XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT Review
January 27, 2020
AMD isn’t finished with its RX 5000 series lineup yet, as they release another 1080p focused graphics card in the form of the Radeon RX 5600 XT.
The Radeon RX 5600 XT will be on the same segment as the recently released Radeon RX 5500 XT which we reviewed here. Unfortunately, based on our review, it wasn’t enough to dethrone the 1080p kings of Nvidia.
This time around, as it is on the same segment and near the price point of the reigning Nvidia 1080p-centric graphics cards, will the new Radeon RX 5600 XT be able to dethrone the long-time kings of the 1080p gaming segment?
Let’s dive into our benchmarks and see if this new Radeon-based graphics card would be the next go-to graphics card for the 1080p gaming crowd. On this review, we take a look at the XFX RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO 6GB.
Design
Let’s just put it out of the way first, the XFX THICC II PRO is not as thick as you might think it is, as it falls behind the thickness of the RX 5600 XT iteration from ROG. But that’s not a bad thing since the ‘THICC’ in its name is not meant to describe its heatsink or overall size but its large fans.
The entirety of the XFX THICC II PRO cooling system might be of plastic but it still exudes the premium feel that other metal-based cooling systems give out. And even with its slender design, it still packs in premium cooling components such as a mammoth heatsink, dual 100mm fans, and 6 copper heat pipes that are connected to the copper base plate which directly touches the GPU. It also features a metal backplate that has the XFX branding in large bold text.
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| A single 8-pin power connector is required to power up the XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO. |
Unfortunately for those who like RGB on their graphics card, the XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO doesn’t feature one nor any lighting at all. It’s just all black from front to back with a touch of copper here and there.
Specifications and Performance
- Architecture: Navi
- Manufacturing Process: 7nm
- Transistor Count: 10.3 billion
- Die size: 251 mm2
- Compute units: 36
- Steam Processors: 2304
- Game GPU Clock: 1375
- Boost GPU Clock: up to 1560 Mhz
- Peak SP Performance: up to 7.19 TFLOPS
- Peak Half Precision Performance: up to 14.4 TFLOPS
- Peak Texture Fill-Rate: up to 224.6 GT/s
- ROPs: 64
- Peak Pixel Fill-Rate: up to 99.8 GP/s
- Memory: 6GB GDDR6
- Memory bandwidth: 288 GB/s
- Memory interface: 192-bit
- Board power: 150W
With its specifications that are close to the Radeon RX 5700’s, we expect a lot from the new RX 5600 XT graphics cards. Even though speeds may vary per AIB, the results should still be close to each other.
Cooling solutions, which also vary per AIBs, play a big role in a graphics card’s performance as well. In line with that, performance results sometimes differ from each other even if they have the same GPU but results shouldn’t be far from each other.
The XFX RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO has, like what we pointed out, a slender design when compared to other AIB cooling systems. It may seem something that would hold back its performance, but it’s nothing less than its competitions’.
Below are the results of our testings and benchmarks:
Even without the BIOS update, the Radeon RX 5600 XT showed significant performance difference against other graphics cards in its segment. Nvidia’s GTX 1660 Ti did not stand a chance to win against the XFX RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO on all three games that we tested.
With the BIOS update, the RX 5600 XT was able to squeeze out more performance, a striking increase that helped it to leave the competition behind but adding 10W to its previous power consumption.
XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO‘s default fan curve was on a gentle and quiet spectrum that lacks the needed fan power to further its cooling performance in order to dissipate heat. However, it was still able to hold an idle temperature of 50* that peaked to 75* while running through our game tests and synthetic benchmark software. And even with the BIOS update that added 10W to its power consumption, the default fan curve was still able to hold the temperatures at bay.
What we think
Fortunately, the overall performance of AMD’s Radeon RX 5600 XT is really impressive. Its $279 USD SEP puts it in the middle of Nvidia’s 1660 Ti and RTX 2060 in terms of pricing. While in terms of performance, the Radeon RX 5600 XT overtakes the competition’s similarly priced offering. It shimmies its way to the top of the 1080p leaderboard and dethrones the previous crowd favorite and the similarly priced GTX 1660 Ti. Its 6GB VRAM is just the right amount for high – ultra settings of most AAA game titles at 1080p. The RX 5600 XT produces not even a sliver of performance hiccup on AAA game titles running the highest settings at 1080p, which also points that it can be a reliable graphics card for 1440p gaming.
The Radeon RX 5600 XT has given its competition a run for its money. This time around, AMD isn’t the one to tail behind, the burden falls flat on its competition’s shoulder and rendered them some extra time on R&D to reclaim what the Radeon RX 5600 XT took.
Moreover, this iteration of the Radeon RX 5600 XT of XFX is something that we’ll pick up from a store in a heartbeat. Though its default fan curve was a bit weak for our liking, it’s still just a part of its settings that we can always control through Radeon’s own software or through third-party software. XFX is also one of the brands that don’t stray far from the SEP which makes it a more desirable and recommendable RX 5600 XT iteration if you are looking to build your first gaming PC on a budget. Importantly, the XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO is wrapped with a 3-year limited warranty which you can check and read more about here.
Our testing results and time with the XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO are enough for it to merit our Editor’s Choice and Best Value awards.
