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 ESTSynthetics
Moving on, we have our synthetic performance testing, taking a look at geometry throughput, pixel throughput, memory compression, and more.
Given the significance of cutting a quarter of Navi 10’s GDDR6 memory bus, I was very curious to see what that would do for synthetic performance. But for better or worse, this has created more questions than it has solved.
The numbers listed below are accurate, in as much as these are the results I get when testing these cards. Whether they are correct, however, is another matter.
The problem, in short, is that due to AMD’s very aggressive power savings/idling implementation for their Navi 10 cards, I have been unable to get these cards to run at their full memory clockspeeds when executing the the Beyond3D Suite benchmark suite. The GPU clocks regularly pass 1600MHz like they should, however AMD’s telemetry is reporting that memory clocks are rarely hitting 7Gbps, let alone 12Gbps+. As a result, we end up with results like the pixel test below, where the RX 5600 XT is beating the RX 5700, an otherwise impossible outcome.
As best as I can tell, this issue has been going on since the launch of the Radeon RX 5700 series back in July, but it’s only now that I’ve noticed it, in large part due to the RX 5600 XT cards being slightly less aggressive in their idling. In other words, those cards are boosting to higher memory clockspeeds more often, putting them ahead of the RX 5700 and bringing the clocking issue front and center.
I’m still working on a proper fix for the issue, but for now the results with Navi 10 cards should be taken with a large grain of salt. The benchmark itself is still fine, but AMD’s aggressive power management (and lack of an easy means to disable it) is kneecapping AMD’s performance in these benchmarks.
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cmdrmonkey - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
And forgive me if I left any cards out. There are a lot of roughly $200-300 cards that are okay for 1440p gaming.Korguz - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
can you explain it ???cmdrmonkey - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
I can't actually. I think affordable 1440p gaming has been well covered already by plenty of new and used video cards.Korguz - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
not every one games at 1440pcmdrmonkey - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
What point are you trying to make? I'm trying to make the point that this is another dumb product that has no reason for existing, just like RX 5500. AMD should be focusing on winning back the high-end. That's where competition is actually needed to drive down prices across the board.Korguz - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
and nvida doesnt have.. or has released their own.. what you consider dumb products ?? how about intels plethora of cpus ?? even you should realize it.. amd, nvidia, and intel release products that for some reason dont work as they intended when made.. but instead of throwing it out.. release it as a lower tier product.. aka phenom x3.. made as an x4.. but one core was faulty... i have seen nvida do the same.. maybe thats why we had the 3 gig and 6 gig 1060....alufan - Monday, January 27, 2020 - link
whilst being competitive in the high ground may be desirable for the sake of swinging your *@** around it doesnt make for large VOLUME sales which is what AMD are after with this card unlike the average 12 year old keyboard warrior shouting look at my card its 5 FPS faster from the rooftops AMD is looking to win back the real meat and potatoes( sry veggies no insult) market, the fact nvidia have already dropped prices in response to this card makes your whole chain of thought and beliefs about this product obsolete and pointless, AMD and indeed all public company's have to justify investors faith in them and make them a decent ROI.Spunjji - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
"It's AMD pulling a 'me too'"...
*proceeds to name a market segment containing 4 Nvidia GPUs (3 current gen) and 2 AMD GPUs (1 current gen)*
Tell us again, who's the one with superfluous products here? :| It's a crowded segment because there's high demand. AMD can't profit selling the outdated, hot, under-performing and expensive-to-manufacture Vega 56 at a discount, but it can profit from Navi. They just lowered the cost of entry to 1440p by forcing Nvidia to respond and your response is "wah, I don't like cheap graphics card".
sarafino - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
$210? The lowest price on Newegg is $230 for a 1660S. Based on the aggregated review data for the updated 5600XT, it's 20% faster than the 1660S thanks to the performance bios. 20% for $40 more isn't bad. The 5700 is approximately 6% more performant for an additional $30 give or take a few dollars.reddit: /r/hardware/comments/esgwf1/amd_radeon_rx_5600_xt_performance_meta_review/
cmdrmonkey - Friday, January 24, 2020 - link
Most people would pick the 1660S so that they aren't dealing with the dumpster fire situation that is AMD's drivers.