AMD RX 6700 XT review: the Digital Foundry verdict

With our benchmarks in the books, it's clear that the Radeon RX 6700 XT is undoubtedly a strong graphics card for $479/£419. AMD aimed to follow up the RX 5700 XT with a card that delivers significantly better 1080p and 1440p performance at a $20 lower price point, and they've easily achieved those goals.

For anyone on that three to five year upgrade cycle, that'll translate into a big performance uplift against the likes of a GTX 1070 or Vega 56, plus a host of nifty future-looking features like real-time ray tracing, HDMI 2.1, Smart Access Memory, variable rate shading and a roomy 12GB of VRAM.

However, the RX 6700 XT doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's also competing against Nvidia's $399/£369 RTX 3060 Ti and $499/£449 RTX 3070. And while the RX 6700 XT does tie or outperform the RTX 3070 in a handful of titles, proving the better value option, AMD's latest also falls behind even Nvidia's 3060 Ti in some games. (The 12GB of VRAM on the 6700 XT, compared to 8GB on the RTX 3070 and 10GB on the RTX 3080, is a mitigatory factor - but we only encountered a short section in our Doom Eternal benchmark where performance on the Nvidia cards actually suffered.) Overall, that's not a great look for a card that costs $80/£50 more, and that's without RT or DLSS in the conversation, which push the comparison further in Nvidia's direction.

That's not to say that AMD's RT implementation is poor. Let's not forget, Team Red has gone from not supporting RT at all on their Navi cards to delivering quite playable results with Big Navi one generation later, with the RX 6700 XT delivering reasonable results at 1080p and almost playable results at 1440p. However, Nvidia's second-generation RT tech is clearly a step ahead, with the RTX 3060 Ti beating out the more expensive 6700 XT in every RT game we tested - and the RTX 3060 doing the same in all but one. (It'll be fascinating to see how the next crop of RT titles, developed with the AMD-powered Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 in mind, fare on desktop graphics cards from both teams.) Owners of Nvidia graphics cards also have access to DLSS to offset the performance loss of RT, something that AMD is working on with FidelityFX Super Resolution but isn't quite ready to deploy.

The RX 6700 XT is also competing against the rest of its Big Navi family, most notably the RX 6800. In general, AMD seems to have pegged the power level of the new card appropriately; in most games we tested, we saw the 6700 XT deliver around 80 per cent of the performance of the RX 6800 while also costing around 80 per cent of the price. That means neither card is the standout value performer, so you can choose whichever best fits within your budget.

Of course, all of this supposes that graphics cards of any description are actually available for purchase at their recommended retail prices, which as we all know is not a feature of the real world we live in. Curiously, this almost saves the RX 6700 XT from a unfavourable comparison, as if AMD's tactic of selling both reference and custom designs from day one bear any fruit, then this $479 card is a steal compared to its competitors at hundreds of dollars more. The safe money is on the RX 6700 XT being just as elusive as its contemporaries, but we live in hope that things will improve over the months ahead.

For now, AMD's position in the graphics card market is a fascinating one. In many ways, these new Big Navi graphics cards are reminiscent of the company's Ryzen 3000 CPUs in 2019: there's a lot to like here, including unique features and performance wins in some scenarios, but there's no killer blow that makes them the standout choice for gamers. Of course, we all know what happened two years after Ryzen 3000 - AMD delivered an absolute knockout with its Ryzen 5000 processors. If the company's Radeon graphics division is on a similar trajectory, then AMD fans could have a lot to look forward to over the next few years.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Analysis

• Introduction, Hardware and Power Analysis
• Doom Eternal, Control, Borderlands 3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Game Benchmarks Part 1
• Death Stranding, Far Cry 5, Hitman 2, Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Game Benchmarks Part 2
• Metro Exodus, Dirt Rally 2, Assassin's Creed Unity, Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Game Benchmarks Part 3
• RT Game Benchmarks - Control, Metro Exodus, Battlefield 5
• Resizeable BAR Testing - Watch Dogs Legion, Battlefield 5, Metro Exodus
• AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT - the Digital Foundry verdict [This Page]

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