If Steam’s Hardware Survey results are anything to go by, it’s that midrange GPUs, specifically NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060, can spell awesome value for money that can last you a couple of years before you upgrade. That’s an almost 4-year old GPU, mind you, and it’s still at the top of its game. AMD might be looking to replace and dethrone the GTX 1060 with the Radeon RX 5600 XT, and now we have the SAPPHIRE Pulse RX 5600 XT to see if there’s a chance for that to happen.
If Steam’s Hardware Survey results are anything to go by, it’s that midrange GPUs, specifically NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060, can spell awesome value for money that can last you a couple of years before you upgrade. That’s an almost 4-year old GPU, mind you, and it’s still at the top of its game. AMD might be looking to replace and dethrone the GTX 1060 with the Radeon RX 5600 XT, and now we have the SAPPHIRE Pulse RX 5600 XT to see if there’s a chance for that to happen.
Coming from SAPPHIRE’s Pulse RX 5500 XT, the Pulse RX 5600 XT features quite the similar design, albeit with some style changes befitting of an upgrade. It’s still the same Dual-X Cooling by Sapphire, but it now comes with color accents instead of the all-black shroud we’ve seen on the Pulse RX 5500 XT.
The backplate also received the same treatment here. It still requires a single 8-pin power header, and we still don’t have RGB.
When it comes to
outputs, the Pulse RX 5600 XT features one HDMI port and three DisplayPort
outputs.
PERFORMANCE
Our sample has
already been updated with the latest BIOS, so just in case you’re not aware of
it yet, best update to the latest one since we’re not exactly sure if what
you’ll be getting will be shipped with it. Moving forward, we’ll push through
with our benchmark tests, and mostly comparing it with the GeForce GTX 1660
Super we have on hand. Furthermore, we’re updating our benchmark methods all
thanks to DevTechProfile and CapFrameX, which you can also download here.
TEST SYSTEM SETUP
Motherboard: GIGABYTE AORUS X570 ELITE
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
GPU: SAPPHIRE Pulse RX 5600 XT 6GB
RAM: ZADAK 16GB DDR4 RAM 3600MHz
Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black
Storage: Plextor M9e 512GB M.2 SSD + Seagate BarraCuda 4TB + 2TB Western Digital Green HDD
PSU: Corsair RM750 750 Watt 80 Plus Gold Certified Fully Modular PSU
Case: Silverstone RL06
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Display: ViewSonic VX2758 144Hz Monitor
3DMark Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for Windows 10 gaming
PCs. Time Spy is one of the first DirectX 12 apps to be built the right way
from the ground up to fully realize the performance gains that the new API
offers. With its Extreme counterpart rendering visuals in 4K.
TEST SYSTEM SETUP
Motherboard: GIGABYTE AORUS X570 ELITE
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
GPU: SAPPHIRE Pulse RX 5600 XT 6GB
RAM: ZADAK 16GB DDR4 RAM 3600MHz
Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black
Storage: Plextor M9e 512GB M.2 SSD + Seagate BarraCuda 4TB + 2TB Western Digital Green HDD
PSU: Corsair RM750 750 Watt 80 Plus Gold Certified Fully Modular PSU
Case: Silverstone RL06
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Display: ViewSonic VX2758 144Hz Monitor
3DMark Time Spy
3DMark Firestrike
Battlefield V
Battlefield V is the very first title to support NVIDIA's Ray Tracing.
Our test involves a run on the War Stories – The Last Tiger section to at least
standardize and test out its performance equally across the board. And of
course, everything possible to adjust set to maximum/ultra. Drive it hard.
Settings:
DirectX 12
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Anti-aliasing Post-processing: TAA High
DXR: Off
Effects Quality Ultra
GPU Memory Restriction: Off
Graphics Quality: Ultra
Lighting Quality: Ultra
Mesh Quality: Ultra
Post-processing Quality: Ultra
Resolution Scale: Ultra
Terrain Quality: Ultra
Texture Filtering: Ultra
Texture Quality: Ultra
Undergrowth Quality: Ultra
Framerate Limiter: 200
VSync: Off
Future Frame Rendering: Off
The Witcher 3
The Witcher 3 despite its age is still one of the most demanding titles
as it holds up graphically. Our test is done on Oxenfurt.
Settings:
VSync: Off
FPS: Unlimited
NVIDIA Hairworks: Off
Number of Background Characters: Ultra
Shadow Quality: Ultra
Terrain Quality: Ultra
Water Quality: Ultra
Grass Density: Ultra
Texture Quality: Ultra
Foliage Visibility Range: Ultra
Detail Level: Ultra
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Abberation: On
Vignetting: On
Gears of War 5
Gears of War 5 is the latest installment in The Coalition's Gears of War franchise. It's a third person shooter that features a cover-system mechanic and a mini-game reload mechanic. It also features an exact 1-minute benchmark that we're going to use for our data.
Settings:
API: DirectX 12
Ultra Settings Preset
Min/Max Frame Rate: None/Unlimited
Character Texture Detail: Ultra
Effects Texture Detail: Ultra
Dynamic Shadow Quality: Ultra
World Texture Detail: Ultra
Texture Streaming: Ultra
Capsule Shadow Quality: Ultra
Screen Space Reflections: Ultra
Ambient Occlusion Quality: Ultra
World Level of Detail: Ultra
Tesselation Quality: Ultra
Animation Quality: Best
Ashes of the Singularity - Escalation
Ashes of the Singularity - Escalation is a massive-scale real time strategy game. We'll be using the game's benchmark tool to test out performance in Vulkan.
Settings:
API: Vulkan
Preset: Crazy
Point Light Quality: High
Glare Quality: High
Shading Samples: 16 million
Terrain Shading Samples: 12 million
Shadow Quality: High
Temporal AA Duration: 0
Temporal AA Time Slice: 0
Multisample Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Compressed textures: True
Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers
The Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers official benchmark tool uses actual
maps and playable characters to assign a score to your PC and rate its
performance. A character creation tool is also included, allowing you to view a
playable character as they will appear in-game.
Settings:
Graphics Settings: Maximum Preset
Real-time Reflections: Maximum
Anti-aliasing: FXAA
Transparent Lighting Quality: High
Grass Quality: High
Parallax Occlusion: High
Tessellation: High
Glare: Standard
Texture Filtering: Anisotropic x16
Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 features an in-game benchmark mode that loads an
automated race to profile your PC's performance in various settings. It looks
cool as heck, too.
Settings:
VSync: Off
Motion Blur: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: Ultra
Night Shadows: On
Shadow Quality: Ultra
Environment Texture Quality: Ultra
Static Geometry Quality: Ultra
Dynamic Geometry Quality: Ultra
MSAA: 2X
SSAO Quality: High
Reflection Quality: High
Windshield Reflection Quality: High
Mirror Quality: Ultra
World Car Level of Detail: Ultra
Deformable Terrain Quality: Ultra
SSR Quality: High
Lens Effects: Ultra
Shader Quality: Ultra
Particle effects Quality: High
Our temperature tests are done with the system idle in
the first 30 minutes after boot up, and afterwards a load test of 3DMark Time
Spy on loop for another 30 minutes.
Temperature
There’s plenty
of reasons why AMD’s Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB can indeed become successful on its
path to dethrone the GTX 1060. The numbers here don’t lie. The SAPPHIRE Pulse
RX 5600 XT delivers superb performance with our tests. Furthermore, its launch
price of around $289 puts it a whole lot cheaper than NVIDIA’s RTX 2060 Super,
and slightly above the GeForce GTX 1660 Super. To drive the point home, AMD’s
drivers age so good that you can expect better performance over time. When it
comes to value for money? There’s no contest here. The SAPPHIRE Pulse RX 5600
XT takes the cake.
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