ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT Review

1. Introduction
2. Everything You Need to Know About The RX 6700 XT
3. ASUS + AMD marketing
4. Detailed Look
5. Test System Specs
6. Benchmarks - Synthetic
7. Benchmarks - 1080p
8. Benchmarks - 1440p
9. Benchmarks - 4K
10. Overclocking
11. Power Consumption & Temps
12. What's Hot, What's Not
13. Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 100%

The Bottom Line

The new ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT is the biggest and baddest Big Navi GPU in the flock of custom RX 6700 XT cards. Incredible thermal performance, and you can crank every single OC slider to the max!

Buy at Amazon

Introduction

AMD unleashed its new mid-range Radeon RX 6700 XT last week with a bunch of custom cards launched at the same time, after my review of the MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT GAMING X we have a review on the flagship ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card.

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As with any ROG Strix graphics card from ASUS the new Radeon RX 6700 XT version is a high-end offering of a mid-range GPU, in all the right ways. The cooler is phenomenal -- the best of the custom RX 6700 XT cards I've tested, with striking looks with its triple-fan cooler and RGB lighting.

The new Radeon RX 6700 XT is a great 1080p and 1440p gaming GPU upgrade, with ASUS using its ROG Strix custom RX 6700 XT to great effect here. It'll handle anything you throw at it, with even 3440 x 1440 UltraWide 21:9 gaming monitor owners getting a great GPU here, too.

• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6800 OC Edition Review
• Read more: AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review
• Read more: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review
• Read more: AMD Radeon RX 6800 Review
• Read more: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Review

The only issue is that AMD has a "starting price" on the Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card at $479, which is never going to happen... ASUS is selling the new ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT for $830+ but I'm sure you're going to see it at $1000 and even more in some countries.

Everything You Need to Know About The RX 6700 XT

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AMD's new RDNA 2 architecture has more changes than any previous-gen GPU architecture I can remember from AMD (and even ATi) in the last 10+ years.

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There's a lot to go over here, but we're looking at an enhanced compute unit, new visual pipeline featuring Ray Accelerators, and the all-new (and very exciting) Infinity Cache (which I'll go into on the next page. We're looking at a huge 1.54x higher performance-per-watt and 1.3x higher frequency at the same per-CU power -- impressive stuff, AMD.

Ray Accelerators

One of the largest new introductions in the new RDNA 2 architecture is the high-performance ray tracing acceleration architecture known as the Ray Accelerator. AMD doesn't have NVIDIA-beating ray tracing performance, but it's here in RDNA 2.

Each Ray Accelerator is capable of calculating up to 4 ray / box intersections, and 1 ray / triangle intersection every clock. This means the RDNA 2-based Ray Accelerators can efficiently calculate the intersections of the rays with the scene geometry as represented in a Bounding Volume Hierarchy, sorts them, and returns the information to the shaders for further scene traversal or result shading.

HDMI 2.1

This is another big deal -- HDMI 2.1 connectivity.

HDMI 2.1 ushers in the worlds of 4K 120Hz and 8K 60Hz through a single HDMI 2.1 cable to your flashy new TV or gaming monitor. Personally I own a new CX series LG OLED TV with HDMI 2.1 that drives its 4K 120Hz, so plugging my gaming PC into my TV can only be done a single way if I want 4K 120Hz -- which I kinda do.

The introduction of HDMI 2.1 on graphics cards began with NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series, and continues with AMD's new Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards. All 3 of the new Radeon RX 6000 series cards -- the Radeon RX 6900 XT (review here), the Radeon RX 6800 XT (review here) and Radeon RX 6800 all have HDMI 2.1 output.

Now this is where things get really interesting -- Infinity Cache, which provides some kick ass memory bandwidth even with it smaller 256-bit memory bus and slower GDDR6 memory.

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NVIDIA might have a superior 320-bit memory bus, faster GDDR6X -- but it has less VRAM (10GB versus 16GB) and the Radeon RX 6800 XT still kicks ass against the GeForce RTX 3080 in all resolutions and situations. But in the right situation -- like when paired with a Zen 3 processor, like I've done preliminary with the Ryzen 9 5900X -- you can get in excess of 10% more performance when you add SAM (Smart Access Memory) into the equation.

The SAM results are as good as you see in these charts, and in some cases better -- it's an impressive thing to see, and I truly can't wait to see more from Smart Access Memory technology.

ASUS + AMD marketing

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AMD engineered the new Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card for "enthusiasts with a focus on premium materials and design", with the card built to standards that "enable customers and partners, all in an efficient power package".

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AMD has used a 10-layer high-performance PCB with 2 layers of 2 oz. copper on the Radeon RX 6700 XT for enhanced power delivery, with Premium IT-170 material and 9 (7+2) high efficiency DrMOS phases on the Radeon RX 6700 XT reference graphics card.

One of the biggest parts of Radeon gaming is FidelityFX, with the new RDNA and RDNA 2 architectures supporting FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) in early 2020 and then Ambient Occlusion, Screen Space Reflections, HDR Mapper, and Downsampler.

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AMD FidelityFX is on over 40 games right now wand that list will continue to get bigger.

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The new Radeon RX 6700 XT has 12GB of GDDR6 memory which AMD says is "futureproofing" the Navi 22-based GPU with 12GB, saying that many modern games use over 8GB of VRAM and that the Radeon RX 6700 XT packing 12GB of GDDR6 lets you play games at "max settings for today and tomorrow".

Detailed Look

ASUS uses its usual retail packaging on the ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT, where if you actually find this on a shelf it'll look great once you get it home and onto your shelf -- if you collect boxes, that is.

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The usual ROG Strix design looks fantastic once again here on the new RDNA 2-powered Radeon RX 6700 XT, with its triple-fan design keeping the ROG Strix RX 6700 XT very cool -- in fact, it's one of the coolest-operating custom Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards that I have so far.

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The backplate looks great, especially when lit up inside of your gaming PC.

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ASUS opts with a larger 2.9-slot design for its custom ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT, with a larger heat sink that drives the head through the fin stack better through the larger 2.9-slot cooler.

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We have the usual 3 x DP 1.4 and 1 x HDMI 2.1 port on the back of the card.

Test System Specs

Latest upgrade:

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ASUS provided a rather large upgrade to my GPU testing lab -- or rather, I kept the ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitor after my review on it. The 43-inch 4K 144Hz panel is just glorious to look at -- it's huge, the DPI for Windows 10 when set perfect for your viewing distance is kiss-fingers-emoji good. It's just amazing -- for work, and gaming.

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Sabrent sent over their huge Rocket Q 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD, which will be my new Games install SSD inside of my main test bed.

I'll be making some changes over the coming months to the GPU test bed here for TweakTown, to both the Ryzen 9 5900X and then Intel's new Core i9-11900K to do some proper PCIe 4.0 testing between the chipsets for GPUs + super-fast load times into games on these new super-fast Sabrent SSDs.

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Sabrent helped out with some new storage for my GPU test beds, sending over a slew of crazy-fast Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs. I've got this installed into my GPU test bed as the new Games Storage drive, since games are so damn big now. Thanks to Sabrent, I've got 2TB of super-fast M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD storage now.

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Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

I've recently upgraded my GPU test bed -- at least for now, until AMD's new Ryzen 9 5950X processor is unleashed then the final update for 2020 will happen and we'll be all good for RDNA 2 and future Ampere GPU releases. You can read my article here: TweakTown GPU Test Bed Upgrade for 2021, But Then Zen 3 Was Announced.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64 (buy from Amazon)
• Monitor: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike

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3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

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3DMark TimeSpy

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

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Benchmarks - 1080p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

We all know how performance is going to be on the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT -- and as you can see, it's identical to the Radeon RX 6700 XT for the most part @ stock -- and a few FPS faster in virtually everything at 1080p when manually overclocked. It's the fastest custom Radeon RX 6700 XT that I've tested so far.

Benchmarks - 1440p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

The same goes for 1440p gaming, which the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT also dominates in -- probably the key resolution to buying this card (if you can buy it, that is). You've got stellar 1440p performance that only improves by 5-10% with the manual OC that I applied to the card. It's the best custom RX 6700 XT at 1440p, too.

Benchmarks - 4K

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts

I do NOT recommend the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT for 4K gaming, as that is the job of the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards... but if you wanted to do some light 4K gaming at 30-60FPS that would be alright. Once again, the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT is still a fine 4K gaming graphics card just like the reference Radeon RX 6700 XT.

Overclocking

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Out of the box the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT was running at just under 2600MHz with GPU temps hitting 58C or so, with the fans spinning at 51% or 1700RPM.

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I was able to crank every single OC slider on the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT -- with the GPU clocks hitting 2850MHz and the GDDR6 cranking up to max as well. With the fans spinning at 90-100% the GPU temps drop to 52C.

Power Consumption & Temps

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Bloody impressive GPU temps here by ASUS... just look at that... 56C at stock and 52C with fans cranked. Unbelievable thermal performance here on the ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT.

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Power consumption numbers are no different here: 340-350W or so depending on stock/OC for the full Ryzen 7 3800X test bed.

What's Hot, What's Not

What's Hot

• ROG Strix style, as always looks great: I'm a big fan of the ROG Strix style and that is no different here with the new ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card which has that same slick style that makes Big Navi look great and keep the GPU and 12GB of GDDR6 memory nice and cool while looking great.
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• Best cooling performance: One of the coolest Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards that I've tested so far, with impressive out-of-the-box GPU temps and even better temps when the card has its fans cranked up. You won't need to make any of those adjustments as the ROG Strix RX 6700 XT runs beautifully out of the box.
• Maximum OC: You can maximize every single slider on the ASUS ROG Strix RX 6700 XT, with the GPU topping out at 2850MHz -- the 12GB of GDDR6 was also cranked to its maximum OC. Every slider you can increase in AMD's performance tuning software was cranked and the ASUS ROG Strix RX 6700 XT took it all.

What's Not

• $479 reference "starts from" pricing, $830+ from ASUS: This is the main issue, as the "starting price" of $479 should mean a high-end custom ASUS ROG Strix card like the new Radeon RX 6700 XT should cost somewhere around $600 or so but you're looking at $800+ and most likely far more than that due to scalpers, shortages, and everything in between.
• Nowhere to be found: You are going to find it near impossible to buy these, although AMD is promising more stock this time around. We should hopefully see this situation improve over the coming months, hopefully.

Final Thoughts

ASUS has the best custom Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card with its new flagship ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT OC Edition, which is a simply kick ass mid-range GPU if you can find it -- that aside if you can find it you'll be more than happy with it.

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The reference AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics is a great card on its own but ASUS makes all the right tweaks with the ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT. It offers kick ass out-of-the-box performance and is the best overclocker out of all of the custom Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards I've tested so far.

ASUS uses its great ROG Strix aesthetic to make the mid-range-but-still-like-$1000 Radeon RX 6700 XT look great, be virtually silent during gaming sessions, and is capable of having every OC slider pushed to the max and it takes it and plows through gaming and benchmarking like a champ.

• Read more: AMD will only have a few thousand Radeon RX 6700 XT for Europe

You probably won't even be able to buy the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card in your market, or even in the next few months as there are massive GPU shortages worldwide. Not only that but paying $800-$1000 minimum and more like $1200 or more is a scary aspect for a card as good as the Radeon RX 6700 XT.

Would I recommend the Radeon RX 6700 XT for its $830-or-so pricing? Nope. If you could get it for the "starting from $479" price that AMD marketed the Radeon RX 6700 XT with plus say $50-$100 then I'd be down with that. But $1000+ for the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT would be ridiculous -- that price for any RX 6700 XT is insane.

If you can find it and wanted a new Radeon GPU to game in 2021 and beyond with, the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6700 XT is a mighty find offering -- at the right price.