Conclusion
Today we have reviewed the fastest AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU based video card we have tested with the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 XT O8G GAMING. Now, it carries a price premium at $459.99 compared to the reference AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT pricing of $399. That’s a $60 price premium, so the question was whether this video card justifies that pricing.
Pricing
That brings us to the first thing we need to talk about, pricing. Technically the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is price comparable with the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER as both have an MSRP of $399. However, this ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 XT O8G GAMING at $459.99 actually sits closer in pricing to the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER at $499 MSRP. The question is then, which video card is the performance closest to?
Performance
In our performance evaluation we used the latest games out right now, Red Dead Redemption 2, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Gears 5, Control and Wolfenstein Youngblood. This is what people are playing right now and these are all relevant games.
To our surprise, in all the games except one, the reference AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT lined up in performance to the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER! In fact, it smashed the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER in every single game. When it comes right down to it, in today’s latest games the Radeon RX 5700 XT is on par with GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER (not original, SUPER) performance. So, while its price competitive with the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, it is actually performance competitive with the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER.
When we look at the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 XT O8G GAMING we find that it does provide more performance than the reference Radeon RX 5700 XT. It averages about 4% faster, but that does help bring performance up over the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER that much more. It allows a great gameplay experience in the latest games at 1440p, even the more demanding ones which need it. When we overclocked the video card performance rose even more and, in every game, it was the fastest video card with the overclock.
Overclocking
Speaking about overclocking the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 XT O8G GAMING was a very easy to overclock video card. The voltage of the GPU is already as high as it will go, so you only need to overclock the Power Target and GPU Clock and Memory Clock. To that end, we were able to maximize the values of GPU Tweak and max out the settings that AMD has locked in.
When we pushed those values to the max we got a very high overclock that brings the GPU up to 2070MHz average clock speed. In addition, we got the memory overclock high on this video card up to 15.2GHz. We’ve never reached these levels of overclocking with any Radeon RX 5700 XT video card yet. In the past, we’ve seen some sensitivity when overclocking the memory. However, with the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 XT O8G GAMING, we got a higher memory overclock with no trouble.
The fact is, this is the highest GPU frequency and memory frequency overclock we’ve ever achieved on a Radeon RX 5700 XT to date. This allows the maximum performance from the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU which makes it exceed GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER performance.
Temps
We need to specifically talk about temperature because this has been a sore spot for the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT. The fact is that the reference video card runs very hot with a very hot die/junction temperature of 101c that has concerned a lot of people. This is where a custom video card like the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 XT O8G GAMING comes in and fixes that problem.
With its custom design and robust cooling, it has a GPU die/junction temperature of 89c which is a huge reduction. The package or edge temperature is 70c, also a big reduction in temperature. This video card fixes the issue of the Radeon RX 5700 XT getting so toasty. It also outperforms the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra in this regard.
Final Points
Here’s the deal, most people will gawk at the price premium on this video card at $459.99. If you look deeper though into how this video card performs, its thermal properties and its overclocking potential that price will make sense. When you look deeper you will find that this video card flat out competes with the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, not the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER. Since the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER starts around $499 that means you can get similar to GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER performance for a price that is $40 cheaper!
That, in our book, is a great deal. It is because of that, the thermal properties, and the overclock that the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 5700 XT O8G GAMING video card deserves our Gold award.
Get it at Amazon for $459.99.
