AMD’s 6700XT Supply Secret…
Thanks to the combination of both NVIDIA and AMD offering GPUs actually worth upgrading to, a silicon shortage that’s even affecting car manufacturers, and of course crypto miners and bots, as we are all painfully aware, buying a GPU – even a used one – is literally impossible right now. Demand is at an all time high and people like NVIDIA and AMD literally can’t churn out cards fast enough to keep up. But what if I told you there was a way you can get your hands on one of these right now? Well, there is a way, but I’m not sure you’ll like it.
As AMD mentioned in their launch event for the 6700XT, they shipped a portion of the available stock of the card to system integrators for use in system builds. AWD-IT, here in the UK, appear to have a decent amount of stock and sent over this system for me to check out. If you want a 6700XT system, I’ll link to this one below. Now it’s all well and good having stock, but is it worth buying? Lets have look.
To lay out the spec of the system, it’s a Ryzen 5 5600X, B550 Plus Wifi motherboard, 16GB of 3200MHz RAM, a 500GB WD Blue SN550 SSD and a 2TB WD Blue HDD, and most importantly, an Asus TUF 6700XT. And, it’s massive. Seriously, the card is HUGE. It’s triple slot and as long as my forearm. I have no idea why it’s so damn large, considering the reference 6900XT I had in a few weeks ago is much, much smaller. The system as a whole is well built, and starts at £1300, although the spec I’ve got is a touch over £1500. It’s customisable on their site so if you want a bigger SSD or more RAM that’s something you can tweak.
In terms of what I’m testing against, sadly I don’t have a 3070 right now. I do have a 3060Ti, and the last gen 5700XT, so I’ll be testing against those. I’ll also be testing at 1080p and 1440p so you can see how they would perform there. Oh and I’m including separate results for the 6700XT with and without Smart Access Memory enabled too. Right, lets get into it.
Starting with Watchdogs Legion, the 6700XT leads the pack, if only slightly. It’s only a 4FPS margin between it and the 3060Ti so in game you’d struggle to notice a difference. Comparing to the 5700XT though, it’s a sizable jump, from 67FPS to 80. That’s definitely noticeable.
At 1440p, all the cards, barring the 5700XT, are the same. Like, exactly. Not much I can say about that, other than for both 1080p and 1440p, SAM doesn’t seem to have much of an affect in Watchdogs.
In COD it matters a lot more, like, a lot. It gave 15FPS average more having that enabled, which is great. That pushes the 6700XT’s lead on the 3060Ti from 10FPS to 25FPS, and it’s lead over the last gen 5700XT from 20FPS to 35FPS. Decent.
At 1440p SAM seems to matter a lot less, only a 2FPS gain, but still a decent chunk faster than the 3060Ti and definitely the 5700XT. They are all very playable experiences, but the 6700XT definitely has the edge.
In Cyberpunk, SAM really saves the day for the 6700XT, as the (in theory) cheaper 3060Ti beat it by 2FPS at stock, but with SAM enabled it jumped to 5FPS faster. The 5700XT lags behind by a good margin here, which is to be expected.
And in Fortnite the AMD cards struggle. SAM does offer a great benefit, but it still doesn’t match the 3060Ti, even using SAM the 6700XT is still 4FPS shy.
It’s the same story at 1440p, with an even bigger margin, the 3060Ti is 8FPS faster than the 6700XT even using SAM, or 11FPS faster than without.
So, especially with SAM enabled, the 6700XT is generally faster than the 3060Ti. Sweet. It’s a shame it costs more. A fair bit actually. AWD-IT are selling a similarly spec’d system with a 5600X, but with a 3060Ti, for £250 less (with the same storage and ram options applied too) and that’s a lot for a couple of FPS. Sure, that system is out of stock right now whereas at least at the time of filming they have 20 6700XT systems in, but if stock wasn’t an issue I likely wouldn’t be recommending this. AMD will need to bring the price down to 3060Ti levels to make it a reasonable purchase when stock levels return.
So, should you buy one? Well, if you’ve got an aged PC that could do with being fully upgraded, quite possibly. It’s still a great card, and the fact there is even a single unit in stock is a marvel right now. You might need to act fast though, as I expect many people desperate for an upgrade will be splashing out. If you’ve got a 5700XT, it’s probably worth sticking with that for now. The 6700XT is a good upgrade in terms of performance, but at current pricing it’s likely not worth it.
