PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT

Mit dem heutigen Tag gibt es die PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT Hellhound, welche wir erst in der letzten Woche auf den Prüfstand gestellt hatten, auch in einer schneeweißen Version. Die neue Spectral-White-Variante macht nicht nur mit einer weißen Kühlerabdeckung und einer entsprechend lackierten Slotblende auf sich aufmerksam, sondern bietet außerdem ein weißes PCB an, was bislang nur von wenigen Herstellern so eingesetzt wurde. Die restlichen Leistungsdaten bleiben unverändert. Wir stellen die neue Spectral White ausführlich vor und haben sie durch einen ausgewählten Benchmark-Parcours geschickt.

Very little is new with the Hellhound RX 6700 XT. This release was all about the Spectral White-colored version, and granted; it does look spectacular. However, a white-colored graphics card be difficult to combine with the current dark trend of PC components. Keep that in mind, as aesthetics should be based on the entire build, not just one component. The hellhound is a more normal-looking and performing product, and if the product sticks close to MSRP, we would certainly appreciate that (albeit general, the AMD MSRP already is out of my comfort zone, though). The card allows you to tweak a notch extra perf, albeit being more restricted. The looks are sophisticated in the white design. The fans radiate one color, white, which you can turn off with a small switch. You'll retrieve a reference-performing product in that WQHD range at very pleasing temperatures. Overall it's a lovely Full HD and Quad HD card with abilities at Ultra HD as well. Raytracing performance on this generation RDNA2 cards is a bit more mediocre, and of course, AMD lacks something DLSS, big time. It has nothing to do with TUL/PowerColor, though, and this round, AMD priced the card series starting at close to 500~550 bucks for something intended in the WQHD monitor range. While we can recommend the card as what Powercolor offers, we remain to have a tough time justifying the overall price level.

The PowerColor RX 6700 XT Hellhound is available in two colours, either the black card that fits in with the majority of your builds, or this special edition Spectral White model for those of you, like the boss, who prefer your systems to be tax deductable as white goods. PowerColor deserve special praise here. Not only is the Hellhound logo one that we'd be happy to have on some branded merch, but they have gone all in on the white aesthetic. So often we see white products that are half efforts with a black PCB and chrome IO section. The Hellhound not only has a white connection plate but even a white PCB. No it won't make a performance difference and you can't really see it, but it speaks to the care and attention to detail that PowerColor have put into the card. When the fine details are correct you can be fairly sure the big ones are too.

PowerColor's Hellhound is a good example of Radeon RX 6700 XT technology. It's well-built, restrained in terms of the company's usual overt design strategy and card size, and both cool and very quiet under load. Coil whine is only noticeable during high-framerate menu screens, which is normal these days. Understanding that Hellhound is the base, non-reference model, there isn't much more PowerColor can do to improve the card further. Perhaps a minor out-the-box overclock is needed to separate it from the Made By AMD boards, but that's about it.

PowerColor’s new HellHound GPU is a great mid-range card and should look to go head to head with the likes of Gigabytes Gaming OC range. If pricing is similar, this will put PowerColor in a great position. When it came down to performance, all our 6700 XT’s were very close in FPS in most all titles so it really comes down to which model is the model for you.

The hellhound is a more normal-looking and performing product, and if the product sticks close to MSRP, we would certainly appreciate that (albeit general, the AMD MSRP already is out of my comfort zone, though). We had a small issue with one of the fans exhibiting a bit of buzz/grinding noise; this might have affected the acoustic measurement. However, even with that defect, we measured ~36 DBa, presumable with a properly working fan; the card simply is 100% silent. Hey, it happens. That low acoustic level combined with the low operating temperatures does make this an interesting product. You can easily tweak a notch extra perf out of the card, albeit being more restricted. The looks are a bit more simplified; however, it certainly is not a bad-looking product at all. The fans radiate one color, blue, which you can turn off with a small switch; it's not a Christmas tree with blinking lights. You'll retrieve an admirable performing product in that WQHD range at very pleasing temperatures and acoustic levels. Overall it's a lovely Full HD and Quad HD card with abilities at Ultra HD as well. Raytracing performance on this generation RDNA2 cards is a bit more mediocre, and of course, AMD lacks something DLSS, bigtime. It has nothing to do with TUL/PowerColor though, and this round, AMD priced the card series starting at close to 500 bucks for something intended in the WQHD monitor range. While we can recommend the card as what Powercolor offers, we remain to have a very hard time justifying the overall price level that AMD has set. However, without an actual MSRP we cannot objectively award this product.

It is once again time to wrap up this review and after all those benchmarks it can be a bit much to take in all at once. First off let's give a refresh on what AMD is marketing the RX 6700 XT for. It is an entry-level ray-tracing graphics card targeting 1920x1080 and standard rasterization for the 2560x1440 gaming space. A bit of pre-review reading material suggested a straight replacement for the RX 5700 XT and NVIDIA GTX 1070 Ti with more VRAM and higher gaming performance. This put the RX 6700 XT in a good position for a nice upgrade for those who aren't ready for a full system replacement and want to extend their system for a few more years. It is however not a great choice if you have the means to buy the next tier up or NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti offering.

On average, over our brand-new, 22-game strong test suite, we measured the Radeon RX 6700 XT Red Devil to almost exactly match the AMD reference design. In some tests it's a tiny bit faster, in others it's a tiny bit slower—expected due to random variation between test runs. The result is still surprising, because PowerColor has the card coming with a factory overclock, according to specs, but it doesn't turn into any tangible performance benefit. Other custom designs tested today have exactly the same problem, so it doesn't look like it's PowerColor's fault. While it's not a huge deal—factory OCs only give you 1, 2 or 3% these days, it's still unexpected. Other reviewers are seeing similar results, I wonder what's going on.

Premium-Mittelklasse mit RDNA2! Einige Monate nach der Veröffentlichung der neuen High-End-GPUs auf RDNA2-Basis schiebt AMD nun auch den kleineren Ableger in Form der AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT nach. Mit den guten Ergebnissen der 6800er-Serie im Rücken sind die Erwartungen an das neue Mittelklasse-Modell groß. Ob die Leistung reicht, um es mit einer GeForce RTX 3070 aufnehmen zu können, erfahren Sie in diesem Review.