We're a bit late with posting our PowerColor RX 5600 XT Red Devil review, but PowerColor requested we give them additional time to double-check everything related to the new BIOS they released. AMD originally intended for the Radeon RX 5600 XT to go up against NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1660 Super and GTX 1660 Ti. Just a few days before launch, we were informed that a specs change was coming through a BIOS update that unlocks additional performance. On the same day, we received an updated BIOS for the Sapphire Pulse sample AMD provided. It increases GPU clock, memory clock, board power limit and GPU voltage. I've covered graphics card launches for well over a decade and such a thing never happened before. All parties involved always had plenty of time to work towards launch with known products and specs. In the following days several board partners reached out to me, asking for feedback on whether they should follow AMD's lead or stick with the announced specs. This just shows how much confusion was created overnight—with just three business days left to launch. PowerColor followed up with two BIOS updates and requested feedback, which we provided. This review is based on the latest BIOS update by PowerColor.

Overall, when averaged over our testing suite at 1080p resolution, we see the PowerColor RX 5600 XT Devil beat the NVIDIA RTX 2060, with a slim 2% lead—an important win. The card also slightly beats AMD's aging Radeon RX Vega 64, which is just as important a victory. The NVIDIA GeForce 16-series is far behind, as the GTX 1660 Ti is 17% slower, and the GTX 1660 Super is 19% slower. AMD's next-fastest SKU, the Radeon RX 5700, is only 6% faster and much more expensive, though. NVIDIA's RTX 2060 Super is 10% faster than the RX 5600 XT. Compared to other premium custom designs that received the BIOS update (MSI Gaming Z, Sapphire Pulse, and ASUS STRIX), the Red Devil matches them exactly in performance. Looks like everyone ended up using the same settings for their cards. The difference to cheaper RX 5600 XT models is staggering, though, and should come out to around 10%. Overall, the RX 5600 XT is a great card for 1080p gaming, with plenty of headroom for future titles, but it can also handle 1440p well, maybe not at ultra details in every single game, but it'll be a very decent experience overall.

PowerColor was wise to keep the bulky industrial black/gray theme of the RX 5700 XT Red Devil. The cooler's performance is decent, too, but our results show it to be a little bit weaker than other RX5600 XT cards we've reviewed before. Temperatures are a bit higher than competing cards, but still perfectly fine. Noise levels are outstanding. With only 28 dBA, the card is whisper quiet even when fully loaded. However, other cards are emitting just as little noise this round. For the RX 5700 XT, the Red Devil was the clear winner; here, the noise differences are tiny. In a surprise reversal, AMD's graphics cards are now quieter than their competing NVIDIA counterparts, who would have expected that. PowerColor also included the highly popular idle-fan-off capability with their card, which completely shuts off the fans in idle, browsing, productivity, and light gaming. Some competing NVIDIA cards lack that capability, too.

We measured almost no difference between the "OC" and "quiet" BIOS. Both run nearly identical clocks, with same voltage and power levels. Fan speeds are nearly identical, too—certainly not enough to make any subjective difference. This looks a bit like a lost opportunity to me. It should be possible for PowerColor's engineers to further reduce fan speeds on "quiet" and lower temperatures on "OC" with higher fan speed for people to have more options at their disposal.

The secret sauce behind these impressive thermals is that AMD undervolted their Navi 10 GPU. Normally the GPU is designed to run at 1.15 V to 1.20 V. On the RX 5600 XT it ticks at 0.9 V before BIOS update and 1.0 V after the update. This brings with it tremendous power savings at the cost of maximum operating frequency. But limited frequency is actually something AMD wants. Both the RX 5600 XT and RX 5700 have the same shader count, the difference is only in frequency and memory bus/capacity. A heavily overclocked RX 5600 XT could thus match or even beat the more expensive RX 5700, cannibalizing the latter. That's why AMD was happy with low operating voltages, which also improves performance per watt. Actually, before the BIOS update, the RX 5600 XT was more efficient than Turing (check the Performance per Watt page). With the BIOS update, some increase in voltage was required to achieve the new GPU frequencies as AMD basically traded 20% efficiency for 10% performance—a reasonable move in my opinion because noise and thermals aren't impacted that much.

With a typical gaming power draw of 150 to 160 W, the PowerColor RX 5600 XT is still very power efficient, better than most of NVIDIA's Turing lineup! PowerColor is using a strong 8-phase VRM on their card, which definitely helps drive up efficiency. Such low power draw means people who are upgrading from an older graphics card won't have to worry about upgrading their power supply, too, which would incur additional expenses.

Back when NVIDIA launched the RTX 2060 with 6 GB VRAM, the Internet was full of hate. Now, AMD does exactly the same, and it still makes perfect sense for me. 8 GB VRAM on a card that's targeted at 1080p/1440p isn't worth it, especially if you have to meet a certain price point to make the card attractive. Looking through our performance results I can identify only a single clear case: Assassin's Creed Origins. Here, we see the RX 5600 XT fall behind at 1440p, but all the other games are running fine. If you absolutely must have 8 GB VRAM, then be ready to pay for it: the RX 5700 and RTX 2060 Super have you covered. It's not something I would do in this case when money matters.

The next and certainly bigger controversy will be real-time raytracing support. NVIDIA's RTX 2060 supports hardware accelerated raytracing and the RX 5600 XT does not. While proliferation of RTX is limited today, several big titles with RTX support are coming out this year. Next-gen consoles will also have support for hardware raytracing, which will further push game developers to embrace the new technology. Still, I would say raytracing isn't the most important capability to have right now in this market segment. On the other hand, the RTX 2060 is barely more expensive than the RX 5600 XT, and it has that unique selling point, making this a close call.

PowerColor's RX 5600 XT Red Devil currently sells at $310, which is a $30 premium over the AMD MSRP. In return, you'll enjoy 10% higher performance (over RX 5600 XT cards that don't get a BIOS update), a much better cooler that has fan-stop, and impressive noise levels, a dual-BIOS feature and adjustable RGB lighting. I'd say what PowerColor is offering is a very good package at a reasonable price. However, Sapphire's RX 5600 XT Pulse is $20 cheaper at $280 and just as fast and quiet with slightly better temperatures. Since there's essentially no difference between those cards except for pricing I think PowerColor must bring their price down a little bit further, at least to $300, to fight off the competition from Sapphire—waiting for the Sapphire Pulse to sell out in hopes potential customers are then willing to pay $20 extra doesn't look like the best approach to me. At $300, the card would also match NVIDIA RTX 2060 pricing, which offers raytracing as its selling point.