# Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+



## W1zzard (Sep 16, 2019)

Sapphire's Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro+ is the company's flagship Navi card. It comes with a large triple-slot, triple-fan cooler that runs quiet and cool. Adjustable RGB lighting and fan-stop is included, too. A unique addition is the ability to control the dual BIOS switch through software.

*Show full review*


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## mahoney (Sep 16, 2019)

Can somebody tell me why this costs 500€ in Europe?


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## Aldain (Sep 16, 2019)

mahoney said:


> Can somebody tell me why this costs 500€ in Europe?



cause europe


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## demian_vi (Sep 16, 2019)

it would help to have every AIB 5700 xt in the performance graphs like you d for noise/temp


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## tomc100 (Sep 16, 2019)

mahoney said:


> Can somebody tell me why this costs 500€ in Europe?


Because Europe uses a value added tax aka VAT for all of your socialist programs.


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## bug (Sep 16, 2019)

Wth happened to power draw. In idle, this cards wins, while in gaming it draws 50W more than the reference design (~25%) for like 3% extra performance? I'm sorry, but no. Just no.


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## IceShroom (Sep 16, 2019)

tomc100 said:


> Because Europe uses a value added tax aka VAT for all of your socialist programs.


Maybe Europe has VAT Added where US hide the VAT(+other hidden fee).


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## kings (Sep 16, 2019)

It suffers from the same situation as all other squeezed RX 5700XT, 50W more power consumption for 3% performance differences from the reference model.

It seems that in Navi is buying the cheapest with a minimally decent cooler and is done. There is almost nothing more to extract.


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## dj-electric (Sep 16, 2019)

Dear Sapphire.
Thank you for existing. Thank you for pushing the market forward with your incredible designs.


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## bug (Sep 16, 2019)

IceShroom said:


> Maybe Europe has VAT Added where US hide the VAT(+other hidden fee).


No, the US has sales tax, but's anywhere from 2 to 4 times lowers than VAT in European countries. Many smaller/poorer EU countries also don't get the volume discounts.



kings said:


> It suffers from the same situation as all other squeezed RX 5700XT, 50W more power consumption for 3% performance differences from the reference model.
> 
> It seems that in Navi is buying the cheapest with a minimally decent cooler and is done. There is almost nothing more to extract.


Based on the perf/W between 5700 and 5700XT, I have said Navi doesn't scale much past that, the moment people started speculating about "big Navi".


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## Xaled (Sep 16, 2019)

bug said:


> No, the US has sales tax, but's anywhere from 2 to 4 times lowers than VAT in European countries. Many smaller/poorer EU countries also don't get the volume discounts.
> 
> 
> Based on the perf/W between 5700 and 5700XT, I have said Navi doesn't scale much past that, the moment people started speculating about "big Navi".


How do you know that "big Navi", if it would really come, won't have improved efficiency or better IPC?


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## HD64G (Sep 16, 2019)

bug said:


> No, the US has sales tax, but's anywhere from 2 to 4 times lowers than VAT in European countries. Many smaller/poorer EU countries also don't get the volume discounts.
> 
> 
> Based on the perf/W between 5700 and 5700XT, I have said Navi doesn't scale much past that, the moment people started speculating about "big Navi".


Ignorance or what? Clock scaling differs from arch scaling as far is the earth from the sun.


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## Fluffmeister (Sep 16, 2019)

Just the same as other cards, sod all head room left and quite juicy to boot.

I wonder if big Navi is going to go back to HBM to combat the power consumption getting too silly.


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## bug (Sep 16, 2019)

Xaled said:


> How do you know that "big Navi", if it would really come, won't have improved efficiency or better IPC?


Well, the Navi we have today doesn't seem to be able to do that and AMD is already bragging about RDNA2. You do the math


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## mahoney (Sep 16, 2019)

Aldain said:


> cause europe





tomc100 said:


> Because Europe uses a value added tax aka VAT for all of your socialist programs.


Other models don't cost so much despite having the same price in US

edit; It costs 499 at Mindfactory which has the cheapest pc hardware prices in Eu - it goes for 520-530 in other shops


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## jesdals (Sep 16, 2019)

One should proberly ajust the cooler rpm manually on this card allowing it to hit 1400 rpm sooner, seems to give more base performance


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## Xaled (Sep 16, 2019)

bug said:


> Well, the Navi we have today doesn't seem to be able to do that and AMD is already bragging about RDNA2. You do the math


Ryzen had bad scaling and overclocking potential as well but it had 15-18% IPC improvement. This is even better than 18% overclocking with same performance/power rate.


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## jabbadap (Sep 16, 2019)

mahoney said:


> Other models don't cost so much despite having the same price in US
> 
> edit; It costs 499 at Mindfactory which has the cheapest pc hardware prices in Eu - it goes for 520-530 in other shops



499€ seems to be the price for Germany with 19% VAT. That makes it 419.33€ VAT0 ~ $464.96, so yeah quite bit higher than $440.


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## W1zzard (Sep 16, 2019)

Expanded the software BIOS switch section in conclusion as there has been some confusion about it on Reddit


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## demian_vi (Sep 16, 2019)

jabbadap said:


> 499€ seems to be the price for Germany with 19% VAT. That makes it 419.33€ VAT0 ~ $464.96, so yeah quite bit higher than $440.


Amazon.fr has it listed for 479 since last week and caseking just listed it for the same price already


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## TheinsanegamerN (Sep 16, 2019)

So incredibly meh. All that extra power for hardly any performance difference, and that big cooler STILL cant unsteat sapphire's own cheap 5700xt custom cooler.

Why would you pay another $100 $30 for a much longer card with triple fans if it is no faster then the $409 card with twin fans? It's maybe 1-2C cooler, big whoop.

EDIT: reading.


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## Turmania (Sep 16, 2019)

So it consumes more power than rtx 2080 super and a performance not even close to it with new 7nm tech. And old ancient tech consumes less power with almost 40% better performance.either this 7nm process is a fiasco or AMD is behind more then we think.


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## HenrySomeone (Sep 16, 2019)

A bit of both, but mostly the latter - AMD is simply miles behind Nvidia at this point and I can only imagine the carnage Ampere will do next year...


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## PerfectWave (Sep 16, 2019)

", but I don't doubt for a second that NVIDIA is pushing the technology very hard with their excellent developer relations, and it looks like the adoption rate is improving. " Really???? why there are few games that use ray tracing?


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## Houd.ini (Sep 16, 2019)

bug said:


> Based on the perf/W between 5700 and 5700XT, I have said Navi doesn't scale much past that, the moment people started speculating about "big Navi".


They are clearly pushing the clock speeds way beyond efficiency on the XT model, it does not mean a bigger Navi in the same clock speed domain has to be inefficient.


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## bug (Sep 16, 2019)

Houd.ini said:


> They are clearly pushing the clock speeds way beyond efficiency on the XT model, it does not mean a bigger Navi in the same clock speed domain has to be inefficient.


If you're talking about the same architecture revision as I am, then yes, it kinda has to.


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## HenrySomeone (Sep 16, 2019)

You can only reliably and consistently reduce power consumption by reducing clocks and if you reduce them too much on a larger chip, you get a pointless product that is only as fast or slightly faster than a smaller one while being more expensive to produce - i.e. a "big Navi" if it ever materializes (and that's a big if) will be an other 300W+ gas guzzler, no doubt about it


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## bug (Sep 16, 2019)

HenrySomeone said:


> You can only reliably and consistently reduce power consumption by reducing clocks and if you reduce them too much on a larger chip, you get a pointless product that is only as fast or slightly faster than a smaller one while being more expensive to produce - i.e. a "big Navi" if it ever materializes (and that's a big if) will be an other 300W+ gas guzzler, no doubt about it


Actually, it's kinda common to reduce the clocks slightly when adding more shaders. But then you'd need a significantly bigger die and 7nm production capacity is still at a premium.
So Navi is good, better than I expected, but in its current form it's no threat to 2080. It's also the reason Nvidia didn't feel the need to lower prices, despite AMD's claim to a clever marketing ploy wrt pricing.


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## Jism (Sep 16, 2019)

AMD had a tendency to already boot up the clocks for reference designs that much close to or beyond it's point of efficiency. There's not much headroom left on the clocks, which translates in 3% more performance. It would be cooler tho to have a 10% uplift. Perhaps memory timings could be tuned or memory clocks even further. The base of this card is good. Cooling and VRM is'nt a problem.


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## HenrySomeone (Sep 17, 2019)

At well over 200W consumption for mid-range performance, even the base of this card (the xt) can't be considered good, more like barely passable, while theese OCed cards are simply terrible. The only relatively good card is the base 5700 (non-xt) model, but decent variants will have to come down close to 300$ to become real options


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## Minus Infinity (Sep 17, 2019)

The extra power draw on these AIB cards is ludicrous. To see all new 7nm cards drawing so much power it's like nothing has changed from Vega. Who is making a near stock card with better cooling, because where I live we have the world's dearest electricity, and I'm not gonna use 20% more power for a piddling 3% more fps. Juts want a great cooler.


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## Turmania (Sep 17, 2019)

Navi cards only makes sense if you buy the non overclocked variants.They are maxed out as it is. This also shows there won't be rx 5800 or so to compete with higher nvidia offerings.but perhaps rx5600 or so to compete in lower tier is a good possibility and a route they should explore.


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## sutyi (Sep 17, 2019)

Minus Infinity said:


> The extra power draw on these AIB cards is ludicrous. To see all new 7nm cards drawing so much power it's like nothing has changed from Vega. Who is making a near stock card with better cooling, because where I live we have the world's dearest electricity, and I'm not gonna use 20% more power for a piddling 3% more fps. Juts want a great cooler.



Switch it to the Quiet BIOS then the power consumption is barely above reference.


W1zzard said:


> Expanded the software BIOS switch section in conclusion as there has been some confusion about it on Reddit



Could you guys do power consumption testing with the three BIOS configs if possible?


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## zenstrive (Sep 17, 2019)

You guys and your 200W IS HIGH complaint.
That power draw rarely occurs in gaming, and mostly appears in 4K gaming. Even Gears of Wars in 1440p using Navi rarely goes beyond 150W.
The power draw in 1080p is even more ridiculously low. One enterprising AIB partner could simply make a card that only draws from the PCIE slot and it would (theoritically) work!!


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## HenrySomeone (Sep 17, 2019)

It's not 200W though, is it? Especially not on the AIB cards and that's AVERAGE, peaks can be above 300 and before you say anything, I trust this site far above some anonymous screeching forum user who claims otherwise


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## bug (Sep 17, 2019)

zenstrive said:


> You guys and your 200W IS HIGH complaint.
> That power draw rarely occurs in gaming, and mostly appears in 4K gaming. Even Gears of Wars in 1440p using Navi rarely goes beyond 150W.
> The power draw in 1080p is even more ridiculously low. One enterprising AIB partner could simply make a card that only draws from the PCIE slot and it would (theoritically) work!!


So why does the review peg the _average_ power draw in gaming at 266W for this card?


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## zenstrive (Sep 17, 2019)

But I am an actual user.
Actually use it for gaming sessions
And I know what I have been observing for almost two months now.

4K, 60 FPS, observe the power draw on top left


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## bug (Sep 17, 2019)

zenstrive said:


> But I am an actual user.
> Actually use it for gaming sessions
> And I know what I have been observing for almost two months now.
> 
> 4K, 60 FPS, observe the power draw on top left


Nobody's calling you a liar. But we don't what you're playing, which areas you're looking at. Hell, we don't even know what card you own. So...

Also, if you cap the rendering at 60fps (which is imho wise), you're not stressing the card. You're just telling it to take a break after rendering those 60fps.


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## Chomiq (Sep 17, 2019)

bug said:


> Nobody's calling you a liar. But we don't what you're playing, which areas you're looking at. Hell, we don't even know what card you own. So...
> 
> Also, if you cap the rendering at 60fps (which is imho wise), you're not stressing the card. You're just telling it to take a break after rendering those 60fps.


99% load with 97C on GPU isn't stressing?


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## HenrySomeone (Sep 17, 2019)

It might be undervolted, we don't know but one way or an other, I'm not putting my faith in a video with 168 views from a guy with 48 subscribers


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## ZoneDymo (Sep 17, 2019)

HenrySomeone said:


> It might be undervolted, we don't know but one way or an other, I'm not putting my faith in a video with 168 views from a guy with 48 subscribers



Dear lord that is a stupid mentality....
But then your previous comment, the unneeded addition of the word "screeching", already painted a picture.


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## HenrySomeone (Sep 17, 2019)

Yes, let's all start taking random obscure Youtubers as a point of reference, screw all the established reviewers, what do they know...


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## W1zzard (Sep 17, 2019)

zenstrive said:


> 4K, 60 FPS, observe the power draw on top left


You are aware that amd sensors report gpu chip only power? Not card/board power


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## bug (Sep 17, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> You are aware that amd sensors report gpu chip only power? Not card/board power


I'm pretty sure he's not. I know _I_ wasn't.


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## Xzibit (Sep 17, 2019)

bug said:


> So why does the review peg the _average_ power draw in gaming at 266W for this card?



Are they measuring the same game ?



			
				TPU said:
			
		

> We use *Metro: Last Light* as a standard test for typical 3D gaming usage because it offers the following: very high power draw; high repeatability; is supported on all cards; drivers are actively tested and optimized for it; supports all multi-GPU configurations; test runs in a relatively short time and renders a non-static scene with variable complexity.


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## bug (Sep 18, 2019)

Xzibit said:


> Are they measuring the same game ?


My question was answered two posts above yours


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## Raven Rampkin (Sep 18, 2019)

Heh, first wave Navi sure is funky. Neither the references or AIBs feel as bulky as 99% of the Vega roster but unlike top of the line Vegas, even the coldest Navi XT is still above 70 Celsius...
Also, this ain't gonna make me many friends  but as a pretty shoddy imho, Vega Nitro design > Navi Nitro design. Didn't dig this for some reason, liked that one more. Not as generic but not overly flashy, either... In comparison, Polaris Nitro is interesting to say the least (veeery boxy) and earlier 300 series... they actually looked real solid!


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## HenrySomeone (Sep 18, 2019)

That's concentrated heat for you - 5700XT consumes only slightly less watts on average than Vega, yet the die size is almost halved meaning there is that much less surface to transfer heat away...
Oh and I agree that Vega Nitro design was one of the best in recent years


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## mastershake575 (Sep 18, 2019)

zenstrive said:


> 4K, 60 FPS, observe the power draw on top left


 lol at @Shatun_Bear  liking this (of course he would)



W1zzard said:


> You are aware that amd sensors report gpu chip only power? Not card/board power


 Thanks for the explanation


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## Aquinus (Sep 18, 2019)

Is lack of hardware ray tracing _really_ a con?


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## bug (Sep 18, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> Is lack of hardware ray tracing _really_ a con?


For the asking price, I'm inclined to say yes. I mean, if I'm out $400+, I'd better be able to at least run the full 3DMark suite


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## Aquinus (Sep 18, 2019)

bug said:


> For the asking price, I'm inclined to say yes. I mean, if I'm out $400+, I'd better be able to at least run the full 3DMark suite


Not having a proprietary implementation of something that no one really uses [in the grand scheme of things] isn't what I call a con.


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## bug (Sep 18, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> Not having a proprietary implementation of something that no one really uses isn't what I call a con.


It's also a DXR implementation, that's a DX API open to anyone.


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## Aquinus (Sep 19, 2019)

bug said:


> It's also a DXR implementation, that's a DX API open to anyone.


I have to ask a buddy at work who has 2080 Ti, but I don't think he uses RTX very often. If that's the case, it doesn't inspire confidence, regardless of which API is being used to deliver it. I think that it's too immature of a technology to start wanting it on everything and calling it a con when it's missing. AMD even said themselves that they'd rather pursue an option that doesn't require dedicated hardware which makes a lot more sense, at least to me.

Personally, I think the tensor cores made a lot more sense than adding RT.


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## bug (Sep 19, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> I have to ask a buddy at work who has 2080 Ti, but I don't think he uses RTX very often. If that's the case, it doesn't inspire confidence, regardless of which API is being used to deliver it. I think that it's too immature of a technology to start wanting it on everything and calling it a con when it's missing. AMD even said themselves that they'd rather pursue an option that doesn't require dedicated hardware which makes a lot more sense, at least to me.
> 
> Personally, I think the tensor cores made a lot more sense than adding RT.


The thing is, BVH handling may not be achieveable with shaders, so some dedicated hardware may be needed anyway.
Then again, if AMD released drivers that made DXR possible on Navi, then yes, the lack of dedicated hardware would have to be removed from that list.


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## Big Nish (Feb 9, 2020)

I purchased this card to replace my reference 5700XT and, while it is a good card in many respects, it suffers from the same technical flaw as my original Sapphire RX480 Nitro+. The heat sink is simply not large enough to passively maintain a fixed low GPU temp under desktop conditions, which makes the fans come on periodically. Under desktop conditions the GPU temps steadily climbs up to 59degC and then the fans come on until the temp drops down to 49degC at which point the fans stop. Then the cycle constantly repeats: the GPU temp steadily climbs back up to 59degC and the fans come back on and then off once it reaches 49degC again. As mentioned this is just using desktop applications such as Word/Outlook or browsing etc which, according to Sapphire's claim, should see no fans coming on. The time it takes between fan off to fan on is approx. every 3.5 minutes. This fan on/off cycling is really annoying - its actually more annoying than the constant low level fan noise of eh reference card - and makes Sapphire's the 'fan stop at idle' claim misleading. Please note that I am currently using the card's quiet BIOS and have an HP 1440p monitor with a fixed 75Hz refresh rate. I have also tried lowering my monitor to a 60Hz refresh, but the card exhibits the same fan on/off cycling. GRRRR.  I have captured the cycling using GPU-Z (refer attached). You can see the fans coming on and going off again, but the GPU (load and clock data) is pretty much doing nothing. My Sapphire VEGA 64 Nitro+ was able to stay cool enough under all desktop conditions that the fans never came on. I think Sapphire should have used the exact same heat sink for the RX 5700 XT. Unfortunately, this fan cycling in the desktop has spoilt my enjoyment of this card quite a bit.


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## davidm71 (Apr 2, 2020)

Hi guys,

Stuck in quarantine for a month and got the itch to buy tech and pulled trigger on this card. Ordered it from Provantage and delivery day is tomorrow.
Paid $30 for shipping so if I refuse delivery I'm out $30 possibly. Not sure.  Went AMD for hackintosh compatibility mostly. Maybe should have ordered the Gigabyte Auros
version? Seems like the Auros has a beefier heatsink though can't be anymore power efficient considering it has 7 power phases vs 8 phases on the Nitro?

What to do?

Thanks


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