The Card

At first glance, the Radeon RX 5700 looks very similar to Vega reference designs if it were not for the gray paint on the cooler. A backplate is not available. Dimensions of the card are 27.0 x 11.0 cm.


Installation requires two slots in your system.


Display connectivity options include three standard DisplayPort 1.4a and an HDMI 2.0b.

AMD took the opportunity to update the display controllers handling these outputs by leveraging DSC 1.2a (display stream compression), which unlocks very high resolution and refresh-rate combinations over a single cable. Among the single-cable display modes supported are 8K 60 Hz (which took two DP 1.3 cables until now), 4K 240 Hz, and 1080p as high as 360 Hz. On top of these, the outputs support HDR and 30 bpc color-depth for better color accuracy in creative applications.


The board uses an 8-pin and a 6-pin power connector. This input configuration is specified for up to 300 watts of power draw.


AMD's Navi generation of GPUs no longer supports CrossFire. DirectX 12 does include its own set of multi-GPU capabilities, but using it requires game developers to put serious development time into a feature only a tiny fraction of their customers might ever use.

Disassembly

The main cooler uses a metal backplate that is carefully crafted to ensure it can provide cooling for all components on the PCB: GPU, memory, voltage regulation circuitry—everything is cooled by just a single component, which is very impressive. Unlike the majority of coolers, the outer shroud is made out of metal, which gives the card a high-quality feel.

On the next page, we dive deep into the PCB layout and VRM configuration.