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 SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6700 XT that is said to feature an MSRP of around $579 US so that's a $100 US premium over the $479 US reference MSRP. At this price, you get a dual-fan cooling solution and a factory overclock out of the box.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series "RDNA 2" Graphics Card Lineup:
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6700 | AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6800 | AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Navi 22? | Navi 22 (XL?) | Navi 22 (XT?) | Navi 21 XL | Navi 21 XT | Navi 21 XTX |
| Process Node | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm |
| Die Size | 336mm2? | 336mm2 | 336mm2 | 520mm2 | 520mm2 | 520mm2 |
| Transistors | 17.2 Billion? | 17.2 Billion | 17.2 Billion | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion |
| Compute Units | TBA | TBA | 40 | 60 | 72 | 80 |
| Stream Processors | TBA | TBA | 2560 | 3840 | 4608 | 5120 |
| TMUs/ROPs | TBA | TBA | 160/64 | 240 / 96 | 288 / 128 | 320 / 128 |
| Game Clock | TBA | TBA | 2424 MHz | 1815 MHz | 2015 MHz | 2015 MHz |
| Boost Clock | TBA | TBA | 2581 MHz | 2105 MHz | 2250 MHz | 2250 MHz |
| FP32 TFLOPs | TBA | TBA | 13.21 TFLOPs | 16.17 TFLOPs | 20.74 TFLOPs | 23.04 TFLOPs |
| Memory Size | 12 GB GDDR6? | 6-12 GB GDDR6? | 12 GB GDDR6 + 96 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Clock | 14 Gbps? | 14 Gbps? | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 320 GB/s | 320 GB/s | 384 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s |
| TDP | TBA | TBA | 230W | 250W | 300W | 300W |
| Price | TBA | TBA | $479 US | $579 US | $649 US | $999 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, or a review of the Reference Radeon RX 6700 XT, head over to this link.
SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6700 XT Box and presentation
The SAPPHIRE Nitro+ 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. Not only is the foam soft but it's wrapped in a padded antistatic bag, a good combo for safe travels.
The SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6700 XT is quite a large card but surprisingly light for the weight. You're going to need to plan on having at least 3 open slots to fit this one into as it extends just past that two slots window. The cooler is adorned by a triple cooling solution that has become synonymous with SAPPHIRE's high-end Nitro+ coolers for some time.
In terms of the three fans, you'll see two larger fans that spin counter-clockwise but the center, smaller fan, spins clockwise in an effort to reduce turbulence and noise. While I can't validate acoustic levels the subjective sound signature is incredibly quiet.
The rear of the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6700 XT is adorned with a solid chunk of aluminum that makes up the very attractive backplate. There are ample cutouts at the rear of the cooler to allow for air to flow freely from that back fan through the heatsink like the company has been holding to since the release of the R9 Fury Tri-X way back in the day. the Nitro+ logo on the backplate joins in with the sidebar and logo to feature addressable RGB and even has an aRGB header on the back of the card so you can easily sync up the card to your systems arrangement.
Power connectors include a set of inverted 8-pin + 6-pin connectors to feed the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6700 XT's rated 220w TDP, so it should be well more maintained thermally than the reference card (hint: IT IS). The card does feature a 3-way selectable BIOS with the stock 220w BIOS, a Quiet mode with a reduced 186w BIOS, and a third selection making it possible to switch via software rather than a manual toggle.
Rear I/O on the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT are much more akin to what you've likely grown to expect from modern graphics cards. SAPPHIRE has ditched the Type-C connector like we see on the reference RX 6000 Series cards so far and replaces it with a third Display Port and from where I'm standing it was likely a good move.
Being able to remove the fans from SAPPHIRE cards has been a company staple for some time now and they continue that legacy with the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6700 XT making it super easy to clean your fans and heatsink without having to remove the entire cooler, but also makes for lightning-quick repairs rather than waiting for RMAs over just a fan.
The cooler that SAPPHIRE strapped to the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6700 XT is an absolute unit featuring 6 thicc heatpipes running the length of the heatsink to keep the core a nice and cool temperature without the fans even needing to break a sweat. They also set up a custom VRAM and VRM heatsink mid-plate that gives those components their own finned heat sinks, no wimpy flat or ribbed plate for them.
I would have preferred getting better shots of those components but being a loaner unit we don't disassemble those.
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. |
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 1080p, UW 1080p, and 1440p 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Overclocking the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ 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 2850MHz resulting in a gaming frequency of ~2800MHz up from the ~2575 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If aftermarket Radeon RX 6700 XT cards are more in line with what your heart desires over the excellent reference design this go around then the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 6700 XT will not, on any level, disappoint. SAPPHIRE has done as they always do on each iteration of their Nitro+ lineup and improved on the critiques of the past and kept the elements that made them a staple name.
The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 6700 XT is an exceptional reimagining of an already exceptional gaming card. Big, bold, and bright are just some of the easiest words that come to mind when thinking about how I would describe this model of the RDNA2 based card, but it's still contemporary enough to fit in with almost any modern build.
The effectiveness of the cooler can't really be stated in numbers alone as on paper it looks just as effective as the reference cooler, but the fact that it stays even more quiet, even when overclocked can't be understated. Just by the numbers, this time around it spanks the reference cooler, and it allows for a much easier and much more user-friendly experience when it comes to keeping it clean in the long run.
The performance of the card sits just ahead of that reference experience but with RDNA2's excellent overclock capabilities you'll run out of silicon luck before you run out of power delivery and cooling capabilities, so kudos to SAPPHIRE on their design from that standpoint as well. 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. This card overclocked with ease despite it falling right in the median overclocking range for these GPU cores.
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 that's on AMD not SAPPHIRE, and when they do this card will potentially shine even brighter.
But as it stands, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ 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 big, it's bold, it's beautiful, it's fast, it's certainly an enthusiast product and it's great to see that SAPPHIRE has delivered on their long-standing tradition of quality built components. The only catch is it demands quite the premium, but if you're looking for something closer to MSRP then the SAPPHIRE PULSE RX 6700 XT might be what you're in the market for but it's going to leave a lot of the bells and whistles on the table.
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