Asus ROG Strix RX 5600 XT O6G Gaming Review: Solid but Expensive

[harlan4096]

Do unique fan and RGB features make this card worth its high price?

Our Verdict

The Asus ROG Strix RX 5600 XT O6G Gaming performs well, delivering 60+ fps at 1080p using ultra settings, and is capable of 1440p gaming at reduced settings. But compared to the lower-priced Sapphire Pulse, it’s slower and costs significantly more.

For

Great 1080p and good 1440p performance
Card includes headers for fan and RGB control
On/off button for RGB lighting
Quiet cooler

Against

Highest priced 5600 XT
Much cheaper Sapphire Pulse performs better
2.7-slot cooler and 11.9-inch length make for a tight fit in many cases

AMD’s RX 5600 XT launched in late January of 2020, filling a huge gap between the lower-end RX 5500 XT and the one-step-up RX 5700. For the most part, gaming and hardware enthusiasts responded well to the 5600 XT, as it set a new bar for better price and performance at the sub-$300 price point. Once the BIOS and clock speed situation was resolved, the Sapphire Pulse RX 5600 XT we reviewed put Nvidia’s RTX 2060 to shame by performing better, using less power and costing less money.

On the test bench today is our second look at the 5600 XT silicon, this time in the form of the Asus ROG Strix RX 5600 XT O6G Gaming. This card sits in the middle of Asus’ RX 5600 XT product stack, wedged between the ROG Strix RX 5600 XT T6G Gaming “TOP Edition” and the TUF Evo SKU. The two ROG Strix cards utilize the same cooling solution, with the TOP version running faster (14 Gbps) memory clocks. Meanwhile, the TUF Evo uses a smaller cooler, has lower clock speeds and is priced lower accordingly.

The O6G version is a capable gamer able to deliver 60 frames per second (fps) at 1080p resolution using ultra settings. In our testing, 10 of the 11 games we tested were over that magic fps threshold. Our only outlier is Metro: Exodus, which ran at 54 fps. The rest of the titles we well above this, some averaging well over 100 fps. Running at 1440p medium settings, we also had a smooth gaming experience with all 11 games averaging over 60 fps. If we cranked the settings to Ultra, a few of these titles were unplayable, so we stuck with medium at the higher resolution.

The Asus ROG Strix RX 5600 XT O6G Gaming costs $339.99 on Newegg. This price makes it the most expensive RX 5600 XT at the time we wrote this article. The Sapphire Pulse RX 5600 XT we reviewed earlier is $289.99 on Newegg, making the Asus card significantly more expensive. We’ll take a detailed look at how the Asus card and its triple-fan cooling solution performs and see if it ends up being worth the price difference when all is said and done.

Features

AMD’s RX 5600 XT uses the same Navi 10 GPU found in the RX 5700 and flagship RX 5700 XT. The die is manufactured on TSMC’s 7nm finFET process and fits 10.3 billion transistors onto a 251 square mm space. Specification wise, Navi includes 36 Compute Units (CUs) for a total of 2,304 stream processors. Each RDNA-based CU sports four texture units for a total of 144 TMUs and 64 ROPs.

The ROG Strix O6G Gaming boasts clock speeds for the core of 1,670 Mhz (Game clock) and 1,750 MHz boost clock (1,770 MHz in OC Mode). Compared to the reference clocks (1,375 MHz/1,560 MHz) this is a substantial increase.

During the week before the card’s release, AMD raised the effective memory clocks to 14 Gbps. Because of this, many card partners responded with new BIOS. Yet as MSI stated, not all 12 Gbps GDDR6 is able to reach 14 Gbps. In response, some, like MSI and Asus, carved out a new SKU that runs with faster memory speeds. In Asus’ case, the Top version (T6G instead of O6G) was born.

AMD’s RX 5600 XT cards all come with 6GB of GDDR6 memory sitting on a 192-bit bus. Reference speed for the memory is listed at 12 Gbps, where the Asus card is set as well. This speed ends up as 288 GBps worth bandwidth (versus 336 GBps on the 14 Gbps cards). In order to get the most out of the 12 Gbps SKU in hand, overclocking the memory is recommended.

Power consumption is rated at 150W, which comes in lower than the RX 5700 (180W) and above the RX 5500 XT (130W). For this card, AMD recommends a 450W or greater power supply.
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