MSI has teased their new champagne-gold RX 5700 XT Evoke just last week, and our readers definitely liked the new design language. We have to agree here: MSI's new series uses a modern approach to graphics card design that is reminiscent of an iPhone or the NVIDIA Titan RTX. The card comes with a slightly reworked PCB design, better cooler, and is overclocked out of the box. Thanks to the factory overclock, the card achieves a 2% performance improvement over the AMD reference design, which is quite slim, but not vastly different to what we've seen on other RX 5700 XT reviews. At 1440p, AMD's Radeon VII flagship is only 6% faster than the MSI Evoke, and the RTX 2070 Super is 9% ahead. Compared to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2070, the MSI card delivers 4% higher FPS. NVIDIA's recently released RTX 2060 Super is 7% behind, and the difference to the RX 5700 is 14%. With these performance results, we can definitely recommend the RX 5700 XT for maximum details gaming at 1440p resolution, or high-refresh-rate gaming at 1080p.

MSI's triple-slot, dual-fan cooler not only convinces with sexy looks, but also greatly improves temperatures over what the AMD reference design can offer. We measured temperatures of only 69°C under heavy load, which is better than any other RX 5700 XT custom-design we've tested so far. Unfortunately, noise levels aren't that good. With 43 dBA, they match the AMD reference cooler, which is simply too noisy. We contacted MSI and they sent us an updated BIOS (uploaded here) which reduces noise a bit, down to 39 dBA, which is better but simply not good enough when compared to the competition, which goes down to 32 dBA (ASUS STRIX and Sapphire Pulse). Temperatures with the new BIOS were only marginally increased, so I wonder why MSI is so scared of high temperatures. Other vendors, including AMD, are not so concerned. At this point in time, MSI is undecided on whether the new BIOS will be used for mass production or offered as an optional download on their website. A clear win over the AMD reference card is the inclusion of idle fan stop, which completely shuts off the fans during idle, desktop work, Internet browsing, and light gaming.

Gaming power consumption is increased a bit over what we've seen from the AMD reference, but not by much. The driving factors here are the higher power limit, higher clock speeds, and VRM changes—the first two contribute positively to performance, so definitely worth it, I'd say. With roughly 260 W, power draw is a bit higher than on competing NVIDIA cards, but the differences are not huge, so PSU choices aren't affected at all.

Overclocking our sample was slightly easier than on the AMD reference design. Especially memory overclocking worked correctly now. Perhaps that's because MSI uses Micron instead of Samsung chips like the reference design. On NVIDIA, we see significantly better overclocking from Samsung than from Micron—here, it's reversed. Memory overclocking is held back by the slider adjustment range in Wattman, which only goes up to 1900 MHz. We've encountered this obstacle in the past with AMD; let's hope they reconsider putting artificial OC limits into their driver. GPU overclocking yielded the highest GPU clock of all RX 5700 XT cards tested so far, but the differences in real-life performance are small enough to not play a major role in a buying decision. After manual overclocking, we gained 3.9% in real-life performance.

On the topic of raytracing, I'm sure you've already made up your mind on whether it's something you're interested in or not, but I don't doubt for a second that NVIDIA, with their excellent developer relations, is pushing the technology very hard, and it looks like the adoption rate is improving. We're also hearing rumors that next-gen consoles will feature some sort of raytracing technology, too. I'd say, it's not a big deal for the near future, but it could become relevant in the years to come, so if you're future-proofing for many years to come, this could be a factor. My recommendation is not to worry about the future too much and look at what you need today to buy a new card when you need it, selling the old one to offset the cost.

MSI expects pricing of the MSI RX 5700 XT to end up at around $430, which is a $30 premium over the AMD reference RX 5700 XT. The out-of-the-box performance increase of 2% can justify a $10 bump, and the better cooler and idle-fan stop should be worth another $10, so $430 isn't unreasonable. Competition is heating up in that price-range, though. You have the Sapphire Pulse at $410, which runs slightly slower, but quieter than the Evoke. We also reviewed the ASUS STRIX OC, which will most certainly end up north of $430, with a higher factory OC and better noise levels. Other options are custom-design RTX 2060 Super cards, which are a bit slower, but more energy efficient. If you are willing to spend more money, then the $500 RTX 2070 Super could be an option too. Looks like the battle in the $400–$500 segment is getting interesting, which will definitely benefit us customers because prices will go down and good engineering gets rewarded.