We reviewed XFX's Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra not long ago. Today, we bring you the THICC III review. As the naming suggests, the THICC III uses a triple-fan design, whereas the THICC II uses only two fans. While both cards are triple-slot, the THICC III is a few centimeters longer and has various other cooler improvements. Rated at up to 2025 MHz Boost, we measured an average gaming clock frequency of 1989 MHz, which is almost 100 MHz higher than the AMD reference. Averaged over our new gaming test suite at 1440p, we see the XFX THICC III 4% ahead of the RX 5700 XT reference, which makes it the fastest RX 5700 XT custom-design we've tested so far (tied with the ASRock Taichi). Still, the performance differences between overclocked custom designs are small, in the single digit percent range. At 1440p, AMD's Radeon VII flagship is only 2% faster than the THICC III, and the RTX 2070 Super is 5% ahead. Compared to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2070, the XFX card delivers 6% higher FPS. NVIDIA's recently released RTX 2060 Super is 11% behind, and the difference to the RX 5700 is 15%. 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.

It looks like XFX considered all criticism and made some crucial changes to their THICC III cooler. Besides the increase in fan count, the biggest improvement is that the memory cooling plate is now made from copper and no longer has a thin metal foil sitting between it and the main heatsink. This dramatically improves memory temperatures, which are now down to 80°C, 8°C better than on the THICC II, which runs the same memory speeds. Going for a longer card gave XFX the opportunity to make the fin-stack heatsink a little bit longer, and they also optimized the fan profile to match the new fan count—fans run slower now, which helps with noise levels. We measured the card to emit 34 dBA, which can be considered very good for a high-powered SKU like this as it has a substantially increased power limit. Like most other custom-design Navi cards, a dual-BIOS feature is included that runs the fans at lower speeds, allowing higher temperatures. With that BIOS, noise levels are only 31 dBA, which is extremely impressive and lets the card claim its spot in the "quietest RX 5700 XT cards" hall of fame. PowerColor's RX 5700 XT Red Devil is a little bit quieter still, but comes with a smaller overclock out of the box and has a lower power limit. As expected, XFX does include the almost mandatory idle-fan-stop capability on their THICC III, so you can enjoy the perfect noise-free experience during idle, desktop work, Internet browsing, and light gaming.

As mentioned before, gaming power draw is high, higher than what we've seen on many other custom designs. It seems in order to achieve stability at their high out-of-the-box clocks, XFX has bumped up the power limit quite a bit, and possibly voltage, too. While the AMD reference used around 220 W in gaming, the THICC III pulls in at around 280 W. You get some performance in return, but overall, the loss in power efficiency is significant, bringing the card down by 20%, which isn't far from Vega efficiency levels. Usually, my biggest concern with these power increases is heat and noise—power cost isn't much of a factor if you can afford such a card in the first place, certainly not a deal breaker. XFX is using a sufficiently powerful heatsink on their card that can take the extra heat, so it's not as big a deal as on other cards. Compared to the THICC II, the THICC III has dual 8-pin power inputs, which is nice, adding a bit to theoretical power limits, but it probably won't make much of a difference in real life.

Overclocking our sample reached the highest GPU frequency we've ever seen on a Navi card, but the silicon lottery plays a role here, too. Unlike the AMD reference, memory overclocking worked correctly now, but ends up limited by the adjustment range in Wattman, which tops out at 1900 MHz. Let's hope AMD reconsiders putting artificial OC limits into their driver. After manual overclocking, we gained 4.7% in real-life performance, which is pretty good compared to other RX 5700 XT cards.

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 is pushing the technology very hard with their excellent developer relations, 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.

The XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra is already shipping for $440, which is a quite competitive price. It is significantly cheaper than the premium-SKU models from ASUS, Sapphire and ASRock. The MSI RX 5700 XT Gaming X is $10 more expensive, and the PowerColor Red Devil is $440, too. At that price I'd be torn between the THICC III Ultra and the Red Devil. While the Red Devil is a little bit quieter, the XFX card comes with higher clocks out of the box and seems to overclock a little bit better. An alternative could be the more expensive NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super for $500, which is a bit faster, but loses the performance per dollar duel.