XFX RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra Video Card Review

The FPS Review may receive a commission if you purchase something after clicking a link in this article.

Conclusion

When we were on the search for a video card that could potentially show the full advantages and performance capable from the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, we quickly paused at this video card and reached out to get it for review.  The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT debuted at a great price, $399 in 2019, but it was always lacking a little something extra, an extra boost to its performance that it really needed.  Plus, we were never impressed by the thermal situation from the launch. 

We knew from the get-go it was going to be up to manufacturers to customize a video card around the Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU to improve upon it.  With a customized video card utilizing better cooling we could have better clock speeds, better performance, cooler temperatures, and quieter operation.  XFX answered that call completely with the new XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra.  This is basically XFX taking the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and saying let’s push it as far as we can and build a massive, robust video card to contain it, keep it cool, and quiet. 

The Special Bits

There are several things that make the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra a very interesting video card.  First is the price, it is available at $420-$440.   We will talk about how that compares to the competition in a bit.  Then we have the customization that XFX has done.  XFX has built a robust video card with the goal of raising the GPU clock speed as much as they safely can.

XFX has raised the voltage and given it a hefty factory overclock.  XFX has raised the base clock from 1605MHz to 1810MHz.  They have raised the game clock from 1755MHz to 1935MHz and they have raised the boost clock from 1905MHz to 2025MHz.  This is with the “Ultra” version of the video card.  There is a non-Ultra version, which has the same build, but no factory overclock.

Then you add in the sheer size of this video card, it is literally “THICC” in all directions.  This video card is long, wide, and thick in height.  You will need 3 free slots.  This extra girth allows XFX to stuff it with very large heatsinks, a copper baseplate, and lots of heatpipes.  XFX could have stopped there, but they didn’t, they also put three very large fans on it, 2 90mm and 1 100mm.  This video card has so much potential in cooling that it can handle that factory overclock and give it more headroom.

Overclocking

We were actually impressed that there was still headroom to add to the already high factory overclock.  Because of the robust cooling we were able to take it up to almost a consistent 2100MHz, our average overclock was 2090MHz, which is amazing for this GPU at 1.200V. 

When we increased the cooling plus the Power Target of the video card, we also experienced a more consistent frequency.  At default, it is quiet and provides a high level of GPU frequency.  But, if you wished to increase the fan profiles a bit more, and just simply raise the Power Target you could achieve an even higher consistent frequency at default without having to overclock.

The performance was also increased with the overclock.  With the overclock we consistently saw it outperform the more expensive NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FE video card.  In most of the tests, it was on top of the overclock. 

Performance and Competition

Overall, the factory overclocked XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra provided a genuine performance boost over a reference AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT.  The factory overclock provided more performance in games and kept the performance way over a GeForce RTX 2070 FE and on-par with a GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FE. 

The fact of this video card performance is very important here.  At $420-$440 it actually is price comparable with a GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER or GeForce RTX 2070 FE.  However, our gaming results actually show that it competes on performance with the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FE video card, a video card completely outside of its price class!  This is just simply amazing.

GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FE video cards start out at $499 and go way up from there.  The XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra is $420 and performs just as good.  The XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra destroys the performance of the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER and GeForce RTX 2070 FE.  It’s just way faster, for the same money.  That’s value defined.

Final Points

There’s not much more to say, the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra is right now an incredible value on price and performance.  It is able to outperform to a great degree the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER and GeForce RTX 2070 FE, which are priced similarly. 

The XFX RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra is able to match performance with a GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FE which is $100 more expensive.  That means GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER FE performance for $100 less, that’s an amazing value. 

The factory overclock on the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra provides a real-world performance boost over a reference AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT.  Even in GPGPU applications, the extra GPU frequency improves performance over a reference Radeon RX 5700 XT.  It is beneficial to improved GPGPU performance.

There is one area of recommendation we would wish to make to XFX that we would have liked to have seen, a factory memory overclock on the Ultra version.  The icing on the cake would have been a nice 1GHz boost to memory just to push it over the edge out-of-the-box.  The video card build can handle it for sure. 

We are impressed with the cooling; it is able to keep pace and doesn’t hold the video card back.  Even when overclocked we haven’t tapped the full potential of the cooling ability.  Just make sure to have plenty of space to put this thing.  Finally, manufacturers like XFX have come through to make the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT what it could have been.

Discussion

TheFPSReview Gold Award
Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

Recent News