News hardware AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT review: The graphics card that wants to compete with the GeForce RTX 3070
The year 2021 is well on its way to being disrupted by the release of graphics cards that almost no one can buy. After a GeForce RTX 3060 with a very good price-performance ratio, which cannot be seen in stores, here is the Radeon RX 6700XT, AMD’s new GPU, which is positioned directly under the Radeon RX 6800. This new card under RDNA 2 architecture promises an excellent level of performance. 1440p performance paired with controlled power consumption. Successful bet?
In November 2020, AMD presented its new generation of graphics cards under RDNA 2 architecture with the Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT. A month later, the catalog was expanded to include a higher quality model, the Radeon RX 6900 XT. The manufacturer is therefore active in the field of high performance, but there was no mid-range model that could compete with the GeForce RTX 3070. This is done with the 6700 XT, a card that is officially sold from 479 dollars and promises very good performance in 1440p. As usual by the manufacturer for 6 months, the price suggested by the manufacturer is very rarely found on the market. Indeed, it is currently impossible to find this model for less than $ 649. In short, changing graphics cards has never been so complicated and expensive. Hopefully things will return to normal by September.
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The features of the Radeon RX 6700 XT
First, let’s take a look at the Radeon RX 6700 XT using a test model from AMD that uses the reference design of earlier RDNA2 cards. This model certainly has one less axial fan than the 6800 XT, but we find the same quality of manufacture and the same impression of solidity. The card is of course smaller than the 6800 XT, but still occupies two slots in its width. It is connected to the PC power supply via two 8-pin / 6-pin connectors. In short, nothing but very classic. We therefore find a sober and efficient design with no frills, just with the Radeon logo This lights up when the card is switched on. On the connection side, too, we remain in the standard with 3 DisplayPort 1.4 and 1 HDMI 2.1. However, the USB-C port on the Radeon 6800 XT has disappeared.
With regard to technical specifications, The Radeon RX 6700 XT offers 40 processing units for a total of 2560 processing units. The card also offers 40 processing units for ray tracing. We also use a 7 nm engraving process. The announced base frequency is 1.59 GHz and an average of 2.42 GHz in the game. In addition, 12 GB of GDDR6 RAM are clocked at 2 GHz, which corresponds to a bandwidth of 384 GB / s.
The 6700 XT is slightly more compact than the 6800 XT
AMD sells its Radeon RX 6700 XT as the best possible choice for 1440p gaming. For Ultra HD, we should therefore turn more to the RX 6800/6800 XT or even the 6900 XT. For our part, we tested the card in ten games in 1440p, but also in 1080p. As a reminder, our test platform has stayed the same since we started testing the Radeon RX 6000 cards. In particular, it consists of a Ryzen 7 3800X processor and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. All tested games were installed on an SSD.
Smart Access Memory: More power, but you need a Ryzen 5000
In this new generation of graphics cards, AMD is introducing the Smart Access Memory function, which, thanks to PCI Express, enables better communication between the CPU and GPU. The communication speed between the CPU and the VRAM (graphics card memory) can actually be limited in a “classic” configuration. SAM will use the PCI Express bandwidth to maximize the transfer speed between the two, resulting in a significant increase in performance. However, the use of SAM is quite restrictive at the moment: it is indeed required to use a Ryzen 5000 processor, a motherboard with an AMD X570 chipset, and of course a Radeon RX 6000, and AMD also remains weak, especially with Ultra HD. According to the manufacturer, it would be around 12% for Forza Horizon 4, for example, but stay closer to 2 to 5% in most games. However, the idea is pretty good and makes another argument in favor of the excellent Ryzen 5000 processors.
A very comfortable card in 1440p … but without ray tracing
In terms of performance, the Radeon RX 6700 XT keeps its promises in 1440p in gridded games (ie those that don’t use ray tracing) and can reach and exceed 60 fps in most cases with the level of detail set to maximum. Only Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 (without ray tracing) barely exceed 50 FPS but are still playable while still looking nice. Incidentally, with Doom Eternal and Wolfenstein Youngblood (still the best students) we reach more than 170 FPS, while CoD: Modern Warfare and Warzone rise above 90 FPS. On the other hand, Once you enable ray tracing for the few compatible games, it’s another story and performance crumbles undeniable. Experience the 29 FPS in control or the 45 FPS in Metro Exodus. An observation that we already made on the Radeon RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT and that will certainly not change until AMD installs DLSS-like technology on its cards. At 1080p, rasterization performance increases, with the vast majority of games exceeding 90 FPS. If you’ve got a 244Hz screen, you’ll appreciate the ultra-smooth flow of a Doom Eternal or Wolfenstein Youngblood that surpasses 200 FPS.
If we don’t factor in ray tracing performance, it’s disappointing again. The Radeon RX 6700 XT is therefore on par with the GeForce RTX 3070 in terms of performance. A good point, especially since the AMD card is “officially” sold for $ 40 less than the Nvidia card. Nevertheless, the RTX 3070 has the decisive advantage of offering ray tracing and DLSS. History therefore tends to repeat itself …
A good point for consumption
In terms of consumption, AMD has announced an average TDP of 230 watts for the Radeon RX 6700 XT, which is 70 watts less than the Radeon RX 6800 XT, which provides up to 300 watts, and 10 watts more than the GeForce RTX 3070 (TDP of 220 watts). In practice, we use an average of 215 watts for Metro Exodus. A number that remains very good. In idle mode, ie under Windows 10 with office automation or surfing the Internet, the card consumes around 35 watts. The new graphics card from AMD is also a very good student on the temperature side and does not exceed 80 ° C under full load (here with Metro Exodus). All of this comes with a very acceptable level of noise, with fans that only run in-game (hence it remains completely silent in office automation), and a breath that is very inaudible as long as your case is adequately insulated and ventilated.
The notes
+Good arguments
- Very good performance in 1440p
- A solidly designed card
- Controlled energy consumption
– –Negative points
- Almost nonexistent inventory
- Performances en ray tracing
- We expect the equivalent of DLSS
Ultimately, the Radeon RX 6700 XT is a very good mid-range card that offers a good level of performance at 1440p and is very energy efficient at the same time. As long as you can find it at its “normal” price – 479 dollars – it is therefore highly recommended, even if the ray tracing performance leaves a lot to be desired. Because yes, as long as AMD does not offer an equivalent to Nvidia’s DLSS, the level of performance will be strongly influenced. Fortunately; The “Fidelity FX Super Resolution” function is expected to be implemented in software on all current AMD GPUs and will be available this year. Nonetheless, let us end with an observation that is becoming increasingly problematic: the lack of inventory, which is a heavy burden on the sector and leading to a sharp rise in prices. A situation that should last at least until the beginning of September.
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By Jiikaa, Journalist igamesnews.com
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