Review: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700

Conclusion

You've heard it a thousand times but it's a point worth reiterating; competition is good for the marketplace. The arrival of AMD's RDNA architecture has already forced Nvidia to retaliate with RTX Super graphics cards, and AMD's retort has been to lower the launch price of its first Navi GPUs. Interesting times, and in the weeks ahead, consumers will be hoping for a better deal as the two companies jostle for position in the mid-to-high-end segment.

The launch of Radeon RX 5000 Series cards will inevitably be met by a mixed reception - some will have hoped for more, while others will view the new release as the best Radeons to date. There's merit to both arguments, yet while the Radeons of recent years have disappointed in key areas, we come away feeling as though the RX 5700 Series gets most things right.

Doing more with less, the streamlined RDNA architecture delivers a meaningful performance uplift over the disappointing Vega cards of the past generation, and efficiency improvements on the cutting-edge 7nm process help lower power consumption to more agreeable levels. Those are the two things near the top of most users' lists for a 2019 Radeon GPU, and with promising Ryzen 3rd Gen CPUs, a forward-looking X570 chipset and a growing selection of FreeSync monitors, there's now good reason to consider investing heavily in the AMD ecosystem.

Radeon RX 5700 XT is ultimately a fine choice for high-quality QHD gaming, and to a lesser extent so is the RX 5700, and re-evaluated launch-day pricing of $399 and $349, respectively, enables both models to stand proud in the face of competing cards that are at times quicker while touting baked-in hardware support for ray tracing.

Bottom line: this is a safe start to AMD's RDNA journey and custom-cooled partner cards can't come soon enough.

AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT

AMD Radeon RX 5700

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The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 graphics cards will be available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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