The RX 6700 XT was released over a year ago and had a rough start. It was released right back in the middle of the graphics card shortage, and it now has a bigger brother to contend with in the RX 6750 XT. So the question today is, did it hold up over time, or has it aged like milk?
So, the graphics card market is finally starting to heat up, especially in the mid-tier section, because things are finally starting to get down to MSRP. My emotions aside, we’re talking about the RX 6700 XT today. Since its launch, AMD has released many driver updates and software updates like FSR, RSR, etc. Every GPU in the 6000 series lineup has gotten some value and additional performance from these driver updates.
Does this hold up in the $300 to $600 bracket-ish area? You’ve got competitors with the 3070, 3060, 3060 Ti, and the 6750 XT. Now, entering that little bracket, the 3060 and 3060 Ti should be below that, but they’re still well above MSRP. The question today that we’re going to answer is, well, there are three of them. The first one is, is this still worth it one year later? Or is there a better option out there? Two, when should you buy this if you don’t currently have a GPU and you need a GPU? When would this be a good option? Or would it be a good option in general? And then three, if you already have a GPU and are looking to upgrade, when would this be a good option? As in, I have this card; I should consider this.
So we’re going to answer all those questions today. However, my benchmarks are low, medium, and high default settings. No tweaks, no adjustments, no ultra hellfire badass, no crazy settings, just high, medium, and low. So keep that in mind. And also, these are my test bench specs right here. And I do things differently here compared to most. I do an average gamer’s test bench, a mid-tier build. So, you should see the same results or better if you have higher-tier specs. I’d instead give you a real-world expectation and leave your meat on the bone rather than sell your hopes and dreams.
So, let’s go ahead, jump into the benchmarks, and then talk about it. Without any spoilers, I’m just going to say those benchmarks were more than I anticipated, to be 100% honest. Let’s go ahead and jump into answering these questions for you.
How Well Does It Perform?
It performed well. I was very impressed with it. I was impressed when it was released, honestly. It’s a great GPU. It’s comparable to the 2080 Ti territory from last generation Nvidia and far surpasses the 5700, well, 5000 series from AMD. Temperature-wise, this performs exceptionally well. It’s a dual-fan, relatively thin cooler. It’s not super duper thick; honestly, it keeps the GPU respectfully cool for what it is. Noise-wise, I’m going to say low to moderate, the reason being is if you’re not wearing a headset, which I know most people are nowadays, and you don’t play at a medium to high gaming volume, you might notice it ramp up under certain conditions, again depending on your case if you have a lot of mesh, etc., or like one of those tiny like mini ITX cases that just is full of holes and looks like a shrimp basket, I don’t know a better way to describe it, but you might notice some noise there. Still, outside that, again, it’s low to moderate. It’s nothing that would hurt your ears. It’s not high-pitched. It’s just like low fan noise that comes out of it. Overall, it’s pretty darn good performance, especially for the price point if you find it MSRP.
Question number two, should you buy this now if you’re considering the mid-tier graphics card market being the $400 to $600 dollar price range right now, which again is expensive, and it sucks that’s now the mid-tier price range. Still, it just is what it is. You have a variety of competitors. You have your low end, which is the RTX 3060. Then you have the high end, which is the RX 6800 non-XT. Now, mind you, the RTX 3060 performs way too low and should be less than 400, but they’re overpriced right now, so let’s kick that out of the bin. The 6800 is nowhere near MSRP yet, which makes me mad because it should be under 600. so that’s going out the door too, so now you’ve left with the 360 to 3070 and the big brother of this, the 6750 XT.
I’m going to say if you can find it at $400 flat, maybe that’s an option, but this handily outperforms the 360 TI in 90 games with a few games in Nvidia does well against AMD in. Still, this will usually be a better bang for your buck than 3070, 6750. Those cards typically reach $600 at the top of that price range bracket. You can find these right now from about $400 to $450, so let’s say $400 to $500; right if that’s the maximum you want to spend or if you’re looking for just a good bargain, these under $500 ultimate win the 3070 and the 6750 XT should essentially outperform this to some degree the 3070 will do way better in ray tracing because of the second-gen cores etc., and that might be a better option you know obviously if you want to spend closer to $600 range you’ll get a little bit more horsepower out of the 6750 and the RTX 3070. if you’re trying to save a few bucks, this option is closer to that $400 price bracket.
Question number three: when should you consider this a good upgrade? So let’s start with, and if you’re an AMD 5000 series card user, this is automatically a good upgrade. The highest thing they had was the 5700 XT, like a 2070 2070 super middle ground, completely wiping the floor with all those. If you have the 6000 series, I would only upgrade to this if you have a 6600 non-XT or lower card. Anything above that is not a huge performance increase to make it worth the extra money.
To do that, but again, if you can sell your card or have a buddy or work on a deal, that’s your call. But for anything above 6600 non-XT, I wouldn’t consider an upgrade if you’re an Nvidia user now. If you have a 3000 series GPU, I won’t upgrade to this unless you have a 3050, and that’s it. Anything above that, keep what you have. This is a good upgrade if you have a 2000 series or older Nvidia or a 2070 Super or lower. Suppose you have a 2080 or newer again. In that case, it’s one of those things where the performance you already have is respectable, and upgrading to a newer GPU is not going to give you that astronomical performance boost, so I would stick with what you have and not consider this a viable upgrade again unless you’re 2070 super or lower.
I hope that helped you out there. This has made your purchasing decision easier.
