RX 5700 XT vs RTX 2070S | which one to choose

RX 5700 XT vs RTX 2070S | which one to choose.

Since we recently reviewed the RTX 2070 Super, and the RX 5700XT was mentioned as its main rival. Today we’re going to compare these two cards in order to see which one you should be choosing nowadays.
In this review, we’ll be working with actualized prices to see a fair dispute between these two tough cards, with benchmark tests in 1440p as well as technical comparisons.

First of all, it is relevant to note here that both are 1440p dedicated cards. So if you want to play in 1080p, there are more cheap and affordable options like the RTX 2060S and the GTX 1660 Super.

RX 5700XT vs RTX 2070 Super

The RX 5700XT was first unveiled, with its first edition available for purchase on July 7, 2019. At this time, the Nvidia RTX 2070 had already rounded the market. However, people found that the RX 5700XT was costing less and providing more performance than the RTX 2070. Then, in order not to stay behind his rival, Nvidia chose to launch the RTX 2070 SUPER.

Launched on July 9, 2019, the Nvidia RTX 2070 S was a true hit, performing better than the RX 5700 XT in some 1440p games. However, again, folks noticed that the RX 5700 XT was still even cheaper than the RTX 2070S, but it remains like that today. And so the questions began, is the RTX 2070 S more worth it than the 5700XT? or is the plus price of the 2070 S worth it. We’ll check this out, so without further ado, let’s get to it.

Prices

Before we start with the technical comparison, I think it is fair to start with the prices of both. As said, the RX 5700 XT was still cheaper than the RTX 2070 Super. At the moment, it is like $50 cheaper if you want to buy new cards. But, usually, there is this $100 gap between each of them.

Below you can see the cheaper amazon deals for both. Also, note that if you find a similar or equivalent price between these cards, the RTX 2070 Super is often the best choice since it has better performance.

Technical comparison

Architecture

It is always impressive how the Turing architecture is able to manage a higher quantity of transistors, even with a considerable high nanometer amount. We can see it clearly in the RTX 2070 S; yet with 12nm, the Turing provides room for 13,600 million transistors, which is undoubtedly an incredible amount for 12nm.

On the other hand, the RDNA 1.0 architecture with its 7nm of lithography is still unable to reach this number of transistors, providing 10.3 million transistors for the RX 5700XT card.

Last, about CUDA cores or Stream processors, both cards have the same 2560.

TDP

By the way, another intriguing plus point to Nvidia Turing is about energy consumption. Well, if you see the 7nm of the RX 5700 XT and the 12nm of the RTX 2070 Super, you would think that the RX 5700 XT possibly consumes less energy than the 2070 S. But, surprisingly, that’s not the way it is. Featuring 215 W of TDP, the RTX 2070S beat the 225 W of the 5700 XT.

Clock

Further, about clock speed, both cards feature the same base clock of 1605 MHz. However, the difference here is that the RTX 2070S is able to reach out to 1770 MHz on the boost clock, while the RX 5700XT can go up to 1905 MHz, thus delivering more margin to overclock.

Meaning that you can approach the RTX 2070S results by overclocking the RX 5700XT. You’re probably not going to have the same output, but you can approximate this with a $100 cheaper card.

Memory

Another feature that remained the same was the speed and type of memory. Fortunately, both have the very GDDR6 memory form, which, as we all know, can make a significant improvement in the performance of the card. Also, both remained with 8 GB, 256 bit of memory bus, and 448.0 GB/s of Bandwidth.

RTX, DLSS and RIS

Now we’re getting into the features that keep the Nvidia ahead for some. The Real-time Ray Tracing rendering feature. Being an Nvidia solution to improve accurate shadows, reflections, refractions, and global illumination, it really does well what it is supposed to do.

Besides, Nvidia also provides new anti-aliasing called DLSS. Which is intended to eliminate or minimize distortion artifacts known as aliasing. That all without impacting too much on performance.

However, It is not the majority of games that support the DLSS feature. So if intend to enable RTX and the games do not have DLSS support, your game will probably be running worse than if you were using the RX 5700XT. You should be aiming for the RTX feature, only if you do not care much about how much FPS your game will run. At least using the RTX 2070S.

In contrast, the AMD has the Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS), which, as the proper name implies, enhances the image sharpening, making the image smoother without blur. Of course, in terms of graphics quality and realism, the RTX is indeed the best choice.

Games benchmarks

Seen the technical specifications of both, now we’re getting into the real stuff. We’ll test games in 1440p, with benchmark tests, 16Gb RAM running at 3000Mhz, and the recently reviewed I7 10700KF.

Which one to choose

Summing things up, The RTX 2070 Super is technically-wise better than RX 5700XT, but with 50-100 average bucks expensive. Also, it performed better in games during the benchmark tests, and as predicted, when activating the Ray-tracing, the RTX 2070 S performance went down, performing worse than the RX 5700XT.

Currently, the RX 5700XT is something around 700-800 bucks, and the RTX 2070 Super almost always costs 800-900. Probably, you won’t like to pay $100 more to get plus 4 FPS on average. The only situation I recommend you to choose the RTX 2070 S is if it is on the sale, costing similar to the 5700XT, or you want too much to have the Ray-tracing feature.