Default GPU Frequency
Before we look at performance, we need to find out the actual real-world gaming frequency the video card performs. With both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs today, the GPU frequency is very dynamic. What may be quoted as the “Boost Clock” is not necessarily the performance it will actually run at. Typically, GPUs today can exceed the “Boost Clock” dynamically. We need to find out what it actually runs at, in this way we can see how well things like cooling, and power headroom are working.
To do this we will record the GPU clock frequency over time while playing a game. We use Cyberpunk 2077 for this with a very long manual run-through at “Ultra” settings. We also record GPUz sensor data to look at GPU temperature, Voltage, and Power.
Reminder, the gaming boost clock is 2548MHz and the total boost clock is 2622MHz on this video card. According to this graph, the frequency stays mainly above 2573MHz to 2580MHz. The frequency consistently stays above the gaming frequency of 2548MHz. However, it does not hit the top-end total possible highest boost clock of 2622MHz, it is quite shy of that while gaming. But that is ok since it remains at or above the gaming boost clock. If we average out this clock speed the average result is 2576MHz. That’s a good 28MHz higher than the gaming boost.
If we look back to our MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT GAMING X review you will see that it boosted to an average of 2565MHz. Therefore, the XFX video card runs just ever so slightly faster by default. It’s a higher consistent boost.
According to GPUz, while running at full-load the maximum clock hit 2597MHz briefly, not sustained. GPU Temperature was at 67c and GPU Temperature Hot Spot was 87c. This was with a fan speed of only 36% which is highly impressive. Voltage ran at 1.200V.
