# Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Pulse



## W1zzard (Aug 12, 2019)

The Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Pulse is equipped with a factory overclock and features a much better thermal solution than the AMD reference design. The card not only runs a lot quieter as temperatures are better than on any other RX 5700 XT we've tested so far, and idle fan stop is included, too.

*Show full review*


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## Wyverex (Aug 12, 2019)

Looks like a nice card.

Nice review, as always   Thanks W1zzard!


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## EzioAs (Aug 12, 2019)

Wyverex said:


> Looks like a nice card.



I agree. Overall, it looks pretty good.


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## Chomiq (Aug 12, 2019)

About time for price wars to begin.


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## INSTG8R (Aug 12, 2019)

Apparently saw it’s being listed at £429. First pricing I’ve seen


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## ManofGod (Aug 12, 2019)

Chomiq said:


> About time for price wars to begin.



Doubtful. Also, why is not having RT hardware at this price point a negative? Pretty much anything at this price point will not be good for RT anyways.


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## Aldain (Aug 12, 2019)

Why is not having RT a NEGATIVE?? I mean really???


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## W1zzard (Aug 12, 2019)

Aldain said:


> Why is not having RT a NEGATIVE?? I mean really???


Just so that it's mentioned for completeness, some less experienced readers might not be aware. See the paragraph in the conclusion for my full thoughts.


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## ShurikN (Aug 12, 2019)

After looking how this card performs, might as well not bother with the updated pricing for the Strix card. Unless it's under $430, you're wasting your money. Knowing it's Asus, it'll probably be closer to 500.

Kudos to Sapphire for this card. They've set the bar pretty high, lets see how others follow.


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## Athlonite (Aug 12, 2019)

I wonder when the Nitro+ version will be out pulse versions always seemed a little crappier to me not that this isn't a nice card an all but I prefer the Nitro+ versions


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## HwGeek (Aug 12, 2019)

Really liked the Strixx Boost option- looks  nice feature to have.


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## TheLostSwede (Aug 12, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> Just so that it's mentioned for completeness, some less experienced readers might not be aware. See the paragraph in the conclusion for my full thoughts.


These days people only want the TLDR; version...


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## trparky (Aug 12, 2019)

Looks like a good decent mid-range card, the price needs to come down a bit to maybe around $325 or $350. When that happens it might give nVidia a run for their money in their mid-range sector of the market which doesn't necessarily care about the highest frames per second (only that it's above 100 to 130).


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## sutyi (Aug 12, 2019)

So Sapphire's Pulse has the same thermals and better acoustics compared to the supposed top-of-the-line STRIXX variant from ASUS.

Think I might go for a non-XT 5700 Pulse on Black Friday.


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## RH92 (Aug 12, 2019)

Not really convinced by temperature charts . Normal BIOS mod 75°C / 35dBA   ,  Quiet BIOS mod 74°C / 32dBA ? Unless there is massive variance between runs there is no way a card is cooler when fans spin slower !


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## sutyi (Aug 12, 2019)

RH92 said:


> Not really convinced by temperature charts . Normal BIOS mod 75°C / 35dBA   ,  Quiet BIOS mod 74°C / 32dBA ? Unless there is massive variance between runs there is no way a card is cooler when fans spin slower !



Different vBIOS might mean lower vCore too, not just a different fan profile.

PS.: Although based on the testing done by Tech Jesus Steve, you might want to keep the default vBIOS on, as with the quiet one the VRAM got quite toasty.


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## RH92 (Aug 12, 2019)

sutyi said:


> So Sapphire's Pulse has the same thermals and better acoustics compared to the supposed top-of-the-line STRIXX variant from ASUS.



That's very surprising result , when you compare Strix heatsink to Pulse heatsink so either there is something wrong with Strix mounting on Navi ( doesn't make proper contact )  or with TPU reviews .



sutyi said:


> Different vBIOS might mean lower vCore too, not just a different fan profile.



If that was true  you would see lower Idle temps aswell wich is not the case .


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## rrrrex (Aug 12, 2019)

Where to get new Sapphire TriXX?


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## nguyen (Aug 12, 2019)

RH92 said:


> That's very surprising result , when you compare Strix heatsink to Pulse heatsink so either there is something wrong with Strix mounting ( doesn't make proper contact )  or with TPU review .
> 
> If that was true  you would see lower Idle temps aswell wich is not the case .



Other reviews report about the same temp for the Strix version, Guru3D 76C, Hexus 76C.
Quite bios on the both the Strix and Pulse have the idle fan stop function so the temp are supposed to be high.


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## Zubasa (Aug 12, 2019)

RH92 said:


> That's very surprising result , when you compare Strix heatsink to Pulse heatsink so either there is something wrong with Strix mounting on Navi ( doesn't make proper contact )  or with TPU reviews .


Another point of interest, the better coolers on these AIB cards don't seem to make any real difference to performance even when overclocking.
The reference card still managed to clock slightly higher than this card due to chip variance.
It shows that the reference cards were not actually exploding / setting your house on fire / throttling the card as some expected.
For only $10 more sure, anyone in their right mind would buy this over the reference design simply because the noise is better.


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## sutyi (Aug 12, 2019)

RH92 said:


> If that was true  you would see lower Idle temps aswell wich is not the case .



Not really. "2D" or low power 3D has differet clock level & VID and might be the same as the default vBIOS. However full power 3D with the secondary vBIOS has a 30-50mV lower GPU voltage compared to the default ones, with a much more relaxed fan curve. Take a look:


https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-5700-xt-pulse/35.html


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## RH92 (Aug 12, 2019)

nguyen said:


> Other reviews report about the same temp for the Strix version, Guru3D 76C, Hexus 76C.



Guru3D has it at 76°C vs TPU 82°C  in quiet profile and  68°C vs 77°C for TPU under normal profile ..... that's FAR from being the same temps !



nguyen said:


> Quite bios on the both the Strix and Pulse have the idle fan stop function so the temp are supposed to be high.



You are wrong again  both cards have idle fan stop function on both profiles !



sutyi said:


> Not really. "2D" or low power 3D has differet clock level & VID and might be the same as the default vBIOS. However full power 3D with the secondary vBIOS has a 30-50mV lower GPU voltage compared to the default ones, with a much more relaxed fan curve. Take a look:
> 
> 
> https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-5700-xt-pulse/35.html



30mV are not going to make 1°C difference ( i've tried to undervolt many GPUs myself and even with -100mV you barely see more than 2°C difference ) under load especially not when fans spin slower , if anything else Pulse on quiet profile should be hotter by couple of °C  .

Maybe  Pulse review is not that wrong  , maybe that's normal variance but there is definitely something wrong with Strix review now that i saw Guru3D review .


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## B-Real (Aug 12, 2019)

Thanks for the next review Wizzard. 


ShurikN said:


> After looking how this card performs, might as well not bother with the updated pricing for the Strix card. Unless it's under $430, you're wasting your money. Knowing it's Asus, it'll probably be closer to 500.
> 
> Kudos to Sapphire for this card. They've set the bar pretty high, lets see how others follow.


It is 500 pounds at OCUK, just like the Strix 2060S.

For $90 less, you get a ~2% slower, 2C cooler and a tiny bit quieter (in normal mode) card with the Pulse. No sane person will choose the ASUS Strix. The TUF may be a good choice for ASUS lovers.


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## Zubasa (Aug 12, 2019)

B-Real said:


> For $90 less, you get a ~2% slower, 2C cooler and a tiny bit quieter (in normal mode) card with the Pulse. No sane person will choose the ASUS Strix. The TUF may be a good choice for ASUS lovers.


Especially when none of the cards result in better overclocks.
The Asus managed 30Mhz more clock speed over the worse card which is the Pulse and both of them are 15Mhz off from reference all overclocked.
Pretty much all within margin in clock speed. Silicon lottery is all there is.


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## RH92 (Aug 12, 2019)

B-Real said:


> 2C cooler and a tiny bit quieter (in normal mode) card with the Pulse. No sane person will choose the ASUS Strix.



No not really if you look at other reviews of the Strix it's much cooler than the Pulse !  Not saying it's worth the money tho .


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## B-Real (Aug 12, 2019)

Zubasa said:


> Especially when none of the cards result in better overclocks.
> The Asus managed 30Mhz more clock speed over the worse card which is the Pulse and both of them are 15Mhz off from reference all overclocked.
> Pretty much all within margin in clock speed. Silicon lottery is all there is.


In reality, Wizzard managed to pull nearly 4% OC with the Pulse and less than 1% with the Strix. 



RH92 said:


> No not really if you look at other reviews of the Strix it's much cooler than the Pulse !  Not saying it's worth the money tho .



Of course there might be differences, but we don't know the setups: open bench, PC cases with side panel on, PC cases with side panel off. But at TPU, with the same setup, there was 2C difference in favor of Sapphire. If there will be a test site reviewing both cards, we will see. BTW, check Gamers Nexus Steve's review: with a 40 dB setting, it cooled the Pulse to 67C. And that 40 dB is a reference 1080Ti sound. Anyway, as you said, even if the Strix was cooler by 4-5C, it isn't worth the extra $90.


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## Zubasa (Aug 12, 2019)

B-Real said:


> In reality, Wizzard managed to pull nearly 4% OC with the Pulse and less than 1% with the Strix.


Well the factory OC on the pulse is lower than that of the Strix.
In the end they all ended up practically the same.
In fact the Reference design used Samsung GDDR6 memory which in general OC better than Micron use in these AIB cards if not for the driver limit / bug.


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## HD64G (Aug 12, 2019)

So, Sapphire delivered once again by providing a solid GPU, much better in thermals and acoustics than the ref one, while practically not being more expensive. Thanks for the review @W1zzard !


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## Deleted member 158293 (Aug 12, 2019)

Probably one of the better 5700XT models to be available.  Looks like a great efficient cooler.  Negatives I can see is memory  lack of overclock, and the biggest negative being a 2.5 slot card instead of 2 slot.

On my shortlist.


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## RH92 (Aug 12, 2019)

B-Real said:


> Of course there might be differences, but we don't know the setups: open bench, PC cases with side panel on, PC cases with side panel off.



I was talking about Guru3D review so both used open bench . Strix hits 68°C in their review and 76°C in quiet mod that's a massive difference compared to TPU review  .



B-Real said:


> But at TPU, with the same setup, there was 2C difference in favor of Sapphire. If there will be a test site reviewing both cards, we will see.



Wich makes litle sense considering the big difference in heatsink size and 1 more fan in favor of the Strix , unless there is something wrong with TPU Strix model ( or the Strix model on Navi in general )  that card should perform much better than the Pulse  !  For sure im waiting to see if Guru3D has a Pulse review but yeah TPU results seem a bit odd .


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## sutyi (Aug 12, 2019)

RH92 said:


> No not really if you look at other reviews of the Strix it's much cooler than the Pulse !  Not saying it's worth the money tho .



Do other sites have have both cards as well? Unless the same test bench and roughly the same ambient temperature is used it will skew results.


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## RH92 (Aug 12, 2019)

sutyi said:


> Do other sites have have both cards as well? Unless the same test bench and roughly the same ambient temperature is used it will skew results.



Guru3D has not a Pulse review yet i hope they publish one soon . I know ambient temps can skew results but both sites use open test bench . Guru3D is testing with 21°C ambient but i can't find TPU ambient .


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## raptori (Aug 12, 2019)

Well done Sapphire , such card can steer the direction towards AMD and I'll definitely consider it as my next upgrade if I can get it near $410.


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## Xuper (Aug 12, 2019)

You didn't use SoftPowerPlay mod for OC , Why ?


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## jabbadap (Aug 12, 2019)

Zubasa said:


> Well the factory OC on the pulse is lower than that of the Strix.
> In the end they all ended up practically the same.
> In fact the Reference design used Samsung GDDR6 memory which in general OC better than Micron use in these AIB cards if not for the driver limit / bug.



Speaking of it: Is there any third party OC software out yet to support overclocking navi cards? Wattman's 950MHz limit is low for gddr6, i.e. every nvidia card with 14Gbps micron tested here on tpu can do higher than that.


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## ExplodingCaps (Aug 12, 2019)

Woah, it's very unlikely that asus strix can be beaten even with other 3 fans cooler let alone 2 fans card in term of thermal performance in rtx series. Pulse is really nailed it.


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## cucker tarlson (Aug 12, 2019)

all in all strix oc vs pulse oc,strix wins.less oc heardroom but more out of the box performance for asus card.

compared to 2070 Super trio, 2070s is 16,4% faster than pulse and 15% faster than strix when comparing OC vs OC.


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## Lindatje (Aug 12, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> all in all strix oc vs pulse oc,strix wins.less oc heardroom but more out of the box performance for asus card.
> 
> compared to 2070 Super trio, 2070s is 16,4% faster than pulse and 15% faster than strix when comparing OC vs OC.


Getting on with OC and then asking for problems. Just insert the card, install the driver and start playing. You don't have to do it for 2 or 3 FPS more, and more problems.
I don't understand why people still want to overclock for that little bit more that you don't notice.


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## cucker tarlson (Aug 12, 2019)

Lindatje said:


> Getting on with OC and then asking for problems. Just insert the card, install the driver and start playing. You don't have to do it for 2 or 3 FPS more, and more problems.


oc is pretty effortless though.


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## W1zzard (Aug 12, 2019)

RH92 said:


> Not really convinced by temperature charts . Normal BIOS mod 75°C / 35dBA   ,  Quiet BIOS mod 74°C / 32dBA ? Unless there is massive variance between runs there is no way a card is cooler when fans spin slower !


it's explained in the text, two times


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## Joss (Aug 12, 2019)

I like one of the cooling options on this card: the aluminium fins are parallel to the length of the card and both the rear _and_ the front are open enough for air to flow out.
@W1zzard I think you should add a pic of the front to emphasise this. I had to confirm it with this video (@ 3:26):


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## Turmania (Aug 12, 2019)

If Pulse series nailed it than watch out for the Nitro+  series. I'm waiting for the MSI Evoke review which is suppose to be reviewed by TPU soon I believe.


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## RH92 (Aug 12, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> it's explained in the text, two times



Roger although as far as im aware 30mV difference is not enough to explain better temps with slower fans , let alone the marginal difference in frequency wich should have even less impact than the voltage . Don't get me wrong im not judging your work here it's just that those results seem a bit odd especially when compared to the Strix ! 

It would be nice to know what the ambient temps where during testing ( unless i missed this aswell ) .


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## medi01 (Aug 12, 2019)

Hm, Strix OCed higher, but consumes 20w less than Pulse, am I reading it right?


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## jinxjx (Aug 12, 2019)

Once again why this wasnt tested on Ryzen cpus too ?


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## SIGSEGV (Aug 13, 2019)

unigine haven? really? 

 /sad


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## Zubasa (Aug 13, 2019)

medi01 said:


> Hm, Strix OCed higher, but consumes 20w less than Pulse, am I reading it right?


The Strix has much more efficient and overkill VRMs on the PCB.


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## cucker tarlson (Aug 13, 2019)

medi01 said:


> Hm, Strix OCed higher, but consumes 20w less than Pulse, am I reading it right?


first time in a long time I'm not impressed with a sapphire product.Hope they have nitro coming,although that'd probably touch on the $500 price mark if it comes.


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## RH92 (Aug 13, 2019)

Zubasa said:


> The Strix has much more efficient and overkill VRMs on the PCB.



That could also be explained by better binning on the Strix but indeed Strix has much more efficient VRM and runs cooler wich can easely explain the difference in both max clock and lower consumption ( despite using more fans ) .


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## medi01 (Aug 13, 2019)

RH92 said:


> That could also be explained by better binning on the Strix but indeed Strix has much more efficient VRM and runs cooler wich can easely explain the difference in both max clock and lower consumption ( despite using more fans ) .


That being said, in computerbase review, Strix consumes 30w more than pulse (and Pulse beats 2070S with A-bios, only +11w with S-Bios)


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## RH92 (Aug 13, 2019)

medi01 said:


> That being said, in computerbase review, Strix consumes 30w more than pulse (and Pulse beats 2070S with A-bios, only +11w with S-Bios)
> 
> 
> View attachment 129153 View attachment 129154



Obviously silicon lottery plays alot hence why results vary here and there  but technically speaking Strix has for sure more efficient VRM .


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## Anymal (Aug 13, 2019)

FFS, W1zzard, you should know GCN debutet with 7970 end of 2011/jan 2012


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## Chrispy_ (Aug 13, 2019)

I like the fact that this is cool, quiet, and close to the MSRP of the reference card.

I just wish it wasn't a triple-slot design, extended-height (looks like at least 40mm higher than the PCIe spec) and using up to 300W of power delivery given the 6+8 pin connectors.

Sure, for a massive ATX case that's mostly empty space with a single GPU and nothing else, that isn't really a problem. But what about SFF, mITX, Micro ATX, and OEM PCs from Dell/HP/Lenovo/Asus/Acer? Those have PCIe slots yet modest power supplies and limited physical space inside. 

Like it or not, for every enthusiast PC, there are _at least _two nasty pre-built machines out there bought by people who didn't know better at the time.


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## eidairaman1 (Aug 14, 2019)

Ray Tracing. Don't make me laugh.


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## Anymal (Aug 14, 2019)

Quake RTX, no rasterization, pure RT. Groundbreaking, only by Nvidia.


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## THU31 (Aug 14, 2019)

So you cannot create custom resolutions in the Radeon software? Seems like such a basic feature.


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## nguyen (Aug 14, 2019)

I doubt the Trixx Boost software doesn't degrade graphic quality too much, I don't want screenshots comparison like some reviews are doing but from a 4K camera that record actual screen footage because obviously it's the images after the scaler that count and not the ones before that (non native resolution scaled to fullscreen always look weird).


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## Lindatje (Aug 14, 2019)

Anymal said:


> Quake RTX, no rasterization, pure RT. Groundbreaking, only by Nvidia.


RTX? No rasterization? Pure RT? Groundbreaking ?


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## eidairaman1 (Aug 14, 2019)

Harry Lloyd said:


> So you cannot create custom resolutions in the Radeon software? Seems like such a basic feature.



Report it throught the driver, the driver is only as good as the lack of reports of wha'ts working or not working/missing.

Vanguard is there for a reason


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## j4r3k (Jan 15, 2020)

Does this card has the same GPU bracket mounting holes distances as reference model?


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## mosin40 (Mar 15, 2021)

What thickness are the thermal pads for the vrm, vram and the backplate? Need to get some replacement thermal pad for my 5700 XT Pulse


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