The RX 6000 series Owners' Club

[kapone32]

After having a 6400, 6600 XT, and a 6800 XT I can say that I've found my 6700 XT to be the runt of the bunch. Observations:

Sapphire Pulse 6400: this is the tiny HHSS one and it's a great GPU to drop into any old PC and get gaming. In the games I play, the 4-lane PCIe 3.0 (all old PCs) 'limitation' seems irrelevant. Runs 2306 MHz and 0.916V with no OC capability.

Sapphire Pulse 6600 XT: 1.15V nominal but underclocks and volts like a champ with minimum voltage in the 0.68 range so it can run at 30W in low demand games (Rocket League). Also overclocks well to around 2780 MHz (actual, not in Adrenaline)

Powercolor Red Dragon 6800 XT: 1.15V nominal but underclocks and volts OK considering it's extra resources but only to about the 0.75V range and minimums around 70W (RL). Overclocks to around 2650 MHz IIRC, haven't done this in a bit.

Yeah but the 6700 XT. I should like it more but I like efficiency and it's not great at that.

Powercolor Fighter 6700 XT. 1.2V nominal but underclocks itself out of the box worse than the above cards thanks to high power draw. Voltage 0.86 minimum keeps power draw at 65W minimum while gaming (RL), not much better than the 6800 XT. Takes careful matching of voltage and MHz settings to eke out about 2600 MHz, bashing against the +15W power limit.

Considering the price I paid ($300) it's probably the best deal out of all my cards as the 6600XT was bought on the downswing of mining overpricing but still significantly inflated. But that one behaves well in the voltage and frequency department as do the other non-6700 XTs.

Yes the 6700 XT is a PC Fighter, the lowest-bin and yes, it was only $300 but I was hoping for about 45W in Rocket League and it simply doesn't do that. However I've been using it for a few weeks now and I'm getting used to it's behavior and where to run it for max efficiency and it's ok, especially considering the price. I'm trying to get a lot of experience with it and then swap in the 6600 XT and see how the feel changes, especially the reduction in performance along with the reduction in power/heat.

Apparently I need to try out the 6800 but I'm done, I think I've tried enough of these and it's all to support my gaming so it's not like it's been a trial or anything!

Random side note: I picked up a used $120 Pulse 5600 XT from eBay for an Optiplex build and it's great for its use, also with good behavior so it was nice to get that perspective along with the 6700 XT.

The 6750XT is much better at OC.

 

[Lew Zealand]

The 6750XT is much better at OC.

Considering I just got this card as opposed to at launch, that makes total sense because if I was AMD I'd be saving the best 6700-class wafers for the more expensive 6750 XT and the lower-quality ones for the 6700 XT.

 

[tpa-pr]

Gezzus that's fricken hot

Sorry, I should've clarified, that's under maximum load. At stock it could push as high as 110C! Overall it's running much cooler.

Anyway, last update, it seems my overclock WAS a bit unstable. Here are my final settings:
GPU Tuning: Enabled.
- Advanced Control: Enabled.
- Min Frequency: 500Mhz
- Max Frequency: 2700Mhz
- Voltage: 1150mV
Fan Tuning: Enabled.
- Zero RPM: On
- Advanced Control: On
- Temp: 50 (Speed: 35)
- Temp: 60 (Speed: 40)
- Temp: 70 (Speed: 50)
- Temp: 80 (Speed: 65)
- Temp 90 (Speed 75)
Power Tuning: Enabled.
- Power Limit (%): 10
VRAM Tuning: Enabled.
- Memory Timing: Fast Timing
- Advanced Control: Enabled
- Max Frequency: 2400Mhz

This lets me pass Time Spy with over 20K points, keeps my temps under control unless I'm doing extreme benchmarks and even gave me 101fps in Cyberpunk's benchmark, the highest it's ever been!

So far only one game is temperamental with it (theHunter - Call of the Wild), so that now has a game profile to run stock settings with a more aggressive fan curve. I'm trying to keep my hotspot under 100C now.

Overall, very happy!

 

[AusWolf]

Gezzus that's fricken hot

No it's not. My reference 6750 XT's hotspot gets up to 100-105 °C. Now, that's hot!

Sorry, I should've clarified, that's under maximum load. At stock it could push as high as 110C! Overall it's running much cooler.

Oh wow! I guess it's not only reference cards that do that, then.

 

[tpa-pr]

Sorry, I should've clarified, that's under maximum load. At stock it could push as high as 110C! Overall it's running much cooler.

Anyway, last update, it seems my overclock WAS a bit unstable. Here are my final settings:
GPU Tuning: Enabled.
- Advanced Control: Enabled.
- Min Frequency: 500Mhz
- Max Frequency: 2700Mhz
- Voltage: 1150mV
Fan Tuning: Enabled.
- Zero RPM: On
- Advanced Control: On
- Temp: 50 (Speed: 35)
- Temp: 60 (Speed: 40)
- Temp: 70 (Speed: 50)
- Temp: 80 (Speed: 65)
- Temp 90 (Speed 75)
Power Tuning: Enabled.
- Power Limit (%): 10
VRAM Tuning: Enabled.
- Memory Timing: Fast Timing
- Advanced Control: Enabled
- Max Frequency: 2400Mhz

This lets me pass Time Spy with over 20K points, keeps my temps under control unless I'm doing extreme benchmarks and even gave me 101fps in Cyberpunk's benchmark, the highest it's ever been!

So far only one game is temperamental with it (theHunter - Call of the Wild), so that now has a game profile to run stock settings with a more aggressive fan curve. I'm trying to keep my hotspot under 100C now.

Overall, very happy!

Aaand it seems I spoke to soon and was too ambitious. Took a few more attempts but now it's stable in everything, if a bit more modest:
GPU Tuning: Enabled.
- Advanced Control: Enabled.
- Min Frequency: 500Mhz
- Max Frequency: 2600Mhz
- Voltage: 1175mV
Fan Tuning: Enabled.
- Zero RPM: On
- Advanced Control: On
- Temp: 50 (Speed: 35)
- Temp: 60 (Speed: 40)
- Temp: 70 (Speed: 50)
- Temp: 80 (Speed: 65)
- Temp 90 (Speed 75)
Power Tuning: Disabled.
- Power Limit (%): 0
VRAM Tuning: Enabled.
- Memory Timing: Default
- Advanced Control: Enabled
- Max Frequency: 2400Mhz

Temps hover around 85-90C under max load now. Here's hoping it holds but it passes Time Spy and Call of the Wild works fine.

 

[Jism]

Just a simple Power Limit in MPT increase to 230W, TDC at 200A, SOC at 50A. Increased the GPU core clock(s) to an avg 2.4GHz instead of 2.1Ghz. The power slider won't work if you do not change the MPT values. I think there's alot of headroom in left but i call it a day (for later) since my screen is WQHD and locked in at 70FPS. No need to go beyond 70 FPS. Was running furmark at wqhd at the background just to test it.

 

[AusWolf]

View attachment 309262

Just a simple Power Limit in MPT increase to 230W, TDC at 200A, SOC at 50A. Increased the GPU core clock(s) to an avg 2.4GHz instead of 2.1Ghz. The power slider won't work if you do not change the MPT values. I think there's alot of headroom in left but i call it a day (for later) since my screen is WQHD and locked in at 70FPS. No need to go beyond 70 FPS. Was running furmark at wqhd at the background just to test it.

98 °C hotspot with a 264 W TGP is very nice!

 

[Jism]

Yep. I repasted the thing once i bought it. There was a huge difference in between GPU core and hotspot. I'd say the thermal paste they put onto it is OK for most general applications but just not sufficient when you tinker with OC'ing. It's MX5 - it's EOL but i still have a portion of it. All i did was a very thing covering layer using the credit card method ; just evenly spreading the paste out, reapply the heatsink twice so that the stuff really gets in between, tighten everything back up properly and done.

I'm sure it can be improved further (washer for example) but this is more then enough for now. I'm not seeing 60 degree GPU on avg followed with a 70 degree hotspot while gaming.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Was running furmark at wqhd at the background just to test it.

Please use anything else but not Furmark. It's an abusive and unrealistic load so doesn't tell you anything. Superposition is better though I hate that if you click away it closes (WTFFF???). Time Spy or Speed Way are good if you've paid for 3DMark. You're getting similar numbers to my 6700 XT if I don't undervolt it, try that next when you're up to a bit more testing.

 

[Jism]

I was only interested in sustained clocks.. It would be normally at 2100Mhz or so; and after applying the MPT on avg 2400Mhz. It was to verify and heat-test the card that it actually worked. I'm not sure how the slider in Wattman is supposed to work. You slide it up to 15% and you have 15% more range in regards of power?

Also - when i slide it to 16% or whatever random number behind it the clocks stall back to 400Mhz. Is that a hardware protection? Or a wattman thing to not exceed the 15%? Undervolting - mweh i slided the stock 1200mv back to 1120mv - i dont see an effect at all since it's deciding the properiate voltage on it's own. I will dive some deeper into it in the future, but for now it's "excellent".

 

[Lew Zealand]

I was only interested in sustained clocks.. It would be normally at 2100Mhz or so; and after applying the MPT on avg 2400Mhz. It was to verify and heat-test the card that it actually worked. I'm not sure how the slider in Wattman is supposed to work. You slide it up to 15% and you have 15% more range in regards of power?

Yes, that will increase the maximum power the GPU has available to use, mine also tops out at 15%.

Also - when i slide it to 16% or whatever random number behind it the clocks stall back to 400Mhz. Is that a hardware protection? Or a wattman thing to not exceed the 15%? Undervolting - mweh i slided the stock 1200mv back to 1120mv - i dont see an effect at all since it's deciding the properiate voltage on it's own. I will dive some deeper into it in the future, but for now it's "excellent".

"Excellent" is a good place to be. If you are already running at maximum power usage, the undervolt will allow the GPU to use less power and then use that extra power headroom to boost a bit higher. It's not more than 50 MHz difference for my 6700 XT but I'll take it.

You can (IMO more effectively) use it for additional power and heat savings if you underclock your GPU a bit for those reasons as it will noticeably reduce wattage. Undervolting from 1200mv to 1125mv at 2400 MHz saves me about 15W in Time Spy bringing power down from 155 to 140W.

One thing to note is that voltage setting is normalized to the default MHz speed of the GPU. So if you leave the voltage at 1125mv and set your core speed to 2500 you will see one voltage as reported in GPU-Z (probably close to 1.125V) and then change your core speed to 2300 MHz, you'll see a max voltage of like 0.956mV. So it applies a sliding voltage scale for you, depending on what core speed you choose.

Just play with it to see where it's stable under various loads. Here's an example of where mine is stable at what loads:

OC
2678MHz at 1100mV in DX12 loads (game core speed is ~2540mhz, voltage 1.15V in GPU-Z)
UC
2212MHz at 1125mV in DX11 loads (game core speed is ~2120 MHz, voltage 0.881V)
2177MHz at 1137mV in DX12 loads (game core speed is ~2060 MHz, voltage 0.881V)

Note the different stability speeds and voltages for DX11 and DX12 at the same game voltage when underclocked, and that both use a higher reference voltage compared to max OC. And your silicon will behave differently depending your sample and loads. Have fun!

 

[Jism]

Tech these days compared to tech back in the days is so different. No more linear voltage upping or lowering, clockspeeds. It just behaves different. Ive tested Doom at 1440p / ultra with RT turned on; on avg 120W of power consumption with peaks to 170W depending on scenes / 70FPS Vsync. It's really not bad and it does offer 3x the performance of a heavily OC'ed RX580, that would consume on avg 200W and not being able to render at ultra / 1440p.

I'm happy with it but i prefer still to switch to watercooling in the future. Or just buy a 6900XT and call it a day, which is twice as fast as the RX6700XT and designed for 4K in mind. I don't care about the extra features nvidia even might have - the stuff is filled with telemetry and likely edges taken off in regards of drivers. Anyone notices how the color difference of both Nvidia and AMD differ huge? I'd say AMD is more in spec in regards of true color presentation then Nvidia is. Nvidia is known for applying a bit more aggresive memory compression techniques at the cost of color quality.

I'll upgrade the CPU soon to a 5800X3D - and pretty much call it a day. That's a system that will last for years to come.

 

[Veseleil]

Tech these days compared to tech back in the days is so different. No more linear voltage upping or lowering, clockspeeds. It just behaves different. Ive tested Doom at 1440p / ultra with RT turned on; on avg 120W of power consumption with peaks to 170W depending on scenes / 70FPS Vsync. It's really not bad and it does offer 3x the performance of a heavily OC'ed RX580, that would consume on avg 200W and not being able to render at ultra / 1440p.

I'm happy with it but i prefer still to switch to watercooling in the future. Or just buy a 6900XT and call it a day, which is twice as fast as the RX6700XT and designed for 4K in mind. I don't care about the extra features nvidia even might have - the stuff is filled with telemetry and likely edges taken off in regards of drivers. Anyone notices how the color difference of both Nvidia and AMD differ huge? I'd say AMD is more in spec in regards of true color presentation then Nvidia is. Nvidia is known for applying a bit more aggresive memory compression techniques at the cost of color quality.

I'll upgrade the CPU soon to a 5800X3D - and pretty much call it a day. That's a system that will last for years to come.

Can't go wrong with a 6900xt and a 5800x3d... It's a poetry in 1440p.

 

[tpa-pr]

TPU, I blame you for sending me down this undervolting rabbit hole!

The good news is that somehow I found a stable undervolt at 1150mV. My core clocks are now able to (and do) burst up to 2700Mhz. I also have found the memory frequency ceiling at 2450Mhz, any higher and I lose performance presumably because i'm running into memory errors (my Time Spy score dropped from 20600 to 18000 when I went to 2475Mhz).

Curiously it seems the answer was pushing the core HARDER. When I was playing with 1150mV undervolt it was incredibly unstable at 2600Mhz (and worse so at 2650Mhz, oddly enough) or below. I pushed it up to 2700Mhz and suddenly Time Spy worked, my touchy games worked, all benchmarks and OCCT tests passed etc.

I am now able to pull a solid 75fps in Remnant II, a solid 100fps in Cyberpunk 2077 and a solid 120fps in Call of the Wild (on ALL maps including the heavy Africa map) and my GPU hotspot rarely gets over 90C (at a peak of 75% fan speed). I'm quite certain I can't push anything further and I don't really want to push the power limit over stock because it raises the temps higher than i'd like.

I think I can finally say I am finished tinkering! Hopefully...

 

[Pouhon]

Hello everyone this is my first time using an AMD GPU, i wonder if the Hotspot temperature is normal? It can hit near 110C if left alone as it is, though i don't think it's throttling so no performance loss. It's a RX 6800 XT (XFX Swft 319), bought it from a crypto miner but it's still under warranty for 6+ months. I also know it's not the best custom cooler out there but i expected a bit better. I was using a RTX 3060Ti before this, and also used a RTX 3080 for a short time (both were Gigabyte Gaming OC models) The case i use is P400A, with 3x intake and 2x exhaust, all of them are Arctic P12s (PWM PST). I use fixed RPM all time (SYSFAN is exhausts AUXFAN3 is intakes), set it fastest as i could before them being audible, (subjectively)

The default fan curve is a little bit silence oriented, so i tried fan settings from MoreClockTool, still at around 96C

I ramped up the case fans to this to see if it will make a difference, it was more stable around 90C

Reverted to the stock curve, but with ramped up case fans, around 103C

Lastly, i leave everything as it is before, nears 110C (stock fan curve, case fan speeds same with the first picture)

I use the z support bar that comes with the GPU, don't think cooler is sagging. I saw at some reviews there is much less delta than mine but they're different custom models. Oh also power reporting is not accurate, it says 255W but from the wall reading i can guesstimate GPU pulling about 320-350W.

 

[Veseleil]

Repaste and repad the card to see a world of difference. After years of mining it's kinda mandatory, at least the paste is.

 

[Pouhon]

Repaste and repad the card to see a world of difference. After years of mining it's kinda mandatory, at least the paste is.

You're right but i'm afraid to make it worse lol. I've seen enough people to try and make it worse, especially for power hungry cards like this, they're more than an expection to me. Also it's still under warranty and the card is never disassembled (stickers remain on screws)

 

[Veseleil]

the card is never disassembled (stickers remain on screws)

If it's true (the stickers can be tampered with, the true clue are the screws), it makes it even worse. The paste is dried out I can guarantee that.
Maintenance of the components should be a regular thing imo, if you want your stuff to last that is. Learn how to do it (plenty of resources on the web), or pay someone to do it. Those temps are not good. Also, undervolting is your friend.

 

[Pouhon]

If it's true (the stickers can be tampered with, the true clue are the screws), it makes it even worse. The paste is dried out I can guarantee that.
Maintenance of the components should be a regular thing imo, if you want your stuff to last that is. Learn how to do it (plenty of resources on the web), or pay someone to do it. Those temps are not good. Also, undervolting is your friend.

Factory thermal paste was really dry. I repasted with the MX-4 2019 edition i had before, didn't repad. I heard MX-4 can have some pump-out issues, but wanted to see if there would be any improvement first with repasting. Also there is something around the bottom 3 memory chips, like epoxy, what is it? Could it be a refurbished unit?

Quiet case fan speeds (first picture in first post) w/ MoreClockTool fan settings, delta is down from over 30C to 15C.

Same case fan speeds with default fan curve. Delta is still 15C but its clear default fan curve is not aggressive enough?

I'm thinking of buying MX-6, i need a new paste anyway because i nearly run out of MX-4

 

[mechtech]

Pure stock

 

[Pouhon]

I started to have a really strange issue after repasting my GPU; when i tried a regular Timespy run for a score, i was having a black screen and system restarts at the start of the #2 test, looping #1 test and Superposition was fine. It was also passing #2 if undervolt applied, but there were some artifacts at the start of CPU test. I tried re-repasting it but it become worse, it was crashing even in desktop, temps were fine though. Tried for third time but nothing changed, i was making sure there was nothing wrong with anything else (PCB, application etc.) I even checked cables from PSU, PCIE slot, reseating/testing RAMs etc. I was sure GPU was broken beyond repair, still wanted to try a clean driver install and it worked, card is working fine now. Really weird, i was struggling with this since yesterday. Apparently reseating the GPU can tamper drivers.

 

[AusWolf]

I've just found the reference 6950 XT on discount for £620 brand new. Do you guys think it would it be worth upgrading my 6750 XT and skipping the 7000 (and maybe 8000) series entirely?

 

[Veseleil]

I see it regularly on Amazon for €650, €600 for the 6900xt, aib models (xfx mostly). Does it worth depends on a screen resolution, expected fps and the type of games you play. From my own experience, and with my listed hardware, I may say that 6900xt is a high fps powerhouse in 1080p and 1440p so far.

 

[AusWolf]

I see it regularly on Amazon for €650, €600 for the 6900xt, aib models (xfx mostly). Does it worth depends on a screen resolution, expected fps and the type of games you play. From my own experience, and with my listed hardware, I may say that 6900xt is a high fps powerhouse in 1080p and 1440p so far.

To be fair, even my 6750 XT is more than enough for me at 1080p. I was thinking of maybe getting a 7800 XT later just for future-proofing, but the 500 USD MSRP will definitely be north of 550 GBP in stores. I'm not sure if it would be worth it if I could get a 6950 XT (which has gone through lots of driver refinements since its release) for 620 now.

The other option would be keeping the 6750 XT until the 8000 series / Nvidia 5000 series are out.

 

[Veseleil]

To be fair, even my 6750 XT is more than enough for me at 1080p.

I'm sure it is, as my 5700xt kicked ass with r5 3600 in 1080p with 100+ fps in almost everything.

Tbh, seeing how expensive the higher-end gpus got in the latest generations I have no good expectations. Inflation did its thing emptying our pockets as well. And since the gpu cryptomining is dead, the fine priced oportunities for a highest-end gpus will be gone really soon. I'm tempted to buy another oc formula from the same seller, for less money than the first one. Silly investment in a future we might never live to see anyway.