AMD Radeon RX 5700 Review

Introduction

If you’re into pc gaming, then you probably understand the importance of powerful graphic card on your computer. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 is one of the latest released graphics card and one of the most powerful releases by AMD. In this article, we are going to review the Radeon RX 5700 in detail and see why it is considered a great addition to your gaming PC.

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 graphics card is a performance graphics by AMD – one of the leading graphic card manufacturer’s there is today. The Radeon 5700 belongs to a line of graphics processors created by AMD based on AMD’s RDNA architecture. The 5000 series graphics card is considered a high end graphics card and a successor to the Vega Series.

It was released on July 2019 as an improvement to its predecessor, the Navi 10 graphics processor. It uses the Navi 10 XL chip and supports DirectX version 12.0. The Radeon RX 5700 is known to use a thermal solution due to the high temperatures released by gaming PCs. However, it is criticized for its bland look considering it is a high end GPU. With a plain aluminum finish, this graphics does not match its price tag. This is because most high end GPUs have LED lighting, textured ridges and more fancy features.   

To power it, the Radeon RX 5700 graphics card is fitted with an 185W power board that is meant to take power to the eight or six pin auxiliary connectors. There is also a 70mm blower fan and a vapor chamber cooler. Unlike in its predecessor, the Radeon RX 5700 does not have a back plate but still weighs more than the GeForce RTX 2060. This is because of the aluminum material used in all through its body. It has three display port connectors and one HDMI power from connecting other components in HD.

What to Expect from the AMD Radeon RX 5700

The Radeon RX 5700 is one of the two latest releases of AMD’s new Navi 10 graphics cards. It contains new improved RDNA technology and architecture. The NAVI 10 graphics processor is a chip of average size with over ten million transistors. It features 2300 shading units, 144 texture mapping units and 64 ROPs. All these numbers are slightly less compared to the other released version – the AMD Radeon XT 5700.

This was done to reach for a larger market as the RX 5700 is priced lower than its other NAVI 10 release. The Radeon RX 5700 has a memory of 8192 MB interconnected using a 256 bit memory interface. This means that this graphics card operates at a frequency of 1465MHz. This frequency can however be adjusted and increased up to 1725MHz which is a great plus.

The AMD Radeon 5700 is a dual slot graphics card which means it is powered by two pin power connectors – one six pin connector and one 8 pin connector. These connectors need 185 W of power to operate well. There are also three display ports and one HDMI port. The Radeon 5700 is connected to the system using a PCI Express interface. It is small and measures about 2.68cm in length. It comes with an in built cooling solution that is dual in nature, meaning there are two fans that cool this small device.

Key Features of AMD Radeon 5700 RX

NAVI graphics card were the first AMD GPUs that use RDNA architecture in their development. This architecture was designed and implemented on the Radeon RX 5700 to improve clock speed (instruction per clock) and multilevel cache hierarchy which consequently improve efficiency of the card by lowering its latency and reduce its power consumption compared to other versions of the 5000 series. Other than these, there are a few more features that make this GPU the best choice for you and your gaming PC.

Powerful memory of 8GB GDDR6

The Radeon RX 5700 is known for its powerful memory of 8GB GDDR6 memory chip. This allows up to 14 gigs per second of bandwidth and therefore supporting up to 1440p display, which can be considered 4K. This is a great feature since most gamers today heavily demand powerful graphics and display from their games. With this graphics card, you will be able to play any game with up to 1440p display which is quite a crisp display. The memory is also fitted with 256 bit memory bus for faster performance and rendering.

Advanced 7mm technology

As technology grows more and more powerful, the size of the components that make this possible grow smaller and smaller. The Radeon RX 5700 has a small architecture compared to other previous generation models. A smaller chip means less heat is produced in the system. The 7nm chip boosts performance up to 1.5 times and over the previous Graphics Core Next technology architecture. This enables better gaming performance, general reduction in power consumption and reduced latency – all of which improve your gaming experience by a mile.

Supports PCI 4.0 Express Support

The Radeon 5700 RX is the first graphics card to have a PCIe 4.0 ready graphics support. This means that there is increased bandwidth compared to the PCI 3.0. In fact, the version 4.0 is said to double the amount of bandwidth from its predecessor. Both gamers and game creators heavily benefit from this since there are improved speeds as well as increased storage performance.

It has three powerful DisplayPort

The three DisplayPort ports allow the gamer to play with up to 8K resolution. This is the highest available resolution for PC games and with the Radeon RX 5700, you can enjoy this display. You can play 8K resolution games at a frequency of 60Hz or 5K resolution with a frequency of 120Hz. Both of these displays are clear and crisp and there is not much difference visually.

These mean that the AMD 5700 offer a Virtual reality (VR) experience as this GPU matches all the recommended specs. With the DisplayPort, there are specs that come with it that make it powerful. They include: compatilibily with Radeon, availability of Radeon exclusives such as FreeSync 2 and FreeSync 2 with HDR. The gaming experience can be easily personalized and customized with features from the gaming suite: Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition.

Protective aluminum casing

As much as there are complaints about the plain look of the Radeon RX 5700 due to its simple aluminum finish, this aluminum material goes a long way in keeping the graphics card durable. The metal casing protects this card from heavy impact and the damage that goes along with it. This is an important feature as the Radeon 5700 RX is relatively costly and needs to be protected all times.

 Great general performance

The Radeon RX 5700 has great overall performance not just on paper but in practice too. It can support up to 110 pixels per second. For the rendering abilities, there are over 2000 shading units, 64 ROPs, 36 compute units and 144 texture mapping units. There is also an L2 cache memory that is always running and has a capacity of 4MB.

Great Board Design

The Radeon RX 5700 has a dual slot board design which means it is powered by two pin power connectors – one six pin connector and one 8 pin connector. This design also means there are two fans which work to cool the graphics card when it gets too hot. It has a small compact design that measures 26.8cm. The small size is powered by 185 W of power and contains one HDMI port and three DisplayPorts. There is a 6 pin and an 8 pin power connector that are both used to connect the graphics card to the system through the CPU.

Pros and Cons of the Radeon RX 5700

AMD released two 5000 series GPU on July 2019; the Radeon XT 5700 and the Radeon RX 5700. As powerful as they both are, the RX 5700 is considered the less powerful of the two. With less computes units and a cheaper look, the 5700 is definitely not as aggressive as its counterpart. However, the RX 5700 boasts a few pros and cons that make it suitable for your needs. The following section highlights the advantages and disadvantages of choosing the Radeon RX 5700.

Final Verdict

The AMD Radeon is a great choice if you just need a card that can handle all the intense raster graphics that today’s game use. With it, you can play any game and even use virtual reality. The fair price indicates that you will get all that is require from a mid-tier gaming GPU. However, if you want implement real time ray tracing, this is not the graphics card for you.