 powered entry is beautifully crafted and amazingly well executed and is a great showcase of DX12 games. We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.
Forza Horizon 4 Ultrawide 1440P Ultra
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider, unlike its predecessor, does a good job putting DX12 to use and results in higher performance than the DX11 counterpart in this title and because of that, we test this title in DX12. I do use the second segment of the benchmark run to gather these numbers as it is more indicative of in-game scenarios where the foliage is heavy.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider Ultrawide 1440P DX12 Highest
DOOM Eternal
DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan powered idTech 7. We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.
DOOM Eternal Ultrawide 1440P Ultra Nightmare
Watchdogs Legion
Watchdogs Legions sees a return of the Disrupt Engine they've been using since the early days with the original Watchdogs but this time it has been updated to next generation feature support. Dropping DX11 for DX12 we see much better utilization than in the past. Being one of the recent top sellers it earned a place in our test suite.
Watchdogs Legion Ultrawide 1440P Very High
Call of Duty Modern Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is the latest installment of the Call of Duty Series. Returning with DX12 support just like the Modern Warfare remake we tested this game during the opening of the Fractured Jaw level with the highest settings selected.
Call of Duty Cold War Ultrawide 1440P Highest
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the two major PS4 exclusives that rocked their way onto the PC scene with massive acceptance and sales. Horizon Zero Dawn is powered by the Decima Engine and has been ported to DX12. We used the in-game benchmark to account for performance.
Horizon Zero Dawn Ultrawide 1440P DX11 Maximum
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3 has made its way into the test lineup thanks to strong demand by gamers and simply delivering MORE Borderlands. This game is rather intensive after the Medium preset but since we're testing the 'Ultimate UW 1440p' card, High it is. We tested using the built-in benchmark utility
Borderlands 3 Ultrawide 1440P High
Total War Saga: Troy
Total War Saga: Troy is powered by their TW Engine 3 (Total War Engine 3) and in this iteration, they have stuck to a strictly DX11 release. We tested the game using the built-in benchmark using the Dynasty model that represents a battle with many soldiers interacting at once and is more representative of normal gameplay.
Total War Saga - Troy Ultrawide 1440P Ultra
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider, unlike its predecessor, does a good job putting DX12 to use and results in higher performance than the DX11 counterpart in this title, and because of that, we test this title in DX12. I do use the second segment of the benchmark run to gather these numbers as it is more indicative of in-game scenarios where the foliage is heavy. SotTR features Ray Traced Shadows and enabled in the benchmarks with the game set to the 'Highest' preset and RT Shadows at High.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p 'Highest', RT Shadows Ultra
Call of Duty Modern Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is the latest installment of the Call of Duty Series. Returning with DX12 support just like the Modern Warfare remake we tested this game during the opening of the Fractured Jaw level with the highest settings selected.
Call of Duty Cold War 1080p 'High' RT Shadows Enabled
Control
Control is powered by Remedy's Northlight Storytelling Engine but severely pumped up to support multiple functions of ray-traced effects. We ran this through our test run in the cafeteria with all ray tracing functions on high and the game set to high.
Control 1080p 'High', RT Reflections, RT Shadows, DLSS Off
Battlefield V
Battlefield V was one of the earlier games in the RTX 20 Series lifecycles to receive a DXR update. Battlefield V was tested on the opening sequence of the Tirailleur war story as it's been consistently one of the more demanding scenes for ray traced reflections that are featured in this game.
Battlefield V 1080p 'Ultra' RT Reflections, DLSS Off
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus was the third entry into the Metro series and as Artym ventures away from the Metro he, and you, are able to explore the world with impressive RT Global Illumination. RTGI has proven to be quite an intense feature to run. Advanced PhysX was left disabled, but Hairworks was left on.
Metro Exodus 1080p 'Ultra' Ray Tracing 'Ultra' DLSS Off
Watchdogs Legion
Watchdogs Legions sees a return of the Disrupt Engine they've been using since the early days with the original Watchdogs but this time it has been updated to next generation feature support. Dropping DX11 for DX12 we see much better utilization than in the past. Being one of the recent top sellers it earned a place in our test suite.
Watchdogs Legion 1080P Very High + RT High DLSS Off
Boundary
Boundary is a multiplayer tactical shooter...in space. It's not out yet so treat this one as more of a synthetic benchmark as there are likely to be quite a few improvements but for now, we had access to the benchmark and it's a doozy to run. Featuring full raytracing effects for the benchmark.
Boundary 1080p RT Enabled DLSS OFF
Amid Evil
Amid Evil is a high-energy old-school shooter that seems like an unlikely recipient of RT features, but here we are with insane DXR support in a modern retro shooter. Feature RT Reflections, RT Shadows, and NVIDIA's DLSS support we had to put this one through the rounds and see how things went. The RTX version of this game is still in beta but publicly available for those who want to try it. We tested with all RT features on and DLSS disabled.
Amid Evil 1080P RT Reflections, RT Shadows, Lights 100%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider, unlike its predecessor, does a good job putting DX12 to use and results in higher performance than the DX11 counterpart in this title, and because of that, we test this title in DX12. I do use the second segment of the benchmark run to gather these numbers as it is more indicative of in-game scenarios where the foliage is heavy. SotTR features Ray Traced Shadows and enabled in the benchmarks with the game set to the 'Highest' preset and RT Shadows at High. DLSS was used only when labeled.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p 'Highest', RT Shadows Ultra
Call of Duty Modern Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is the latest installment of the Call of Duty Series. Returning with DX12 support just like the Modern Warfare remake we tested this game during the opening of the Fractured Jaw level with the highest settings selected.
Call of Duty Cold War 1440p 'High' RT Shadows Enabled
Control
Control is powered by Remedy's Northlight Storytelling Engine but severely pumped up to support multiple functions of ray-traced effects. We ran this through our test run in the cafeteria with all ray tracing functions on high and the game set to high. DLSS was enabled for this title in the quality setting when it was available.
Control 1440p 'High', RT Reflections, RT Shadows, DLSS Quality
Battlefield V
Battlefield V was one of the earlier games in the RTX 20 Series lifecycles to receive a DXR update. Battlefield V was tested on the opening sequence of the Tirailleur war story as it's been consistently one of the more demanding scenes for ray traced reflections that are featured in this game. DLSS was enabled for this game when available.
Battlefield V 1440p 'Ultra' RT Reflections, DLSS Enabled
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus was the third entry into the Metro series and as Artym ventures away from the Metro he, and you, are able to explore the world with impressive RT Global Illumination. RTGI has proven to be quite an intense feature to run. Metro Exodus also supports DLSS so it was used in our testing. Advanced PhysX was left disabled, but Hairworks was left on.
Metro Exodus 1440p 'Ultra' Ray Tracing 'Ultra' DLSS Enabled
Watchdogs Legion
Watchdogs Legions sees a return of the Disrupt Engine they've been using since the early days with the original Watchdogs but this time it has been updated to next generation feature support. Dropping DX11 for DX12 we see much better utilization than in the past. Being one of the recent top sellers it earned a place in our test suite.
Watchdogs Legion 1440P Very High + RT High DLSS Quality
Boundary
Boundary is a multiplayer tactical shooter...in space. It's not out yet so treat this one as more of a synthetic benchmark as there are likely to be quite a few improvements but for now, we had access to the benchmark and it's a doozy to run. Featuring full raytracing effects for the benchmark as well as DLSS, we ran that in Quality mode when available.
Boundary 1440p RT Enabled, DLSS Quality
Amid Evil
Amid Evil is a high-energy old-school shooter that seems like an unlikely recipient of RT features, but here we are with insane DXR support in a modern retro shooter. Feature RT Reflections, RT Shadows, and NVIDIA's DLSS support we had to put this one through the rounds and see how things went. The RTX version of this game is still in beta but publicly available for those who want to try it. We tested with all RT features on and DLSS enabled.
Amid Evil 1440P RT Reflections, RT Shadows, Lights 100%, DLSS Enabled
Graphics cards and power draw have always been quite synonymous with each other in terms of how much performance they put out for the power they take in. Measuring this has not always been the most straightforward when it comes to accuracy and methods for reviewers and end-users. NVIDIA has developed their PCAT system, or Power Capture Analysis Tool in order to be able to capture direct power consumption from ALL graphics cards that plug into the PCIe slot so that you can get a very clear barometer on actual power usage without relying on hacked together methods
The Old Way
The old method, for most anyway, was to simply use something along the lines of a Kill-A-Watt wall meter for power capture. This isn't the worst way, but as stated in our reviews it doesn't quite capture the amount of power that the graphics card alone is using. This results in some mental gymnastics figuring out how much the graphics card is using by figuring the system idle, CPU load, and the GPU load and estimating about where the graphics card lands, not very accurate, to say the least.
Another way is to use GPU-z. This is the least reliable method as you have to rely entirely on the software reading from the graphics card. This is a poor method as the graphics cards vary in how they report to software when it comes to power usage. Some will only send out what the GPU core itself is using and not consider what the memory is drawing or any other component.
The last way I'll mention is the use of a multi-meter amperage clamp across the PCIe slot by way of a riser cable with separate cables then more power clamps on all the PCIe power cables going into the graphics card. This method is very accurate for graphics card power but is also very cumbersome and typically results in you having to watch the numbers and document them as you see them rather than plotting them across a spreadsheet.
The PCAT Way
This is where PCAT (power capture analysis tool) comes into play. NVIDIA has developed quite a robust tool for measuring graphics card power at the hardware level and taking the guesswork out of the equation. The tool is quite simple to set up and get going, as far as components used there are; a riser board for the GPU with a 4-pin Dupont cable, the PCAT module itself that everything plugs into with an OLED screen attached, 3 PCI-e cables for when a card calls for more than 2x 8-pin connectors, and a Micro-USB cable that allows you to capture the data on the system you're hooked up to or a secondary monitoring system.
Well, that's what it looks like when all hooked up on a test bench, you're not going to want to run this one in a case for sure. Before anyone gets worried, performance is not affected at all by this and the riser board is fully compliant with PCIe Gen 4.0. I'm not so certain about those exposed power points however, I will be getting the hot glue gun out soon for that. Now, what does this do at this point? Well, two options: Plug it into the computer that it's all running on and let FrameView include the metrics, but that's for NVIDIA cards only so a pass, OR (what we do) plug it into a separate monitoring computer and observe and capture during testing scenarios.
The PCAT Power Profile Analyzer is the software tool provided to use to capture and monitor power readings across the PCI Express Power profile. The breadth of this tool is exceptionally useful for us here on the site to really explore what we can monitor. The most useful metric on here to me is the ability to monitor power across all sources, PCIe power cables (individually), and the PCIe slot itself.
Those who rather pull long-form spreadsheets to make their own charts are fully able to do so and even able to quickly form performance per watt metrics. We've found a very fun metric to monitor is actually Watts per frame, how many watts does it take for the graphics card to produce one frame at a locked 60FPS in various games, we'll get into that next.
Control Power
Control was the first game that we wanted to take a look at running at 1440p with RT on, and then again with RT off.
Control 1080p 'High' RT High
Control RT Watts-Per-FPS
Control 1080p 'High' No RT
Control non-RT Watts-Per-FPS
From these results for Control is shows that NVIDIAs measurements and claims of improvements were accurate, but it's not always the case. We tested Forza Horizon 4 in a spot to test the same way again but this time at 1440p and looking at when we target a 1440p60 scene in this game
Forza Horizon 4 1440p Ultra
Watts-Per-FPS
Overclocking the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT was a bit easier than I expected. Loading up Radeon Settings we were easily able to target a core frequency of 2800MHz resulting in a gaming frequency of ~2750MHz up from the ~2550 at stock and the memory we were able to add an additional +2150 for a maximum bandwidth boost to 412GB/s from 384GB/s. The results are respectable for the boost and definitely worth considering taking advantage of if you can grab one of these cards.
Firestrike
Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance, in this test we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike which runs at 1440p and 4K and we recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined are not pertinent to this review.
3DMark Firestrike Ultra Graphics
Time Spy
Time Spy is running the DX12 API and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme where we only recorded the Graphics Score as the Physics score is recording the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.
3DMark Time Spy Extreme Graphics
Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series. The latest DX12 powered entry is beautifully crafted and amazingly well executed and is a great showcase of DX12 games. We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.
Forza Horizon 4 1440p Ultra
Watchdogs Legion
Watchdogs Legions sees a return of the Disrupt Engine they've been using since the early days with the original Watchdogs but this time it has been updated to next-generation feature support. Dropping DX11 for DX12 we see much better utilization than in the past. Being one of the recent top sellers it earned a place in our test suite.
Watchdogs Legion 1440p Very High
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the two major PS4 exclusives that rocked their way onto the PC scene with massive acceptance and sales. Horizon Zero Dawn is powered by the Decima Engine and has been ported to DX12. We used the in-game benchmark to account for performance.
Horizon Zero Dawn 1440p DX11 Maximum
Medium Navi, or better known as the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is finally here and it came in a bit of a weird place when AMD showed it off at their reveal event and the pricing had some folks scratching their heads. AMD has done a pretty good job so far of not lining their cards up directly with their competition this go around and they've done it again with the RX 6700 XT.
The design language of the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is very much in line with the existing RDNA2 cards that have released and I can't help but wonder if down the road we'll get to see this design shrunk down to a single fan solution but I can't overstate how much better of a job these coolers are than what AMD has shipped in the past. I had my concerns with this one dropping the third fan and the vapor chamber, but the results speak for themselves on the much smaller 336mm^2 die of the Navi22 powered AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.
While it does run a bit warmer than the Radeon RX 6800 it's not by much and it doesn't generate any more noise than that card, so it's good and quiet throughout all our gaming sessions.
The performance of this one is a bit weird, and it proves why they priced it the way they did. There are times that the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT does exceed the performance of the RTX 3070 but there are times that it falls behind the RTX 3060 Ti, so it's a fair place to put it somewhere in the middle. While the $479 price point isn't bad, you're getting 12GB after all, it would have been much more of a punch if it had gone for the original asking price of the RX 5700 XT at $449. Something to keep in mind here is that all the performance in this review is using Smart Access Memory, which is available on Zen 3 and Zen 2 parts with supporting motherboards, so without that, you're going to get a bit less performance in some titles.
When the AMD Radeon team gets around to explaining to all of us and showing the world what FidelityFX Super Resolution can do then we're still left with middling DXR performance. Perhaps when that is delivered we'll see the RDNA2 architecture compete better on that front, but for now, RT features on the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT are going to net you bottom of last-gen RTX 20 Series performance without the added benefit of upscaling tech. This explains why AMD mentioned this card is great for those who want to 'try out ray tracing' and didn't say those who want to 'enjoy ray tracing'.
But as it stands, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT delivers an excellent gaming experience for those who care more about that traditional raster performance for now but still want to dabble in the next-generation features. It's nimble, it's fast, and hopefully more available than the cards that launched before it.
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