AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT vs RX 5700: Which is a Better Option?

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AMD’s new Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card is a great performer for the money, so is the RX 5700 still worth considering? I’ve compared 8 different games at 1080p and 1440p resolutions to help you decide!

AMD RX 5600 XT	AMD RX 5700
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Generation-defining performance. Affordable. Doesn’t take too much power.	Efficient and fast. Beats Vega 64 and RTX 2060.
CONS	CONS
No ray tracing. Only 6GB of VRAM.	No ray tracing support. I’d rather have the 5700 XT.

SPECIFICATIONS

INTRODUCTION

AMD is launching the Radeon RX 5600 XT based on the same chip as the RX 5700 with the same 36 compute units but with a lower power target which gives it a boost clock of 1560 MHz stock which is about 200 MHz lower than the RX 5700.

According to a survey, 60% of gamers are still playing at 1080p and 20 million AMD 1080p monitors are shipped in the last 4 years. So AMD is targeting the 5600 XT as ultimate 1080p gaming GPU.

To be honest, if you really want a 1080p GPU, there are so many options on the market that cost way less and will give you a solid experience that I think it’s a lot more interesting to see if the 5600 XT can provide solid frame rates at 1440p. And of course, I wanted to overclock it and see how close it can get to the RX 5700.

In my opinion, the 5600 XT is a bit overkill for 1080p. In most games I can’t tell the difference between ultra settings and high settings. So I think if you need that GPU for 1080p gaming you don’t need to spend $279 which is what the 5600 XT costs. There are lots of options out there especially in the used market that can play all of these games above 60fps by lowering a few settings but some people do like to just be able to crank every setting up to the max even if it means staying at a lower resolution, so if that’s you, the 5600 XT you won’t disappoint at 1080p obviously.

OVERVIEW

RX 5600 XT:

MODEL USED: XFX RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO

This new card is a step up from the RX 5500 and again this is a card here destined for 1080p. This time we still maintain decent frames per second. This is a good looking card which differs only slightly from the 5500 XT.

At two $279 the rx 5600 XT is in a pretty popular price bracket. Most gamers are still using just 1080p resolution monitors and high refresh rate panels are becoming a lot more popular too.

This card is for those who wants a high refresh rate 1080p gaming experience and potentially those wanting something for entry-level 1440p gaming too.

It’s just a 2 slot card though not too thick and the length for this one comes in at 280 millimeters. Power connector here is a recessed 8 pin connector. Black and Gold design overall with a nice metal backplate, definitely a decent looking card.

RX 5700:

MODEL USED: POWERCOLOR RADEON RX 5700

It features 8GB of GDDR6 memory, 2,304 stream processors, the card is 256-bit memory interface, you know all in all good stuff features all the rDNA stuff which is their new anti-lag. It’s got the image sharpening, the fidelity effects, and obviously the new freesync tool. That’s stuff comes inside of all the new Navi cards.

The backplate is pretty cool, it’s a 1.5 millimeter backplate and it’s extremely tough this is to prevent the CPU being able to bend at all. There’s going to be a switch, this is for changing your different bios, you can set it for ultra overclock or silent overclock.

If the card goes below 60 Celsius the fans turn off completely for total silence.

Next feature is cooling apparatus. Now this features a wide array aluminum heatsink and it also features 5 nanometer copper heat pipes this helps to dissipate all of the heat away from the GPU. And then last but not least, we can see the dual 100 nanometer fan drives. These fans are pretty neat because they feature a two ball bearing design and should last four times as long as normal fans.

PERFORMANCE

MY TEST SYSTEM SPECS:

The system that I’m testing with has an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X CPU @ 4.2GHz in an MSI X570 Godlike motherboard, along with 16GB GSkill Royal 3600 CL16 RAM. Let’s get into the results.

Apex Legends

At 1080p there was just a 4% higher average FPS with the RX 5700, and this dropped down to just a 2.6% higher frame rate at 1440p, or less than a 3 FPS difference.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Not much difference, well at least at 1080p. At 1440p however, the 5700 was able to hit an average frame rate 5.6% ahead of the 5600 XT.

Battlefield 5

At 1080p with a 7.6% higher average FPS from the 5700, and this lowered a little to a 6.2% improvement at 1440p.

Borderlands 3

In this test, the 5700 coming out 4.7% faster at 1080p, and there was a larger 7.3% boost at 1440p.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

There’s basically no real difference between the two, both in terms of average FPS.

Control

The RX 5700 is ahead, with a 5.5% higher average frame rate at 1080p, rising slightly to a 6.3% lead at 1440p with similar changes to the 1% low performance.

Fortnite

The 5600 XT was a little ahead, though realistically most of the results were so close together it’s within margin of error, regardless the performance was very similar.

PUBG

The results in PUBG were also very similar to Fortnite with a slight edge to the 5600 XT.

Red Dead Redemption 2

The 5700 was almost 6% faster at 1080p, and this lowered down to a 4.7% lead at 1440p.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark tool. With almost an 8% higher average FPS at both resolutions from the 5700.

CONCLUSION:

The RX 5700 is 25% expensive when compared to RX 5600 XT. And I think 5600 XT is just offering so much better value and in many cases.

The 5600 XT offers a whole lot of the performance for a fair bit less money. It’s going to come down to whether or not you want to pay more for the 5700 to get the little extra boost.

Expert Reviews For AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT:

By Techradar
The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT is exactly what we want in a 1080p graphics card: high frame rates, affordable price tags and plenty of software features. The only thing holding it back from a perfect score is the lack of ray tracing.

By Engadget
With the Radeon RX 5600, AMD delivers the most powerful 1080p gaming option on the market under $300. It’s a solid upgrade for anyone with a three-year-old GPU.

By Techspot
Bottom line, it’s good to see some more competition in the GPU space and we’re the ones to benefit. AMD can probably take a note or two on how to release information and not show your hand weeks in advance. Then again, we also appreciate having pricing info more than half a day before reviews are set to go live, somewhere in the middle would be nice AMD.

By PCWorld
The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT delivers outstanding 1080p gaming, knocking out the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti thanks to a last-minute BIOS upgrade. The need to install that upgrade manually and price cuts from rival Nvidia cards takes off some of its shine, though.

Expert Reviews For AMD Radeon RX 5700:

By PCGamer
Overall, the Radeon RX 5700 is still a great card and belongs on the list of potential GPU upgrades. If you’re looking for the best $350 graphics card today, it’s the RX 5700, even if it might not be the better card six months or two years from now. There’s also hope that street prices will drop a bit after the initial rush is over, though I doubt we’ll see any RX 5700 deals during Amazon Prime Day next week. (Fingers crossed!) Perhaps most importantly, regardless of whether you want to buy an AMD or Nvidia graphics card, there’s more competition now and that’s resulting in better values for everyone.

By PCGamesN
AMD’s second-tier Navi is now the price/perf overclocking hero, besting the competing Nvidia GPUs and matching its XT sibling frame-for-frame. But none of that is thanks to AMD, which locked users out until 3rd party software took off the shackles.

By PCWorld
The Radeon RX 5700 already provided stunning value for 1440p gamers. Sapphire’s custom Pulse RX 5700 builds atop that for just $9 more, and pushes performance even further with its excellent Trixx Boost upscaling.

Jaskaran Singh

Jaskaran, a tech enthusiast from childhood, inspired by his father, began his tech journey by rooting Android phones. He now writes on various tech topics, aiming to simplify complex ideas for a broad audience. His writing is direct, concise, and flows effortlessly, making tech topics accessible and engaging.