The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT Review, Feat. Sapphire Pulse: A New Challenger For Mainstream Gaming
by Ryan Smith on January 21, 2020 9:01 AM ESTThe Test
As is usually the case for launches without reference hardware, we’ve had to dial down our Sapphire cards slightly to meet AMD’s reference specifications. In this case, Sapphire’s secondary (quiet) BIOS offers reference power and memory settings, so for our reference-spec testing, we’re using that BIOS, with the GPU underclocked by 85Mhz to meet AMD’s official specs.
Finally, as the RX 5600 series is focused on 1080p gaming, this is what our benchmark results will focus on. Though I have also tested the card at our 1440p settings to see just how well it might do as a 1440p card – the lack of VRAM admittedly not doing it any big favors there – and these are posted below our 1080p results.
Finally, we’re using the latest drivers from AMD and NVIDIA.
| CPU: | Intel Core i9-9900K @ 5.0GHz |
| Motherboard: | ASRock Z390 Taichi |
| Power Supply: | Corsair AX1200i |
| Hard Disk: | Phison E12 PCIe NVMe SSD (960GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3600 2 x 16GB (17-18-18-38) |
| Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
| Monitor: | Asus PQ321 |
| Video Cards: | AMD Radeon RX 5700 Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5600 XT AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB AMD Radeon RX 590 AMD Radeon RX 580 AMD Radeon R9 390X NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 441.87 AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.1.1 |
| OS: | Windows 10 Pro (1903) |
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eva02langley - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
I must admit that I am a little bit surprised. End up being as good as the 5700 XT.eek2121 - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
GTA V remains a persistent thorn in AMD's side (on Windows at least).That being said, if AMD had positioned this card at $250/year, it would have been quite a steal.
philosofool - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
39 decibels. 39. Thirty. Nine. Nine, with a three in front of it.Also, thanks a bunch for including 1440p results. I suppose that's a given at this performance tier, but it's very helpful to me, and many others, I'm sure.
TheWereCat - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
What are you trying to say with 39?philosofool - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
I could have been cleared: it's 27% quieter than a 2060 and over 50% quieter than a 1660 Ti. That's awesome.Yojimbo - Monday, January 27, 2020 - link
Than which 2060 and 1660Ti, though? The one you would otherwise buy if you were interested in a quiet card?GreenReaper - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
With Freesync, I'd accept slightly lower frame rates acceptable for a quieter and less-power-hungry build. Of course if you're looking you want to be paying more and burning more power - or perhaps just turning detail down, which would probably also help with any memory issues.alufan - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
would testing on a pcie4 enabled board make any odds? just curious the card is pcie4 and it would be nice to see testing done with the latest specs.GreenReaper - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
My guess would be no, because the key issue appears to be bandwidth between the GPU and its memory, on the card itself - but I agree, it'd be interesting to know. Perhaps more for some compute?Dave321 - Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - link
Overall test results are skewed by A massive 2060 win in GTA V. 5600XT was faster in most games.