While AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT has been in the market for close to one-and-a-half years and counting now, it's still a worthy contender of a GPU for anyone looking to play today's game titles at 1080p and 1440p resolutions, especially given today's falling GPU prices.

AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT has been around for close to one-and-a-half years now, having been released on 18 March 2021 during the height of the infamous GPU shortage. AMD's even launched its successor already, the RX 6750 XT earlier this year in May, which was right before the cryptocurrency bust and GPU oversupply situation which we are experiencing today. This has in turn resulted in a market situation where both the RX 6700 XT and the RX 6750 XT are (finally) very much closer to their intended MSRPs.

With this pricing situation in mind, this article checks out MSI's Radeon RX 6700 XT MECH 2X 12G OC, in an attempt to see whether this older GPU is still able to deliver great value in the face of its competition - its successor (the RX 6750 XT) included.

Summary of Specifications

• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (Navi 22 XT)
  • 40 Compute Units, 2560 Stream Processors
• Memory: 12GB GDDR6 RAM (192-bit, 16 Gbps)
• Clock Speeds:
  • Boost Clock: 2620 MHz
  • Game Clock: 2474 MHz
• Bus Type: PCIe 4.0 x16
• Outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4
• External Power Required: Yes, 2x 8-pin
• Recommended PSU Wattage: 650W and above

GPU-Z Screenshot

Aesthetics & Physical Features

The Radeon RX 6700 XT MECH 2X 12G OC offers a factory overclock out of the box, and sports a dual fan design with a plastic shroud in black and silver for a touch of contrast. The dual fans are touted by MSI to boast a "TORX FAN 3.0" design which according to them, increases air pressure for better cooling performance.

The card measures 24.7cm x 13.1cm x 5.1cm in terms of its dimensions, and has a protective backplate with the MSI shield motif emblazoned on it. RGB junkies will be disappointed to note that MSI has opted to do away with aesthetic LEDs for the graphics card.

Testing Methodology

To get a quick sensing of the card's performance, the following synthetic benchmarks and games were run:

• 3DMark Basic Edition 2.22.7359
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 (Basic Edition)
• Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmark
• Far Cry 6 Benchmark
• Forza Horizon 4 Benchmark
• Fortnite (Actual Gameplay)

Test Bench Details:

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600
• RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 3200
• Motherboard: ASRock X570M Pro4
• Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB
• Graphics: MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT MECH 2X 12G OC with AMD Adrenalin 22.5.1 drivers
• Power Supply: Seasonic M12II-620 EVO
• Case: Generic open-air Test Bench
• Monitor: Acer SA230 Abi 23" (1080p, 75Hz, V-sync disabled)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (21H1)
• Resizable BAR: Off

MSI Afterburner was used to record the card's performance metrics, and the tests were run at 1080p resolution with FPS limits removed where necessary.

Synthetic Benchmarks

3DMark Basic Edition 2.22.7359

With 3DMark Basic Edition, the RX 6700 XT achieved a graphics score of 13062, with an overall Time Spy score of 11801.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 (Basic Edition)

The card scored 3947 for Unigine's Heaven Benchmark 4.0 (Basic Edition), with an average FPS of 156.7, a minimum FPS of 43.2 and a maximum FPS of 354.1. The test was run on the maximum possible graphics settings, with DirectX 11 rendering on Ultra Quality, extreme tessellation, stereo 3D disabled, multi-monitor disabled, and anti-aliasing set at x8.

Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmark

Cyberpunk 2077 is a go-to game to put graphics cards through their paces when it comes to ray tracing performance, and with v1.5 of the game, CD PROJEKT RED introduced a built-in benchmark tool which was used to test the RX 6700 XT's performance.

When set to the Ray Tracing Low preset, the benchmark saw the RX 6700 XT attain an average FPS of 65.54, a minimum FPS of 28.79, and a maximum FPS of 83.15.

Bumping the graphics settings up to the Ray Tracing Ultra preset, we see the card put out an average FPS of 23.99, a minimum FPS of 10.53, and a maximum FPS of 34.10. While AMD GPUs are not known for their ray tracing performance, gamers looking to enable some form of ray tracing on Cyberpunk 2077 could potentially get away with the Ray Tracing Low setting while playing at 1080p resolution.

AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) was switched off for all runs of the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark.

Far Cry 6 Benchmark

With Far Cry 6's built-in benchmark test, the RX 6700 XT achieves an average FPS of 98, a minimum FPS of 66, and a maximum FPS of 138. The Ultra graphics preset was used for this test, with both DXR (ray tracing) and FSR disabled.

Forza Horizon 4 Benchmark

Forza Horizon 4's built-in benchmark tool sees the RX 6700 XT score an average FPS of 132.4, a minimum FPS of 113.4, and a maximum FPS of 176.1.

Fortnite

Actual gameplay from Fortnite yields a brisk average FPS of 127, a minimum FPS of 96, and a maximum FPS of 174. These results were achieved with the Epic graphics preset and ray tracing disabled.

Enabling some ray tracing features (Shadows On, Reflections Low, Ambient Occlusion Low, Global Illumination Low) sees the RX 6700 XT put out an average FPS of 57, a minimum FPS of 19 and a maximum FPS of 76.

Power Consumption & Thermals

These measurements were obtained with an open-air test bench, with an ambient temperature of ~30°C, using the readouts derived from MSI Afterburner.

Idle State:

• Average GPU Temperature: 35.5°C
• Minimum GPU Temperature: 35°C
• Maximum GPU Temperature: 36°C
• Average Power Draw: 5W
• Minimum Power Draw: 4W
• Maximum Power Draw: 6W

Playing a round of Fortnite (1080p, Epic preset, ray tracing low):

• Average GPU Temperature: 68°C
• Minimum GPU Temperature: 63°C
• Maximum GPU Temperature: 70°C
• Average Power Draw: 181W
• Minimum Power Draw: 146W
• Maximum Power Draw: 195W

Running Cyberpunk 2077's built-in benchmark (1080p, Ray Tracing Ultra preset, FSR off)

• Average GPU Temperature: 61°C
• Minimum GPU Temperature: 53°C
• Maximum GPU Temperature: 66°C
• Average Power Draw: 175W
• Minimum Power Draw: 165W
• Maximum Power Draw: 184W

Running Cyberpunk 2077's built-in benchmark (1080p, Ray Tracing Low preset, FSR off)

• Average GPU Temperature: 60°C
• Minimum GPU Temperature: 52°C
• Maximum GPU Temperature: 64°C
• Average Power Draw: 157W
• Minimum Power Draw: 142W
• Maximum Power Draw: 167W

Conclusion

It may come as no surprise that AMD's RX 6700 XT is still a capable GPU that is well-suited for gaming at 1080p and 1440p resolutions on the latest titles. While its ray tracing performance leaves much to be desired versus NVIDIA's offerings, the fall in GPU prices have made the RX 6700 XT a compelling option, especially against its replacement, the RX 6750 XT. Comparing these sets of results against the results obtained from a prior review of a graphics card powered by the RX 6750 XT, the ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 6750 XT OC Edition 12GB GDDR6, with both cards featuring a factory overclock, it can be seen that the RX 6750 XT is only marginally faster than the RX 6700 XT while drawing more power.

This calls into question the RX 6750 XT's value - as of the time of writing this article, the cheapest RX 6750 XT can be had for around $490 USD from Newegg, while the cheapest RX 6700 XT can be had for around $450 USD, also from Newegg. Given this ~$40 USD differential and the minimal performance increase to be had with the RX 6750 XT, opting for a RX 6700 XT may make more sense from a value-per-dollar standpoint.

With the above in mind, the MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT MECH 2X 12G OC featured in this article gets the job done for anyone looking to game at 1080p and 1440p resolutions with the latest gaming titles. However, the cooling solution that MSI has included with the card isn't the quietest - when under load, the fans were quite noisy at full speed, In addition, being a graphics card with a dual-fan configuration could mean that the card might get toasty especially in PC cases with less-than-stellar airflow.

As of August 2022, the RX 6700 XT MECH 2X 12G OC is available from Amazon and Newegg for $459.99 USD, or around $705 SGD from offline and online retailers in Singapore.

Get this card from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3A5IUZN (affiliate link)

Get this card from Shopee Singapore:  https://shope.ee/q70fgAH4K (affiliate link)

Get this card from Lazada Singapore: https://c.lazada.sg/t/c.YTKwmg?sub_aff_id=alktech (affiliate link)

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The graphics card featured in this article was a retail purchase by ALKtech.